sexy, beautiful mate. “I didn’t spend my life feeling sorry for myself,” he said, thinking of the years past. “I became the best I could be, and then I pushed myself even harder.”
His packmates teased him affectionately about his overachieving tendencies, but that drive was all that had kept him together for a long time. Then, it had simply become part of him. “But it hurt,” he said, admitting his vulnerability to the woman who held his heart—and who already understood his pain. “Deep inside me, so deep down that I almost forgot it at times, it always hurt.
“I want to say it felt like a piece of me was missing, but that isn’t true. It was worse than that. It was feeling that piece trapped inside me, feeling as if I was betraying my leopard every day of our existence.” He swallowed. “I wouldn’t have blamed my cat if it never forgave me, but it does, Shaya. It does.”
“Of course it does. You’re not two separate beings, Dorian, you’re one.”
“Yeah.” He smiled because it was true. After a lifetime of being separated from his cat, he didn’t have to fight it anymore. They could just be. Now that leopard rubbed against the inside of his skin, as excited as he was, as happy. Its emotions were wilder than his own, its mind thinking in far simpler patterns. “The cat doesn’t see the point in worrying about the past.”
Shifting off Shaya’s lap on those words, he said, “Come lie with me.”
When she would’ve lain down on the picnic blanket beside him, he tugged her on top of his body. She was dressed in a plain white tank top and a pair of black boxers she’d stolen from him and that would’ve hung off her if she hadn’t tightened the elastic. “Why aren’t you naked?” he complained after slipping his hand into the back of the boxers to cup her gorgeous ass.
Nipping at his lower lip, she kicked up her legs after tucking her curls behind her ears in a futile effort to control them. “Because we have two tiny and very curious chaperones.”
He grinned. “They get to sleep okay?”
“Yeah. Fell asleep waiting for you.” Her blue-gray eyes danced. “Noor wants to brush you.”
His chest rumbled with laughter. “I have a feeling she’ll get her way.” Their son’s best friend was an adorable little cub who’d survived a terrible start to life with her sweetness and heart intact. “And Keenan?”
“He wants to go running with you.” Shaya kissed him again. “If you’d rather have some privacy to explore the leopard, I can—”
“No.” Stroking his hands up her back and under the tank top, he smiled. “The leopard wants to play with them, too.” Cubs were to be looked after, said the leopard, even if that meant being brushed by a sparkly pink hairbrush. “It needs to care for them . . . it’s never had the chance to exercise that instinct.” And the instinct was a visceral one—Dorian had had it his entire life.
Shaya smiled. “You really should call Lucas back.”
His alpha had called soon after Dorian shifted for the first time. “What did he say?” Dorian asked.
“Just that he’d felt the urge to check up on you. I didn’t want to steal your news, so I told him you were fine and would call him back.” She bit her lower lip. “That was a few hours ago.”
Blowing out a breath, Dorian nodded. “Right, where’s the phone?” His alpha was worried, no doubt having sensed something staggering through the blood bond that linked all the sentinels to their alpha. If Dorian didn’t get in touch, Luc might decide to come and check things out in person and Dorian wasn’t ready for that.
He needed to settle into his new skin first.
“Here.” Shaya sat up and picked up the phone from another part of the blanket, the laz-fire turning her into a lush goddess above him, the rich brown of her skin glowing in the light.
Stroking her thighs, he just looked at her. “You’re so pretty, Shaya.”
A lopsided smile. “Let me go check the babies are still asleep. Then maybe we can play a little.”
His body definitely liked that idea. Watching her walk away to duck into the tent, he sat up and blew out a breath before calling Lucas. “Hey, Luc, Shaya said you’d called.”
“You okay?” Lucas asked straight off. “I’ve been fighting the urge to find you all day, check on you.”
“Oh, jeez, Luc.” Dorian groaned. “I just got Shaya to