More Than Friends (8 page)

          As she reloaded, a sleek leopard darted into the clearing, its eyes wild as it dashed across the valley floor, straight through the brush covering one of their pits.  His mournful yowl rang out as he crashed to the bottom of the trap.  The floor of the cage vibrated with the ferocity of the leopard’s growl.

          One of her men, John, raced out of hiding to tranquilize it and shut the cage.  He kicked the reeds back over the hole the cat had gone through instead of heading straight back for cover.

          God damned fool, giving himself away!  “Hold your positions!” she said into her unit, shooting at a panther stalking John.  She felled the beast with one shot and felt adrenaline surge through her.  The bastards were quick, but not quick enough to outrun her shot.

          The brush rattled with the sound of something massive disturbing the undergrowth … or several somethings.  She turned her head, pin-pointing the direction the wind had followed.  The pheromone must have worked its magic deep into the jungle, and they had mere moments to prepare for their arrival.

          “John, quick fucking around and get back up that ridge into your position.  Oh shit!  Behind you!”

          He whirled just in time to bring up his gun and take out a small jaguar that had ripped through the underbrush.  The animal’s great body continued its forward momentum, crashing into the tangled grass in an unconscious heap.

          She hadn’t expected to draw this many of the creatures at once, or this fast.  If they had many more to deal with, she wasn’t sure the men could hack it.  Their supplies weren’t limitless, after all.

          A quick glance around confirmed her worst fears and ripped the voice right out of her mouth.  She swallowed, rallying her nerves for battle.  She sucked in a sharp breath, taking aim.  “Hold steady, men,” she whispered, hoping they could hold their shit together and didn’t lose their wits in a panic.

          The foliage parted like a green curtain as the horde pressed through.  Jungle cats of every variety poured into the valley, muscles flexed, ears pinned back, eyes wild but intelligent and scanning for any movement.  A tiger leapt over the disturbed pits, sniffing the area for prey.  Two jaguars followed closely on his heels.  Behind them, more came.

          There were too many of them.  At least a dozen on first count.  They hadn’t set enough cages to handle this many cats at one time.  She only hoped the tightness of their formation meant that more would go into the pits together.

          It was too much to hope for.

          She watched the scene unfold with horrified eyes as one of the team members began shooting at the pack with his SMG until she heard the click of an empty cartridge in the sudden silence.  The absence of any sound scared her more than the sheer size of the pack.

          She knew what was coming, and she wasn´t looking forward to it.  The chain reaction she´d envisaged was worse than she´d first thought.  The great cats spun around to roar and growl angrily at them, sidestepping the traps as though they knew the cages were there all along and had only been waiting for their human trackers to reveal themselves.  The thought was ludicrous until seen in action.

          They pounced at the men approaching, who fired in self-defense.  Bullets ripped through unstoppable feline flesh.  Blood scented the air, making the cats go mad with bloodlust.

          Sickness churned her stomach.  “Stand down.  Tranquilizers only.  We need these cats alive!” she screamed into her comm. unit.  She was under strict instructions not to harm the animals—they had an enormous price tag on their heads.  She had to get them back to the experimental facility they´d been released from or all their efforts would be in vain.

          The men ignored her, panic setting in when John’s luck finally ran out as a tiger took him down.  His screams echoed around them, curdling her blood in horror.  The five hundred pound beast covered his body and locked onto his throat, cutting off his cries and ripping out his throat before anyone could react.

          Mind-numbing terror washed over her.  A split second felt like an eternity as her adrenaline fused brain tried to cope with the scene unfolding before her.  Her ears rang and her eyes dimmed, making her mind feel that wobbling sound that meant she could easily black out if she’d just let herself go.

          And then probably be eaten alive with the rest of the men.

          Yvonne shook her head, aiming her gun.  She’d never get the men under control if they all went into a panic.  She didn’t want to die any more than they did.  A scream lodged in her throat, refusing to come out.  She fired at the man-eater, taking it down.  It fell on the fallen man, asleep.

          She wanted to blow its brains out.  The revulsion of the thought and what she’d seen the animal do made her want to vomit.

          She choked back the bile rising in her throat.  “Goddamn it!  They’re just animals!  Use your brains,” she yelled, raising her gun and firing at the cats attacking her team.

          If they killed all the damned cats, they wouldn’t get paid.  Some of the men ignored her and continued to fire their guns.

          “Use the fucking tranq. guns!  We need them alive, not dead, you fucking idiots.  Get a hold of yourselves!” she screamed, trying to get through their thick skulls.

          She took a cat down, and then another, and swore when she had to reload.  She ran behind one of the trees to try to cover her back and fitted the cartridge as quickly as she could.  Spinning to launch a tirade and make sure no one else got killed, she pulled up short as something snagged her vest.  Her blood ran cold when she felt the pressure of a paw and the edge of claws digging through the thick material.

          The airspace was so awash with the sounds of battle, she hadn’t heard the fucking thing come up behind her.

          She twisted, trying to get a shot off before he could rip a hole through her.  A great black paw knocked the weapon from her hands—lightning fast, faster than she could ever hope to react.  She lunged for the weapon, feeling the beast move in sync with her.  He was right behind her, his hot fetid breath on the back of her neck.  Her legs dragged, her mind slowed.  She couldn’t believe what was really happening, and in the back of her mind, she knew she couldn’t stop moving or she’d be dead.  His great weight landed on top of her, and dimly, she recognized the sounds of shredding fabric as it clawed her vest.

