Free Huntbound (Moonfate Serial Book 2) by Sylvia Frost

Oh, God.
    I can feel the desperate cry bubbling in the woman’s throat as she stumbles backward, bringing me with her. “Then tell me why I shouldn’t kill her right now, since you’re going to kill me anyway.”
    “Because I’ll kill you gently. The tiger standing behind you won’t.”
    I feel the woman’s abdominal muscles twitch against me. But she doesn’t turn around. For a second, in spite of the power of the bond compelling me to believe Orion, I feel my own teeth grit in anger. What is he doing, thinking she’ll fall for some kid’s trick? Where the hell is a tiger going to come from?
    The woman must think the same thing because she laughs. “Nice try, wolf. But I’m no idiot. Now, you’re going to step away from John, or I’ll slit your pretty little — or should I say big — mate’s throat. I know you’re thinking that I’ll do that anyway, even if you don’t, but I won’t. She smells like old blood, and the boss will be interested in that. You may never see her again but—”
    Whatever the coyote’s mate meant to say is cut off as a giant mass of fur and claws sends us both careening to the ground.
     

Chapter Fourteen
     
    Four hundred pounds of animal collide with my captor and me, although I can’t be sure it is a tiger. All I know is that it’s furry and sharp and a damn miracle that the woman’s knife doesn’t slice open my throat as we all tangle on the ground. Claws and steel hurricane around me in a storm of orange and black.
    The sounds are enough to get me to try to move away. The crunch of jagged teeth biting down on bones. But I only manage to gain a few inches of distance before someone else is grasping me. Pulling me to my feet roughly.
    “I’m—”
     
    Orion cuts me off by pulling me into his bare chest. He’s holding me so tightly I can’t breathe. Maybe he really is going to kill me. Maybe it’s a death I’d welcome. Anything would be better than this.
     
    The woman’s cries burn into my eardrums. They sound just like my mother’s, the surprise, the animalistic sound of them, the lack of humanity in her death. Oh, God. She’s being ripped to pieces. My jagged fingernails dig into Orion’s skin. I can’t be here. I can’t watch this happen again. Even if it’s happening to someone who tried to kill me.
    But Orion doesn’t let me go. He doesn’t even look at me.
    Behind me the woman’s screams soften, turning to pathetic, whimpering gurgles. She’s dying.
    “Cal!” Orion shouts over my head. “Enough.”
    The tiger roars, and it holds none of the melody of Orion’s wolf’s cry; it’s all unadulterated, angry predator.
    “N-no.” I shake my head and press against Orion. I’m so overwhelmed I don’t even care that he’s completely naked against me. “Tell the tiger to stop. Please.”
    “The tiger has a name,” drawls a low, smoky voice from behind me. “Which you should ask for, so that you can say a proper thank you for just saving your sorry ass.”
    “Cal,” says Orion, his grip loosening around me, in shock or I don’t know what. I take his relaxation as my chance to turn around, the horror forgotten for a second as I try to register the reality of one important and yet impossible truth.
    The tiger is a she.
    And not just any she. A very naked, bloody she.
    How can this be possible? Every werebeast is a man. It’s been that way since the beginning of time.
    But there’s no arguing her gender.
    She stands in front of the body of the werecoyote’s mate, her large, voluptuous form completely naked. Her curves make mine look like indents, but she’s fitter than me, too. Almost as much muscle as fat.
     
    Going by that, I would’ve guessed she was Indian, but her hair is something that could only be called an atomic explosion of black curls. Stripes of orange and black fur crisscross her limbs like furry scars. If she hadn’t just transformed into a tiger I would’ve sworn they were a matemark. Maybe they still are, but she