Free Shadow's Edge by J. T. Geissinger

those eyes. Not only were they a startling, clear green, the irises rimmed with shimmering gold, but they contained gorgeous deep flecks of amber and citrine embedded within that sparked fire into their cool emerald depths.
    He pictured her reclining atop his massive four-poster bed at Sommerley, her curves nestled into the glossy fur coverlet, those lucid eyes mirroring his own desire, her body nude but for the diamonds he wanted to give her: at her throat, around her wrists, on her finger...
    “They had to burn all the trees that year to stop the spread of disease,” he whispered.
    The desire rising inside him suddenly transformed into a beast, hissing, clawing just under his skin, poised to devour him. His fingers tightened over her own and he parted his lips, letting the flavor of her burn bright against his tongue.
    “Windbreaks,” she murmured, leaning into him with a dreamy, half-lidded look. “Oh...that’s...”
    Heart pounding, he bent his head. One second more...one inch more and his lips would be on hers...
    Then her eyes clouded. She began to blink. Her brows drew together and her eyes focused sharp. “Can you feel that?” She turned her head, searching the restaurant, her gaze moving toward the black sky framed in the windows that lined one wall, a view to the street.
    Leander wondered if Jenna somehow
smelled
his desire for her, so acute was this sense of hers proving to be, but then she turned back to him, grimacing.
    “What
is
that?” She seemed close to being sick. Her fingers began to shake under his.
    He was abruptly alert, wary, a sense of peril eating through his chest. “Jenna? Are you unwell? What’s wrong?”
    But she was rising from the table already, her face paling, her eyes wide, her gaze flying around the room. Her lips parted and she breathed out a few words as she tried to steady herself with a shaking hand on the banquette.
    “That vibration. That—friction—static—”
    She gasped and stumbled.
    He was next to her before she could fall, pulling her to him with one arm, supporting her body against his chest. Her heart was pumping a violent, staccato beat. She was satin and fire in his arms, the skin of her bare arms prickled with goose bumps, burning with unnatural heat. His heart began to thunder in panic when she gave a low, keening moan and sagged against him, eyes huge and round and staring at nothing.
    Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.
    Then the shaking began.

 
    Morgan had discovered Rodeo Drive.
    And not just in a touristy kind of way, gawking in star-struck wonder as she passed by on the top deck of a sightseeing bus. No, she had gone native.
    Which wasn’t a precise description for the way she’d spent the past three days, because no one in Beverly Hills seemed to walk anywhere—except for the tourists—and she had walked from Valentino to Prada, from Bulgari to Armani, from Dior to Tiffany.
    She loved to walk, having spent her entire life roaming the New Forest, finding all the best spots of damp, wooded earth and soaring vistas glimpsed from the tops of fir trees. Moving her body was second nature. It was easy to walk for miles, carrying packages, the sun on her face, wind playingthrough her hair. It was being confined within the gilded cage of the Four Seasons Hotel she found difficult.
    She hadn’t stayed in human form this long for years.
    So, to distract herself from the growing discomfort of denying her animal side, she went shopping.
    Her purchases were beginning to take over a rather substantial portion of her suite at the hotel. Square red cardboard boxes, rectangular black paper bags with turquoise tissue peeking out, plain white parcels with logos from the most expensive boutiques, and those perfect, darling little robin’s-egg blue boxes with the white ribbon. Her favorite.
    She couldn’t wait to try it all on again.
    The fact that she’d charged everything to the credit card Leander had given her—
for emergencies only,