And Scheme prayed for forgiveness. She sent the prayer winging to heaven and begged for protection. Not for herself.
“I know where the first Leo is,” she whispered painfully.
It was a secret she had sworn to herself she would never reveal. If the Leo wanted to reveal himself, then that was his business. It wasn’t her place to do so. No one else knew the secret; it was information she had destroyed long ago. It was information she had thought she would die before revealing.
“Shut up, Scheme!” David suddenly cried out. “Daddy’s going to be pissed.”
Tamber tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled. Hard.
“You’re lying,” she snarled.
“Breeds can smell a lie, Tamber,” she reminded her harshly. “You know I’m not lying.”
“Then you’ll just have to live. I’ll take you both.” She leveled the gun at Scheme. “Move.”
Scheme shook her head. “It’s not going to happen. Let David go and I’ll come with you. But I’m not moving as long as you have him. He’d be better off dead than with the general. And if you kill him, you’ll have to kill me.”
Her gaze flickered with indecision.
“The first Leo and his mate, Tamber. They’re both still alive.”
Her eyes gleamed.
“Let David go.”
She loosened her hold as she waved the gun to indicate that Scheme should move back.
David jerked away from her.
“Man, Daddy is going to be so mad at you. He’s going to roar,” he said and sighed, stumbling.
“David, get down the mountain,” Scheme ordered harshly. “Now. Go.”
He stumbled again, righted himself and started running down the track, glancing at her over his shoulder as the low, vibrating hum of a heli-jet on stealth mode began to fill the air.
“Let’s go.” Tamber jumped to her, grabbed her arm and began pulling her back up the track. “Bitch. You are so dead anyway. And I’ll just come back for him.”
A lion roared. Scheme’s gaze jerked to the side, watching as a huge, four-legged, sharp-toothed, fully grown male lion opened his mouth and roared a challenge before disappearing into the brush a second before Tamber fired.
There wasn’t a chance in hell Scheme was going any farther. She knew these lions, remembered the reports her father had received on them. They were trained to attack and kill intruders. The only time they wouldn’t attack was if the victim was on the ground, unarmed. Tamber’s bullet would hurt a hell of a lot less than those teeth. Scheme wasn’t going anywhere near that border and she wasn’t running any farther.
She shuddered before stumbling and letting herself fall to the ground. Her arms went instinctively over her head as she prayed not to feel the mercilessly large, sharp teeth of the predator.
“No, you don’t,” Tamber screamed, her foot driving into her ribs, sending shafts of agony to tear through Scheme’s body. “Get up.”
Oh God. That hurt bad enough.
Snarling, Scheme reach out, gripping Tamber’s foot before the second blow fell, struggling to stay on the ground and at the same time to keep the bitch from breaking her bones. Dammit, this was not the way that party was supposed to end tonight.
“Whore, I’ll kill you,” Tamber shrieked as she managed to kick free.
A hard punch to Scheme’s stomach came as a gunshot splintered her hearing and black agony raced through her mind. Better to die here.
CHAPTER 30
Tanner rounded the curve in the old logging road, cursing as he threw the cycle to the side and jumped off in a crouch to grab David and haul him to the side of the road, out of the way of the cycles moving in behind him.
“Get her, Uncle Tanner,” he was screaming, crying, his bruised face twisted in fear and anger as he struggled in Tanner’s arms. “Tamber’s going to kill that lady. She’s going to kill her.”