Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 141532 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141532 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Jewel sent out another call. To Ania’s horror, three males roared in answer. Jewel shivered when Dymka came to life. His answer was more than a challenge. There was a hunger for battle, a need as deep as the one driving him to mate. He welcomed the challenge and told the other males to bring it on.
12
DEEP in Jewel’s body, Ania was concerned that they had crossed private land, land owned by shifters. Shifters who worked for Bannaconni and Perez. It was possible, even probable, that the males had heard the young female calling for a mate. It would be natural for the males to answer the call of a female in heat.
Mitya. We can’t let the males fight one another.
Jewel gave a little sniff. She might be timid, but having males fight over her was a good thing, not a bad one. Ania ignored her. She reached out again to Mitya. Instead of the usual calm, steady man, in his place she found a being eager to accept the challenge the three newcomers had roared.
Mitya. Someone had to be the voice of reason. Let’s make a run for it.
There was the briefest of hesitations, and a chill went down her spine. Jewel felt it as well as she went still. Waiting. For some reason, Ania felt as if there was an axe poised just over her neck. What is it? Just tell me.
Those leopards are not local, kotyonok. They are men from my father’s lair. I recognize the voices of their leopards. In the old days, they would turn their leopards loose on Dymka to hunt him.
Ania found herself shivering violently, even buried deep inside Jewel. She knew some of Mitya’s history, because he’d shared it, but she also knew he’d whitewashed it—that it had been far worse than he’d ever portrayed.
Can we run?
I have no intention of wasting my strength on running. Dymka will defeat them. While two come at him, the third will go after Jewel.
Ania cursed herself for being so far into the frenzied heat that she hadn’t thought to put a pack containing weapons around her neck. How did they get this close without our side being tipped off?
She had to work to suppress the desire to urge Jewel to turn and run. Even if she did, with three big males coming to fight Dymka, one would easily come after her. Jewel had no experience in battle. None. She was on fire, desperate now for her mate, but the other three males would be on them in minutes.
We’ll find out. Clearly there are traitors. Jewel will have to be protected, Ania. These males are fighting machines. Killers. They will tear her apart.
Even though she’s in heat?
Dymka roared a fierce rejection of any of the three getting close to Jewel. They would kill her. These leopards are conditioned to crave blood and fighting.
Ania knew that was true. Still, Jewel was on her first life cycle. She could be anyone’s chosen mate. That could give the three males reason to pause before they decided to kill her.
Do you have any weapons in your pack, Mitya? Because, naturally, he hadn’t been so far gone that he hadn’t come without a small pack around his neck. Not the way she’d been.
A knife.
Give it to me. She poured confidence into her voice, both for herself and for Mitya.
They didn’t have a lot of time to argue and Mitya didn’t ask what she was doing, so she took control of her form, taking it back from Jewel, so that she was once again Ania. She had to get to her feet, shaky from that transformation, her body feeling as if it hadn’t quite caught up with itself. She took just enough time to note that Dymka was a huge leopard, one of the biggest she’d ever seen. That shouldn’t have surprised her, because he was a big man, but she still hadn’t expected such an intimidating animal when she was regarding him through human eyes.
The leopard was worked up, pacing back and forth, roaring out his challenge, emitting a sawing, violent call that reverberated through the valley. Ania wasn’t quite certain how close they were to the border of Eli Perez’s property, but they had to be closer to Mitya’s estate than Bannaconni’s. Night carried sound, and hopefully, because it was such a still night, the sound of the leopards challenging Dymka for Jewel carried to Bannaconni and Perez.
“Hey, Dymka,” she crooned softly. “I need the knife out of the pack around your neck.” She tried not to be afraid of the raging cat, but he was extremely intimidating up close.
Dymka turned his head and regarded her with red flames in his eyes. Her heart accelerated until she thought she might faint from sheer terror. She didn’t have a stitch on. Clothes, no matter how flimsy, felt like armor when facing a feral, savage leopard. She tried to walk toward the pacing cat with confidence. That failed when he swiped the dirt, sending up a cloud of leaves, twigs and clumps of debris. Still, she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other until she was right in front of him.