He ordered the lasagne, along with a carafe of wine to share between them - nothing too fancy or expensive, but tasty just the same. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," he assured her once the waitress had departed, leaving them alone once again.

"It's not that," Demeter assured him. "I was very lucky, in a way. I was sold to raise money so that the pack could build a dwelling on their land, because they'd decided they needed human mates. It's all to do with bloodlines and such. The man who bought me was a good man. He didn't want or need a teenaged weretiger, but he brought me to the city, taught me to read and write. He treated me like a daughter. So when I was sixteen, and his enemies came for him in the night, they never left again." She shook her head, glancing down at her hands. "That was when I went to Earth. I had to get away, before their people came looking for the little girl who had killed their best because they hurt her owner."

It was a lot to take in, even for a Rhy'Din native. Tragic stories were a dime a dozen in Rhy'Din, and she knew very well that he had suffered tragedy of his own, but this wasn't about him or anyone else - it was about her. "What about now?" he asked, lowering his voice. "Are they still looking for you now?" If they were going to go beyond a first date, he needed to know.

She shook her head, smiling faintly. "No, they're not," she assured him softly. "He didn't die, although I didn't know that for a long time. He used the reputation I had given him to gather support and destroy the ones who wanted him gone. Then he sold his business to the first pirate he could find who wanted it, and retired to a cabin outside the city. No one bothers him - weres, because they know my scent, and his human enemies, because they think he's a were." She chuckled, shaking her head in amusement. "He does a much better impression of being intimidating than I do."

"Why did he buy you? Who is he" Why does he have enemies?" Neville asked, unsure if he had any right to ask, but unable to stop himself from asking. He had a feeling there was more to her story than she'd told him, but he wasn't sure what it was. "Sorry," he apologized suddenly, dropping his gaze to the table. "I don't mean to pry."

She smiled, reaching out to touch his hand. "I told you to ask, if you had any questions," she reminded him. "I have nothing to hide. He was a pirate, a very successful one, but he had started to venture into merchant shipping, rather than merchant attacking, when he bought me. He never told me why, but he was friends with the pack leaders. I assumed it was a favor to them; his cabin is on their land now, after all."

"And you keep in touch?" he asked, assuming she did, from what she'd told him so far. It seemed the man - whoever he was - was something of a father figure to her, and he couldn't very well deny her that. "I'm just trying to understand."

"I know," she promised gently. "I have a somewhat convoluted history. His name is Roland De Vere, and as far as I know, he was notorious for a while. But he's a good man, and he gave me the skills that I needed. He taught me to be confident in my own skin, to value learning and advancement. I've never called him father, but I visit, from time to time. I have to get permission from the Lycan Alphas to enter their territory when I do, so it isn't very often."

"I see," he said, though he was only just starting to see, starting to understand that he had only seen, only known one layer of this woman. She was so much more than what she'd seemed. She had struggled with things he could only imagine. She had killed to protect a man she thought of as a father. She was as dangerous as she was beautiful, and she could have anyone that she wanted. It still begged the question ....why him' How did he fit into her world" What did she want' What did she hope for" But those were questions he wasn't sure he was ready to ask yet.

She watched him for a long moment, barely aware as the wine was brought to them and poured out. "What are you thinking?" she asked curiously. "You have such an inscrutable expression sometimes, I don't know how you have reacted to what I've said. It makes me nervous. The last thing I want to do is chase you away."

He shrugged, shaking the cobwebs from his head. "It's not every day you find out the woman you ....The woman you care about is, you know ..." Maybe she didn't know. It wasn't the fact that she was a weretiger at all. "I'm just trying to wrap my head around and figure out where I fit in. That's all."

"Where you fit?" Demi considered that for a moment. "Have you ever had a gut instinct about someone?" she asked him thoughtfully. "Have you ever looked someone in the eye for the first time and known they would be a part of your life for years to come" Part of me is a wild thing; I act on my instincts. And my instincts tell me that ....there are now two men for whom I would kill, if I had to, where before there was only one. But you are not a father to me, Neville. There's something more profound between us."

"Yes, I have," he replied, feeling a little hurt that she would ask him such a question knowing about his past the way she did. "Twice, actually." He didn't bother to explain that further. She would know that once had been with his late wife, his Nellie, but he'd said nothing of another. "But I don't want to lose someone else. I don't want to lose you the way I lost ....her. And I need to know, Demeter. I need to know where I fit in."

She cleared her throat, glancing about the restaurant for a moment as she gathered her thoughts. What she had to tell him in answer to his query was not something he would immediately understand, she thought, but it was the only honest answer to his question. It also made her wildly vulnerable to him, and that was a frightening thought.

