Out of Chances (Taken by the Panther, #2) Read online

  Out of Chances

  Taken by the Panther – Book 2

  by V. M. Black

  Aethereal Bonds

  AetherealBonds.com

  Swift River Media Group

  Washington, D.C.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 V. M. Black

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher.

  Book Description

  Chay Bane’s years of experience tell him that Tara Morland is doomed, destined to lose against the panther who took over her mind and transformed her body. But even though the former SEAL panther shifter has made a career of rescuing other shifters in trouble, his connection to Tara goes far beyond his role in freeing her from the military prison where she’d been confined. And from the moment he lays eyes on her, Chay is determined to save her—whatever the cost.

  All Tara wants it to master the beast inside of her, and she finds herself as dependent on the brilliant hacker Chay as she is attracted to him. But there are terrible secrets in the Black Mesa facility where Chay spirits her away—secrets that can threaten her hard-won sanity and her life.

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  Start with Out of the Darkness

  Chapter One

  “What did we just do?” Tara asked, looking at Chay with her bright green eyes.

  Made a mistake. Made an awful mistake.

  But instead of saying that, Chay silenced her and his own thoughts with a long kiss, tasting her one last time, wanting her over and over again, forever, until he forgot why what they’d done was probably the worst idea he’d had in years.

  Until it became as right as it had felt. As right as she still felt in his arms.

  Finally, he could push back reality no longer. With one final caress of her soft cheek, he stepped back, freeing himself from her pants that were still looped around her ankles. With motions that were abrupt with frustration, he adjusted his fly and zipped it closed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. It was a shockingly bald lie, because he wasn’t sorry at all.

  But he wished he could be. He knew he should be. What the frak was he thinking, taking a confused, addled, traumatized woman who was completely dependent on him, completely in his power, and then...banging her against a wall sink?

  He’d sunk to a new low. He’d stood over the bleeding bodies of his enemies—forget that, he’d devoured the entrails of strangers that his keepers in Washington had declared his enemies. And yet this, this was the moment in which the shame curdled his stomach and made his lips draw back from his teeth in disgust.

  He turned to leave.

  But she reached toward him—all but lunged, grabbing for his hand, stumbling over her leggings. “Don’t go!”

  Chay froze mid-step as if a steel band had closed around his wrist instead of a woman’s hand.

  “Don’t go,” she repeated more softly, the frantic note gone from her voice. She reached her other hand down to fight with her leggings, caught as they were over the tops of her shoes. “You can’t leave me. I’m afraid I’ll change again.”

  Chay closed his eyes briefly then opened them. “I don’t know what you’re feeling right now,” he said as carefully as he could. “But what happened.... I shouldn’t have let it.”

  Every word was true. Why were they so hard to say?

  She was losing the battle with her leggings. With a noise of frustration, she dropped his hand and sat her naked rump down on the tile, jerking the leggings free of her shoes and up to her knees before struggling to her feet again. She grabbed her shirt and shrugged it on before she crossed her arms across her chest and, fully dressed, met his eyes.

  “I don’t know, either,” she said. “Know what I’m feeling, I mean. Know what I should feel. I don’t know you, Chay Bane. I didn’t even know your name four hours ago. And I could get in a huff and say that it wasn’t your fault, but...” She took a shaky breath. “I think we both know I’m not exactly in great control of what I’m doing just now. So yeah, you’re right. You probably should have stopped that, since you’re the one with the working self-control right now. So why didn’t you?”

  Because you’re something I thought I could never have. The words stuck in his throat. If she’d been any other woman, any other kind of shifter, he would have stopped her. Because he’d have known it was wrong and he would have cared.

  Instead, with her, another panther shifter, maybe he’d somehow thought, deep in his brain, that it would be some kind of shortcut. An easy way. As if screwing someone he didn’t know who was vulnerable and in his care was ever the easy way for anything but exploitation.

  Instead of saying any of that, he just said, “I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

  Tara shook her head. “That’s not a why.”

  He snorted. “Maybe it’s because you are so hot.”

  It was true enough. She was striking, truly, her skin the perfect, smooth tone that many women spent hours under tanning lights to achieve, her eyes bright and clear and strikingly green and her springy hair fell into amber-streaked ringlets.

  She was gorgeous—and most definitely still too young for him. It wasn’t so much the decade that separated them, though that was bad enough. It was the innocence that he still saw in those eyes despite what she’d seen and done. By her age, his innocence had long since been scrubbed away. She was younger at twenty-four than he had been at twenty.

  “Chay,” she said, a note of warning in her voice. “No B.S.”

  She reached out and caught his hand again. It wasn’t a caress, he realized as a slight tension left her body. It was because she was afraid of the panther again, and touching another human being drove it away.

  Any human being? he wondered instantly. Any human being, or just me?

