Shifters of Grrr 1 (65 page)

Did he have misgivings? She swallowed the stab of hurt in her chest. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d changed his mind about her.

“Lucy?” He knelt beside the bed. Reaching toward her, he halted, but his hand surged forward to stroke her hair back from her forehead.

“I’m fine.” Fighting to keep her voice from trembling, she shrugged off his hand. Why was he peering at her so strangely? Had she pressured him to do something he regretted?

Damn him. He was as responsible as she for everything they’d done together. She flipped onto her stomach, unwilling to discuss it further. Rejection was bad enough when she was fully conscious.

She blinked and focused on the sheets. White? Sheng’s were dark blue.

Odd.

She sniffed and inhaled jasmine. Strange, these sheets smelled like the ones in her apartment.

She sat up.
My. Apartment.

What a way to reject a girl. He hadn’t even planned to wake up next to her. Lowlife bastard. Her fingers gripped her sheets, clutching them to her chest. A flash of bright red caught her eye, and she glanced at her nails. She didn’t recall painting them, but they glistened a blood-red crimson.

Weirder.

“Easy, Lucy.” Sheng addressed her as one did a wild animal. Out of the two of them, he was far more feral…wasn’t he?

Why did he stare at her as though she’d sprouted a second head? She hadn’t, had she? Her hands whipped up to probe her face. Everything seemed normal…except, as she combed her fingers through her hair, the long locks extended past her fingertips, shimmering.

Streaks of red? Gold too?

What the hell? Had he highlighted her hair?

“What have you done to me?” Clutching the sheet, she shot from the bed, backing against the wall. The entire room spun, a chorus of vibrant colors, scents, sounds, movement.

Sheng had done something to her. She was…changed.

***

Fear sprouted wildly from Lucy’s widened eyes.

At least, Sheng was pretty sure she was Lucy. Beneath the honeyed overtone of this new scent, she smelled the same.

Yet, the creature before him had morphed into something else.

Her eyes, normally a solid, impenetrable gold, were outlined with an emerald hue. Thin highlights of red and gold streaked her brown hair and even her skin glistened. By the way her nostrils flared, he guessed her senses were heightened as well. He slowed his rapid pulse while affecting a demeanor of calm. Whatever this was, they’d figure it out. Together.

“Lucy.” He approached her again, hands held open before him. “It’s okay. I’m not sure what happened, but there must be a logical explanation, yeah?” He purred the words, letting the low hum of his voice soothe her.

It worked. Her breathing evened and her heart rate slowed. She worried her bottom lip while regarding him, trepidation in her eyes.

“I’ve got you.” Closing the distance between them, he hauled her against his chest and enclosed his arms around her. He stroked her hair, murmuring reassurances.

Last night, she’d been in his arms, hot and writhing, yet now more than the acute spark of lust commanded him. The instinct to protect her overwhelmed every other impulse.

Lucy had undergone some kind of transformation.

“What happened to me?” The small pleading of her voice fisted around his heart.

“I’m not sure, baby, but I brought you here so the others wouldn’t see.”

“Wouldn’t see what?” She shoved back from his arms. As he shook his head, she stormed into the bathroom.

Her sharp gasp hit him a few seconds later.

He bolted into the bathroom, halting a foot from her. “You’ve been asleep for a long time. It’s the afternoon now. I was afraid waking you would interfere with,” he waved his hand at her, “whatever this process is.”

She probed her cheek, staring at her reflection as though she viewed a stranger. “What am I?”

He crossed his arms, debating how much to reveal to her. “When you accept your spirit animal, it’s not uncommon to experience a heightened state of awareness. Physical changes can follow. Like increased muscle mass…” He drifted off. Ox had gained at least fifty pounds of muscle the day he’d joined with Tiger. Monkey had always been spritely, but she went from scaling rock walls to skyscrapers in one day. Fang’s features sharpened; his speed and agility honed to a blade’s edge.

This transformation in front of him was like nothing he’d witnessed. Had Lucy finally accepted her spirit?

