Free Leopard 04 - Wild Fire by authors_sort Page B

with Adan? That was totally absurd. And what difference did it make anyway? He’d used her. He hadn’t fallen in love with her.
    “Go to hell, Conner,” she snapped, and jerked her face from his hand before she was tempted to touch those four scars. Her fingertips ached.
    Without warning the sound of gunshots rang out and bullets bit into the trees all around them. Conner flung her down, his body completely blanketing hers, the gun in his hands as he swiveled around to face behind them. Several large animals crashed through the trees to the left of them and above them. Leaves fell from the canopy as a migration of monkeys passed overhead.
    It was hot. Steam rose along with smoke. She could hear the crackle of flames and the sounds of animals panicking. Swarms of insects passed over their heads, and leaves shriveled and blackened as the heat swept through the trees, turning the forest into an oven. Her cat fought for survival, suddenly frightened.
    She instinctively struggled, wanting to run with the other animals.
    Conner’s palm curved around the nape of her neck and he lowered his head to whisper into her ear. His voice was gentle. Soothing. Like a black velvet cloth stroking her inside and out. “ Sestrilla , you can’t panic. We can’t move until I remove the threat behind us and the fire’s coming. I’ll get you out of here.
    Just stay with me.”
    She took a breath and forced herself back under control. She wasn’t the panicking type, but the cat was definitely jittery. “It’s not me.”
    Sestrilla. He’d called her that before. The word was foreign and exotic. She’d loved it before, when they’d lain together, their bodies wrapped around one another, but now she feared the power of that small word over her. She went soft and mushy inside. Opened to him. More vulnerable than ever.
    “You and your cat are one. It doesn’t feel like it to you, because she’s just rising. But you’re always in control. She’s going to panic at the smell and feel of the fire, but you know you’re safe. You have to trust me and she will too.”
    Trust him. Why had he used that particular word? Trust him? She might as well put a gun to her own head. Before she could reply, he pressed his fingers tighter around her neck, growling low in his throat.
    She froze. Her hands opened and she pressed her palms into the earth. Something heavy was running toward them.
    A man burst out of the bushes just to their left, almost on top of them. His eyes widened and he fought to bring his gun around. At the same time, he tried to skid to a halt to keep from shooting past them. A wild yell of warning ripped from the man’s throat, even as Conner squeezed the trigger, firing a single round.
    She heard the bullet hit, the terrifying sound of torn flesh, and it threw her back in time, to the moment when her father brought up his gun, aiming at Conner’s head. The man’s cry was cut off abruptly, but apparently his partner heard him and sprayed the entire forest with a hail of bullets.
    She closed her eyes tight, trying not to smell the mixture of blood and gunpowder, but her stomach churned and bile rose in her mouth. Her father’s body shimmered in front of her, blood splattering along the wall behind him. There was no face, only a mass of blood. So much blood. Daddy? A sob broke from her and Conner reacted immediately, pressing close to her, although his gaze was on the forest.
    “Are you hurt?”
    She fought for control, a little disoriented, caught between the past and the present. Now wasn’t the time to lose it. What in the world was wrong with her? She could hear the blast so close to her ear, the Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    scream of the bullet loud in the confined room. Her own scream, the shock hitting her body. She tried to reach him, before he crumpled to the floor. She didn’t want him on the floor with all that blood.
    Conner swore and rolled to one side, coming up on