  And why did he want it to be just him? Why did he have to push down the thrill that shot through his body and the stirring in his groin despite the fact that he’d just finished—

  He slammed down the doors on that thought. That was a very, very stupid thing to think, and it was a very, very stupid thing that he wanted. He’d admit that he had the hots for her—maybe it was because she was the first woman who was more of a danger to him than he was to her, maybe just because she was a panther and he was an idiot.

  But that’s all it was. He was going to get a grip on himself and act like the frakking adult that he was, not some over-sexed teenager.

  “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I just...wasn’t. I just want you to know—this isn’t me. This isn’t something I make a habit of. There are a lot of people who depend on me, and I don’t treat them like this, okay?”

  Tara nodded, her clear green eyes steady on him. Her
hand was still holding his tightly, and he wished that she wouldn’t. It only made it that much harder on him.

  But it wasn’t about him. It was about her. And she needed it—not in a sexual way, whatever urgent messages his body was trying to send his brain, but to stay human in her own skin.

  “I have to say it’s a first for me, too,” she said. “I tend to get to know a guy before throwing myself at him. So don’t think that I have a crush on you or anything. I don’t. Or at least, I don’t think that I do. That wasn’t why...that happened. I don’t even know if I like you yet.” She gave an unsteady laugh. “I trust you. Sort of. Mostly. But I don’t know if I like you.”

  “Fair enough. So what happened happened, and we can handle it like adults.”

  Her gaze swept across him, too keen, and a small blush crept up her cheeks. She wasn’t nearly as indifferent to him as he was trying to pretend. “Like adults,” she repeated firmly. “But...it was good, though, wasn’t it?”

  The tiniest hint of a smile teased at the corner of her mouth, and despite himself, Chay chuckled. “Yeah, bae girl. It was great.”

  “’Kay. Just wanted to make sure it wasn’t just me.” She took a breath and dropped his hand, and he followed her into the main room.

  “I have to ask you. Birth control?” Chay ventured. Because they were being adults, after all.

  She shrugged and sat on the edge of the bed. “IUD—the hormone kind. I’ve got more than a year left on it. I got it before I went to the refugee camp in South Sudan. It seemed like a good idea. Light periods or no periods, and, well, it was an active warzone. Lots of bad things can happen there.”

  Chay blinked at how calmly she talked about the possibility of being raped. “Good,” he managed.

  “IUDs are okay, right?” she asked. “I mean, for...for shifters. I can still use it, and it’ll still work?”

  That wasn’t something Chay had ever had to worry about. “I know that women shifters use birth control all the time. How they use it...I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ll send Dr. Torrhanin in to speak to you, okay?”

  Tara stiffened. “He’s the one who stuck me with the needle, isn’t he?”

  “It was for your own protection,” Chay said.

  “Not anyone else’s?” she shot back.

  “That, too,” he agreed. “He’s an elven doctor, and they know more about shifters than anyone.” He leaned against the doorframe, waiting.

  Eventually, Tara nodded. “Okay. You’re right. I should talk to a doctor who knows about this stuff. I’ve seen what shifting does to my clothes.”

  Chay pushed off the door. “I’ll send him right in.”

  “Can you stay, too?” she blurted. Then her expression turned horrified—at what she’d just said. “No. Don’t,” she said quickly. “It’s just...I’m not going to...hurt him, am I?”

  Chay chuckled as he headed toward the door. “Don’t worry, bae girl. He’s the one with the tranqs.”

  “Right,” she muttered.

  Still smiling, Chay left.

  Chapter Two

  Tara found herself sitting on the bed and staring at the door for the third time that day.

  What the hell had she just done? And what the hell had he just done?

  Jumping into some random guy’s pants wasn’t exactly high on the list of stuff that Tara was known for. She’d had her moments, sure, like the torrid, insane fling with Tom Howe, which had involved no small number of midnight encounters in the med tent, a convenient Jeep, and even out in the brush a few urgent times.

  But that had been a giddy affair, fueled by emotional exhaustion and the pent-up frustration that came from dealing with all the limitations and difficulties of managing an NGO refugee camp, which had expressed itself in the most exquisite sexual tension that Tara had ever experienced.

  There hadn’t been anything technically forbidden about their liaison, and despite warnings against getting involved with other workers, such hookups were common enough. The only unusual thing about theirs was that it had lasted as long as it had—a full six months of secret touches and all-too-often hurried sex before it had fizzled out. The fact that he was technically her boss and absolutely too old for a nineteen-year-old had given it a slightly naughty overtone, but she had known exactly what she was doing the whole time.

  This was different. Spontaneous didn’t even begin to cover it. It wasn’t like she’d needed the sex to stay human. Or at least, she didn’t think that she did. His touch alone had been enough to drive the panther back, the skin-to-skin contact seeming to remind her bones and muscles of their proper shape.