Taking in her new appearance, he didn’t perceive Rabbit, not entirely.

“Why is my hair red?” Peering at herself, she tilted her head. She examined her locks before directing her arched brow at him. “You don’t look too worried. Do you think I’m okay?”

Worried? Hell yes, I am.

Revealing his concern to Lucy would make her more anxious. “I’ve seen transitions like this before. When I accepted the Tiger, my body changed as well.”
Just not as dramatically.

“Red? Rabbits don’t have red fur.” Her nose twitched, a tell-tale sign of the Rabbit that eased his concern…until he recalled the darkness he’d glimpsed inside Lucy.

When he’d fingered her pussy and broke through her barrier, what if he’d unleashed this “other” as well? Fuck. Did that account for the bizarre makeover she’d undergone?

Collecting himself, he tucked a lock of streaked hair behind her ear. “We’ll go to the Matchmaker. She’ll have answers for you.” His lips hovered near hers, and the longing to claim her mouth surged through him. Those now-crimson lips parted in invitation, but he cleared his throat, shoving aside his lust.

“Clean up and, after, we’ll leave.” He placed a chaste kiss upon the top of her head instead.

***

A visit to the Matchmaker? Apparently that was Sheng’s go-to answer for everything. Meanwhile, the woman in the mirror continued to stare back at her, the smirk in her eyes declaring she wouldn’t give up any answers about what had happened so easily.

Lucy shook away her concerns. No one regarded her from the mirror except herself. Searching, she sensed Rabbit and coaxed the spirit forward. The animal held no trace of fear. Whatever was happening to her, the spirit accepted these changes.

Good enough for me.

Adjusting the temperature of the shower, she stepped under the spray, moaning as warm moisture cleansed away her fears. The changes in her body might seem odd, but there had to be an explanation. After every bizarre event she’d witnessed, this newest one shouldn’t alarm her. Sheng looked surprised, at first, but if she were in true danger, he wouldn’t hesitate to protect her.

To fight for her.

A smile tugged at her mouth as she grasped the bottle of shampoo. Strange, how she’d come to trust entirely in someone whose image screamed “dangerous as hell.” But when that lethal strength fastened to her side and declared she belonged to him… Well, he’d made it more than clear he’d die to protect her.

She squirted a glob of shampoo onto her palm and lathered her hair. As her fingers combed the locks above her ears, they passed over something hard. Deeming the dense spot to be a tangle, she tugged and yelped. Not a tangle. She probed farther, following the long, thin thread down to its flared tail and back up again where it rooted inside her scalp.

And then she screamed.

Sheng burst into the room, his dark gaze at once settling on her through the foggy glass of the shower door.

She withdrew her hand from her scalp, trembling as a vision of what it was shocked through her system.

“What’s wrong?” Though she stood before him, naked and wet, angled aside for modesty’s sake, he was pure business.

“In my hair,” she squeaked. “There’s something in my hair.” A shudder rippled through her, and she couldn’t bring herself to touch it again.

He strode straight to her and flung open the glass door, ignoring the spray of water moistening his front. “Show me.”

She pointed a trembling hand at her head. “I think it’s a f-feather.”

He whistled as he brushed aside her hair to get a closer look. “Fuck me.”

“What is it? Can you get it off?” She hugged her arms across her breasts, but his entire focus stayed fixed on whatever had attached itself to her head.

Which she wasn’t really sure was a good thing.

She dared to glance at him, but no disgust rippled his features. Instead, he examined her with a cocked head, his teeth bared in a grin.

“What is it?” She demanded again, more forcefully.

He locked gazes with her. “You’ve grown some plumage.”

“Plumage? As in bird feathers?”

He shook his head. “Nope.” His eyes glinted and his gratified smile widened. “More like a dragon’s.”

Her mouth dropped open. A dragon? Her fingers brushed the two feathers growing out of the sides of her head again. She hadn’t imagined them.

