Leopard's Run (Leopard People 10)

Both men could shift easily, both partially and wholly, and did so, raking claws down chests and bellies to try to eviscerate or slice each other’s heart. Blood sprayed across Evangeline’s clean floor, marring the black and white tiles and the lower doors of the oak cabinets. Then Rodion was there. She knew he must have heard the fighting, which meant any other leopard in the room heard as well. She didn’t care if that tipped off the entire police force; she didn’t want Kyanite to die because of her.

She turned the music up and stuck her head through the door. “Sorry, Evangeline, Kyanite slipped in the water and hit the sound bar. He keeps falling into the island and he’s sent all the dishes crashing down. Don’t worry, I’ll get it clean.” She deliberately let herself sound desperate, so that she was believable. She looked only at Evangeline while she spoke and then she closed the door again.

Rodion timed his entry into the fight, looking at his partner. Something passed between them—she caught just a glimpse of expression and eye movement. Kyanite shifted again, and using two claws, ripped his opponent open, at the same time turning the man’s body so that his head was close to Rodion.

Ashe was certain the assassin never saw death coming. Rodion caught the man’s head in his very strong hands and wrenched. Slowly, the assailant’s body relaxed and then he lay dead on the floor, all life drained out of him. It seemed to be such a gradual process, that dying. His body went first and then she saw the life leave his eyes. Her stomach lurched.

It was Kyanite who took the gun from her hands. She slowly sank to the floor, adrenaline coursing through her veins, and she realized her leopard was going crazy in an effort to protect her.

She’d practiced for this moment and she’d blown it. Completely. “I’m sorry, Kyanite, I didn’t have a clear shot.” She hadn’t moved around the fighting either, as she should have, but she’d been mesmerized by the horrific battle between the two leopards. They’d fought as humans and as cats. Sometimes half and half. “I’m afraid I didn’t do very well my first time out.”

“You did fine,” Kyanite objected. “More than fine. The other two have taken off. They’ll know soon enough that their friend didn’t make it out of here alive, nor did he get to you.” He turned his head to glare at his partner. “What the fuck took you so long? One shot or yell, and every cop in that room would be back here and we’d be tied up with bullshit questions for hours.”

Rodion had the grace to look embarrassed. “Honestly? I thought, at first, she called you back here to … um … help her. You know. As in help. I was trying to figure out how to cover your back when Timur found out.”

“Are you kidding me?” Kyanite snapped. “Do you think I’m the kind of man who would poach on a brother’s territory?”

Could this get any more humiliating? First, they all felt the effects of her leopard’s heat. Now, they were discussing her as if she wasn’t a real person at all. They’d designated her Timur’s property, and that meant Kyanite wouldn’t cross that line with her.

“Commendable.” She forced her body to move when it didn’t want to cooperate. “I’m not Timur’s woman, or his mate, or whatever you think I am to him, and that isn’t an invitation to either of you.”

Rodion nudged Kyanite. “There’s that little flash of temper we were warned about.”

Fury burned through her, an aftermath of her leopard’s rising heat. She needed an outlet for her scattered emotions. “Who told you I had a temper?”

Kyanite grinned at her. “Wash up, malen’kly smirch. ”

She narrowed her eyes on him. “What did you just call me?”

“It means ‘little tornado’,” Rodion said helpfully.

Kyanite kept grinning, completely unrepentant. “That’s what Timur calls you.”

“Not to my face, he doesn’t,” Ashe said. “That’s because he’s a very smart man. It’s a good thing you have the gun in your possession, otherwise it might accidentally go off.” She turned away from them with an indignant sniff. Her leopard had settled, and Evangeline would want a break.

“Ashe, you might want to wash up,” Rodion pointed out again.

She hurried to the bathroom to clean up. Evangeline couldn’t hold the line with policemen everywhere, not alone anyway. Since she considered this her mess to clean up, she needed to step up her game and give Evangeline whatever she needed.

“Kye?” She shortened his name because it was so much easier. She came out of the bathroom drying off her hands. Trying not to look at the dead body they were rolling up in a large tarp, she forced air through her lungs. “Do you think they came for me? Or for Evangeline? I don’t want her to get hurt.”