Then I threw the lock. I hoped Mari had her key, but I didn’t trust that Matt wouldn’t come through that door.
He still might. This place might be built for shifters, but that didn’t mean the door would hold against a determined assault. For a moment, I regretted that the ogress had removed herself from the equation.
I lay back on the bed and wrestled with my inner demon, which was screaming at me to open that door and invite Matt in. I writhed on the bed, burning with a need so powerful I panted.
He was out there, I could feel him. Standing just outside my door, fighting much the same battle I was. What lay between us was a living, pulsing thing, and it demanded release.
The knob turned, but came up against the lock.
I stopped breathing. Waited to see if he’d break down the door. Did I want him to?
I wanted him. Ached for him. But there was only one safe way to have him. And that relied on us being able to dream together. How was I going to accomplish that? I’d never felt so awake.
I leaned over and opened the bottom dresser drawer. When I’d packed to come here, I’d been somewhat scattered, throwing an assortment of things into my bag. I was pretty sure, though, that I had packed my sleeping pills.
I didn’t use them frequently, but because of my weird work schedules, I did resort to them often enough that somehow, I’d put them on the take-with-me-to-training list. I dug the box out and took not one, but two.
It was the maximum allowable dose, but the only way I was going to sleep at all. I rose, and padded over to the door.
I could hear his harsh, rapid breathing. Almost panting.
I bent and pushed the box under the door. Had to squish it down to make it fit.
He knew I was there—I heard him groan. “Angel,” he pleaded.
“Take the pills, Matt. We need to dream.”
His low and rumbling growl made every one of my hairs stand on end, and my knees tremble.
“Take the pills, Matt,” I repeated.
“They won’t work on me,” he insisted. “Shifters break them down fast.”
“All you need them for is to fall asleep.”
“Angel, I need you.” The words were both a command and a plea, and barely decipherable.
I took a deep breath and put the power into my voice.
“There is only one way to have me. Take the pills.”
Nothing. And then I heard cardboard skidding on the floor as he kicked it away from the door.
26
Matt
I stood outside Anna’s door. Rigid. Aching. My beast demanded that I break it down. Bend her over the bed, sink my teeth into her, and make her mine.
The human screamed that it couldn’t happen. For two reasons. Her touch would kill me this time. She wouldn’t mean to do it. But until she had control over her own beast, mine was going to have to deal.
But there was another, even more important reason. I couldn’t be sure that I could control mine either.
Back home, the moon was a week off full. The virus within me shouldn’t be infectious. But the moons in this realm were no more than a day or two away from being complete, round orbs. And I didn’t know how that would affect my biology.
Certainly, my beast was acting like a mad thing. It pushed to bind her to me, once and for all. Even now, my teeth were dropping, the bones of my jaw itching to lengthen.
It was a war between beast and man, with no clear winner. And it had my muscles seized and me standing to attention outside her door.
