Seeing Spots (9 page)

"I do not want to know the details of your
love life," his mother said in a repressive tone, lifting a hand.
"But no, I think just repeated contact with your skin is enough. No
one has made an exhaustive study of the subject for obvious
reasons. Leopards—even shapeshifting leopards—tend to be solitary
creatures, spending most of their time with their mates and
families. And besides, it is rather difficult to obtain funding
from a university to study the topic."

"Yeah. I bet."

"Even so, over the years your father and I
have met twenty or more shapeshifters. Every one of them has
followed this pattern—one partner discovered his or her abilities
upon mating, and the other partner was…"

"Infected," Dare suggested.

"
Transformed
 at the same
time."

Kathy lifted her arms, looking bleakly at
the spots. "So now I’m a shapeshifter, just like him. And his
father."

"And me," Susan said. "In a week or so, you
will both be able to transform into leopards at will."

"A 
week
?" Dare gaped at her. "I can’t take off work for a
week!"

"Feel free to go to work, then," his mother
answered. "Maybe no one will notice your spots."

Dare scowled, annoyed by his mother’s slight
mocking tone. "There's nothing we can do to stop this? Or even to
make it go faster?"

"No," his mother answered. "Once it begins,
once you have bonded with your mate, it can’t be stopped."

"Damn." He shot an apologetic glance at
Kathy. He’d been worried from the beginning that the two of them
weren’t well matched, that they might eventually find they didn’t
have enough in common, that he might wind up brokenhearted.

He hadn't ever worried that he'd somehow
transform her into a large feline.

"Mom," he said, "don’t you think you should
have told me about this? So I could have avoided dragging Kathy
into this?"

"And what would you have done, exactly?
Avoided ever falling in love? Spent your life alone, afraid to
connect with a woman? You would probably have reacted just like
your brother. That was precisely what we were afraid of, Dare, and
that’s why we never told you."

Kathy nodded, as if that made perfect sense.
"Okay," she said briskly. "So we can't do anything to stop this,
it'll last about a week, and at the end of it we'll be able to look
either like leopards, or normal people."

"Precisely."

"Then I guess we'll be hanging out in this
house for a week," she said with a sigh.

"Kathy," he said, a little defensively, "I
didn't know..."

"Of course you didn't." She reached out and
patted his arm— his spotted arm. He realized with relief that she
wasn't angry, at least not at him. "It’s not your fault. But to
think you always claimed you were ordinary." She chuckled softly.
"I always knew you weren’t ordinary, Dare, but I never quite
suspected how unusual you were."

Despite the gentle understanding in her
voice, he lowered his head, guilt beating at him. He'd done this to
her. He hadn't meant to do it, but it was nevertheless his fault.
"Am I really worth being a shapeshifter for the rest of your life?"
he asked harshly.

Her hand closed on his bicep, squeezing him
in a gesture of reassurance.

"Absolutely," she said.

*****

When his parents had gone, she settled down
on the couch, curling her legs beneath her. She saw Darren's eyes
glimmering with lust. He stalked toward her, the spots
making him look more than ever like a big predatory cat, intent on
the hunt.

"I guess now we know why you had this
ridiculous spot obsession," she said, smiling up at
him. "Somewhere deep inside, spots mean sex to you."

"No," he answered. "They mean lifetime
bonding." He frowned a little as he sat down next to her,
putting an arm around her shoulders. "Look, Kathy, I don't like the
idea that you might be stuck with me now, just because my genes did
a weird number on your biology. If you ever want to leave..."

"I won't ever want to leave," she answered
softly, lifting her hand and twining her fingers through his.
"Maybe you haven't noticed, Dare, but I've loved you for a long
time now. I don't see that ever changing."

He leaned toward her, resting his cheek on
top of her head. "I've loved you since the first day we made love,"
he said softly. "And maybe even before that. I don't see that
changing, either."

"Okay, then. We're cool."

He nuzzled the top of her head. "We're more
than just cool. We're spotted."

"And I suppose you want to make love to me
now that I'm decorated like the sheets, and the lampshade, and the
china..."

"It looks good on you,
Kathy. It looks really, 
really 
good."

"Enjoy it while it lasts, you silly man. I
don't know if we'll be able to do a partial transformation and have
spotted skin with human bodies once the whole process is complete.
And if you think you're getting wild kitty sex once we're leopards,
think again. I'm not that kind of a pussy."

He uttered the deep, happy
laugh that she loved to hear. "I agree," he said, holding her
tighter against his chest. "No kitty sex. I'm perfectly happy with
the regular kind. But I have to admit... 
this 
is kind of a dream come
true. Sex with a spotted Kathy has been a fantasy of mine for quite
a while now."

"You have weird fantasies, you know
that?"

