Escape wouldn’t be that hard. All she had to do was hit the old logging road and head to the county road several miles away.
She could flag a car down, get a ride to the nearest phone and call her father. He wouldn’t have left her in the Breeds’ care if he had known the truth. And she knew Kiowa was desperate to keep that truth hidden until he could convince her to accept the mating as it stood. She snorted at that as she sprinted past the clearing at the back of the house and headed into the tree line. Nature could get as ugly as it wanted to. Amanda hadn’t chosen Kiowa, and having the choice forced on her wasn’t her idea of a perfect relationship.
There had to be a way to cure it. A way to make the heat go away and give her a chance to decide for herself the man she wanted.
Would she have chosen Kiowa if she had a choice? Her body screamed yes, her heart ached. Love didn’t come in a day, did it? No matter what she had read or how she had fantasized, she knew reality was a different matter entirely. Kiowa was a loner, a Coyote Breed, bred to manipulate and to deceive. But didn’t humans, whether Breed or not, do those very same things?
Confusion was a morass of thoughts and feelings inside her head that she couldn’t make sense of. Couldn’t control. Fear was as overriding as the building arousal, and safety could only be found in the normal. She needed to go home. She had to talk to Alexander. As coldly furious as he would get, he would help her.
She stumbled through the forest, the long flannel shirt she wore snagging on the brush she passed. The jeans and sneakers protected her from the chill in the air, but nothing could protect her from the internal heat. It was building. She had prayed that by separating herself from Kiowa and the scent that seemed to fill the cabin that she could survive the need.
She would survive it, she told herself fiercely. All she had to do was get home. Clouds moved slowly over the night sky, dimming the moonlight and increasing the darkness of the forest. Dammit, she hated the dark. This was why she lived in the city rather than her father’s estate in upper Pennsylvania.
It wasn’t that she was scared of the dark; she just didn’t like it. It was filled with sounds she couldn’t identify, sounds that sent chills up her spine and made her think of every horror movie Alexander had ever dared her to watch.
The scream of a cat, a big cat, echoed through the mountain now. She paused, breathing roughly, her eyes wide as she attempted to see through the darkness. Okay, what was it Kiowa said? If you didn’t smell like a cat, they would eat you.
Oh God. This was just great. Wild wolves and big cats, a mating heat that was making her crazy and God only knew what else was coming. She didn’t need any of this. She moved faster, no longer worrying about silence or stealth. What the hell was the point?
“Kane, we have unauthorized movement in Sector Three C,” the female Breed communications expert, Tamber, reported quietly as Kane and Kiowa worked on the quirky program they were trying to install to intercept web traffic from blood supremacist members.
Kiowa’s head came up, his eyes narrowing. Three C was the area the small cabin he and Amanda were using was located.
“There’s no electronic indicator and the cats are heading that way.”
“Fuck!” Kiowa came quickly to his feet. “It’s Amanda. Call them back.”
He should have known her easy capitulation earlier that night had been no more than a ruse. He had smelled her fury, her sense of betrayal at his refusal to allow the tests or to explain why. How was he supposed to tell her that the sight of her enduring such pain stripped him of pride and nearly brought tears to his eyes? That his chest had tightened and rage like nothing he had never known had filled his mind?
“Have Dawn’s unit intercept,” Kane ordered quickly. “We’re heading there now.”
He threw Kiowa one of the comm units they used as he attached his own to his ear.
“Dawn is moving to intercept, Cabal and Tanner are joining for animal control. The cats have been restless, Kane. They might not obey standard commands,” the young female Breed at the communications table reported.
“Have Merc ready the cycles,” he snapped back at her. “We’re heading out.”
Kiowa tensed as he followed Kane at a run, fury building in his mind with each damned second. Damn her, he hadn’t expected her to run. How had she had the energy to run?
“The cycles will make quick work of the distance,” Kane yelled as they approached the sound of powerful motors revving inside a metal shed on the other side of the compound.
“I’m going to beat her,” Kiowa muttered. “Dammit to hell. I warned her.”
“Goddammit, Kiowa,” Kane cursed as they burst into the well lit shed, the wide doors shoved open.
“How easy do you think this is on her? We should have expected it.”
But they hadn’t, and because of his lack of foresight, Amanda was in danger. They jumped on the readied, powerful little cycles. Built for speed and mountain runs, the motorcycles were specially designed by Mercury, the towering lion breed who oversaw their care like a mother hen. They shot from the shed at full throttle, spinning recklessly as they took a sharp turn around the driveway that led to the shed and headed up the graveled road into the mountain.
“She’s made it more than a mile from the cabin,” Kane yelled into the comm link. “Heading for the main road. Cats are moving in fast so let’s make this quick.”
The big cats were getting closer. She could hear their throttled screams echoing around her as though calling out to each other, working in coordination to track her down. Amanda was running, stumbling over brush and logs as she fought to keep from falling and rolling down the mountain. God only knew what lay at the bottom of some of the ravines she had detected. She was fighting to breathe as fear raced through her body and her own weakness slapped her in the face. Surely it would have been easier to steal a cell phone. She wouldn’t be eaten at any rate. She tripped over something. Her own feet maybe as another savage feline scream sounded behind her. Landing on her stomach, she struggled to get back to her feet, coming to her knees and then eyeball to eyeball with the biggest meanest-looking lion she had ever laid her eyes on. He roared. Opened his powerful jaws, displaying a mouthful of razorsharp teeth and roared right in her face.
“I taste really bad,” she snapped, too scared to try to move as he leveled that eerie amber stare at her.
“And I don’t have any meat on my bones. Dad is always telling me I’m too damned skinny… I bet rabbits taste really good…” she whimpered. “Oh God, go find a rabbit.”
He growled, lifting his lip and displaying the brutal teeth at the side of his mouth. His head was huge, the thick mane that grew from the back of it indicating a mature, able creature in his prime.