Sevastyan would bring the male. They would come. Flambé rested her forehead on the floor, sobbing. Trying to control the terrible pain, trying to get on top of it.
The wait seemed like forever again. Too long. It shouldn’t take that long for him to type On my way. Right? It shouldn’t. On her hands and knees, bottom in the air, she rocked her body back and forth. This was the worst. How did anyone survive? A heat could last seven days. Longer. Was it like this the entire time? She would never last. Never. Could one just take pills and knock themselves out? Why hadn’t she thought of that earlier and why wasn’t he answering her?
Flambé, follow my instructions carefully. Get to the garage, to the Jeep and drive into the tunnel. You know where the entrance is. You have to get to me.
She stared in horror at the instructions, not believing what she was seeing. He wanted her to go to Mitya’s home in her present state, desperate for sex, where every leopard on that odious man’s estate would know she was there for Sevastyan to service her? And if she would actually do that, which she wouldn’t, how could she possibly get there? He had no idea the state she was in. It was impossible. She couldn’t even see straight, let alone drive a car.
She pressed her forehead harder into the floor. So much for believing that Sevastyan was going to ever choose her over his cousin. Why the hell did she think for one moment to believe any damn thing he said? Her body twisted. Contorted. She fell sideways onto the floor. The burn on her skin was unimaginable, unlike anything she’d ever felt. It had to stop. She had to find a way to make it stop.
The image of two male leopards rose in her mind. They were downstairs in her house right now with no knowledge of what was happening in the master bedroom. If she went down to them, there would be no way they could resist her. No way their leopards could resist Flamme. Mitya had all but told them she was nothing but a sex object to Sevastyan, a toy. For all she knew, he had told them he shared her. He shared the women in the club.
Flambé. Come to me right now. Use the tunnel. Stay in the tunnel.
For one terrible moment, she was so desperate she actually considered the idea of going down to the leopards. If she was wrong about Sevastyan, he would kill them. If she wasn’t, she would never be able to live with herself anyway. She had told him she would never go to his cousin’s home and she meant it. She wouldn’t prove him right about her either.
So your cousin can have his laugh. Fuck you both.
Grinding her teeth together, she crawled to the bed and gripped the post to pull herself back to her feet. It was impossible to think with chaos in her head, the terrible roaring and the blowtorch inside of her burning its way through her skin. She screamed and tore at own skin with her fingernails as the thing inside her lifted her skin over and over. She had to help Flamme get out or they both were going to die. Things crawled on her. Slithered over her. Licked at her. The sensations were so terrible she wanted to vomit.
War going on. I can’t leave. Get to entrance of tunnel. I’ll meet you and take care of both of you.
Flambé flung her phone away from her. She didn’t want anything more to do with him or his leopard. There was no way to get downstairs, let alone to the garage, or a car. And she’d never go to him now. Never.
She would take Flamme and disappear the moment she knew Shanty and her children were safe. She just had to get through the next few hours. Find a place to ride it out. Find a way. A bath? Hot water? What would work? There had to be something. She just needed to use her brains. Tears blinded her, streamed down her face, and she wanted to claw at her eyes because they burned too. There were no more brains in her head. Her skull was on fire.
She’d interviewed a lot of female shifters, but there had only been a total of thirteen female strawberry leopards who she had ever heard of prior to the recent find. Her mother had been