Free More Than Friends by Celeste Anwar Page A

asleep.
              She wanted to blow its brains out.  The revulsion of the thought and what she’d seen the animal do made her want to vomit.
              She choked back the bile rising in her throat.  “Goddamn it!  They’re just animals!  Use your brains,” she yelled, raising her gun and firing at the cats attacking her team.
              If they killed all the damned cats, they wouldn’t get paid.  Some of the men ignored her and continued to fire their guns.
              “Use the fucking tranq. guns!  We need them alive, not dead, you fucking idiots.  Get a hold of yourselves!” she screamed, trying to get through their thick skulls.
              She took a cat down, and then another, and swore when she had to reload.  She ran behind one of the trees to try to cover her back and fitted the cartridge as quickly as she could.  Spinning to launch a tirade and make sure no one else got killed, she pulled up short as something snagged her vest.  Her blood ran cold when she felt the pressure of a paw and the edge of claws digging through the thick material.
              The airspace was so awash with the sounds of battle, she hadn’t heard the fucking thing come up behind her.
              She twisted, trying to get a shot off before he could rip a hole through her.  A great black paw knocked the weapon from her hands—lightning fast, faster than she could ever hope to react.  She lunged for the weapon, feeling the beast move in sync with her.  He was right behind her, his hot fetid breath on the back of her neck.  Her legs dragged, her mind slowed.  She couldn’t believe what was really happening, and in the back of her mind, she knew she couldn’t stop moving or she’d be dead.  His great weight landed on top of her, and dimly, she recognized the sounds of shredding fabric as it clawed her vest.
              She ducked her head into her chest, felt the beast squeezing her, crushing her into the ground.  Through a fog, she registered that the pheromone was leaking onto her chest—something on the canister had broken and its contents saturated her clothing.  Her lungs couldn’t expand, she couldn’t breathe.  She couldn’t reach her knife, her hands were trapped as the animal pushed her down.  Dirt filled her nostrils, her mouth, preventing her from screaming for backup.  Any second she’d feel teeth sink into her neck.  She prayed she wouldn’t feel it when the animal ripped her spinal cord out.
              This was the end, and she was powerless to stop it from happening.
     
     
    Here’s an excerpt from Celeste’s alter ego, Jaide Fox from an upcoming erotic fantasy romance: Beastmen of Shadowmere 2: Seduced by the Beast:
     
    Shadowmere, Northern Borderlands
     
              Swan of Avonleigh had no knowledge of where she was and no memory of how she had gotten here.  There could be only one explanation--dark magic.
              She nursed little doubt that the source of the dark magic, and the instrument of her torture by terror now, was the same—Morvere, the sorcerer who had cursed her to live by day as a swan, only resuming her human form at night, the sorcerer who had had clipped her wing so that she could not even fly away to protect herself when the spell overtook her and changed her into a swan.
              Not content with the misery he had already inflicted upon her, he had dropped her into this nightmare world, prey to the baying pack that now pursued her, where a horrible fate awaited her the moment she faltered.
              Terror surged through Swan’s veins, near deafening her to the sounds of the pack that surrounded her, almost seeming to toy with her as they herded her onward, closing in now and then to drive her in a new direction.  Pushed almost beyond endurance, her muscles screamed in agony, but the threat of being eaten alive left no room for anything but the