of way, cheekbones high, but thin-faced, so the shape was a soft rectangle. He had a dimple in his chin.
"Alex still has his life, his job; you haven't hurt him."
"I don't always know how deep the binding will be, Ethan. Do you understand that? Do you understand that I can't predict what will happen?"
He blinked down at me, trying to fight free of the pheromones on the air. He swallowed hard and then said, "You're giving me a chance to back out."
"Yes."
"What's the worst thing that could happen?"
"You could be a bride, as in Dracula's brides. No real will of your own." I stopped holding him so tight and tried to give us a little physical space to think. Ethan's arms tightened against my back. "You can't want that for yourself."
"The red clan breeds with other clans. If the child looks like the other clan, it's sent to them to be raised; if it looks like red clan, it stays here with us. But if the baby doesn't look like either clan, then it stays with the mother, not because she wants it, but because the other clan won't take it."
I kept one arm around his waist but raised the other so I could touch his hair. I touched the white and gray of it, and last I stroked the dark, rich streak of red in his bangs, pulling on it just a little. It made me smile up at him, and that made him smile at me.
"You're beautiful, don't let anyone tell you different," I said.
His smile widened. "The clan females won't have sex with me because they don't want to bring an impure child into the world. I even had a vasectomy three years ago, so I couldn't get anyone pregnant. I thought that would make me safe enough for the clan females to want me, but they still saw me as impure, as if just my touch would make them less pure-blooded."
"I'm so sorry that they've been stupid, Ethan."
He smiled, a little sad around the edges. "Me, too."
Domino back home was a half-black and half-white tiger. He'd been security for the white clan, but just as alone as Ethan was; at least with Domino the white clan had found him in foster care and adopted him. They hadn't bargained for his birth and then treated him badly. It seemed somehow worse.
I smiled at him. "Since I don't want to get pregnant by anyone, it's a plus for me. Your lycanthropy already protects you from any disease, so with me on the birth control, too, we're about as safe as we can get."
"Our lycanthropy," Ethan said.
"What?"
"You're a panwere, right? You just don't change shape, so our lycanthropy protects us from any other disease but the lycanthropy."
I frowned, because I hadn't really thought about it like that. "I don't know; since I can carry multiple strains of lycanthropy, I'm not a hundred percent sure I can't catch other diseases."
He nodded. "That's true, so you still have to worry about STDs."
"If I'm with humans," I said.
"Are you ever with humans?"
"No, but I bet you do just fine with the human women," I said.
He smiled, and it was almost shy. "I tried dating humans, but I can't tell them what I am, and you can't hide it forever."
"No," I said, "you can't."
"It's like denying what I am, who I am. It's almost lonelier than not having anyone in my arms."
I nodded. "I had a boyfriend, a fiance who wanted me to do the white picket fence - so not my gig."
He grinned at me. "I can feel that you want me." He leaned over me, sniffing against the side of my face. "I can still smell the scent of red, and white, and blue . . . and something else I've never smelled before. You smell sweet and . . . Why do I see gold in my head? A gold tiger."
"Because part of you is gold."
"That's not possible," he said.
"I can smell the truth on your skin."
He drew in a deep breath.
"Gods, you smell like home."
"I was told that gold tigers don't look for home."
He shook his head. "Then they must have already found it, because everyone looks for home in someone." He whispered it as he turned his face against mine and put his lips on my cheek. It was almost a kiss, but not quite. His breath was warm against my skin.
My pulse was thick in my throat, my body tingling with his nearness. "Do you understand what