“They’re beautiful, actually.” His smile of approval darkened and he straightened, clearing his throat. Oh yeah, she was nude. “Finish up,” he rasped, jerking his chin at her before giving her his back. This time, he didn’t leave her alone.

Thank goodness. Her shower complete without uncovering more weird stuff growing out of her body, she wrapped a towel around her torso and stepped out.

Sheng didn’t miss a beat pinning her against the wall. His lips hovered less than an inch from hers as he sniffed her skin. His hands stayed rooted to the wall while he nuzzled her cheek.

After a moment, he murmured, “Lucy.”

She shivered as much from being wet as his nearness. “How is this possible? I’m a rabbit, not a dragon.” Was this what Rabbit had been hiding? Dragon?

He shoved away to peer at her. “I’m not sure, but we’ll figure this out. Together.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Holy shit.

Sheng stared at Lucy, a mix of wonder and apprehension spiking through his blood. Did she really host the Dragon inside her? Had Dragon actually told him the truth about returning in a new host? He’d pretty much given up that hope but, gazing at Lucy, the old wound of rejection eased.

Fuck. He’d waited his entire life for the Dragon to join forces with him. The
yang
to his
yin
. Together, they’d achieve balance.

The peace he couldn’t attain by himself.

How had he ever dismissed her as merely the Rabbit? The urge to tell the others jumped along his veins, but he stamped it out. Fear for Lucy seized its place. No way to tell how anyone else would react. Still, her spirit animals seemed to coexist in perfect harmony. He sensed no dissention between the two, Rabbit and Dragon.

In fact, Rabbit acted less timid, more willing to join with him. Of course, that would have to wait, since Lucy hosted the Dragon too. Dragon was
yang
, Tiger was
yin
. They were both alphas. One couldn’t submit to the other.

Besides, he doubted Dragon would allow Tiger to have Rabbit. He shuddered as he recalled how Lucy had been electrocuted during their failed joining. To attempt it again would be disastrous, like how things had gone down with Chicken. The union was probably impossible anyway, since Lucy possessed
two
spirits.

An explanation for Lucy’s ability lurked in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t recall the terminology. Doubtless, the Matchmaker would.

He frowned at the concerns furrowing her brow and smoothed them away with a press of his lips. “I will protect you, Lucy. No matter what.”

“I know.” The certainty in her whisper clung around his heart. She’d learned to trust in him, but was her trust misplaced?

Suddenly, he regretted calling the Matchmaker. He’d agreed to meet her this afternoon because he’d been afraid Lucy might never wake up. Now that she had, he wasn’t certain he should parade her about in public. Her appearance hinted at more than the Rabbit. If he perceived the change, others would too. Like that bastard Snake.

“Why did this happen to me?”

“You remember our discussion about the Three Treasures?”

She nodded.

“Those three kinds of energy—
jīng
,
qì
, and
shén
—are connected. You can convert one form of energy into another.
Jīng
into
qì
, and
qì
into
shén
. When we, when I…” Hell, the memory of his fingers inside her sweet pussy had him fighting against getting hard. And losing.

He nipped at her ear, devouring her taste. Sighing, he drew his mouth off her sweet skin. “I must have also released some of your sexual energy—your
jīng
—and converted it into
shén
—spiritual energy. That catalyst triggered this spiritual entity inside you to come forward.” He smirked. “Guess we awakened the Dragon.”

Her small hand pressed against his pec. The caress of her skin against his flared his hunger to unbearable proportions. It was either get out of here or fuck Lucy right now.

Impossible, until he was certain what set off this transformation.

“Get dressed.” The command rumbled from his chest, and he fought against himself before leaving the bathroom.

He waited for her in the living room, pacing the length from kitchen to terrace and back again a dozen times before she emerged. A groan resounded in his chest at the sight of her plump breasts squeezed into a tight bodice top, her body wrapped in a leather skirt that barely covered her ass. Painted like a co-ed hitting the nightclubs, she wore more makeup than he’d ever observed on her face. What the fuck was she playing at?