  So why was it that she had wanted more? That she’d demanded more? And where did he get off, taking advantage of her situation? Because Chay was right. If she shouldn’t have reached for him, he absolutely shouldn’t have responded. He was her jailer. He could pretty it up with fancy words, but for the moment, she really was a prisoner, and he was in charge. They should absolutely not be having sex.

  Then why, a tiny part of her brain whispered, couldn’t she regret it? Not really. The whole thing was such an epically bad idea that she couldn’t even put words to how bad it was, but even as she thought that, she couldn’t manage an ounce of regret.

  Maybe she really was going crazy.

  Tara pushed to her feet and went over to the door that she’d probably already spent an hour staring at. Bracing herself, she summoned all of her courage and twisted the lever handle.

  It turned at her touch, the dogs sliding back into the frame. Tara blinked at it for several seconds, hardly believing that she’d been left alone with an unlocked door. Hesitantly, she opened the door half an inch and peered out.

  There was a hall there with metal walls, a cement floor, and a purple stripe down its length. She opened the door a fraction wider and stuck her head out. She could see three more doors like hers before the hallway disappeared into darkness on either end. In fact, only the light bulb immediately outside her door was lit.

  She remembered what Chay had said about children being in the facility and pulled back again quickly, shutting the door and turning the lever back to the locked position.

  Tara wanted to think that she wouldn’t hurt a kid no matter what. But she knew that was a stupid kind of thought to have confidence in. She’d killed her professor, and she’d have sworn that she wouldn’t do something like that. And there’d been others she’d hurt in her panic, and she couldn’t claim that they were entirely accidents, either.

  No, kids weren’t safe from her. Not right now. But whether Chay’s trust of her actually meant anything—or if her unlocked door was behind another locked one or if he was just sure that he could come and put her back in her cell if she tried to escape—she was intensely glad for that open door.

  A knock came then, and biting her lip, Tara twisted it open. Behind it was...an elf. There really was no other word for what he was. He had almond eyes, and he was tall and slender, his pale skin almost glowing with a kind of bluish cast. But most striking were the pointy ears. Actual, real pointy ears, not Ren Fest ears created with the right kind of jewelry.

  “You’d be easy to dress for a Star Trek convention,” Tara said inanely as she stepped back into the room. His face was definitely familiar. She remembered him from the place where Chay had rescued her—except he hadn’t looked like an elf then. At least, she was pretty sure that she would have remembered if he had.

  “Yes, I have heard that,” the elf said dryly, stepping over the high threshold and into the room. He was wearing a kind of dress—well, a robe, Tara corrected, because it appeared to be a masculine sort of outfit, for all that it was covered with silver embroidery, and over it, he wore a second robe, this one white and open in the front with long sleeves that hung loose around his wrists. He even had a circlet on, complete with a large blue cabochon-style jewel in the center of the front that Tara took to be a sapphire before she realized that it actually wasn’t a jewel at all but some kind of electronic...something or
other.

  Whatever. It was weird. And the fact that the elf was carrying a bag that looked for all the world like an antique doctor’s bag made it even weirder.

  “Dr. Torrhanin,” the elf said, extending his right hand.

  After a second, Tara realized that he meant her to shake it. Gingerly, she took it and gave it a tentative kind of shake.

  The elf smiled and closed the door behind him. “I understand that you have some reproductive health concerns.”

  “Um, yes?” she ventured. “I have an IUD, and Mr. Bane didn’t know whether that could be a problem. With the shifting,” she added to clarify, because she definitely didn’t want to get into what other types of trouble it might be.

  “I see,” Dr. Torrhanin said. “An IUD would definitely not be my choice. Shifts can be unpredictable, and a hard piece of plastic internally...at best, it could get damaged.”

  “At worst?” Tara prompted.

  “It could pierce the uterine wall,” he said seriously. “Did you have fillings before your first shift?”

  “Fillings?” Tara asked, nonplussed.

  “Fillings,” he repeated. “Dental fillings.”

  “Sure. Who doesn’t? I have a crown, too,” she added. “Bad teeth when I was a kid. Too many antihistamines, my dentist said.”

  “Had,” Dr. Torrhanin corrected.

  “What?”

  “You had a crown. It would have popped out at your first shift. When you returned to your human form, the tooth would have been repaired, more or less.”

  Tara opened her mouth to explain how ridiculous that was, but as she did so, she probed the crown with her tongue and found that it wasn’t there. Instead, there was smooth enamel—not quite in the shape of her proper, original tooth but close enough that she hadn’t noticed.

  “What. The. Hell,” she said, which was the most intelligent thing she could come up with on the spur of the moment.

  “A few shifters have had metal plates or other internal prosthetics when they first turned,” Dr. Torrhanin said. “Those are often particularly unpleasant and can require extensive surgery to remove.”