Dark Peril Page 0,22

The girls were forced to watch as each was slashed with small cuts and then larger ones, over and over, in an effort to provoke a jaguar into emerging to protect the child. One by one, when no cat emerged, in front of the others, the leader--her father--declared them worthless. The girl was murdered and her body thrown out of the house into the clearing with the others.

Then it was her turn--the last girl. The man who had sired her worked on her meticulously, using a large blade, his icy fury growing as he tried to provoke her cat into revealing itself. The pain was excruciating. He slashed her legs until she bled, until her mother pleaded and struggled and finally shifted into the form of a female jaguar only to be knocked out and restrained by the men. They'd taken her mother away, leaving Solange facing her steely eyed, merciless father. He was called Brodrick the Terrible for a reason.

He had spent hours torturing her, certain she could shift, as both her mother and he were from the most powerful line of jaguar-men. A lineage revered by the others. She had steadfastly hidden her cat from him, obeying her mother, knowing her father was evil. To survive the pain she had filled her young mind with childish thoughts of revenge. She lay for hours--days. The nights and days ran together, and the man who had fathered her had been patient, uncaring of her discomfort, making tiny cuts into her skin, poking, as if with his knife he could peel back her human skin and find her jaguar form.

She had said nothing. In the end, she hadn't cried. Not even when he grabbed her matted, bloody hair and threw her from the bed to the floor, shaking his head in disgust. "A child I sired and she's no good to anyone," he pronounced. "Truly worthless."

She saw the great claw coming at her throat to tear her open, and she hadn't flinched, hadn't tried to move out of the way, staring straight into his eyes defiantly. She would never forget the horrific pain tearing through her, the blood gushing as he tossed her body carelessly aside to lie among the dead on the blood-soaked ground.

Solange had no idea how long she lay unconscious, but when she woke, it was daylight. She was thirsty and every bone in her body felt as if it had been broken. The jaguar-men were gone and all around her were the bodies of her friends and family. She stumbled to her feet and wandered through what looked like a slaughterhouse. The ground was red and damp, and already insects swarmed over the bodies.

She had no idea why she was still alive when her throat gaped open and blood clotted, sticky and wet. She went to each body, trying to awaken them, an eight-year-old girl alone in the forest with everyone she knew and loved dead--slaughtered. Thirst drove her to the sinkhole where the underground river beneath the limestone ran. She drank and once again lay down to allow the darkness to take her. She woke to the sounds of screaming. Her heart slammed hard in her chest and terror held her frozen. Had they returned? That horrible man with his cold, dead eyes judging her worthless?

Aunt Audrey burst through the jungle, Juliette at her side, following the blood trail to the sinkhole. Tears ran down Audrey's face and Jasmine cried in her arms. She fell to her knees beside Solange, pulling her niece into her embrace, and the four of them wept endlessly for everyone they loved. The jaguar stretched, easing her weight from the injured leg, blinking while her eyes ached and her heart twisted with terrible pain. So many more deaths she couldn't prevent, and she was so tired. So very tired. How did one keep hate alive? And how could she continue to fuel the rage so that she could continue with her mission? Most of all, how did one remain completely, utterly alone?

Her cousin Jasmine was pregnant, and Juliette was mated to a Carpathian male. She might say those men were the scourge of the earth, but in truth, she was happy for Juliette. And Jasmine was now in their care. She loved Juliette and Jasmine as sisters and didn't want this life for them, yet someone had to rescue women from the monsters preying on them in the forest.

She rested her muzzle on her paws and allowed her eyes to close,