by AJ Hampton
Mark shuffled forward, hesitated. Tension between them crackled. “Lick,” Peter ordered.
The man’s jaw clenched. Despite the dirty stain of boot tread on Mark’s neck, Peter knew there would be trouble.
“She isn’t your fuck toy,” Mark said. “Greg loved her, he would have never treated her the way you are. She is a gift from God and you—”
Another rolling bark of laughter left Peter, and Mark immediately closed his mouth. Peter wiped imaginary tears from his eyes, couldn’t wait to finish the man’s sentence. “I what? Defiled her? She was hardly a virgin when I got there and quite the willing participant.” He dropped his bloodied hand, stepped forward. He towered over the other man, dominating him both physically and mentally. “Greg was a lousy Alpha who did nothing for this Pard. Things will change with me in control, I can promise you that. I’ve been going over the accounts all day. Many of you are struggling to get by, living in run-down homes and eating scraps. The Pard should be flourishing; instead it’s swirling down the shitter.”
He pressed a finger into Mark’s chest, shoved him back a foot, and then advanced. “You’ve got a choice. Twenty years ago, I didn’t have one. I won’t take away your options like my father did me. You only have to say the words.”
Mark bared his blunt teeth, hissed, “Peter Marx, I challenge you.”
Peter let the anticipation fill his eyes. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
“No fighting,” Eva said, stepped between them.
Peter shook his head, picked her up by the shoulders. Setting her behind him, away from Mark, he grabbed her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “This is his choice, Eva. He wants to fight for your soiled honor; it’s sweet, really.”
Before she could protest, he drew her up and slanted his mouth over hers. She tried to pull back, to strike his chest, but he held tight. His tongue pressed between her lips, and when she bit him, he grabbed her ass. A rolling bolt of lust clenched his stomach, sent his heart racing. He growled against her mouth, plundered, pulled away only when he felt he’d thoroughly proven his point. “Next time it won’t be my tongue I shove into your mouth.”
Her lips parted, but he put a finger against the moist, swollen flesh. “I’d watch that mouth of yours. I’d hate to have to shut you up. I don’t think you’d like my choice of methods.” His eyes darkened with lust. “Not in public at least.”
Her fists balled at her sides and, for a moment, he wondered if she’d try to hit him again. She blew out a breath, glared. “You’re an asshole.”
He smiled, the charming one, and kissed her one last time. “I know. Now, go be a good little girl and keep my chair warm. That stone looks cold.” Patting her on the ass, he pushed her toward the Alpha’s chair. His chair. His rightful place. This was where he belonged. Too bad he didn’t plan on sticking around after he’d killed Greg’s murderer.
Chapter Eight
Eva pulled her lower lip between her teeth, bit down. She’d hoped the pain would break her out of her trance. For the life of her, she couldn’t look away from Peter’s hands. They were large and strong, the fingers long and thick. Masculine. Right now, those hands were doing their best to undress. Oblivious to the freezing temperature or the ice under their bare feet, Peter and Mark stripped.
The entire Pard could have gotten naked and she wouldn’t have cared. She only had eyes for the Alpha. He gripped his charcoal sweater at the hem, slowly pulled it over his head. The muscles in his powerful arms bulged, a reminder of how he’d looked on top of her, his entire body flexing with each erotic thrust. She recalled the way he’d held her, one flexed forearm braced against the slick shower wall next to her head. His other hand had gripped her thigh, wrapped it around his narrow waist so he could pump into her with deep, long strokes.
The words whispered in the shower, against her throat, resurfaced. “Please...” He’d sounded so desperate.
Heat gathered low in her stomach, spread like melted caramel.
Damn it, she hated him. Against her better judgment, she raised an appreciative eyebrow at the sight of his naked chest bathed in a brief showing of moonlight through the broken clouds. Beneath a soft pelt of dark, curly hair, his flat nipples hardened from the icy temperature. Was it so horribly wrong to imagine herself closing her mouth over the male circles, sucking them into her mouth? How would he respond if she closed her teeth around one and bit? She closed her eyes. Not going to happen. He’d lied to, manipulated, and humiliated her. Worse yet, he’d enjoyed it.
