Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 127461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Maya recognized the two young men. One was Raul Escabar Alba from Panama, and the other was his college friend, Derk Malcom, son of Braum. It didn’t surprise her in the least that they were the ones Alicia had been turned over to. She was certain Albert was staying in the Malcom home or at least in their guesthouse. She instructed the leopard to sleep peacefully.
The male leopard was a little more difficult, only because he was confused and angry with his human counterpart. Like the female leopard, he showed signs of drugs in his system, but the drugs were slightly different. Where the drugs in the female had caused her to be more compliant and submissive, whatever the human male was taking and passed on to his leopard ramped up his sexual needs, removed all natural constraints, bringing out the worst traits shifter or leopard could have. That left the leopard in a continual state of arousal and confusion, as his human counterpart had ceased being faithful to his wife and was using many women who had been brought in, women the leopard found itself despising and wanting to take part in the violence against. He longed for his own mate, yet at the same time hated her for her subservience. She no longer felt the same to him, adding to his confusion.
Maya was doubly cautious as she entered the male leopard’s mind. She didn’t want to trigger violence when he was confused and on edge. She took longer to merge with him, but once she did, she was able to examine his memories. Even confused, the parties hosted at Braum’s home and put on by Albert Krylov were more than perverted. Each party had seemed to take those attending further down a depraved path of drugs and deviant behavior. Apparently Braum, with Albert, was holding a meeting much later that evening with his trusted members to put the finishing touches on their plan to get rid of their present pakhan. They would also reestablish the transports they had from the gulf on freighters, the light planes going out from their small airport and the trucks that would haul cross-country to the eastern states. She got the time of the meeting from the male leopard and sent him to sleep as well.
It was easy to move through the house knowing the leopards wouldn’t alert the humans to her presence. Wraith would let her know if either of the humans woke, but she doubted they would. They were feeling safe and smug. She quickly found her way to Mindy’s room, where Alicia’s scent was everywhere. Fear permeated the rooms and hallway. Fear and the sexual excitement and what Maya had come to think of as the depraved scent of men who enjoyed hurting women.
She inhaled to take all three scents deep into her lungs. Can you find them, Wraith, even if they use a blocker?
Yes. The men stink and she is terrified. They will never be able to hide from us. There was a purring satisfaction in Wraith’s tone, in her images. She was no longer the sex kitten. That leopard had disappeared, and in her wake, the predator had come alive. Like Maya, Wraith was more than eager to hunt and kill the men who had taken the young girl.
Maya reached for Mindy’s leopard next, seeking to find whether the teen had one. She did. The leopard was there, not even close to emergence, but disturbed by the events of the day. Mindy had protested, yelling at her parents that Alicia had been with her the entire time and couldn’t possibly have done the things her mother had accused her of. Her mother had slapped her viciously and then proclaimed she knew Mindy had coveted her father. She’d seen her trying to get his attention.
Mindy was horrified at the accusations, clinging to Alicia, trying to prevent the two men from taking her while warding off her mother with one hand. Vera’s rage increased while her husband looked on with a smirk, and the two men offered to take Mindy with them to teach her manners.
In the end, Alicia was dragged away, Mindy was thrown into a corner of the room and her mother was wrapped in her father’s arms while he cooed to her how proud he was and assured her he would take care of her and said she could go with him to the next party and participate with him. No one comforted Mindy or even looked at their daughter crumpled on the floor, not understanding how her family had gone from happy to torn apart. She was isolated, terrified, and knew it was only a matter of time before she would suffer the same fate as Alicia had.
It was all Maya could do to leave the girl there. She desperately wanted to comfort her, tell her things would be all right, although she knew this child’s family would never be put back together. Her parents were too far gone. It seemed as if the drugs given to them had created damage to their brains, almost as if they’d been hit head-on in a car crash.