Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 140965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 705(@200wpm)___ 564(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 705(@200wpm)___ 564(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Stay away from him, Draden was compelled to caution. She sounded too excited. He had the feeling she might jump down any second and introduce herself. Did you know that their feet are slightly webbed to enable them to catch their prey in the water better?
He’s smaller than most tigers but looks powerful. Heavier black stripes defining the orange. He looks to be about three hundred pounds.
Draden increased his speed. He wanted to catch a glimpse of the rare animal, but more importantly, he wanted to make certain his woman didn’t decide she was best friends with a tiger.
Again, laughter poured into his mind, this time like warm honey. He’s looking up at me. Draden. She breathed his name, reverence in her tone. You have to see him. There’s intelligence there.
Tension slipped in. A wave of darkness spread through him and he feared he knew what it was. He had a visceral reaction to her observation. Primal. The male cat in him provided him with all kinds of gifts, from his radar to his jumping abilities, the ferocity when needed, but it had negative consequences as well. He recognized jealousy and the need to claim her as his.
It’s the epitome of idiocy to be jealous of a tiger, but I am. He might as well admit the truth when she could read his ridiculous emotions through their connection.
Her soft laughter slid into his mind. It wasn’t laughter at him, rather an invitation to join in, to laugh at the two of them in the impossible predicament they found themselves in.
If he was female, no doubt I’d want to run her off, Shylah admitted, that warm laughter heating his blood. She immediately created more intimacy between them by putting them both together, admitting she would share those same emotions.
Draden found himself smiling. Somehow, she created a burst of sunlight to spear through the darkness that had suddenly grown in him. Just with a few words and that soft laughter, she had dispersed jealousy and given him back his dignity.
You were dignified even when you were jealous.
That made him laugh. She was bringing out things in him he hadn’t known were there. I don’t think anyone is dignified if they’re displaying jealous traits. Just so you know, that’s a new one for me. I’ve never been jealous before and it kind of sucks that it was over a tiger.
More laughter spilled into his mind, a burst of radiant joy. He’d stuffed the mask and gloves in his pocket and knew she’d done the same. With the mask on, one was far too aware of the predicament they were in to think about laughing. I nearly fell out of the tree. Uh-oh. He’s looking up at me again. He walked over to the bodies and he sniffed them and now he’s looking at me. I’m trying to look like I’ve never been hungry in my life and have no intention of eating his roadkill.
He continued moving fast. If there was a problem with the tiger, better he took care of it than her. She would regret having to kill the animal for the rest of her life. He wouldn’t like harming the big cat, but he could get past it, especially if by doing so it meant saving her from having to. As he moved closer, he felt the laughter drain out of her, leaving her mind serious and then going from serious to horrified.
Draden, he’s caught in a trap and he’s going crazy.
Draden could hear the tiger, roaring his challenge, pain wracking the furious snarls that rose to almost a howling pitch.
Don’t you go near it. You stay in that tree, I’m almost there.
I should have been looking for signs of poachers. They always leave signs to warn others the area has traps laid. There were tears in her mind, but not in her voice. She was angry. He’s ripping at the tree trunk the cable is anchored around. So many of them have died just like that, starving, chewing at their own legs. Draden, I have to do something.
“I’m here,” he said softly, stepping onto the branch where she clung, her horrified gaze fixed on the wildly fighting tiger.
The noose was wrapped around its right back leg and the animal fought back, attacking the tree in a frenzied attempt to get loose. It clawed at the trunk, leaving deep rake marks in between biting at its paw and leg and even the trap.
“Do you have anything nonlethal on you? Something we can dart him with? Put him out? Neither one of us can help him when he’s like that. It’s too dangerous.”
“They should have something at the ranger station,” Shylah said, still not taking her eyes off the thrashing, fighting animal.
Even Draden, who attempted to be nothing but hardened steel, felt a little heartbroken when watching the animal struggle to survive. He was trained to be a heat-seeking missile, going after the enemy, not to take on any other tasks along the way. But he was also GhostWalker special forces, and that called for thinking independently. In this case, his thinking veered toward wiping out the poachers along with the terrorists.