Page 89 of Beasts of Mine

Much worse.

“This is deeply inconvenient,” I muttered to myself, closing my eyes briefly as heat crept into my face for an entirely different reason.

“What is?” Tavian asked me, leaning forward slightly as curiosity lit his face.

“Nothing,” I told Tavian far too quickly, opening my eyes to discover that he'd noticed exactly where I'd been looking.

His grin widened.

Great.

The first rush of shock had eased enough that something stranger could settle beneath it. I knew these men. Not everything about them, obviously, but enough that their human faces didn't feel entirely unfamiliar. Tavian's amusement was the same as Menace's. Luca still gave me room without being asked. Cat remained quiet and steady, watching without pressing closer.

They looked different, but they didn't feel like strangers.

“I need a minute,” I told the three men, lowering myself onto a section of fallen stone because I needed something solid beneath me as I tried to sort through everything.

Tavian opened his mouth.

“Not one word,” I warned Tavian, pointing at him before he could speak as innocence immediately settled across his face. Tavian closed his mouth again, though the effort required was obvious. Luca glanced away, but I caught the small curve near his mouth.

“You too,” I told Luca, narrowing my eyes at him as he turned back toward me. Luca didn’t say anything, lifting both hands slightly as amusement softened his features.

“Not a word,” I told Luca, watching his smile grow before he wisely decided not to argue. Cat remained silent several yards away, his arms loose at his sides as he watched the exchange without attempting to join it.

Smart man.

I rested my elbows against my knees and stared at the damp leaves gathered between the ancient stones, trying to make sense of the last several days. Leopard shifters existed. Three of them had spent days following me through the rainforest, sleeping around my camp, helping with my work, arguing with me, bringing me gifts, and listening to far more of my personal life than I ever would have knowingly shared with three strange men.

That should have been more than enough to process. Unfortunately, now that I knew they were men, I was also painfully aware that all three of them were attractive. When I finally lifted my head, three pairs of familiar eyes were watching me. Different bodies, same men I'd somehow gotten attached to before I'd even known what they were.

And I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do with them now.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EVIE

“You have a name.” I lifted my gaze from the damp leaves scattered between my boots and fixed it on the only man in the courtyard who had somehow escaped introducing himself. I was still sitting on the fallen section of stone where I’d ended up after the reveal, my boots planted on the uneven ground and my forearms resting loosely against my thighs. It had seemed like a perfectly reasonable place to sit when three leopards suddenly became three men. I hadn’t moved much since.

The afternoon had shifted around us while I tried to rearrange everything I thought I knew. Cat remained several yards away, still giving me the space I’d wanted after the reveal. My brain continued trying to connect the broad shoulders, dark scruff, and very human face with the massive leopard I’d spent days talking to beside the creek, but his golden-brown eyes hadn’t changed. Neither had the patient stillness that made him perfectly capable of standing there until I decided what happened next.

Tavian’s mouth twitched the moment I spoke. Luca glanced toward Cat, then back at me, and something about his expression suggested he’d been waiting to see how long it took me to realize one introduction was missing.

“I do.” Cat answered in the same maddeningly calm voice he’d used when he had four paws and a tail, making absolutely no effort to help me beyond that.

I waited.

He waited too. A cicada started buzzing somewhere behind him. Becoming human hadn’t made him any more cooperative.

“Are you planning to tell me what it is?” I straightened slightly on the stone and narrowed my eyes at him.

“Malek. My name is Malek.” Cat’s mouth shifted at one corner, the movement so small I might have missed it when he was covered in fur.

Malek.

I studied him more carefully, fitting the name to the man standing in front of me. It suited him irritatingly well. Solid. Uncomplicated. Much more appropriate than the nickname I’d given a wounded leopard who had refused to identify himself while I knelt beside a creek trying to stop him from reopening his side.

“Malek.” I tested the unfamiliar name aloud, trying to attach it to someone who already felt far too familiar.