Free Roman's Gold (Underground Heat, Book 1) by Ann Gimpel Page B

doubled over and vomited into a trash can on a street corner. Spasms wracked his body. He heaved again and again until the only thing left was bile. Feeling shaky, he drew the back of a hand across his mouth and shambled toward his flat. Passersby gave him a wide berth while he hurled his guts out. Probably thought he had some horrible disease. Or he was a junkie.
    He tried not to think about anything, but images of mountain lions rose to taunt him. He saw himself mounted behind Kate, also in her cat form, thrusting into her. Ill and shaky as he was, damn if his cock didn’t twitch. What kind of sick son of a bitch am I?
    He glanced around him. Thank God it was only another half block home. It had taken nearly two hours to travel what should have taken half that time. He wanted to lock the door and never come out. Never.
    He dragged his body up the steps, dredged the key out of a pocket, and let himself inside. Feeling hollow and out of control, Devon bent over the kitchen sink to rinse the taste of sickness from his mouth. He fell into a kitchen chair, peeled a banana, and ate it. Maybe it wouldn’t come right back up. He had to eat something; he was dizzy.
    He stared at his hands. His vision blurred; they turned into paws with tawny fur and long, lethal, curved claws. He blinked and they were just hands again. He thought about trying to shift so he could develop some sort of control over what it felt like, but discarded the idea. What if he screwed up and couldn’t get back? His heartbeat sounded loud in his ears, telling him how rattled he was.
    “No.” He spoke aloud to try to calm himself. “If I try to shift, I should be in the hills. At least there are other mountain lions there. If I couldn’t find my human form again, there’d be game to hunt.”
    The banana seemed to be staying put. He ate another and put water on the stove to heat for coffee. He hated microwaves. He’d found the stove in a falling-down second hand store and wired the electrical lines in tandem to accept its two hundred twenty volt plug.
    Devon massaged his temples. There was so much he didn’t understand. He couldn’t look up the sort of things he needed to know about being a shifter on the vid feed. No privacy. Anyone could track his browsing history. His mother had two sisters, shifters like her. And his grandmother was still alive. Her shifter blood was pure. Somewhere in the back of his mind he recalled shifters lived a long time. He didn’t know exactly how long since they never talked about things like that—at least not with him.
    He spooned instant coffee and sugar into a cup and poured water over it, stirring. He pulled the anonymous wrist computer he’d purchased earlier from his vest. Lots of minutes left on it. He wondered if any of his mother’s people would talk with him—assuming he could even find them. They’d gone into hiding and moved frequently. He hadn’t seen any of them, except at his mother’s funeral, since the edict went into effect.
    Devon drank some more coffee and grimaced. Even if he could reach his aunts or grandmother, they’d probably laugh and tell him it was divine justice he’d turned into one of them. He thought about calling Kate, even tapped in her number before chickening out. He sent her a text message instead. It was easier that way. If she ignored it, he’d know…
    Well, what would I know?
    That she doesn’t want anything to do with me, he answered himself.
    Devon stared at the computer’s blank display for several minutes. His heart ached. He’d hoped she’d text back. All he’d asked was if they could talk, that he had questions.
    “Guess that answers that,” he muttered and slugged back half the cup of coffee. Caffeine would help. He waited for it to jolt him out of his funk. It didn’t happen fast enough, so he drained the rest of the cup.
    He grappled for his other wrist computer to find his aunts’ and grandmother’s numbers. He thought about who was least likely to be