Free Forged by Greed by Angela Orlowski-Peart Page B

Jatred was racing right behind her, she turned her head to get a better
look.
    In her peripheral vision
she saw Jatred change into the wolf and heard his angry growl mix with a roar
of some beast. She stopped running and spun around. An ugly creature slowly
circled the black wolf.
    “Must be a Winter Garhanan,”
she thought. Terrified, she watched the huge beast creeping closer to Jatred. Its
small beady eyes were fixed on the wolf, its thick arms ending in sharp black
claws. The scant white fur on the Garhanan’s body was long and wispy, barely
covering gray thick skin. An odor emanating from the monster reminded Jasmira
of rotten meat.
    The Garhanan roared,
throwing its arms to the sides, fingers splayed, and pushing its colossal chest
and head forward, as if in challenge. The wolf snarled, his upper lip pulled
back, revealing long canines. He crouched low to the ground. His fur stood on
end on his neck and upper back. Jasmira knew Jatred was about to charge; he was
just calculating the Garhanan’s strengths and weaknesses.
    She didn’t wait for the
wolf to attack.
    “Jasmira, get back!” she heard
Jatred’s voice in her mind. She ignored him and dove straight for the
white-furred monster. It heard her paws pounding on the ground and turned its
head to look at her. As if waiting for that moment, the wolf lunged at the
Garhanan. His sharp teeth easily sank through the monster’s skin and bulging
muscle, all the way to the bone.
    “J, watch out!” Jasmira
screamed with her mind, sprinting toward them.
    The monster bellowed in
pain. It flung its arm, hitting the wolf with a bone-crunching sound. Jatred
flew off the beast, ripping a chunk of flesh from its shoulder. His head hit a
thick tree. A yelp escaped the wolf, and he dropped to the ground, motionless.
    Jasmira jumped onto the
Garhanan. Her teeth bore into its neck. She tossed her head to the side,
tearing a huge hole directly above the beast’s collar bone. Hot blood pumped
from the monster’s torn artery in short, powerful jets. It stained the
Garhanan’s white fur and Jasmira’s black coat. Still roaring, the beast fell
with a thud. She let go of its neck and leaped off, toward the wolf. He lay on
his side, panting, his eyes unfocused. The leopard prodded him with her muzzle
and whimpered. Jatred’s torso moved up and down with each wheezy breath, and
then stopped. His eyes stared ahead, unmoving, dead.
    Jasmira whined, pacing back
and forth along and nudging him with her nose.
    “No, no, no, no!” she
screamed with her mind, waves of horror and disbelief washing over her. “You
can’t be gone. You have to get up, please!”
    From the corner of her eye,
she saw six more Garhanans running in her direction. Their angry growls filled
the air. She wasn’t afraid. She only felt rage and a desire to avenge Jatred.
With a snarl, the leopard dashed to meet the monsters. Her upper lip was pulled
back from her sharp, blood-stained, teeth. She felt hot air hitting at her
muzzle and rushing past her body. Running with the speed only known to the
Shifters, Jasmira was fast closing the distance between her and the Garhanans.
She didn’t slow down, and neither did they. The ground shook from the beasts’
heavy steps, their snarls full of hatred.
    Without hesitation, the
leopard jumped at the biggest of the Garhanans. Her teeth closed on the
monster’s face.
    “Jasmira.” Penelope whispered loudly close to Jasmira’s ear and
shook her arm. “Wake up, wake up.”
    Jasmira sat up, panting. Warm sun caressed her skin. She looked
around, confused. Sweat dripped from her face and neck. Penelope leaned over
from her chaise longue. Jasmira was shaking and felt like crying. She stared at
her friend’s face, slowly calming down.
    “You had a bad dream?”
    “Uhm… yeah.” Jasmira blinked and rubbed her eyes with her fists. She
shuddered and reached for her water tumbler, but it was empty.
    “Here.” Penelope pulled a bottle of Perrier from the