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horror at the gaping hole there. He wanted to scream, but no sound emerged. He died standing up, facing
Darius, his face a twisted mask of shock.
As merciless as the wind itself, Darius moved on to the next attacker. This one was young, with pitted
cheeks, scrubby mustache, and paint smeared on his face. He was breathing heavily, adrenaline pumping
through his body. His finger continually stroked the trigger of his automatic weapon. Darius moved past
him, a blur of muscle and sinew, razor-sharp talons ripping out his throat as he passed.
Some distance away a gun erupted, spouting red flame into the darkness. A man's high-pitched scream
mingled with the unearthly cry of the female leopard. Darius turned toward the sound. Several guns
spewed bullets wildly, raking the area where the sounds had come from, until an authoritative voice
several yards off to his left barked an order.
Tempest came to her feet, her first thought for Darius. Automatically she reached for him, wincing when
she felt the red haze of killing fury in his mind. Breaking contact, she sought out the cause of the cry.
Instantly she knew the female leopard was in jeopardy. Swearing beneath her breath, she tried to calm
herself enough to decide what to do. Sasha was hurt; she could feel the pain and anger in the cat as she
dragged herself through the foliage back toward the bus and her human companions.
Tempest hesitated only one second before she stuck a pistol into the waistband of her jeans, gripped the
automatic, and ran toward the trees. She sent Sasha quick reassurance that she was on the way, she
would help get the cat to safety and stop the pain.
There was another shout, much closer than she would have liked, followed by a volley of shots. Again
Tempest reached out to touch Darius's mind, terrified that he was hurt. He was in the middle of
shape-shifting, his body accommodating the muscular form of a panther even as he was leaping for a low
tree branch. He crouched above a sniper who was slithering on his belly through the vegetation. The
Sniper's gun was trained on Forest as the leopard made its approach toward another intruder, who was
firing at Sasha as the female cat retreated.
Tempest gasped aloud as she shared Darius's mind. He was utterly without mercy, emotionless, calm
and cool, relentless in his pursuit of those who threatened his family. He leapt upon the sniper, silent,
merciless, deadly. As his wicked canines sank deep into the gunman's throat, she broke away, unwilling
to witness Darius killing his adversary.
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Tempest ducked low beneath the canopy of low, sweeping branches, trying hard to be quiet and not
rustle any bushes. Petite, she was able to move easily on the narrow trails established by small animals,
but she nearly stumbled over the silent, wounded panther. Sasha was crouched motionless in the large
ferns growing beneath the trees. Tempest laid a calming hand on the cat's back and sent it waves of
reassurance as she knelt to inspect the injury.
The leopard's back right leg was coated with blood. Tempest muttered unladylike swear words beneath
her breath. The cat was too large for her to lift by herself. She wrapped an arm around its belly and lifted
just enough to allow Sasha to crawl forward. The ground was uneven, and the panther was in
tremendous pain, leaning more and more of her weight onto Tempest as she limped toward the bus.
Sasha suddenly turned her head to the left, curling her lips in a snarl of warning, then freezing into
stillness. Tempest dropped flat, eyes searching the area to her left. A man loomed up, his head turned
away from her, a gun cradled in his arms, another strapped to his shoulder. He was dressed in dark
clothing, his face smeared with black stripes. He looked like a gorilla coming out of the gathering mist.
While the night had been clear, fog was now rolling in fast, gathering into a white, eerie vapor on the
forest floor. Tempest lay against the injured panther, shaking with fear, weak from lack of food, and
already exhausted. Even the gun felt heavy in her hands. It seemed an impossible task to get the leopard
back to the comparative safety of the bus.
The man disappeared into the trees, the fog surrounding him. Tempest got to her feet, her knees
rubbery, her mouth dry. Sasha crept forward with Tempest's help. They inched their way over the
ground-a slow, painstaking process that seemed never-ending. The heavy fog was their only protection
once they emerged from the forested area to the campsite itself. Tempest sent up a silent prayer that the
thick vapor would prevent their presence from being detected.
Darius felt the disturbance ahead. He had made his way through the line of intruders, the male leopard
coming from the opposite side to meet him at the campsite. Twice Darius had used the heavy fog to wrap
a sniper in its deadly grip, choking the life out of the intruder. He had left behind no living enemy and
knew Forest had done the same. The numbers against them had been significantly reduced, Sasha
accounting for two before she was shot.
Darius was very much aware of where Tempest was at every moment and what she was doing. He had
made no attempt to stop her from reaching the cat because he would have had to force her compliance.
All the same, he was terrified for her, and the fear was nearly paralyzing him. He sensed the man rushing
out of the fog at her, his gun pointed at her head. Sasha tried to throw herself over Tempest, protecting
her at Darius's command, even as he took control of the weapon, using his mind and the eyes of the
female leopard to force the barrel back around toward the killer.
The man screamed horribly as the gun he was holding, seemingly of its own volition, turned slowly,
inexorably, toward his own heart. Even as he tried to tell his brain to stop, he felt his own finger tighten on
the trigger. Darius had been moving with preternatural speed and arrived on scene just as the man fell. He
leapt toward Tempest, slamming her into the earth. A bullet caught him high in the back of his shoulder,
burning and tearing through his body, stealing his breath.
Darius wanted to lie there a moment and rest, but the man who had succeeded in shooting him was
moving in for the kill. Putting aside pain, he focused his will on the enemy. Already, however, he was
directing the male leopard, stirring up the wind, and creating the dense fog, and he was weary now, his
great strength draining, along with his life's blood, onto the ground.
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Still, he rose up like an apparition, his body contorting, his face lengthening into a long muzzle, fangs
exploding into his mouth as the wolf surged forward and tore into the oncoming wall of a man's chest.
The enemy was so frozen with terror at the sight of something half man and half wolf, he could only gape
in horror.
Tempest had hit the ground so hard, it knocked the wind out of her. For a moment she could only lie
there, trying to collect her scattered wits. She wasn't even certain who had tackled her. It was Sasha who
prodded her into action, with her mewling, painful cries, the harsh images of torn flesh. Tempest rolled [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]