"You and I have known one another for almost four months now," she said softly. "You have trusted me with more than I ever expected, and in your words, I have discovered a man who touches me in a way I cannot truly describe. Truthfully, I should have stopped being your doctor long before now. I should have stopped when ....when I realized that what I want is also what the wildness in me wants. You are the only man who has ever touched me in this way, and I knew from the first day we met that this is what I wanted ....If you would have me, I would be your mate."

He'd thought of this as a simple date - a first date, a time to get better acquainted and see if there might be something more worth pursuing. Oh, certainly, he had hoped for more. He had been hoping for more for some time. He had laid awake nights thinking about her and struggling with the guilt and the betrayal those thoughts evoked in him, until he'd realized at long last that Nellie was gone and she wasn't coming back. If he ever wanted to find happiness with a woman again, he had to let her go, but to learn that this woman to whom he had opened his heart and soul and told every secret he possessed had felt this way from the beginning was almost too much for him to absorb or understand.

He thumped against the back of his chair, clearly stunned by all that she'd told, but not necessarily in a bad way. "Your mate," he echoed her words once again. Well, he'd asked. He couldn't very well fault her for being honest. "Do you just want me to ....you know ....uh, father your ..." Cubs" Children" What exactly did she want from him?

She dipped her head, hiding the hurt from him at his uninformed question. When she raised her eyes again, all trace of it was hidden away. "A mating is not about children," she told him softly. "Tigers are solitary creatures. Weretigers can spend a lifetime alone, too, but there is always a calling, an urge from the human part of us that needs more than to be self-sufficient. We don't choose mates lightly. A mate is a lifelong companion; a friend, a lover, a protector. A mate is the only being we trust with every part of ourselves. I know it is not how humans do it, but I do know that there cannot be a mating without love."

She considered him, a pained frown touching her face as she looked away, not wanting to see the moment of his rejection. "And I can see how totally scared off you are now, but the door's right there, and it won't hurt my feelings." It was an obvious lie, but offered in kindness, hoping to give him the out he seemed to need.

"Well, we have that in common, at least," she smiled faintly, taking a sip of wine to wash down her mouthful. She considered him for a long moment. "What do you do to relax, Neville?" she asked in a curious tone.

"No bodice-rippers," he teased. Whether or not he read Playboy or Penthouse in the privacy of his own apartment, he wouldn't say, but he definitely did not read Harlequin Romances. He'd picked up of his mother's up once when he'd been a teenager and had almost laughed himself silly. "Sleep," he replied with a teasing grin. "Take long walks on the beach?" he added, more question than answer.

"You don't sound certain," she chuckled softly. "I like to run, especially when my mind isn't quiet. Two legs or four, it depends on what I'm running from usually. But if I'm calm, I like to light the fire, curl up by a window, and watch the world going past."

"Running from?" he asked, brows furrowed, sensing there was something there she wasn't telling him, remembering she wasn't entirely human. Once again, he had more questions than answers, but he wasn't sure this was the time or the place, and it seemed she was trying to go slow, for his sake.

Her smile gentled as she tried to explain. "Sometimes, when I get emotional, the tiger in me needs to get out," she told him. "When I'm angry, or deeply troubled by something ....a few hours on four legs can calm me down in a way that I wouldn't be able to find. It's the wildness, I think. The freedom to roam. It doesn't happen often, and I never let myself shift in company."

"That's not something I can share with you," he told her, with just a hint of regret on his face. He wasn't sure if she was the kind of lycanthrope that could change a person with a bite or if all that was just the stuff of horror movies, but she'd said she was born that way, so he assumed not.

"No, it isn't," she agreed gently. "Not unless you choose to, and I won't ask you to make that choice. There's something very disconcerting about spending time on four legs, thinking you should be wearing three bras at once."

He lifted his brows, wondering which comment he should remark on first. She seemed to be hinting at the fact that he could be like her, if he chose to be, but then she was talking about something else, and she'd lost him. "Three bras" I'm not following."

She bit her lip, trying not to giggle as she gestured to herself. "Animals have ....more teats than humans," she tried to explain without snickering softly. "Six, to be precise." Although the mental image of a tiger wearing three lacy bras did for her ability to keep a straight face entirely.

"You mean female animals," he pointed out, smiling a little at that mental image. "Maybe you'll let me meet your tiger side someday," he said, though he didn't think he was ready for that just yet. As for being turned, he definitely wasn't ready for that.

"Well, yeah," she chuckled. "I haven't inspected any boy cats to see if they share that particular characteristic, but I'd assume not." Her smile was bright enough to crinkle her eyes as she looked at him over a forkful of her pasta. "I'd like that," she agreed, knowing her tiger was only too happy to meet him. "When you're ready. Because, you know, I have to get naked first."

