Every possibility slipped through her mind. She stayed very still, her hand gripping the spear. She let him see it. Let him see she was afraid and agitated. He would expect that. He wouldn’t think she would be using her brain. Plotting. Planning. He reached up toward her with a slow, stealthy paw, those hooked claws inching toward Jewel’s leg.
She moved her arm and his gaze flashed to the spear. He wanted her to try it. She saw he was ready, and she pulled her arm back as if she was about to thrust it toward his face again. Instead, she shifted entirely and kicked him as hard as she could in the throat. He went sailing backward off the tree and landed almost on top of Dymka.
The large male cat had crept up, ready to drag Albert from the tree, but Ania had gotten in a very hard, very well-placed kick. Her foot throbbed and hurt, feeling as if she might have broken every bone in it, but she knew it was only a momentary pain. She hated the sight of blood on her foot, so she shifted back to her leopard form and told Jewel to start the descent from the tree.
Below them, Dymka administered the suffocating bite to the reddish-coated leopard and then instantly roared out a challenge to any other cat that dared to come near his female. Jewel clawed her way down to the ground and ran a short distance away from the tree and the dead leopard beneath it.
He rushed between the dead cats, immediately traveling back to the two he had dispatched first. He slapped the ground, sending leaves and twigs into the air as he attacked the dead leopards, roaring his hatred of them.
Then he was running back to the third cat, circling it, sending dirt and leaves over the remains in contemptuous swipes of his paw before turning to Jewel. She ran from him, heading toward the deeper trees where a stream moved through the acreage. She didn’t get far before nature took over and she rolled, stood back on her feet and looked at her mate flirtatiously.
She hurried another five or ten feet and crouched. Before she could reprimand him or send him away, Dymka was on her, his heavier body blanketing hers, his teeth sinking into her neck, deep enough to draw blood, holding her in place while he mated with her.
For the rest of the night, as they made their way back to Mitya’s estate, the two cats had rough sex every twenty or thirty minutes. It went on for hours. When they weren’t having sex, Dymka stayed close to her, rubbing along her sides and nuzzling her neck. His tongue lapped at the bite marks on her neck and she tried to soothe his battle wounds.
By the time they made it to the house, Jewel was exhausted and stumbling with the effort to walk. If it wasn’t for Dymka urging her forward, she would have just lain down and gone to sleep. As it was, when they got to the porch, she curled up into a little ball and put her head down on her paws.
Mitya shifted, his face grim, his mouth tight. “Ania, kotyonok, you need to shift for me.”
Too tired.
“I know.” He was patient. Already he was looking for Sevastyan. Furious that a shooter had nearly gotten to his woman and that three leopards his father had sent had attacked them. “You can’t sleep there. Just shift and I’ll take you inside to the bedroom.”
Ania did so, although he could see it was an effort and she didn’t do it well. She also, like him, needed a shower. In her case, probably a bath after to soak away soreness. He had work to do, but before that, he needed to care for her. The heat would go on for at least a week, and no matter what else was happening around them, neither Jewel nor Ania could be neglected.13“WE’VE got two factions coming at us,” Mitya explained. “There’s no doubt about it, although it is possible they are now working together. Lazar is making his move. He wouldn’t do it unless he was certain he had the upper hand. That means he has allies and he may have someone on the inside. We knew he was going to come after us sometime. That isn’t news. We can get back to him in a bit and decide how we’re going to handle it.”
Mitya looked around the room. These were the men he was supposed to be able to trust with his life and the lives of those he loved. He didn’t trust so easily. Fyodor, his cousin, had brought him back into the world he was most comfortable in. One of crime, deceit and treachery. Those in this room were supposed to be the ones that were solid, part of an alliance forged in hell and written in stone. Fyodor trusted each of them. Mitya . . . not so much.