“Sean, I—”
Her thoughts scattered when she looked up at him. His eyes were glowing hot red-orange, and her first reaction was to be wary, but her second reaction was far more primal and erotic. She turned toward him like a flower seeking the sun, wanting nothing more than to be warmed by his heat; captured by his fire, when she’d been so cold for so long.
“Beautiful,” she whispered, staring into his extraordinary eyes.
“Yes. You are,” he said roughly, and then he wrapped his strong arms around her and captured her mouth with his own.
His kiss was a revelation. He claimed her with a powerful masculine dominance that weakened her knees and stole her breath from her body. His tongue pushed at the seam of her lips and she opened for him, moaning when he delved inside and plundered, taking what he wanted like a pirate come to claim his spoils. She clutched at his shoulders, dizzily wondering if she would collapse if he let her go, but he held her even more tightly.
He was relentless—demanding. He tasted like the apple pie from dinner; cinnamon had suddenly become her favorite spice. She kissed him back, taking as well as giving, riding the day’s emotional roller coaster up and up and then over the crest of heat and sensation. If they hadn’t been in the middle of Fountain Square, she would have started taking clothes off—his or hers, it didn’t matter—and then—
Fountain Square.
The curse.
She pulled away, though everything in her rebelled against it. Her breathing was too shaky to form words for several seconds, so she rested her forehead on Sean’s chest and drew in a long, deep breath.
“Never before. I’ve never forgotten myself and the curse like that, not even for a second. Sean, you’re—”
“I’m the man who wants you in his life,” he rasped, and she felt a moment of sharp pleasure that the kisses had affected him as much as they had her, but the curse’s demand increased, overwhelming everything else, as it always had.
Brynn’s eyes burned, and she was shocked to realize she was fighting back tears of loss and longing. Longing for the normal life she could never have.
“I never cry,” she said, but it was too late. The warm wash of sadness overflowed, and she tried to turn away from Sean, but pushing against his hard, muscular chest was like pushing against the marble statue.
“Don’t cry,” he said, and his voice was almost frantic. “Damn me for a fool. Brynn, I’m sorry. I should have asked your permission or—”
“Let. Me. Go,” she said urgently, and he released her, clenching his hands into fists at his sides.
She ran for “her” bench, tearing her clothes and shoes off, but she barely had time to reach her backpack before the transformation took her. The moon was jealous of her songbird, and evidently Brynn had delayed the moment for too long.
She stood, naked and shivering, while the brief agony of the shift took her, and the last sight she saw through her human eyes was Sean, pain stark in the grim lines of his face as he watched her.
Once she was a swan, she didn’t care about anything except reaching the water and beginning her song, but the wisp of human consciousness that floated in the back of her brain thought that both song and water were especially icy that night; cold as the deep reaches of a solitary heart.
* * *
Sean shoved Brynn’s clothes in her backpack and then tossed it on the marble bench and sat next to it, all the while cursing himself for being an overbearing buffoon. He’d rather face a raging fire without any of his safety gear than ever be forced to see Brynn crying again. His chest ached, and he didn’t like it one bit. How could her tears have so much power over him that they reduced him to helplessness?
He should have asked, or warned her, or something. Anything. Except—she’d been kissing him back. Her sweet mouth had dueled with his, and she’d held tightly to him with the same ferocity he’d felt as he kissed her.
Claimed her.
Claimed? He jumped up off the bench, suddenly unable to sit still. Where had that thought come from? He’d only just met her and hardly knew anything about her. It was definitely not time to think about claiming.
His gaze arrowed to the elegant black swan floating serenely in the waters of the fountain, raising her head toward the moon, and a fierce wave of protectiveness swept through him. Claiming might be a good word, after all. There were other words that he’d thought of, too, when he’d looked into her silvery blue eyes.
Holding. Touching. Keeping.
Mine.
The otherworldly sound of her song wove through the strands of his consciousness, tantalizing and seducing, and it took him a few beats to realize that he’d never heard a swan actually sing before. It must be a side effect of the magic. There were no words, of course, but Brynn—as a swan—was singing; her song was an ethereal, plaintive melody that tugged at his heart and wound its way into his soul.
He wanted to keep her. The shock of the discovery rocked him back on his heels so hard that Sean didn’t pay much attention to the tall man in the long black coat until he’d walked to the edge of the fountain and stretched out a hand toward Brynn.
“Get the hell away from that swan,” he told the intruder, his voice cold and deadly.
The man turned to face Sean, who recognized him instantly and prepared for a difficult and possibly fatal disagreement.