MINE TO POSSESS

“What?” She looked at him, face serene in a way he’d never before seen. Tally had too much energy, too much emotion, to ever be that quiet.

His beast sniffed at her, found something terribly wrong. “Talin, who am I?”

“Clay,” she said, but didn’t tug at his hand, didn’t display any of the reactions he’d already come to expect from her. Her calm was eerie, unnatural. “Can I go now?”

He frowned at the childlike question. Her tone had shifted, as had her rhythm. She sounded like a six-year-old version of herself. “Tally, sweetheart, are you in there?”

“ ’Course I am, silly.” She smiled and it was that sweet, innocent Tally smile. The one she had stopped smiling a very long time ago. “I want my hot chocolate.”

“Go sit on those cushions. I’ll bring it to you.”

She followed his gaze to the other end of the room. “Is this your clubhouse?”

“Yeah.” Cold fear squeezed his heart. “Go on, baby.”

Smiling with absolute trust, she went to a cushion and sat, one of her legs tucked under her. He picked up her drink and took it to her. She accepted it with a smile. “Yum. Did ya learn to make hot choccie, Clay?”

His rational mind noted that her enunciation and syntax were also regressing, but all he could see was the look in her eyes. He’d seen that look before, those eyes. This was Tally as she had been over twenty years ago. Raw terror made the leopard pace in bewildered circles inside his mind.

“You made it, Tally,” he said, gathering every ounce of tenderness he possessed in an effort to be gentle for her. “Don’t you remember?”

She frowned at him. “No, silly! Not allowed—” Her eyes glazed over. She took a sip of hot chocolate, then … nothing. She didn’t move. If he hadn’t been able to see her breathing, he wouldn’t have known she was alive.

“Tally?” He touched her cheek. No response. Desperate, the leopard starting to panic, he cupped her face. “Tally, wake up!” The last word was a growl.

She blinked. Then again, as if it took great effort. Her hands started to shake. Grabbing the mug before she dropped it, he put it to the side. “Tally, damn it, you come back to me right this second.”

Lines appeared on her brow. “Don’t … give … me orders.” She shook her head, reminding him of a kitten shaking off wet. “Clay?”

“I’m here.” He wanted to hold her but was terrified of her reaction. “I’m right here.”

Her eyes were scared when she looked at him. “How did I get here? I was at the counter.” Panic edged her words, jagged shards that bit into his skin.

“Something happened.” He shifted position, sitting down in front of her with his legs bent at the knees, effectively bracketing her curled-up body.

“An episode?” She reached up as if to push back her hair, stopped, curled her hand into a fist, and pressed it to her stomach. “What did I do?”

“Do you remember what we were talking about?”

A pause, then a red flush high on her cheeks. “We didn’t—” Her tone was reedy.

“No!” he said immediately. “No, baby. It’s only been two or three minutes at most. Look, your chocolate is still hot.” He pushed the mug into her hands, needing to do something to get that anguished look off her face.

She closed her fingers around it, sighing in relief. “Sometimes I do things when I’m—” Her face scarred over with the most cruel pain. “Sometimes I wake up in strange rooms. Then I have to go to the clinics and make sure my vaccinations are all up-to-date, and the doctors look at me like I’m a whore.” The last word was a broken whisper.

Protective fury clawed at his vocal chords. He fought back the roar by focusing on Tally. “You’re safe here. From that kind of abuse at least.” Her hurt, lost look was tearing his heart to pieces, the leopard shuddering in pain as the man fought to find the tenderness she needed. “Tell me you know that, baby.”

A jerky nod. “I just get so scared because I wake up and there’s this black gap where my memory should be. Please—tell me what I did so I don’t have to imagine.”

“Nothing so bad. You talked like a kid.”

That seemed to startle her. “What?”

“You sounded like you were six-years-old.”

“Something bad happened that year.” Her voice dropped, became a whisper.

He swallowed the leopard’s scream of rage—if Tally could live through it, then he could damn well hear it. Because no matter what she said, he’d failed her then. “Have you had this kind of regression before?”

She shook her head. “Not that I know of. One of the specialists had me wear a tracker when the episodes started getting bad. Most of the time—” She swallowed and drank some of her chocolate. “It’s sexual. Most of the time it’s sexual. Not always sex but acting out. Acting different. Dressing different.”

His claws pushed out slowly through his skin. He had to force them to retract. “Is that why all those men?”

Her face was sad. “Don’t try and make me innocent again. I’m not. I never was.”