He would have liked to have said he was ready already, but they both knew he wasn't. Not yet, but maybe in time. "I'll keep that in mind," he replied with a faintly embarrassed smile.

"Sorry." She offered him an apologetic smile. "Although ....I have to ask ..." She hesitated, and then just plunged straight in. "Did you look me up, after I told you I used to model?" She was curious to know what he thought, whether he liked what he'd seen. After all, if he was interested enough in her to ask her out, then surely he'd done his research.

"Uh ..." He cleared his throat, his face flushing with embarrassment, which was more than enough answer. He knew curiosity killed the cat, but what straight, red-blooded man would be able to resist looking her up" There was no question she was beautiful, but he'd only had to run across one photo of her in a lingerie catalog before giving up, feeling like a teenage boy sneaking a peek at his father's Playboy magazine. There was just something wrong about it, he thought.

Her smile softened at the acute embarrassment on his face. "I'm sorry," she apologized again. "I'm just curious. I wondered if you had, after that first session, but I never had the courage to ask. I know I don't dress all that provocatively these days."

"It didn't seem right to be looking at photos of my therapist in her underwear," he admitted, the blush fading a little. What was it about her that kept doing that to him' "I wish I could return the favor, but I don't look that good in shorts," he teased back, proving he did have a sense of humor.

"No, you probably look much better out of them," she countered, just as teasing as he was. Sadly, now she knew how to make him blush. He was in for a rough ride if he didn't start fighting back a little.

"I'm not so sure about that," he replied, fighting the blush, and picking up his glass for a deep swallow of his wine. "So, um ....Tell me how you ended up becoming a psychiatrist."

She giggled softly, not at all repentant for making him blush and squirm a little more. "Well, I went to Earth when I was sixteen, I told you that," she said, shrugging. "I got lucky; I landed in America, in just the right place and time to be picked up and offered a modeling contract. I was popular, so I worked hard, played harder, earned a silly amount of money before I was twenty, and then realized that I really didn't want to spend my life just being the pretty idiot on someone's arm, parading around in my underwear. I wanted to help people. But I'm too precious to be a nurse, and too honest to be a politician. So I thought I'd try psychology. I had to fit in my learning around work - it took me seven years to get enough credits, and even voluntary work, to qualify as an accredited clinical psychologist. And the second I did, I decided to come home."

"Why?" he asked curiously. "I mean, why did you decide to come home?" He already knew why she'd left, or presumed to know, but why she'd come back was another matter. Had she come back because she wanted to help people here or because she had unfinished business or simply because Rhy'Din was home"

"This is my home," she said simply. "I won't pretend that's the only reason. At least here I'm not at the whims of the lunar cycle. On Earth, every full moon, I can't stop myself from turning, and I can't turn back until the moon is no longer full. It makes for a very disjointed sort of life. But here, where I was born" The moons might call to me, but they don't force me."

"Do you know I've lived here all my life, but I've never personally known anyone who was ....well, what you are," he admitted, apologizing in a way for his ignorance.

"There's no reason why you should have," she told him warmly. "We tend to be a very secretive bunch. You may well have known one or two, but never known they were, if that makes sense. There are a few in the city, but most that I know of make their homes outside the metropolis. When you're partly a wild thing, the wilderness calls to you, I suppose."

"Does it call to you?" he asked, curiously. If they were going to get to know each other - if they were going to be together as a couple - then he needed to know these things. It was possible there were lycans living right under his nose, but it had been a long time since he'd let anyone get close or had gotten close to anyone, so he had no real way of knowing, unless they said so.

Strange how she had plenty of questions when he was undergoing therapy, but now that their relationship had turned personal, she seemed at a loss what to say to him. Another thought struck him at her confession. If she'd never dated, did that mean she was a virgin" A beautiful woman like her" It seemed almost impossible. "Never?" he asked quietly, waiting until the waitress departed again.

She shook her head, glancing down at the cup in front of her. "Like I said ....we're a pretty secretive bunch," she explained softly. "I can't help but be honest, and being honest on Earth would have gotten me experimented on. I-I'm not a virgin, I just ....I've never been loved." She shrugged, smiling as she sipped her coffee.

He frowned a little at her confession. How did the saying go' T'was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" Or something like that. He wasn't sure how true that was, but it saddened him that someone as beautiful, as kind, as special as her had never known love. "Maybe we can change that," he told her quietly, thinking she'd be easy to love.

"Maybe." She didn't offer him any pressure to love her; indeed, she didn't seem to even expect it, just hoping quietly that he might someday. With their table cleared of all but their coffees, she could reach across to touch his hand gently. "You're a good man, Neville."

