Total pages in book: 172
Estimated words: 155984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
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.
CURSING, Sevastyan turned and ran toward the front yard, calling into the phone for the snipers to take out teams two, three and four. He reiterated that all leopards with signature blue dots were theirs and not to be shot. Kill anything else. He was grateful that he’d had the foresight to call for help from his cousins, Elijah Lospostos and Drake Donovan, and even Joshua Tregre, all of whom sent teams of leopards to defend his cousin’s home.
He glanced down at his cell as he ran and his steps faltered. Flambé. Calling him home. She’d never called him for anything. Not ever. He answered her fast as he stripped. Fuck. Her leopard was rising. He gave her hasty instructions.