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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 ht to find the tenderness she needed "Tell et so scared because I wake up and there’s this black gap where my memory should be Please - tellso bad You talked like a kid"

That seemed to startle her "What?"

"You sounded like you were six-years-old"

"So bad happened that year" Her voice dropped, becae - 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 hadbad Most of the time - " She sed and drank some of her chocolate "It’s sexual Most of the ti 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 ain I’m not I never was"

"You were a child then You weren’t responsible"

"But I was responsible for my adult actions And I did sleep around You can’t erase that!" she cried "These episodes have only gotten so bad in the last year and a half The doctors call theical words to describe what just happened but ue"

He knew less than nothing on this subject, felt as if he were scra it worse was that , vicious fury God, but he was mad at her, at how she’d mistreated herself Didn’t she know that no one - not even she - had the right to hurt as his? And Talin was his, had been since that day twenty-five years ago when she’d first dared tangle with a wounded leopard "Tell rit out "Tell ave hi it by the thinnest of ins "Start hat you do know"

"Okay" She took a steadying breath "A person in a fugue is on autopilot, that’s how the doctors explained it to s like drive, but with no conscious control"

He wanted to hold her so bad it hurt, but he kept his distance "What brings one on?"

She shrugged "No one really knows definitively For soical, a tumor For others, it seems related to stress"

"Which is it in your case?"

"I don’t know But the resses, the worse they are, so it’s probably biological"

"We were fighting pretty hard, Tally" He was disgusted at how he’d stoked the sexual heat between them when he had known it would be too much for her But the second she had ordered him to back off, the leopard had taken over, furious and so da too close to the edge, becoh to stress anyone out"

"Yes" She sed, took another deep breath "The doctors said itical - my brain is already coue"

It was an effort to reers when you wore the trackers?"

"Not really" She drew up her knees and rested her chin on the after the regression he’d witnessed onlyOr it feels like nothing I once fugued in thelike normal, then sat in Central Park for an hour"

"That’s all?"

"Yeah Weird, huh?" She shook her head "I wish all the episodes were like that But I guess you know they’re not Once I woke up in a bar in Harlelazing his vision was starting to burn, but he knew that if he walked away froile "Go on"

"Beds, sometimes I wake up in beds Beside men I don’t know" Tears trailed down her face "I hate it! I hate myself! But I can’t stop it!"

"Shh" He ran a hand over her hair, shaking with the need to hurt what had hurt her But this disease, itin the body of this woman he would never so much as bruise