I felt a deep connection to what lived within me. So why the hell would she sleep with Knox? What if she was like a split personality, and I started waking up in strange places with strange men? What if she told Knox we liked his dick? Or worse, I continued waking up naked and sore without a single memory of what had happened?
I turned around and peered over my shoulder, staring at my ass, which still ached painfully. That one should have been off-limits, especially since we didn’t like the prick. Glaring at my hands, I looked at the tips of my fingers, noting the red swelling there. Opening my mouth, I gazed at my tongue and then at the back of my throat. At least he hadn’t pushed through the back of my skull, I guess. I still hadn’t figured out how he could hurt my throat, considering there was no way he’d fit into my mouth.
My eyes looked different, turquoise with tiny flecks of silver. It was hardly noticeable unless you were looking for it.
“If you’re in there, no more fucking Knox, understood? He’s a dick.” Nothing happened. Scrunching up my nose, I sucked my lip between my teeth. “If you are in there, I’d like to meet you. I’d like to know what is inside of me. I also think we should have a sit down about whom we fuck, and what we allow them to do to our body. You got to hide, but my ass hurts.” And this was what life had resulted to now: speaking to myself in the mirror as if something else was inside of me. I mean, I knew I had something within me. I knew I was powerful, but that was me, not her. Whatever was inside of me, she rattled and matched the sound Knox made deep in his chest.
She loomed within me but didn’t expose herself. I could feel her, but I couldn’t grasp her. What the fuck made a rattling noise? There were no snake shifters, thank fuck. I hated snakes and all scaly creatures. Anything that sheds its own skin was eerie and not something I wanted to be. There were a few creatures that weren’t allowed outside of the Nine Realms. A few who were so terrifying that they’d never learned to take human form, or had outright refused to do so. What if I lost myself when I changed? What if I could never come back from fully forming like those monsters that couldn’t hold a human form? I’d lose everyone I loved because those monsters didn’t have human emotions.
I leaned against the counter, closing my eyes. “I hope you’re not a snake or something with scales. Please don’t have scales.”
Opening my eyes, I moved away from the mirror, crawling into the bath filled with healing oils and sprinkled with dried rose petals. It was like a balm over my soul, and I moaned as it eased the pain from my body. My hands reached for the soap, lifting one leg to scrub it before following with the other. Sitting up, I grabbed my shampoo, pouring a generous amount into my hand, and purred. My eyes widened, and I stiffened.
“The fuck?”
I listened, tilting my head as if it would help me hear the sound better. I held the shampoo to my nose again. The noise came from deep within me, and I shivered as my heart accelerated, I dropped my hand into the water, washing the shampoo off. I fucking purred? Great, I was a fucking cat.
Sitting in the bath, I waited for something to happen. I waited for anything to freaking happen. Nothing did, and when I poured more shampoo into my hand, still nothing happened. Frowning, I washed my hair and used the conditioner before leaning back. I couldn’t be a cat, I enjoyed bathing. I didn’t like yarn and was lactose intolerant. I would be the worst cat ever. There were cat shifters, but they were rather large and were usually thicker. I had coveted their beautiful eyes and thick hips, which would be a plus, rather than my small curves. If I was, I would be pissed that I’d been ripped off in the bubble butt and hip area.
Thinking about it more, it wouldn’t be so horrible to be a cat shifter. They were beautiful and sleek, able to jump high, and had massive claws to rip assholes’ faces off. I mean, that was a bonus. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, soaking in the tub.
I jolted from the tub and realized I’d dozed off. I stared around the room, frowning as I replayed the dream. Knox had been in front of me, the rattling sound vibrating from his chest as I sucked his dick, and by suck it, I mean I was taking it all as he pushed the hair away from my face. He’d made noises that I’d craved, wanting to hear them. I’d done whatever he wanted me to. Not that Knox asked me to get on my knees; I’d fucking done it even though he’d tried to pull back, not wanting to hurt me. His eyes were black, flecked with fiery embers within them as he watched me, and any time I took him all, he fucking purred.
Knox was a pussy! I snorted, smirking as I stood up, letting the water drip from my body as I left the tub. I guess it took a pussycat to know one, but if he thought he was getting any more of this cream, he was wrong. I would do everything in my power to stay away from him, avoiding him at all costs. He could do the same because even if we were cat shifters, he wasn’t sniffing my ass anymore.
Chapter 39
Three Months Later
Days turned into weeks and weeks into months as we dug into the events that led to Amara’s vanishing act. Every time we began to make headway, it would end up being a dead end. It had gotten so exhausting that I’d started offering to work a shift in the store, even though I barely left the house to avoid running into Knox, who apparently had become chummy with Aurora. She’d gushed about his perfect etiquette and manners, spouting ballads in his name while I stared at her, stunned, like she’d bonked her head. Obviously, we hadn’t encountered the same version of Knox.
The man had her eating out of his palm, and Aurora couldn’t shut up about it, which was why I was at Wickedly Rocked, currently slinging crystals like they were crack. Because I couldn’t stand that she liked the pompous, self-assured prick.
A male in his early thirties approached me as I stacked rainbow-hued quartz stones above a lighted counter. He had gray eyes and a smirk that made me hesitant to acknowledge him. Pushing the silver hair away from my face, I smiled in a manner as friendly as I could muster, or what I hoped looked friendly. I wasn’t a people person, even if I did have a master’s degree in communications.
“Do you have any carnelian?” he asked, staring at my breasts.
My shirt said Come and Hex it, Baby, and was hot pink. “My eyes are up here,” I snapped, watching as his lifted with a deep glow of azure. “Wolf, you’re in the wrong store. There’s wolfsbane within this building, and it bites. Let’s show you the carnelian, and you can get out with your fur still pretty.”
I turned and made my way to the small case of carnelian tumblers. Once I’d set them out, he stared at them and back at me.
“Is it true they can help with confidence?”
“It is,” I watched as he touched one, and then another. “Do they call to you?”
“They’re rocks,” he muttered, as if he couldn’t believe he was buying one.
“It’s a powerful crystal, blessed and charged by Hecate witches. You won’t find any better ones than here. Take it or leave it, but you can’t stay in the store too long. They’re brewing tonics below using wolfsbane. There’s a sign on the door giving warning.”
“Listen, I need to impress my mate. She’s been acting strange. She keeps growling at me when I get close to the bed, and she bitches about everything. I need her to accept me into our bed, but she won’t.”