The hair on his chest tapered into a line, creating a trail straight down the center of his washboard abs. He might be an asshole, and she might hate his ever-loving guts, but he put men around the world to shame when it came to looks. Peter turned, exposing his long, lean back. She bit down on her lip again, the only thing stifling her gasp. Scores of scratch marks marred the perfection of his skin, damning evidence of her night in Peter’s bed.
He kicked away his jeans and rested his hands on his straight hips, his obscenely hard cock jutting up toward his belly button. With the confidence of a stallion, he strutted in front of the crowd. From across the clearing, she caught the women and men staring. Twin circles of heat colored Becca’s cheeks. Barely eighteen, Mark’s younger sister quickly found a riveting spot on the snow-covered ground, anything to keep from having to look at his naked form. Eva might have laughed if her own face hadn’t bloomed equally red.
The air crackled. A wave of heat emanated from the two shifters, easing the chill in the air.
Both men dropped to the ground. Their backs bowed, lengthened. Fur rippled from skin like water flowing over a rock. Their legs and arms took a new shape, stretching to accommodate the snow leopard intertwined with their souls.
In the blink of an eye, the transformation was over. The change was seamless, as graceful as it had been when Peter had stepped in front of her truck. The leopards circled each other and, just as he had this morning, Peter took her breath away. Every step sent muscles rippling in his hindquarters. His long tail whipped the air, slashing back and forth. Peter was the larger feline, outweighing Mark by more than seventy pounds.
She glanced at Mark, appraised and compared. He was the darkest cat in the Pard, his gray coat reminding her of dirty snow after the town’s plow pushed the last of the spring snow off the road. Like Peter, ringed spots of black on brown covered him from head to tail.
He was beautiful, but nothing compared to Peter’s pure white coat and penetrating green eyes.
Without warning, Mark lunged, teeth bared and dangerous. Peter lifted a large paw and smashed it against Mark’s advancing bite. The smaller cat crashed to the ground, his body thudding against the trampled snow. An involuntary gasp ripped from her chest. The Alpha went directly for the throat, teeth slicing into fur and holding.
Surely, Peter wouldn’t kill Mark, not with so few snow leopards left in existence. Movement from another cat in the Pard caught her eye. Only seconds passed, too few for her to shout out a warning. David, Mark’s best friend, stripped and shifted mid-jump. He lunged protectively at the fighting pair.
Peter needed no warning. He released Mark, twisted and raked claws across David’s side before the other cat could even get close. Blood welled in the feline’s black and white peppered fur and then dripped bright red to the snowy ground. She cried out, putting a hand over her mouth. She wanted to yell at them to stop, to scream she wanted no one hurt. No one, including Peter.
Peter’s black-tipped ears flattened against his head, and he crouched low, baring dripping fangs. His tail twitched back and forth, jerky and restless. He hissed, the noise a warning their fight would no longer be a wrestling match. Blood. Peter looked pissed. Her stomach clenched, sickness welling.
In feline form, David and Peter ran at each other, biting and clawing, blood their only objective. Hisses and growls erupted as the two cats tangled in a ball of fur. Over and over, the Alpha gained the upper hand and pinned the smaller cat to the ground. Peter held him unti
l he stilled, and then let go, only to have Mark leap on his back, teeth scrambling for purchase into fur and flesh.
Her leopard defended against both Mark and David, who fought with the intent to kill, but Peter never went beyond a demand for submission with his teeth in their neck.
Peter held Mark down, growled in warning. David changed tactics, sank teeth into Peter’s hindquarter and ripped. The Alpha let go of Mark with a snarl. Blood leaked from the open gashes, and when he went to step forward, his leg gave out. Smelling weakness, Mark scrambled to his paws and lunged for Peter’s throat.
“No,” she cried out, stepping forward. James grabbed her elbow in an iron grip and pulled her against his chest, whispering in her ear, “It’s for the best. It’ll be over soon.”
She pushed from his embrace and looked up at him. Her mouth fell open in shock at the serious expression on his face. No death was for the best, not Peter’s, not Mark’s, not David’s. No one should die for her “soiled honor.” What had Peter done to earn such hatred from James?
