Free Out of Chances (Taken by the Panther, #2) by V. M. Black Page A

there.”
    “On it,” Luke said. “It’ll take a while. Lots of newspapers from back then aren’t digitized. And if they are, you’re talking scans from microfilm, OCR if you’re lucky.”
    “I know,” Chay said. “Do your best.”
    He glanced at the monitor that displayed Tara’s sleeping form. The woman moved restlessly in her sleep, her face creasing in a frown. No, her face was doing more than just creasing. It was shifting slightly toward panther and then back again. Chay stood up.
    “I’m crashing. I’ll check your report when I wake up,” he said.
    “It’ll be waiting for you,” Luke replied. “Can I call Annie back to help now? Or is she temporarily banned from the spook shop?”
    “Call her back if she’ll come,” Chay said, crossing to the door to his quarters. “If she doesn’t want to, don’t force it. The last thing we need is for her to stir up trouble just because her nose is out of joint.”
    “I hear and obey,” Luke said, giving an exaggerated salute.
    “Thanks,” Chay said, and he turned off the video feed as he went inside the room.
    By the time he made it to the bedroom, Tara was tossing and turning in the blankets, her body’s edges blurring as the panther came through. Chay bent quickly and touched her shoulder, and her movements instantly became less frantic, her bones less plastic under her skin.
    He turned off the video monitors before stripping off his shirt for the sake of the skin-to-skin contact and sliding into the blankets next to her. He snugged the length of her curves against his body. She nuzzled against him, then stilled, her form settling back into its fully human shape as she fell into a deeper sleep.
    Chay felt one definite step closer to finding an answer to what had happened to her. But even knowing how she’d been dosed didn’t make him any closer to saving her from the beast within. His mind circled around his galling powerlessness as the minutes ticked by and she slept, limp and oblivious, in his arms.
    And only after a very long time did he dream.

Chapter Ten
    T ara didn’t know how much later it was when she came awake again. Her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, her limbs sluggish and heavy, and the panther in the back of her head was growing restless. She wondered how long she’d slept. It didn’t feel like nearly long enough.
    Tension flowed into her body as her dreams came back to her—nightmare after nightmare about what had happened and, worse, what might happen next. The dream about ripping that nosy, snippy fox shifter limb from limb was the most pleasant of the bunch. And no matter whom it featured, when dismemberment counted as one of her better dreams, Tara would confidently label it a rough night.
    Reluctantly, she peeled her eyes open—only to find herself staring at the very well-defined contours of a handsome chest.
    Oh.
    She registered the pressure of the arms around her, the warmth of the long body—which was, she realized, wearing some kind of soft pants, which covered the leg that was nestled quite comfortably between her thighs.
    She was acutely aware that she was still wearing nothing at all.
    Tara tipped her head back to discover chocolate brown eyes looking down at her.
    “You’re awake this time,” Chay said.
    This time. Tara remembered her chaotic dreams.
    “I didn’t keep you from sleeping, did I?” she asked, chagrined.
    “Why would you think that?” he said, such an obvious deflection that Tara didn’t even bother to retort.
    “I was...shifting in my sleep, wasn’t I?” she asked. “Trying to, I mean. I kept dreaming that I was a panther again. Really a panther. Not like the panther was in my head with me but that I’d become her. It,” she corrected, wanting to distance herself from the lingering shadows of her nightmares.
    “You didn’t shift. That’s what’s important,” Chay said.
    She could feel his voice in the rumble in his chest against her body. Her naked body. The intimacy of