Once she made the decision, she moved fast. They were under attack, and it didn’t feel the same as the other attacks. This was a well-thought-out battle plan. Mitya had said his father wanted to kill him as well as his cousins. Lazar seemed most likely to have orchestrated the explosion. She peered out the window cautiously, but it didn’t seem as if anyone was close. She opened the door very slowly, giving herself just enough room to slip out.
Need you, Jewel, she whispered to the leopard as she crouched just outside the door.
She felt the leopard move closer to the surface. Heat banded. Her hair snapped and cracked. She used the information the leopard was helping her gather. A man was very close to her, facing toward the great room. He was definitely leopard. Jewel wrinkled her nose in contempt.
Ania moved farther back into the shadows as she crept through the garden toward the side of the house. The wraparound porch had a low-hanging roof. The moment she was certain she wouldn’t draw attention to herself through movement, she slung the rifle around her neck and jumped for the porch. She caught the edge, slipped and dug her fingers in deep. Her hands had curved and long, wicked claws had sprung free, scrambling for purchase on the unfamiliar surface.
She swung there for a moment, heart in her throat, waiting for a hundred bullets to strike her. Swallowing fear, she pulled herself up, using a leopard’s strength to swing her legs onto the rooftop. Once there, she lay flat and listened to her wild heartbeat. Mitya would come for her. She had no doubt that Sevastyan would come too. She just had to hold on. Hide. That was the sane thing to do.
Ania crawled across the roof to the next story jutting up into the sky. She needed to keep going upward. She eased her body slowly up the roof toward the ridgepole. Movement drew the eye, and the intruders were leopard. She didn’t want anyone to spot her.
* * *
• • •
MITYA and Sevastyan exchanged a long look of total comprehension. It was impossible not to inhale and smell the female leopard in heat. Every single one of Lazar’s leopards would catch that scent as well. The two men threw caution to the wind and openly hurried toward the kitchen door leading outside. Sevastyan had taken two steps when a bullet whined through the glass, shattering it and lodging across the room in a wooden panel of the wall.
Kiriil flung himself at Mitya, tackling him, bringing him down, while Sevastyan and Josue hit the floor too. The four did a hasty crab-walk to the safety of the island where they sat for a minute, breathing hard, getting the adrenaline under control. All four had removed their shoes and all unnecessary clothing in preparation for shifting. What was left could be removed fast. Shirts tore off and jeans stripped down easily. Their feet didn’t like the debris the bombs had left behind, and none of them wanted to be in the great room where the tear gas had gone off. That would soak into their bare feet and burn like hell.
“You’re going to get everyone killed, Mitya,” Lazar’s voice intoned. “You know I like a good bloodbath. Just walk out here and give yourself up. You know you have no chance. Be a man for once. Don’t go running, curling your tail between your legs to hide the fact that you don’t have any balls.”
“I’ve heard that same speech dozens of times but with different names inserted,” Mitya whispered to Sevastyan, Kiriil and Josue. “He can’t even be bothered to get new material.”
“Is that slut we all smell yours, Mitya? Or is she Fyodor’s? She ran to us, wanting real men—not the poor substitutes she has here. She’s begging for real men to give it to her. We’ll bring her into the house, and you can watch as we all use her the way she’s meant to be used. She’s in heat, a real whore, willing and eager to please in the hopes that we’ll relieve some of that burn for her.”
Mitya had heard the crap his father often spouted, especially about women. How they were only good for fucking. How he would command them to do anything he wanted, and he often gave them to his men and watched them get fucked to death. That was his favorite, he’d declared, a woman dying of the very