          She ducked her head into her chest, felt the beast squeezing her, crushing her into the ground.  Through a fog, she registered that the pheromone was leaking onto her chest—something on the canister had broken and its contents saturated her clothing.  Her lungs couldn’t expand, she couldn’t breathe.  She couldn’t reach her knife, her hands were trapped as the animal pushed her down.  Dirt filled her nostrils, her mouth, preventing her from screaming for backup.  Any second she’d feel teeth sink into her neck.  She prayed she wouldn’t feel it when the animal ripped her spinal cord out.

          This was the end, and she was powerless to stop it from happening.

Here’s an excerpt from Celeste’s alter ego, Jaide Fox from an upcoming erotic fantasy romance: Beastmen of Shadowmere 2: Seduced by the Beast:

Shadowmere, Northern Borderlands

          Swan of Avonleigh had no knowledge of where she was and no memory of how she had gotten here.  There could be only one explanation--dark magic.

          She nursed little doubt that the source of the dark magic, and the instrument of her torture by terror now, was the same—Morvere, the sorcerer who had cursed her to live by day as a swan, only resuming her human form at night, the sorcerer who had had clipped her wing so that she could not even fly away to protect herself when the spell overtook her and changed her into a swan.

          Not content with the misery he had already inflicted upon her, he had dropped her into this nightmare world, prey to the baying pack that now pursued her, where a horrible fate awaited her the moment she faltered.

          Terror surged through Swan’s veins, near deafening her to the sounds of the pack that surrounded her, almost seeming to toy with her as they herded her onward, closing in now and then to drive her in a new direction.  Pushed almost beyond endurance, her muscles screamed in agony, but the threat of being eaten alive left no room for anything but the instinct to survive, to continue placing one foot in front of the other.

          Keening howls tore through the night, wolfen, yet strange.  They surrounded her from every direction, closing in now for the kill.  Ignoring the sharp nettles of underbrush slashing her arms and legs as she forced her way through them, tearing her naked flesh, Swan forged onward in desperation.  Blood shivered in thin rivulets down her skin, scenting the air and driving the howls wilder, louder ... the chase faster.

          They were toying with her, she knew with certainty now, yet she could not give up hope that she would somehow elude them. 

          Something crashed through the brush a short distance behind her but she dared not look--could only forge ahead and pray she could evade the monsters in pursuit.

          Her heart choking her with its thunderous beating, the air burning her ragged lungs, she darted around a tree, ducking under its slapping branches as she passed.  The hair rose on the back of her neck as she sensed something close, something bearing down on her.  She whirled around, looking frantically for an avenue of escape, but everything was black in the night shaded forest.  Movement caught the corner of her eye--death close at hand.  She twisted away from it in vain hope.

          The scream she’d held back for so long tore from her throat as a dark shape lunged for her.  Jerking away from its grasp, she lost her footing. 

          Leaves and dirt churned as she crashed to the ground.  She screamed again as hands grasped her arms and a heavy body rolled with her until she lay beneath it, her arms trapped behind her back against the cool earth.  Bracing her feet against the ground, Swan heaved upward, desperate to escape the ravaging blows she expected momentarily.

          A leaden weight settled over her, tight against her thighs.  Hands pinned her shoulders to the ground.  She was trapped.  Thoroughly bested, unable to move the slightest inch, exhaustion forced her to collapse and cease her struggles. Breathing harshly in the overwhelming silence, Swan braced herself mentally, expecting to feel curved talons rake into her flesh, slicing down into her heart.

          No attack came.  No bestial growl broke the stillness.  Quiet had descended around her.  The howls had receded into nothingness, and the forest was still save for her own pounding heart and ragged breath.  When no death strike fell, her sanity returned, and she realized a man lay atop her instead of a beast as she’d feared.  The touch of him scorched her own feverish skin, the sheen of perspiration doing little to cool her unnatural heat.

          Blinded by the darkness, she could see nothing of him, his shadow eclipsing what meager light made its way beneath the thick foliage of the forest.  Hard muscles clamped tight against her hips, their grip strong and unforgiving, but still human.  He seemed as human as she, someone she could face and hope to win against ... if she could just gather her strength.  A deadly calm settled over her.

          “Why come you to these lands?” a deep voice rumbled above her.

          Startled, Swan looked up at him, too surprised to do anything but blurt out the truth.  “I know not where I am, nor how I came to be here.”

          He was quiet a long minute, weighing her words.  “I think you do not speak the truth, but I will humor you for the moment.  You lie in a forest of Shadowmere, on the Northern Borderlands.  You have ventured far from your home, little bird.  Now--who opened your cage?”

          Gooseflesh rose on her skin, chilling her despite the hint of amusement she detected in his tone.  Morvere had more power than she’d ever dreamed.  If such was truth—and she held onto little doubt that it was not—then she could not hope to defeat the sorcerer on her own.  It would take someone of equal power, someone versed in magic ... someone from Shadowmere.

          An insane possibility, spurred by the sheer hopelessness of her situation, occurred to her.  She ignored his question, voicing one of her own.  “Are you going to kill me?”

          “It is not often we attract spies of your ... ilk.  I would not have you die so soon.”  He leaned toward her and sniffed her throat as if he would taste her. 

          Swan held perfectly still, unwilling to give him cause to attack.  The plan she’d only begun to formulate fled.  No man behaved this way, this animalistic.  She’d jumped to the wrong conclusion--a mistake that could easily make her life forfeit.  He was not her kind.  It had been foolish to think so--to believe for a moment that she had been rescued.

          Inches away from her ear, his breath hot and invasive, he whispered, “My question remains unanswered.  I may be tempted to ... eat you, little bird ... if you do not satisfy me.”

          Swan swallowed hard, ignoring the unfamiliar trembling that flickered through her.  “I don’t understand it.  What spy of any worth would get caught?”

          “One who had allowed it?  Do you aim to disarm us with your charms?”