But now, a few hours later, as he huddled in the snow under a barren tree, he couldn’t help remembering her soft voice…her sweet scent. That scent of a female in her Second Mating Season.
Roarn had never smelled it before but like his instinct to preserve female life, it was hardwired into him. His kind—the Felinus Monstrum—were naturally attracted to older females. It was when a female had reached her Second Heat that she was most ripe for bonding, most ready to let a Felinus warrior into her bed for a long, leisurely session of sexual pleasure.
These thoughts flew through his head in a series of pictures and feelings rather than words. But words were coming too. The soft voice speaking to him had been talking in the same language as his captors aboard the Monstrum Mother Ship. Roarn had heard them saying it was a tongue called “English”—supposedly they needed to learn it to call brides from a place called “Earth.”
He had picked up scraps and pieces of this new language at the times when the Fury wasn’t quite so strong. The madness it caused came and went in waves—sometimes he was trapped completely in the awful memory of his brother’s death—but sometimes he nearly came out of it when the red buzzing lessened and allowed him to think and reason, rather than just feeling and reacting.
He had a thought in his head now—the female had been kind to him. She had released his leg from the biter’s jaws. She had fed him tasty meat which was the best thing he’d had to eat in ages. Her voice was soft and tender and her scent was incredibly appealing.
She, whispered a thought in his brain. Her…want her. Need to see her again. Need to know her.
It was an urge—an animal instinct that motivated him—a powerful need to go back and see the female who had saved him. Roarn lifted his nose to the wind and caught her mesmerizing scent, faint but still floating on the wind. She was back there, somewhere—the kind one, the gentle one. The female who smelled ripe and ready for breeding and bonding.
He would go back and find her and he would make her his.
NINE
Christine shivered as she rubbed at her long hair with a towel, trying to dry it. She had opted for a quick, freezing shower which had felt like a punishment, and now she was standing in front of the fireplace, trying desperately to get warm.
“Sh-should have g-g-gone with the sponge b-b-bath,” she muttered to herself, her teeth chattering as she rubbed vigorously at her scalp. In a minute she would get out her hair dryer but for now, she was just trying to get her body temperature back up to where it needed to be.
Dinner that night had been Cup Noodles, since she’d given her steak to the strange, striped creature in the trap. She’d been saving the steak for a special night—something to look forward to after a long week at work and the beginning of the weekend. But she didn’t regret giving it away—it had helped her get the creature free of the trap—that was worth any number of disappointing dinners as far as Christine was concerned.
The heat of the fire was finally drying the icy droplets from her skin and warming her a bit, but she still dreaded climbing into the queen-sized bed behind her. It was piled high with quilts and comforters, but Christine knew the sheets would be icy just the same. She needed to get a new electric blanket to warm things up, she reflected. Her old one had died last winter and somehow she hadn’t gotten around to replacing it yet.
“Tomorrow,” she said out loud, and was pleased to hear that her teeth had stopped chattering. “Tomorrow I’ll drive down to Wal-Mart and get a new one.”
If she could find one that wasn’t too expensive, that was. It seemed like everything had gone up lately—everything but her salary, which had stayed the same for the past six years. She should probably ask for a raise but she knew the vet she worked for, Dr. Harris, wasn’t exactly bringing in the big bucks.
Of course, almost nobody who worked with animals got paid what they were worth. You didn’t go into the veterinary field to get rich—you went into it because you loved animals, Christine reflected. You—
Suddenly she heard a scratching at her back door.
With a sigh, she put down the towel she’d been using to dry her hair and wrapped the pink terrycloth robe her kids had gotten her for Mother’s Day, years ago, around herself.
The robe was getting shabby and worn but it was a source of pride to her—it was the first present the three of them had gotten her with money they had earned themselves, from various after school jobs. She could still remember their three shining faces as they shouted, “Happy Mother’s Day!” and handed her the lumpy package.