The sick sound of flesh tearing behind her shoved her thoughts to the back of her mind. A feline yowled, the pained noise drawing a tear from the corner of her eye. Something gurgled, blood and oxygen mixing, someone’s throat torn out. Another tear fell. Becca screamed, her distinctive voice carrying across the clearing, echoing what everyone feared. James grabbed for her again, but she pushed him away, her heart in her throat, her lungs paralyzed with fear. Not Peter. Turning, she gazed at the blood coating the ground and the felines locked together. White on top of gray. Peter shook his head, skin ripped, arcs of crimson spraying into the air. Eva’s stomach pitched and her vision went dark. She was going to faint.
* * * * *
Hot, salty blood filled Peter’s mouth, and he shook his head from side to side. He snarled around a mouthful of flesh, fought the urge to rip the throat out completely. He did not want to kill the leopard, not unless necessity demanded it. If Mark were strong enough, he’d survive the injury. Dropping the other cat to the ground, he spun and curled his lips back from bloodstained fangs.
Submit, he demanded.
Injured, David paced back and forth with a pronounced limp, his tail swishing in agitation. The feline’s fear and pain stoked a hunger in Peter’s stomach, made it difficult not to finish the kill. This fight was over and they both knew it.
The other feline made a sound in the back of his throat that would have been a roar if snow leopards had the ability.
“No, Eva!” James shouted.
Peter jerked his head up, watched Eva break from James’ hold and run across the clearing toward the fight. Stupid. David snapped his head toward the approach of running feet, his ears flattening against his head.
Mine.
Peter pounced, landed on the leopard’s back before the other cat could so much as lift a paw toward his mate. Teeth sank into flesh and, not for the first time, he forced David, the stupid, stubborn bastard, into submission.
Panting, he held tight until the cat beneath him stilled. Peter’s gaze never left Eva. She ran to Mark, slid to her knees in the bloody snow and tugged off her gloves with her teeth. Tears streaming down her face, she reached for the fallen cat. No. Peter snarled.
Mark was injured, but he was alive. As long as his heart beat, he could hurt Eva, kill her with a single swipe of his claws. He released the back of David’s neck, glared once at the cat and advanced toward Eva. David shook his head, rose unsteadily to his feet.
Peter growled, took a single, menacing step in David’s direction.
The other feline relented and shifted, the effort strained and ungraceful. Fur receded slowly into skin, leaving patches of raw flesh. Bones popped, lengthened. The distorted, half human, half leopard shape writhed on the ground until only the man remained. A kernel of respect settled into the pit of Peter’s stomach when David gritted his teeth and stood stubbornly. From shoulder to hip, five deep gashes flayed open his pale skin. Dark trails of blood dripped from the claw marks and streamed down his thighs like fingers.
“Alpha,” David said through a hiss of breath, head bowed in submission.
Satisfied, Peter shifted forms, shoving the remnants of his energy into the change to make a smooth transition. He would not show weakness, not in front of the Pard.
He rose steadily to his feet, refused to look at the warm sticky rivulets streaming hotly down his chest and thighs. He’d heal.
Peter pointed at David’s chest, growled, “Pull that shit again, and you’re dead. Mark challenged me, I accepted. That was his decision, not yours. I wouldn’t have killed him.”
The blond nodded his head and curled his hands into fists at his sides. “Yes, Alpha.”
“Go see to your friend,” Peter ordered.
Unmindful of his injuries, David sank into the snow next to Eva, next to Mark. He looked to her in desperation. “Can you save him?” Stroking a hand through Mark’s fur, David pressed his forehead between the fallen leopard’s closed eyes.
Eva shook her head, the tears crystallizing on her face from the cold. The salt of her sorrow stung Peter’s heart. God damn it, what the hell had she done to him?
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“He’ll be okay,” Peter said gruffly, settled his hands on Eva’s hips and pulled her away from the injured cat. Any wounded animal was dangerous.
Eva slapped his hand away, crawled right back to where she’d been. She looked up at him, her reddened eyes hostile. “You nearly tore out his throat! Death lingers in the air; can’t you smell it, Alpha?”