He made no attempt to pull away, glad of her touch, his fingers tangling with hers, a soft smile on his face. "I'm not sure about good, but I'm a simple man," he told her, wondering if she wouldn't find him boring. "You're a beautiful woman, Demeter, and you have a good heart," he told her in return.

"There's nothing wrong with simple," she said, tracing her fingertip over his palm before his fingers tangled with hers. Nellie had been a very lucky woman, Demi knew, to have had this man's love. "This feels awfully serious for a first date all of a sudden," she said then, hoping to avoid the awkwardness that had followed her confession earlier. "Would you like me to walk you home in the dark?"

"Are you going to offer to protect me from the creatures that lurk in the dark?" he asked, eyes twinkling with amusement. He'd lived in Rhy'Din all his life and he knew the dangers, but had always managed to avoid them.

She laughed, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. "Maybe I should wear a collar and leash so you can walk me," she teased mischievously, far too independent a character to ever submit quite that much.

"I've learned to take a few precautions," he said, though he did not say what those precautions were. "Do you want to go back to my place for a while?" he asked. "I'm not completely helpless. I can make a half-way decent cup of coffee."

Oh, how much she wanted to say yes. She couldn't silence her own inner psychologist, however, who was giving her some good advice. With a regretful smile, Demi squeezed his hand gently. "I think that might be a step too far for our first date," she said softly. "It isn't that I don't want to. But this is a first for both of us in more ways than one. I don't think we'll do any harm by taking our time."

"Fair enough," he replied, not wanting to push her on their first date. He wasn't sure he was ready for the evening to end, but maybe it was better this way - leave them something to look forward to next time. "So, when can I see you again?"

"Tomorrow?" she suggested, a soft touch of color at her cheeks giving away a tender blush at the fact that he had asked when he could see her again. "I rarely work in the evenings or at weekends, unless there's an emergency. And I'm more than happy to work around your schedule."

"Tomorrow it is, then," he told her, lifting her hand and pressing it to his lips. He wasn't sure why, but it just seemed the thing to do. He'd never considered himself much of a gentleman before, but it seemed she saw something in him he wasn't aware of.

It seemed he'd found the switch that turned Demeter Forster from confident woman into giggling teenager, but that was not a bad thing. There was no way to disguise her blush as she laughed softly at the gentlemanly gesture. "Suddenly I'm the one feeling underdressed."

"Sorry, it's been a long time since I've been on a date," he admitted, though he wasn't quite sure what he was apologizing for. He wasn't sure what had come over him, but she didn't seem to mind the kiss.

"Don't be sorry," she assured him, squeezing his hand. "You've been on more dates than I have, after all. You're the experienced one." Her smile was gentle as she said this, knowing it had the potential to poke at a sore spot.

"Not really," he replied with a chuckle. He hadn't really dated much before marrying Nellie, but she knew all that already and he didn't really want to talk about it. He didn't want Nellie to become the sore spot between them. As much as he'd loved her, she was part of his past now, and he was trying hard to move on.

"All right, then, tell me this," she challenged him, setting her cup down once again. "Is it appropriate to kiss on the first date?" Brown eyes twinkled at him, daring an honest answer from him.

"We're both adults, Demi," Neville pointed out. "I think we're old enough to decide for ourselves what we think is appropriate and what isn't," he said, not really answering her question. He took a sip of his coffee, not really looking like he was in any big hurry to leave.

"Mmm, very sneaky," she chuffed her soft laugh. "I like it." Glancing outside, she bit her lip. She wasn't really ready for the date to end, but at the same time, she didn't really like the formality of sitting at a dinner table just to talk. "Would you like to walk with me for a while?"

"If you like, sure," he replied, a soft smile on his face. There wasn't much he'd deny where she was concerned, though he was trying to take things slow.

"Shall we, then?" she asked, trying to keep things at his pace, despite the part of her that really would like to take him home and do carnal things to him all night. That was definitely not taking things slowly.

"Sure," he said, waving to the waitress for the bill. Once that was taken care of, he moved to his feet to help her with her chair and her coat once again, ever the gentleman, even if he didn't realize it.

Whether he knew it or not, he was a gentleman, and in Demi's world, they were a dying breed. Every mannerism was touching in its way, and she found herself wanting to impress him with homely skills - like cooking. Outside the restaurant, she shyly curled her arm through his as they walked, surprised by how comfortable it was.

For the first time since Nellie had died, Neville found himself feeling happy and without grief, his memories of Nellie safe in his heart, but no longer causing him pain or regret. He knew it wasn't just the therapy that had helped him heal, but the knowledge that he didn't have to be lonely, that he didn't have to spend the rest of his life alone. "Can I ask you something?" he said, as they walked arm-in-arm, a little afraid to ask her, but needing to know.