handed me a towel. “Dry off and follow me.”
The Leopard Lord brushed by me as if he hadn't just been salivating over me seconds earlier. I rubbed the towel over myself as I hurried after him, leaving my clothes behind. I was getting my second wind and reason was returning. That reason wanted to know what he was talking about. I've always been too curious for my own good. I even peered into the second room as I passed by—looked like storage.
I shook the water out of my hair and wrapped the towel around my waist as Kardri went around the partition into the room at the end. I had a feeling it was his bedroom; the same room where what's-his-name had put my trunk. What the fuck was that jerk's name? Trek? Trex? Fuck, whatever; fae names were weird. I stepped around the partition and, sure enough, there it was—his bed. The same bed I'd been in earlier. It wasn't a cot with a pallet on it or even a normal bed. Of course not. Nothing normal would do for the freaky-ass Leopard Lord. Instead, this guy had a four-poster monster that belonged in a palace, not a tent. And there were fucking straps hanging from the posters as if . . . nope, not going there. Looking away now.
I found the Leopard Lord standing to the side of the bed, smirking at me. He had an arm propped on a chair—a really fucking weird chair with a U-shaped seat and most of the center removed. Beneath that opening was a wedge of wood with a cushion attached to its top. I frowned at it, trying to figure out why it looked as if someone could lay their head . . . oh! I jerked my stare back to his laughing one.
“Look for yourself, Tristan.” The Leopard Lord waved a hand toward the wall opposite him.
I gladly turned away from the freak and his seat to find a black dresser with a large mirror atop it. There was Kardri, his reflection staring at me affectionately, and then there was a guy who looked like he could have been me if I had suddenly become ten-times hotter and ten-times buffer.
“What the . . . ?” I went to the mirror and gaped at myself.
My face had shifted, my features angling slightly upward like a faerie's. The higher cheekbones and slanted brows made my square jaw look sharper, more masculine. I rubbed a hand over it as I contemplated the color of my eyes. They'd been hazel before, but a sort of muddy hazel. Now they flashed from green to gold depending on how I turned my head. My hair, shaggy and wet, was darker from the water, but I could still tell that the color had changed into something closer to crimson than auburn. Finally, there was my body; my shoulders had broadened, my chest appeared to be chiseled from stone, and my biceps looked as if I were flexing them, even though they were relaxed.
And I was really fucking white.
“Why am I so pale?” I looked down and saw that I wasn't just pale but also completely unblemished. Every battle scar I'd gotten over the years had vanished.
“You're like a newborn,” Kardri whispered as he stepped up beside me. “Your skin is fresh. You'll tan again, this is the shade you must have been when you were born.”
His hand glided down my arm and then away. I met his gaze in the mirror and just stared. With his pure black skin next to mine, I looked even paler, like a moon against his midnight sky. I practically glowed.
“You're terrible at drying yourself,” Kardri murmured. “Let me help you.”
My breath caught as his hand went to my waist and unwound the towel. I should have stopped him, but I didn't; I felt frozen. The cloth fell away, sending a ripple of excitement down my stomach that clenched my muscles. Kardri drew the towel up my side, soaking up every stray droplet, then pushed it around to my front. He wiped away the water that lingered on my chest as he continued to hold my gaze in the mirror. Then he leaned forward, pressing his front to my back.
And dropped the towel.
The Leopard Lord's head bent to my throat and his tongue flicked out to lick the water from my skin. I shuddered, my breath catching, and my body held so tightly that I felt on the verge of shattering. A