"Enough!" Kylie screamed at the lions. "Both of you, stop it! Stop it or I'll get the death angels here."
The words no more than left her mouth when Kylie felt the temperature drop around her. The air in her throat felt icy. Her idle threat rang in her ears. But then she couldn't help but wonder ... Did she have the power to call forth the death angels or was this just Daniel or another ghost making their presence known at an inopportune time?
Or maybe an appropriate time.
Hadn't Daniel helped her in the past? Suddenly it didn't matter, because she saw bright orange sparkles appearing around Kevin. Perry drew back his right paw as if to attack Kevin during his morphing stage.
"Don't do it, Perry," Kylie demanded.
Perry roared as if complaining, but he came back down on his four paws. Kylie let go of his mane and dropped. Still a couple feet off the ground, she landed off balance on her feet and then fell flat on her butt.
When she looked up, there were sparkles appearing around Perry and she saw his human form take shape. With clothes, thank goodness.
He looked down at her, his eyes glowing bright yellow, and fury still filled his expression. But he wasn't bleeding. "That was stupid of you. Never, never ever get in the middle of a fight with shape-shifters. You could die."
"You're scolding me?" Kylie asked, flabbergasted that he had the nerve to reprimand her. "I wasn't the one trying to maul a fellow campmate. And I was trying to protect you." She leaned on one hip and rubbed her bruised backside.
"I didn't need protecting." His voice boomed and his gaze shot to Miranda.
Glancing back at Kevin, Kylie realized his changing process took longer than Perry's. As soon as Kevin appeared, he stepped away from Perry.
"This isn't over. We'll finish this later," Perry said to Kevin, his voice sounding more like a roar.
"Fine." Kevin stared Perry right in the eyes, and Kylie almost thought they were going to start again, but Kevin turned and walked off.
Kylie realized it took nerve to turn your back on Perry when you'd just taken a chunk out of his belly. But somehow the fact that Kevin was the one to walk away, that he never once looked at Miranda, left Kylie with little doubt which of the two held more power.
When Kevin disappeared into the woods, Kylie waited for Perry to say something to Miranda. But no one spoke. The birds in the distance started back on their song.
"Are you okay?" Miranda asked.
Kylie looked up to assure Miranda that she was fine, but then she realized that Miranda wasn't talking to her, but to Perry. Kylie shifted her gaze to him. He looked fine. Not a scratch on him. Which meant that when shape-shifters changed back into human form they healed from any injuries they'd received. And that meant Kylie had thrown herself in the middle of the fight and gotten a bruised ass for no good reason at all. She could have let them rip each other to shreds. She should have.
Just friggin' great. Still sitting on the ground, propped up on one side of her hip, she gave her backside another rub and watched as Miranda moved closer to Perry.
"Why did you do that?" Miranda sounded half honored he'd fought for her and half pissed because, well, he'd fought for her. "Tell me." She took another step toward the source of her anger.
"I felt like it," Perry growled back. Indeed, his anger became apparent in the way his body changed the moment she stepped closer. His posture hardened as if he was unable to bend. His blond hair hung scattered over his sweaty brow. His eyes were blue for a second, then changed to bright green.
He still personified the fierce appearance of an angry lion-gone was the jokester, the guy who always had something funny or sarcastic to say.
And for the first time, Kylie understood why everyone was a little frightened of him.
"You didn't do it because of me?" Miranda asked, obviously not picking up on the fury he wore like an outer skin. "Because you were jealous?"
Perry didn't answer Miranda. He just stared at her and asked his own question. "So it's true?"
"What's true?" Miranda said.
"You kissed him," Perry said. "I didn't believe him when he told me. I thought he was just trying to piss me off, but he wasn't making it up, was he? You really did it. You kissed him."
Miranda's eyes grew a tad larger. "Yes."
Silence hung in the hot morning air.
"No," she blurted out, and shook her head, sending the streaks of pink, black, and green in her hair intermingling with each movement. "I didn't kiss him. He kissed me."
"But you kissed him back," he accused.