She pressed up against the coolness of the glass, her breasts on fire, her nipples two pinpoints of flames. She thought the cold would help, but it was so much worse, almost as if the cold were really hot wax poured over her breasts instead of cold. She cried out and jerked back, stumbling toward the bed.
She needed relief. She had to have some relief. In her closet, that huge monstrosity of a room that passed for a closet, she had a drawer where she kept a variety of feminine toys. When she had forced herself to stay away from the bars, she had used the toys to try to give herself at least a little respite. Hopefully, they would help.
Her skin lifted, a wave moving so that deep inside molten heat expanded and contracted like the inside of a volcano, as if it was breathing in and out, right before its final explosion. The feeling set every cell in her body, every nerve ending on fire. Between her legs and in her deepest core, she burned so hot she thought she’d go insane.
She could barely keep her feet as she made her way to the closet and yanked open the door. It was absurd to have such a large area to store clothes. It was bigger than her little studio. Sometimes, when she woke in the middle of the night, she thought to sneak into it and sleep, but she knew if she moved, she’d wake Sevastyan.
In any case, when she woke, she was instantly aware of his body curved around hers, large and hot. He was always hot. He took up so much space. He had a way of tucking his cock tight against her. He was mostly hard, even in his sleep, and she wanted to turn and take him in her mouth, feel the weight of him on her tongue. See how long it would take before he took control from her.
She groaned. This wasn’t the time to be thinking about his cock, not when her entire body was hurting so bad and poor Flamme was so close and was as desperate for her mate as Flambé was. Yanking several toys from the lower drawer, she stumbled back to the bed, knelt on the floor and turned on the Rabbit. She was already so slick.
She found herself chanting Sevastyan’s name and forced herself to stop. This had to work. She bent over the side of the bed and the moment she did, her breasts pushed into the duvet, the material making her cry out, and then sob. She pushed the toy into her and held it tight against her clit, her knuckles against the mattress to help hold it in place.
It was the biggest mistake of her life. A blaze of fiery agony shot through her and then pulsed and pulsed, refusing to relent even when she threw the toy across the room. Her leopard pushed closer to the surface and Flambé’s body contorted unexpectedly, her arms and legs joints cracking. Through it all, terrible sensations of electrical shocks snapped over her skin while lightning seemed to strike deep in her inflamed sex over and over, hitting hard, scoring deeper burns with each strike.
She had to call him. She had to. She had no choice. Sevastyan and Shturm had to get to them and hopefully know what to do. She crawled blindly around the room on her hands and knees for a few minutes, tears making it impossible to see, while she searched for her cell phone. Thunder roared in her ears and chaos reigned in her head so it was impossible to think clearly. She couldn’t remember where it was. The sexual agony in her body didn’t let up for a moment as she hoped it would while she hunted along throughout the room on her hands and knees. Finally, out of sheer blind luck, she put her hand on it.
She texted Sevastyan immediately. Need you now. You have to come.
She waited, sweat pouring off her body. It seemed like hours, when she knew it wasn’t, while she waited. She just needed reassurance that he was there and that he’d hurry to her. That he wouldn’t waste any time. She’d never asked him for anything. He’d know. He’d come.
What’s wrong?
She blinked several times to try to bring the words into focus. It wasn’t what she expected, but then she didn’t really know what to expect. Two tears splashed onto her screen, turning it watery. She kept breathing, trying not to scream, trying not to rip at her own skin with her fingernails. The pain was excruciating.
Flamme rising. I can’t stop her. You have to come. He would come. He would have to. If not for her, he would do it for his leopard. Shturm would never go without his female. She had felt the male’s possessive attitude so many times. His impatience. His demands. He had wanted Flamme to emerge, and when she hadn’t, he had been upset. Sevastyan would bring the male. They would come. Flambé rested her forehead on the floor, sobbing. Trying to control the terrible pain, trying to get on top of it.
