The sound of trickling water eventually reached me—exactly where I knew to find the creek. I caught sight of the rock outcropping first, and it drew me forward like a magnet, my heart beating steadily with anticipation.
Stepping between one bent tree and one fallen across the creek, I lifted my head toward where I had seen him.
His dark hair mussed and too long. Dark eyes as black as midnight, beautiful as onyx jewels. Skin sun-kissed bronze as though a rogue child who only went indoors at night to sleep.
I closed my eyes, seeing him from a woman’s perspective rather than a child’s. Young, not yet a man, but taller than most around the age I’d guessed him to be at the time. He moved with grace and agility of one far older already having grown into his long limbs. I imagined the man he would have become as I’d often done and found my body warming beyond the waning humidity of the day.
Longing swirled deep inside me, the kind I had tried to sate over the years but had failed. No men I’d allowed into my bed had brought the same sense of safety, of feeling protected—an awareness of worth—like his simple gaze had done.
I let out a sigh and opened my eyes, the empty rock ledge mocking me.
Birds startled in the trees overhead, taking to flight, and a cool shiver licked at my sweat-slickened skin. I turned, my stomach tensing, whispers in my subconscious I fought to understand. The hairs on my arms rose.
A squirrel chattered harshly, climbing up a nearby tree, his claws clattering up the bark until he disappeared in silence.
Silence.
It hung heavy in the air, bringing the scent of … wet dog? Whatever it was, it stank worse than any farm I’d passed on my trek southward.
A twig snapped, jerking my focus toward the right. Shifting shadows played with my mind, stealing my breath, and constricting my chest.
My palms sweated. So cold.
Movement in my periphery jerked my attention forward once more—and I stumbled backward, my heart stalling.
Rangy, wild man. Dark blond beard and piercing amber eyes. Naked.
Naked in the woods.
I spun and took off along the creek’s edge, my heart pounding in my ears, my gasps to draw air into my seizing lungs shutting out all other sound.
Pain exploded in the back of my head, and I went down face first, my backpack flying, my provisions scattering.
Hands yanked me over, pinning my wrists above my head. He laid atop me, holding me down. The putrid stench of decaying flesh gagged me as my attacker breathed across my face.
“What a sweet little pussy cat,” he said, and hell broke loose inside me.
I bit. I bucked. Kicked and scratched like the cat he’d called me, but the man outweighed me, overpowered me.
A punch to my jaw sent stars across my eyes, and I lay in limbo, mind fuzzy, on the verge of consciousness.
Another ripe odor of wet dog and sour sweat hit my nose, and I grimaced.
“Whatcha got there?” a new voice asked, and I moaned, fighting to make my brain send fight signals to my muscles.
“A sweet little pussy.”
A hand groped me between the thighs.
“No. Please,” I managed to rasp, trying to roll away, earning me a clobber to my ear. Darkness edged in my periphery
Pressure on my wrists held me in place, and I blinked at the new face above me, upside down.
“I’ll hold her down,” the second man said. “You can have the first taste.”
No…
My mind shut down, and I drifted away where no one could harm me.
174
Bryce
Killer lay in a cold grave, and I still couldn’t fucking deal. On his suggestion, I’d been voted in his place as the Dark Leopard MC East Texas Chapter’s Sergeant at Arms—a position I didn’t want, didn’t feel I had the fucking intelligence or control to do.
My inner leopard had ruled me for close to ten years, keeping me in cat form, living a wild life on instinct and the drive to survive—nothing more. Killer had found me and drew me out slowly after staying in his own leopard form for close to a week in order to earn my cat’s trust.
I’d shifted not long after he had, but it had been weeks before my human side took complete control over my bodily functions. Since then, as the occasional situations called for instinct over human reason, I fought my inner need to react rather than think first.
In attempt to save Mom, I’d become a monster, one ruled by that instinct, and I hadn’t been able to save the only one I’d ever loved. With nothing soft left inside me, I knew I was capable of any horrible thing, that I didn’t belong anywhere.
But Killer had convinced me otherwise on that last point—I’d joined the Dark Leopard MC and found a new family. One I’d sworn to protect in the way I hadn’t been able to my mom from the coyote fuckers who’d killed her. I’d had one hell of a time trusting others and letting my guard down, but only because I didn’t feel anyone was truly safe around me.
Fighting my black leopard’s desire for control only escalated with my best friend’s death.
Killer, a week in the grave, seven days of barely hanging onto my human self, and I’d felt compelled to escape the noise, the scents of man and woman, cubs, and stale alcohol. Greasy burgers and bar-b-que.
I headed to Wraith’s cabin down in Woden, needing the silence I couldn’t find in the club and bike shop I worked in, the scents of the soil and trees, the pure nature of the state land surrounding the reservoir. A sense of need drove me southward, a restlessness even outside my cat’s desire for control I hadn’t felt since a young teenager, the same day my mom had been killed and I’d fallen victim to my leopard for the first time.
Cooler air finally set in as the sun began its descent, and I breathed