He laughed softly, cuddling her closer.

"Weird as they might be… they’ve never been
as weird as real life turned out to be."

Epilogue

Three years later

Any other woman, coming home to discover her
six-month-old baby sleeping between an enormous leopard’s paws,
would have screeched in horror. Kathy merely smiled as she carried
in the groceries, a bag on either hip.

"How did you two manage without me?"

The huge leopard stood up, gently removing
its paws from around the baby without awakening her. It stretched
luxuriously, and somewhere in the middle of the stretch it
transformed into her husband.

"Pretty good," he said, smiling back at her.
"I told you we could get along without you for an hour or so."

"I really needed the break. Thanks." She
headed for the kitchen. He pulled on his clothes, then gently
lifted the baby and placed her into the playpen. She didn’t
awaken.

Dare walked into the kitchen behind Kathy,
and started putting groceries away without being asked. She had to
chuckle at how domestic the two of them were, despite the apparent
fierceness of their other forms. Once or twice a week, they left
the baby with Dare's parents and headed out to the nearby state
park, where they could change into their leopard forms and run free
through dense woods without too much danger of being discovered.
But although some shapeshifters liked to hunt, the two of them had
never been able to bring themselves to pursue the native prey,
white-tailed deer.

They’d discussed it, and agreed that they
preferred steaks on the grill.

"So," Dare said in a moment, shoving a
package of frozen waffles into the freezer. "That about does it for
the refrigerated stuff. How about we let the canned goods sit here
for a while, and take advantage of the unnatural peace and
quiet?"

"Dare." She rolled her
eyes. "Do you 
ever
 think about anything else?"

"Where you’re
concerned? Rarely." He grinned. "Come on, Kathy. It’s not
like we get a lot of time to ourselves any more."

She chuckled. "I remember when you worried
about us only doing it five times a day. Now we’re lucky to get it
once a week."

"And this is the perfect time to schedule it
in for this week."

"I suppose you’re right." She smiled up at
him. "You know, Dare, right now she thinks you’re a big, fuzzy
stuffed animal, but when she gets a little older, you aren’t going
to be able to transform in front of her that way. Neither am I. We
don’t need her chattering to the neighbors about having leopards
for parents."

"But we’ll tell her eventually, right?"

"Definitely. We won’t
do it the way your parents did, and wait until she’s already
transformed. She needs to know it could
happen, 
before
 she and her boyfriend come down with a case of the
spots."

"Boyfriend." He froze, as if stricken
into stone at the thought. She giggled, and poked him in the
ribs.

"Don’t go all
protective daddy on me, Dare. It’ll be quite a few years
before we have to worry about her dating. And who knows? She might
not even inherit the shapeshifter thing. She might be
perfectly… 
ordinary
."

"Our
daughter? Ordinary? Never."

She laughed at the pride in his voice. Dare
doted on his daughter to a ludicrous degree. "Anyway, it’ll be a
long time before you have to worry about boys."

"Still. The thought of her dating…" He
shuddered, then shook it off and smiled. "Oh, well. If any of her
boyfriends get out of hand, I’ll just let them see my leopard
form."

"Better than keeping a shotgun over the
mantel," she agreed. She reached out and took his hand. "I believe
you wanted something?"

He looked down at her, his eyes going
smoky.

"I want you," he said. "Just like I always
do."

The dark longing in his voice sent shivers
down her spine, and the craving she always felt for him hit her
hard. She tugged on him, leading him toward their bedroom, and
their hands twined together as they walked up the stairs.

After three years, she still couldn’t
believe how lucky she was. She'd dreamed of Dare for a very long
time, and in the end he'd turned out to be even more wonderful than
she'd ever imagined.  He wasn’t just an extraordinary
man. He was an extraordinary husband.

Spots and all.

-The End-

Immense gratitude and appreciation to Jody
and Dee for taking the time to go over the manuscript and offer
feedback!  Thanks also to all the fans who have
provided comments and support.  My deepest appreciation
to my children, who have (mostly) learned not to come into my
office when I'm working.  And finally, thanks go to
Electric Blue Impulse, one of my Aussies, who is a devoted (and
extremely fuzzy) footwarmer when I work at the computer.

I'm an author of romance who writes, or
tries to, around plenty of distractions. I have four kids ranging
from six to sixteen, and two young and energetic Australian
shepherds.

My first book (a colonial
Virginia romance entitled 
The Light
in the Darkness
) was published by Bantam
in 1998. A few years later, I started writing ebooks. Overall, I've
published fourteen novels and novellas, ranging from historicals to
sci-fi romance to contemporaries. I've been nominated for two
Romantic Times awards, and have won an EPIC award (as well as
finaling six times). You can visit me at
www.ellenfisherromance.com.