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)
Ania sank back into her chair, looking horrified. “Has that been your experience with shifters in your lair? What about your friends, Flambé? What have they said about their lairs? I haven’t heard you mention any of your friends. Do I know them? Like yours, my family was in this area for a long time. Maybe we know some of the same people.”
Flambé shook her head. “I doubt it. My friends were women like me, strawberry leopards, although those women came in from other countries to try to make a life here. I only got close to a few of them. They didn’t make it or they moved away.” In spite of every effort to keep herself under control, grief welled up along with guilt, so strong she felt her heart might shatter. She pressed her hand hard over her breast.
Ania, with her sharp eyes, couldn’t fail to see that telltale gesture. “Oh, Flambé. What happened?”
Flambé shrugged, tried to look casual. She was talking too much. That was why she didn’t get close to anyone. She didn’t dare let down her guard. “It doesn’t really matter one way or the other. I’m just really sorry about you losing the baby and glad Mitya is good to you.”
“Honey, I hate that you have such a bad idea of male shifters. I don’t know what it’s like where you come from, but not all shifters are cruel to their mates.”
Flambé’s eyebrow shot up. “Are you going to tell me that your husband didn’t tell you that in his lair the men murdered the mothers of their children after they gave them sons? Or that they sold their daughters to other lairs to shifters who would do the same thing to them?”
She couldn’t sit still and she jumped up, her leopard close, driving her to a restless pacing, her breath coming far too fast. There was a strange roaring in her ears and heat rushed through her veins. Beneath her skin, something grotesque moved, causing a terrible itch that left a burn in its wake. She could actually see her skin lift. The entity moved like a wave through her body, leaving behind a firestorm that raged through her until she wanted to scream.
“You should text Sevastyan,” Ania suggested gently. “Your cat is so close and she’s giving you fits. I know what that’s like and it’s so uncomfortable, Flambé.”
Flambé wanted to claw her own skin off. “Uncomfortable is a mild word, but I’ve been told strawberry leopards tend to feel things in a slightly different way. This is torture and it manifests itself in a horrible sensation.” She tried to rub her arms, hating to touch her skin. Her clothes hurt, let along touching with her palm. “I’m a mess. I’m sorry, Ania, I came out here hoping to comfort you and you’re trying to comfort me.”
“Why don’t you want to call Sevastyan to help you?” Ania got up to go to the refrigerator she had in the corner of the office. “I know he’s working, but you’re his first priority.”
“I’m not, you know. Mitya is.” Flambé gratefully took the water from Ania and drank quite a bit down, hoping to put out some of the fire. It didn’t seem to help so she entreated her leopard, trying to soothe her. Go back to sleep, Flamme. When we’re alone, I’ll let you out to run. We’ll be home and no one will be around and you can run free. She made it a promise, meaning it, at least hoping to. Maybe she could let her leopard emerge with no one around. Maybe they could do it together and once Shanty got there, they could just disappear.
“Sevastyan might be head of security here, but you’re his woman. Your cat is in heat and she’s his leopard’s mate.”
“Is she? She’s in her first cycle. So is his leopard. From what I understood from the other strawberry leopard women when I talked to them, it is very easy to get it wrong when you don’t know what you’re doing and your leopard is in heat.”
Flambé didn’t want to add that strawberry leopard shifters were notoriously sexual. It was a curse. That made it even easier to accept a male when one was in the throes of a sexual burn they couldn’t control. Not to mention, she’d been dazed from a blow to the head and Flamme had made the decision for them, half scared out of her mind. Worse, she’d been influenced by Flambé’s continual fantasies regarding Sevastyan Amurov.
She turned away from Ania and paced closer to the glass doors that stared out into the cavernous garage. She longed for the freedom of the outdoors and her plants. It was easier there in the open air, hidden in the foliage, to control the terrible cravings that racked her body at times, the ones she knew had aided in destroying the women of her species. So many things had contributed, but this curse was one of the worst.