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Lady Selan picked up the groin section and crouched at his feet. He stiffened, suddenly, painfully aware of her face so near his cock. Don’t, he warned it. God, don’t.
All she’d have to do is lean forward to take it into her mouth…
Groping for a distraction, he said, “You realize Casus is probably recording this?”
Her teeth flashed up at him in a feral smile. “Oh, he tried. I put a stop to it. I’ve got a pretty good nanosystem.”
Rance blinked. “You disabled Casus’s cameras? He’s not going to like that.”
“Do you truly think I care?”
He laughed. “Not really.”
But any sense of amusement faded as she paused, green eyes on his cock. The shaft promptly began to lengthen under her attention. He heard her swallow. She leaned forward…
And fitted the hip section around his groin. Rance gritted his teeth as it sealed, pressing into his growing erection. The fact that she’d obviously been tempted was no help at all.
“There.” She rose to her feet and tilted her head, studying him as he towered over her in a suit that could have stopped a star tank blast. “You look quite formidable.”
“I am quite formidable.”
“We’ll see. Now shift. I want to make sure that suit accommodates the change.”
Since he wanted to know, too, he sent a mental order to his nanos. The shift surged through him as the ’bots realigned cells, altered bone and muscle and flesh. He shuddered at the hot, familiar pain. The room blurred.
When his sight sharpened again, all his senses seemed to explode to vivid life. He looked down at her. And down even farther, since he was almost half a meter taller now.
She looked so delicate, so fragile. And she smelled deliciously feminine, like distilled sex. Like everything he’d ever craved in a woman.
His kind had been created to protect the colonists of a savage world filled with predators that would have slaughtered an ordinary human, no matter how well-armed. Instincts bred into his every cell drove him to speak despite the dictates of common sense.
“Why did you do that, lady?” His voice emerged in a deep, alien rumble. “Ordering me to transform like that? I could kill you before you even had time to activate my collar.”
There was a hint of icy warning in her smile. “I think you underestimate just how fast I really am.”
He doubted that. “You shouldn’t take such risks.”
“Perhaps.” Selan shrugged. “My father used to say you never know whether you can trust a man unless you give him a chance to betray you. It’s better to watch what he does than be unpleasantly surprised when you’re not expecting it.”
Rance stared at her, appalled. “This was a test?”
“And lucky you, you passed.” Her eyes dropped to the ring on her hand. “My father knew all about betrayal. He was good at it.” Pivoting on one booted heel, she started toward the door. “Change back, Mad Dog, and let’s go. We have a schedule to meet.”
The nickname carried a surprising sting it had never possessed before. “Rance. My name is Rance Conlan.”
She gave him a siren smile. “Rance, then.”
Grinding his teeth, he let the power roll through him again, then slipped ahead of her like the loyal guard dog he definitely wasn’t.
She’s playing into my hands, he told himself. She doesn’t know as much about betrayal as she thinks she does.
The thought left a surprisingly bitter taste in his mouth. Betraying women was for aristos and slavers, not for Freeworlds shifters.
Too bad he didn’t have a choice.
THREE
It wasn’t easy to keep her mind on business with her body thrumming in a sweet, electric buzz. I can’t afford this kind of distraction, Zarifa realized with a grim jolt of alarm. What if Gerik shows up? He’d have me in chains before I saw him coming.
