Shadow Touched: A Paranormal Vampire Romance (A Touch of Vampire Book 1) by Becky Moynihan (great reads TXT) 📕

“Everything’s fine. I just need a moment to transform.”

Transform?

Oh. Oh.

I worried at my bottom lip, recalling my own semi-transformation. “Does it hurt?”

“Not anymore. Not in a long time.”

Before I could lose my courage, I said, “I want to see,” then held my breath. Yeah, we’d just shared a vulnerable moment, but something told me I was pushing my luck with this request.

Sure enough, I felt him stiffen. “I’ve never let anyone watch me transition into my true form before.”

Wow. Okay, this was serious, like stripping him of his virginity or something. Although, I doubted he was a virgin. I mean, come on. He was almost a hundred and fifty.

Still, I wasn’t giving up that easily. I turned in his arms to face him, letting him see my utter sincerity. “Please share this part of you with me. I won’t be afraid.”

His lips thinned. “I saw how you reacted to my face when I had you against the wall the night I lost control.”

“What? That’s because you were about to bite me. Lochlan, please.” Although my fingers trembled, I reached up and placed my gloved hand on his cheek. His own hand shot up to grasp mine, but he didn’t remove it.

A spark of vulnerability flickered in his eyes, so raw and open that my heart turned over for him. Overwhelmed, I dropped my gaze to his sculpted chest. But it was what I found there that wholly captured my attention.

An intricate tattoo of a rose stretched across his heart.

Not freshly-bloomed, but one that wept. Its head was drooped, its wilted petals curling at the ends. Several had broken off and were scattered across his right pectoral as if blown away by the wind.

The thorny vines twining up his arms met in the middle of his chest, viciously twisting around the rose as if to choke the very life out of it.

“Beautiful,” I breathed. “Everything about you is beautiful.”

Caught up in the moment, I lifted my other gloved hand and touched the rose. Lochlan’s whole body jerked, as if I’d plunged a dagger into his heart. Startled, I yanked both my hands away. “I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?”

Crap. Was there a hole in my glove? They were brand new!

“No,” he said quickly, but I wasn’t convinced, not when he was struggling to breathe. “You didn’t hurt me,” he continued when I wrung my hands. “Your touch was simply . . . unexpected.”

Still not convinced, I stood and stepped away. “I-I should leave.” Besides, his transformation was obviously a personal matter for him. I had no right to—

“You can stay,” he said, standing as well.

My heart knocked against my ribs at those three words. His willingness to let me watch rendered me speechless. Something between us had shifted once again. The newness scared and excited me, quickening my pulse. I merely nodded, shuffling back a few steps to give him space. Moments later, it happened.

The change began at his fingertips, lengthening his nails to sharp black claws. A chill shivered up my spine at the sight, but I didn’t move. His skin darkened next, the color bleeding from olive to inky black. The darkness raced up his arms and torso, swallowing the tattoo. His face was the last to fall into shadow, to change into something otherworldly. Beastly, even. His skin and hair became the same hue, and his eyes . . .

A blazing red erupted from their depths, completing the transformation.

When it was finished, I waited for the swirling shadows to envelop him. To hide the wicked fangs I knew were lurking behind his lips. But they never came.

He stepped toward me, and I immediately felt the cold presence of his shadow self. When I stayed where I was, tipping my head back as he drew closer, he said, “This doesn’t strike fear into your heart?”

As I caught the barest peek of fang, a tremor shook me. Not from fear, but something else entirely. With his dark, imposing form towering over me, I should be running. I should be terrified and screaming. But all I did was stare at him and say, “I don’t know. Should it?”

Silence fell, the only sound an occasional bird call.

Then he blinked and slowly shook his head. “In all my years, I’ve never met anyone like you, McKenna Belmont. I didn’t think it possible for someone like you to exist.”

Any reply I would have had faded as his expression transformed to one of bewildered awe. Witnessing a being so fierce and powerful look at me that way snatched the air from my lungs.

He turned then, allowing me a moment to catch my breath. He bent to pick up his discarded clothing, but that wasn’t all, I realized with a start. That wasn’t freaking all.

He had my sketchpad in his clawed grip.

I lurched forward and swiped for it, but he easily dodged the attempt. “Lochlan, don’t,” I warned as he flipped it open. He froze, and I knew without a doubt which drawing he’d found. My face flamed, but I made another attempt and he let me snatch the sketchpad away this time. I tucked the newest drawing of him close to my chest and dropped my gaze.

“It’s a good likeness,” he said after a painful moment of silence. When I didn’t respond, he added, “You have a lot of talent, McKenna. You should be proud of your work.”

I peeked at his face, barely able to pick out his features in the growing darkness. At the soft expression there, butterflies erupted in my stomach. “Thanks.”

Without warning, he blurred forward and swept me off my feet. His arms tightened around me as I gaped up at him, wholly unprepared when he said, “I’ll pose for you whenever you’d like. But next time, just ask. It took me a while to figure out what you were doing back there.”

My gasp of utter mortification was lost to the wind as he sped us up the mountain.

26

The sexual tension between us slowly returned with the sun’s departure.