Page 12 of Branding the Bat

"I should've had it two nights ago. You've been putting me off for days."

"There were complications." Trevor turned the golden vial in his fingers. In the other hand, the phone felt heavy.

"That's what you always say. Make sure I get it by seven tonight, or you'll have sharks on your tail."

The call disconnected.

Trevor sat in the quiet room and looked at the gold.

Then he packed up the machine, put the vial into a protective padded sleeve, then into his jacket pocket, and left. He had work to do.

Chapter Four

Sero stared at the bear on the television as it lumbered down to the stream and sank its paw into the current. The documentary was narrated by a man with a voice like warm honey, which was soothing, and involved animals catching fish, which was less soothing because Sero kept flinching every time the bear's paw came down. Apparently his nervous system was still recalibrating after the previous day with Trevor.

He shook his head and ate another strawberry.

It was late afternoon, over twenty-four hours after the session, and Sero was in the recovery state he'd come to think of as the afterglow, though that term felt insufficient for what his body was doing. His back was a topography of tender stripes that flared when he changed positions on the couch. His thighs ached. His cock was so oversensitive that even his loose cotton shorts were almost too much. He'd shifted twice since getting home. Once before work. Once after he got home just before sunrise. Both times the transformation had smoothed the welts slightly, knitting the surface damage while leaving the deeper ache intact. By the next day the visible marks would be gone. The memory of them would take longer.

He hadn't been able to stop thinking about it.

Not the orgasms, though those were certainly occupying a section of his brain that would probably never fully recover, but the space. The place Trevor had taken him. Sero had spent twenty-six years in a body that treated pain as background noise, and in one hour Trevor had turned the volume up until the noise became music. He hadn't known that was possible. He hadn't known there was a frequency between pain and pleasure thatonly became audible when someone pushed hard enough and precisely enough to find it.

He'd also been thinking about the way Trevor had looked at him afterward. Not the arrogance, not the cocky grin. The wonder. The genuine, unguarded amazement of a man who'd found something extraordinary and couldn't quite believe it was real. No one had ever looked at Sero like that. Not the gecko, who'd been fascinated by bats for approximately eleven days. Not the pronghorn, who'd wanted a passenger for his death-wish road trips and hadn't cared who was in the seat.

Trevor had looked at him like he was the only remarkable thing in the room.

Sero ate three more strawberries and told himself to stop being a sentimental idiot. It was sex. Very good sex, extraordinary sex, possibly, but sex. Trevor was a sadist who ran scenes at a kink club and had been with at least two other men on Halloween night alone. The odds of Sero being special to him were approximately the same as the odds of the bear on TV being a shifter.

The bear had the eyes of a creature that wanted fish. Sero changed the channel.

He found a documentary about deep-sea creatures, anglerfish, giant squid, and things that lived so far down that light itself gave up on reaching them. That was more his speed. Dark places, quiet creatures, the comfort of the deep. He pulled a blanket over his legs and settled in.

His phone buzzed on the coffee table. He glanced at it expecting the casino's scheduling bot, but it was a number he didn't recognize.

Hey. It's Trevor. Got your number from Amani. Hope that's okay. How are you feeling?

Sero stared at the message for a long time. He hadn't given Trevor his number. He hadn't expected Trevor to want it. Thefact that Trevor had gone to Amani, had specifically asked for it, made the sentimental-idiot part of his brain light up like the Strip at sunset.

He typed:Sore. Good sore. The documentary kind of evening.

Three dots appeared immediately.What are you watching?

Deep sea stuff. Anglerfish.

The ones with the light on their head that eat everything?

That's the one.

I respect that. Using a pretty light to lure prey. Very cat energy.

Sero smiled at his phone.Pretty sure anglerfish and cats have nothing in common.

We're both ambush predators who use deception and charm. I rest my case.

You're comparing yourself to a deep-sea nightmare fish.

I'm comparing myself to a SUCCESSFUL deep-sea nightmare fish. There's a difference.