He was one handsome creature, Gray had to give him that. The lush black hair stuck to a face with distinctly masculine features. Shadow had a square jaw, large lips that would have been kissable if Gray had met him under different circumstances, and a nose with a slightly crooked tip, which made him perfectly imperfect. But those eyes? They freaked Gray out more than the proof of Shadow being a ‘he’ being right in front of him, between spread thighs.
But despite his new handsome face and the body of a fitness model, Shadow made a pitiful sight. Shivering in the sand, he gasped for air time and time again, as if he kept forgetting that he needed to breathe.
“I know him,” Elliot whispered all of a sudden. “I’ve seen a sketch of him in Fane’s family documents at the museum. He’s… I mean… the bones must have been the poor footman’s. He’d disappeared shortly before Fane’s father died. Oh, my God! Do you remember what happened back then?” He tried to approach the trembling body, but this time Knight firmly held him in place.
Shadow struggled to all fours, his body rocking back and forth. “More bones,” he uttered with a distinctly British accent. “There were more bones. More arms.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Gray asked when his stress levels slowly dipped. He had nothing to fear from this man who was about as menacing as a large puppy.
Knight picked up the shiny thing Shadow coughed out earlier and grinned, putting it in Elliot’s hand. “For you. Looks like real gold.”
“Everything hurts,” Shadow complained from the sand, sweeping the ground with the long hair as if it were a broom. “The arms… the additional bones from the chest… they’re inside of me.”
Gray could barely understand the gibberish, but he put effort into it, because this could prove important in the future.
“Fane could have thrown in his other trophies with the footman’s body,” Elliot said quietly.
Shadow gave up crawling and curled into a ball, clutching at his stomach. “I feel so bad. So bad!”
Vars approached them with Jake, who was once again in his human form, and frowned at the sight. “We should call everyone.”
“What? No. No reason to spoil everyone’s night!” Gray said quickly and tapped Shadow’s side with the tip of his boot. “Maybe that’s just how it feels to be human?”
Shadow stilled, once more looking up at Gray with those piercing eyes. “Does it?” He scrambled back to his knees, turning his head from one person to the other. “Put me back. I want to go back!”
Vars groaned and kneeled next to him. He was by no means a small man, and yet Shadow would have towered over him, were they to face one another standing. “Where? Where does it hurt? Maybe one of the bones is broken?”
Gray shook his head. “He literally just grew muscle, skin, and hair. That’s not possible.”
Shadow curled his arms around himself and rubbed his hands all over. “My skin. My skin hurts!”
Jake took a step closer and whispered loud enough for everyone to hear. “Maybe he’s just cold. He’s naked and wet.”
“Am I? Am I cold?”
The violent shivers going through his body suggested that could be the case.
“Get up and move. You will warm up that way,” Gray said, watching Shadow roll to his knees and then attempt to stand straight.
Vars and Jake grabbed him by the arms when he lost his balance yet again, and their help finally allowed him to stop fidgeting. With the lush hair obscuring Shadow’s features, Gray’s gaze wandered down the chest dusted by black curls, all the way to where he’d half-expected to find a nest of tentacles. Instead, he saw a thick, uncut dick resting on a set of equally impressive balls.
Gray could see why Fane had been interested in this man.
“And those extra arms. Where are they?” Elliot asked, more softly than he usually cared to speak. Was everyone going mad and not seeing that this creature wasn’t human and needed no coddling?
Shadow blinked, resting his weight on Vars. “I… swallowed them.” He continued when no one said a word. “Into my body. They made me grow bigger than this body used to be.”
Gray once more assessed Shadow from head to toe. That much was true. He was indeed taller than Vars and thick with muscle. They needed to be careful, because once this creature learned how to use his strength, he would be capable of inflicting a lot of damage.
“Oh. You’re warm.” Shadow wrapped his arms around Vars’s neck, to which Jake raised his eyebrows high. But Vars didn’t seem to mind and patted the creature on the back.
“Is that what you need to feel better? Warmth?”
Shadow nodded, cuddled up to Vars like an oversized toddler. “Yes. It feels good.”
Vars gave a raspy laugh, nodding at Knight, who crossed the distance between them, already taking off his leather jacket.