Mine to Possess

“Okay.” She took a steadying breath. “A person in a fugue is on autopilot, that’s how the doctors explained it to me. They can walk, talk, even do complex things like drive, but with no conscious control.”

He wanted to hold her so bad it hurt, but he kept his distance. “What brings one on?”

She shrugged. “No one really knows definitively. For some people it’s a brain imbalance-hormonal, biological, a tumor. For others, it seems related to stress.”

“Which is it in your case?”

“I don’t know. But the more the disease progresses, the worse they are, so it’s probably biological.”

“We were fighting pretty hard, Tally.” He was disgusted at how he’d stoked the sexual heat between them when he had known it would be too much for her. But the second she had ordered him to back off, the leopard had taken over, furious and so damn possessive he couldn’t fight it. He was getting too close to the edge, becoming dangerous. So fucking dangerous. “Enough to stress anyone out.”

“Yes.” She swallowed, took another deep breath. “The doctors said it might even be a mix of things. The biological problems making me more vulnerable to the psychological-my brain is already compromised so it takes less pressure to effect a fugue.”

It was an effort to remain logical. “Were you able to isolate any triggers when you wore the trackers?”

“Not really.” She drew up her knees and rested her chin on them, looking strangely childlike. It was unsettling after the regression he’d witnessed only minutes ago. “Sometimes it’s nothing. Or it feels like nothing. I once fugued in the middle of a jet-train with people all around. I went shopping like normal, then sat in Central Park for an hour.”

“That’s all?”

“Yeah. Weird, huh?” She shook her head. “I wish all the episodes were like that. But I guess you know they’re not. Once I woke up in a bar in Harlem about to get into a taxi with two strangers.”

The red glazing his vision was starting to burn, but he knew that if he walked away from her tonight, he’d break something very fragile. “Go on.”

“Beds, sometimes I wake up in beds. Beside men I don’t know.” Tears trailed down her face. “I hate it! I hate myself! But I can’t stop it!”

“Shh.” He ran a hand over her hair, shaking with the need to hurt what had hurt her. But this disease, it mocked him, hiding in the body of this woman he would never so much as bruise.

“Sometimes the blackouts last for half a day. The longest one I’m aware of was sixteen hours.” She was crying in earnest now, deep, hiccuping sobs that made him bleed on the inside.

“Come here, Tally.” He tried to gentle his voice but that wasn’t who he was. It came out rough, almost a growl. “Come on, baby.”

She scooted a little bit closer. Carefully, he closed the gap between her body and his bent knees, one hand stroking over her hair, the other clenched into a fist so tight, he was bleeding from cuts in his palm as his claws broke through to bite into skin.

Ever since joining DarkRiver, he’d been taught to take care of the pack, to protect. He’d taken to the task like a natural, funneling all his anger and rage into something that made him feel like a better man. His packmates might find him a loner, but not one would hesitate to come to him for help. But tonight he could do nothing for the one person who mattered most to him. In spite of how badly they clashed, or how angry he was with her, she was his to protect. “Baby, I need to help you.”

“Don’t,” she whispered, “don’t treat me like a patient.” Like Isla.

He heard the words she would never say. “You give me far too much lip to be a patient. You’re Tally.” His to fight with, his to keep safe. “Do you want me to call Sascha?” He wasn’t too proud to ask the pack for help, not if it would lessen Tally’s pain. “She’s good at this kind of stuff.”

Talin bit her lower lip again, a lip already swollen from previous bites. He wanted to kiss the hurt, lick his tongue over it. The leopard couldn’t understand why he didn’t.

“I want to say no,” Talin replied even as he fought the internal battle. “I don’t know her. She’s a stranger and…well, I’m not sure what she feels about me.”

Knowing she would hate platitudes, he gave her the truth. “I didn’t smell any hint of dislike on her, and I’m damn good at picking up scents.”

“That doesn’t mean she likes me.” Talin took a deep breath and sat up straighter. “I don’t think anyone in your pack will ever like me. Look what I do to you.” Her hand brushed over his fist. “You’re bleeding.”

He released the fist and flexed his fingers, soaking in the heat of her touch. “It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last. Don’t worry about it.”

“Your pack worries about you,” she insisted. “I’m hardly bringing flowers and butterflies into your life.”

He gave her a tight smile. “I’m not sure I’d know what to do with those things anyway.” Giving in to the needs of the leopard, he cupped her cheek with his good hand. “I am who I am. They know that. If they worry, it’s because of things you can’t control.”