She said Alpha, but the word sounded an awful lot like asshole.
His jaw clenched, and he tightened his fists to control his raging feline. The power-hungry leopard had the taste of blood in his mouth, wanted more. “I will not apologize for defending myself. The fight would have been over a long time ago if not for dumb and dumber. Now, get the fuck out of the way before you get hurt. That is an order.”
Eva glared, and then in a clear dismissal, turned her back to him. A noise, low, growly, and inhuman, ripped out of his throat before he could stop it. He crouched, ready and more than willing to drag her from the circle and teach her some obedience. Her next words stopped him.
“I’ll try to heal him, but, I can’t promise you it will work. He has to want the healing. The spark needs to be there.”
Heal him? What in the hell was she talking about? Unnerved by her comment, he watched David nod as he continued to stroke the cat and whisper to him.
Peter opened his mouth, shut it when James came up to his side and placed a hand on his shoulder. “She has the power to heal. She didn’t tell you?”
He turned his head, stared at his uncle. The rage built, a sudden firestorm in his gut, all because others knew so much about her and he, well, he knew next to nothing. “We didn’t exactly spend our time talking. Explain, now.”
“Greg didn’t call her his little angel for nothing. She is part Angel, as in a being from heaven. One of her parents was a fallen.”
The gold-tipped wings etched onto her slender back filled his memory. An angel. She was really an angel. What the fuck had he done? “Explain the part about the healing.”
“Watch,” James said.
Heat emanated from Eva’s skin, and Peter felt the energy coiling in the air. She pressed her trembling palm against the hole in Mark’s neck. Blood seeped between her fingers, dripping to the ground. Golden light, pure and sweet, glowed from her hand. She closed her eyes; concentration etched lines on her face. Her lips moved, muttering something he couldn’t hear, couldn’t read. Her cheeks paled, leaving her skin pasty. Despite the cold, beads of sweat gathered on her upper lip. She started to shake, the rattling of her teeth sending a surge of fear straight into his gut. He stepped forward, ready to put an end to whatever in the hell it was she was doing.
“No,” James said, held him back.
Peter snarled, threw the other man off him and started toward Eva. She pulled her hand away, sto
od. He was still too damn far from her. She swayed in a teetering circle, the once-bright light behind her eyes dim. The next few seconds slowed, and try as he might, he couldn’t close the distance between them fast enough. Her lids fluttered, eyes rolling back until only the whites showed in the darkness.
Every bone in her body turned liquid. She crumbled, time speeding up again. Her ass hit the ground, the impact snapping her slack jaws together and pitching her backward toward the smooth stones lining the clearing. He dropped to the hard ground in a slide, ice and rock scraping his knees. Thrusting out his hand, he caught the back of her head millimeters from impact. Not trusting she was okay, he pulled her into his lap.
He cradled her against his chest, looked down at her ashen face. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted. He pushed her tangled hair from her forehead, pressed trembling fingers against her neck. The steady drum of her heartbeat was the best thing he’d ever heard.
“What’s wrong with her?” Peter asked, looking to his uncle for answers. The leopard inside raged, demanded to know why his mate lay injured.
“Exhaustion; healing takes a lot out of her. The bigger the wound, the more energy it takes to heal. She’ll be okay in a few hours, she just needs to sleep.”
“She does this often?” he asked, dumbfounded.
The youngest of the Pard spoke up, and since Peter didn’t recognize her, he figured she must have been born after he’d left town. She cast eyes the identical shade to Mark’s toward the ground. She didn’t even attempt to look him in the eye; none of them did. “A couple of times a week, at the clinic she and Greg run. They help all the shifters who come in needing medical attention. I work at the reception, and Mom, she arranges the transportation. We’re the only clinic around for...well, I don’t know, maybe we’re the only one.”
“Greg founded this...this clinic?”
“After you left town,” James answered.
How fucking selfless of him to put Eva’s life in jeopardy so she could heal complete strangers. Peter nodded, hatred festering a hole in his stomach. He cast his gaze to the leopard in front of him. The hole in his neck was gone, the only sign of the injury the bloodstained fur and saturated ground.
