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.
Up close, he dwarfed her even though he was on four feet and she was on two. He was a big cat, and yet could move fast. She’d seen his blurring speed. That gave her confidence. Dymka and Mitya both exuded confidence. She knew they were worried about the third cat, the one that would go after Jewel. She had to find a way to handle that one. The cat would be experienced; Jewel wasn’t.
She dropped her hand in Dymka’s fur because it was impossible to resist feeling that luxurious coat. He was beautiful. Beneath that fur, she felt his roped muscles moving, rippling, sliding under his skin. Deftly, she unzipped the pack, took out the knife and impulsively dropped a kiss onto the top of the leopard’s head.
“Good luck, Dymka. You keep Mitya safe and I’ll keep Jewel safe.” She made the pact with him, needing him to make certain her chosen man didn’t get captured, hurt or die.
The large leopard licked up her face, his rough tongue rasping over her skin. Cats could remove skin from bone with their tongues, yet his was gentle, a