“You should go.” The words felt rough in his throat. They were the precise opposite of what he wanted to say. “Before we do something we’ll both regret.”
“I wouldn’t regret it.” He heard her draw a deep breath, as if she was bracing herself for a fight. “Hugh. I know you don’t want me as a mate.”
Oh, but he did, he did. He clenched his jaw, his chest hurting with the effort of staying silent.
“And I get it, I really do.” The bleak resignation in her voice tore his heart. “I don’t fit in your world, I have way too much baggage, I’m—I know that it could never work. I’m not asking for that.”
She’d sidled up alongside him as she spoke. Hugh stared down at the granite countertop, not daring to look at her.
Hesitantly, she put her bare hand on top of his. Hugh closed his eyes, the sweetness of the simple contact singing through every inch of his body.
“All I want is to be touched,” she whispered. “Just once. Please.”
He knew that he should pull his hand out from under hers. He knew that if he did, she would never ask again.
And the thing trembling in the air between them would be broken forever. She’d made herself utterly vulnerable, though it went against every harsh lesson life had taught her. If he pulled away now, she would never, ever trust him again.
He turned his hand palm up, lacing his fingers through hers. Gripped tight. Felt her strength in return, her hand squeezing as desperately as if once again he was the only thing stopping her from falling.
And he knew what he had to do.
“Ivy,” he said. “I need to show you my animal.”
Chapter 9
“You don’t have to do this,” Ivy protested, as Hugh drew her down the corridor. “You shouldn’t do this, Hugh. If I don’t know, then I can’t betray you.”
“I’m not worried about that.” He kept a firm hold of her hand, unlocking a door with the other. “And you need to know.”
The door swung open, revealing a set of plain wooden steps leading down into darkness. Hugh descended without hesitation, pulling her after him. Ivy clung to his hand, his fingers strong and reassuring around her own.
Her boot unexpectedly sank into something soft and springy rather than echoing from another wooden step. Ivy stumbled, only Hugh’s grip saving her from falling flat on her face. She put out a hand to catch herself, but her fingers encountered rustling leaves instead of a wall.
“What the—?” Ivy reached out again, tentatively, and felt something that she could have sworn was the rough bark of a tree. “What is this?”
A click, and the room filled with a soft blue light. It was dim and diffuse, but seemed dazzling after the pitch blackness. It illuminated the sharp planes of Hugh’s face like moonlight, silvering his cheekbones and tracing the curve of his lips. There was something vulnerable about his eyes that she’d never seen before.
“This is where I shift,” he said.
Ivy stared around. Her first impression was that they stood, impossibly, in a forest glade. A full moon glimmered through the branches overhead, riding high in a pitch-black sky speckled with distant stars. Soft spring grass rustled under her feet.
But…it was all fake.
The air was dry and sterile rather than filled with the lush green scent of growing plants. The grass underfoot was plastic. The tree trunks were real, but only fabric leaves hung motionless from their branches. The moon was just a light bulb in a paper globe shade; the stars, glowing paint.
“You shift here?” She revolved on the spot, taking in all the carefully-detailed fakery. “Why?”
“I can’t risk being seen. I can hide myself from human eyes, but other shifters would still be able to see me. So I built this. So I could pretend.” Hugh smiled his edged, bitter smile. “Pathetic, I know.”
She’d never stood in a room so permeated with sadness. The thought of him down here all alone, trying to pretend that fake grass was real and that the ceiling was full of stars…her throat closed up.
“Why?” she whispered again.
He released her hand at last. He walked to the center of the room—it only took two steps—and turned to face her.
“Because this is what I am,” he said.
He shimmered…and the sad glow of the light bulb moon washed away, replaced by a truer, softer light.