The wait seemed like forever again. Too long. It shouldn’t take that long for him to type On my way. Right? It shouldn’t. On her hands and knees, bottom in the air, she rocked her body back and forth. This was the worst. How did anyone survive? A heat could last seven days. Longer. Was it like this the entire time? She would never last. Never. Could one just take pills and knock themselves out? Why hadn’t she thought of that earlier and why wasn’t he answering her?
Flambé, follow my instructions carefully. Get to the garage, to the Jeep and drive into the tunnel. You know where the entrance is. You have to get to me.
She stared in horror at the instructions, not believing what she was seeing. He wanted her to go to Mitya’s home in her present state, desperate for sex, where every leopard on that odious man’s estate would know she was there for Sevastyan to service her? And if she would actually do that, which she wouldn’t, how could she possibly get there? He had no idea the state she was in. It was impossible. She couldn’t even see straight, let alone drive a car.
She pressed her forehead harder into the floor. So much for believing that Sevastyan was going to ever choose her over his cousin. Why the hell did she think for one moment to believe any damn thing he said? Her body twisted. Contorted. She fell sideways onto the floor. The burn on her skin was unimaginable, unlike anything she’d ever felt. It had to stop. She had to find a way to make it stop.
The image of two male leopards rose in her mind. They were downstairs in her house right now with no knowledge of what was happening in the master bedroom. If she went down to them, there would be no way they could resist her. No way their leopards could resist Flamme. Mitya had all but told them she was nothing but a sex object to Sevastyan, a toy. For all she knew, he had told them he shared her. He shared the women in the club.
Flambé. Come to me right now. Use the tunnel. Stay in the tunnel.
For one terrible moment, she was so desperate she actually considered the idea of going down to the leopards. If she was wrong about Sevastyan, he would kill them. If she wasn’t, she would never be able to
live with herself anyway. She had told him she would never go to his cousin’s home and she meant it. She wouldn’t prove him right about her either.
So your cousin can have his laugh. Fuck you both.
Grinding her teeth together, she crawled to the bed and gripped the post to pull herself back to her feet. It was impossible to think with chaos in her head, the terrible roaring and the blowtorch inside of her burning its way through her skin. She screamed and tore at own skin with her fingernails as the thing inside her lifted her skin over and over. She had to help Flamme get out or they both were going to die. Things crawled on her. Slithered over her. Licked at her. The sensations were so terrible she wanted to vomit.
War going on. I can’t leave. Get to entrance of tunnel. I’ll meet you and take care of both of you.
Flambé flung her phone away from her. She didn’t want anything more to do with him or his leopard. There was no way to get downstairs, let alone to the garage, or a car. And she’d never go to him now. Never.
She would take Flamme and disappear the moment she knew Shanty and her children were safe. She just had to get through the next few hours. Find a place to ride it out. Find a way. A bath? Hot water? What would work? There had to be something. She just needed to use her brains. Tears blinded her, streamed down her face, and she wanted to claw at her eyes because they burned too. There were no more brains in her head. Her skull was on fire.
She’d interviewed a lot of female shifters, but there had only been a total of thirteen female strawberry leopards who she had ever heard of prior to the recent find. Her mother had been one but she was dead before Flambé was born so that left twelve. Four of those women had died before Flambé was fifteen. Six, Flambé had helped disappear. Two worked for her and she kept a close eye on them. They had separate apartments in a secure building. They had their own money and her private cell number in case of emergencies.
Flambé had smuggled seven other shifter women out from under the noses of their partners when they had called the emergency line for help. She’d been extremely careful. Everyone helping was putting their life on the line. More often than not, male leopards furious at losing their partner were in a killing frenzy when hunting for their “mate.”
It didn’t seem to matter what species of shifter they were, what lair they came from, the males appeared to be abusive to their mates. She detested them all. Now she just detested everything shifter. She crawled around the floor, blind, sobbing, trying to take her own skin off her body while her leopard thrashed and clawed, desperate to break free.