Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 118860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 594(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 594(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
Her voice wasn’t a huge gift, the way she suspected Luiz’s was. That was one of the reasons she found herself so uneasy around him. She never used her gifts for personal gain, only for the safety of herself and others. That didn’t mean she hadn’t practiced often to strengthen her abilities. She had. She was very disciplined, and she made it a habit to work on her skills all the time.
Voices became louder, filtering through the trees. She was fairly high up, the dense canopy hiding her as she approached the confrontation below. A powerfully built man had his hand wrapped around the arm of a squirming child, easily pinning her to him while his attention was centered on a beautiful woman who faced him. One of her hands was up, palm out, as if trying to pacify him. She looked terrified but determined.
Another very muscular man circled around behind the woman, his movements stealthy. Sarika recognized the smooth craftiness of a shifter. He didn’t make any noise, and the slight breeze was blowing toward him, not away. She doubted if the woman was aware of him. There was something about the second man that struck a note of fear in her. The way he moved. His absolute stealth. The way his energy, despite the situation, remained so low it was nearly undetectable.
And then there was Percy. He was in the shadows of the tree, observing the scene, his muscles locking him in place with what could have been the first step of a freeze-frame stalk. She couldn’t tell if his attention was centered on the woman or on the man with the child. She doubted if she had an ally in him, but she would do her best to persuade him he wanted to be aligned with her.
“Let Sandrine go, Rud,” the woman said, her voice more pleading than demanding. “She’s just a baby.”
The little girl appeared to be four or five. She had a pixie face and wild gold-and-silver hair, much like her mother’s. She appeared to be a sturdy child, and she clearly was a fighter.
“She’s jaguar, same as you, Jasmine. You have no business holding yourself and this female away from the males,” Rud snapped. He sounded ferocious. His voice seemed overly loud and overbearing. He was supposed to be in command of the situation, and yet he seemed extremely belligerent.
Steroids? Did male jaguar shifters use illicit drugs? Rud reminded her of someone who was jacked up on steroids and had taken them for a long time. She couldn’t imagine that this far out in the rainforest, Rud would be able to get his hands on that specific drug, but he wasn’t right. Not by a long shot.
“Let her go and I’ll come with you without fighting,” Jasmine offered.
Jasmine was really quite beautiful, with the long, thick hair that marked the shifter’s species. Her hair was golden, very shiny, and cascaded to her waist. She had the most striking eyes. Cat’s eyes, but a vivid emerald green. She was thinner than most shifters, but that didn’t detract for a moment from her regal lines.
Rud’s expression changed to one of cunning. To leering. “I like a fight with a woman,” he said. “We’re taking both of you.”
Sarika decided it was time to insert herself into the scenario. “Who is your friend, Rud? The one skulking behind Jasmine?” She threw her voice to the opposite side of them, as if she were in the lower branches of the kapok tree there.
Jasmine whirled around to spot the man, who had gone very still. She didn’t indicate that Sarika’s easy familiarity was not known to her. All three male shifters scanned the trees and surrounding forest in an effort to find her. Sarika felt very, very lucky to have the ability to send her voice from any direction. She didn’t like the expressions on the three men’s faces. Well, two of them. The third shifter, the one behind Jasmine, was as unreadable as Luiz had been.
“Bacus, I should have known you would be here,” Jasmine said. “You and Rud always travel together.” She took several steps to her left so she could include the shifter in her line of vision.
Bacus didn’t react, but he stopped moving toward Jasmine now that he had been spotted. He didn’t even edge closer to her. That worried Sarika. Bacus seemed the most dangerous of the three men to her, and she didn’t want to forget he was there. His very stillness allowed him to fade into the background.
“Who’s your friend, Jasmine?” Rud demanded.
Sandrine suddenly bit down hard on his arm, and he swore, releasing her. The little girl streaked toward her mother, but Rud was far too fast. He was on her in less than a second, catching her by her wild hair and shaking her.