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He wasn’t the only one affected by what his nose could detect Underneath theof earth, she could scent hi that glistening moisture that sometimes happened when ain my mind when I didn’t know you were there" A lot Her voice came out shaky She didn’t knohether to be terrifiedor soht about that But yourplaces, and you are part of what I need to understand to deterht it would be best to use my expanded senses to follow you"
Somehow, that didn’t seem like the whole truth to her, but he had no reason to tell her less than the truth, right? She was his, for whatever he wanted in this moment, as if he’d cast a spell over her in truth As he’d spoken, touched her, she’d wound her fingers tighter into that loose fall of hair, and found his neck She trailed along the artery there, the one she’d drink froth Or just for his pleasure She’d seen that, too Sometimes, even if he didn’t need it, Danny liked it if Dev drank a few drops of her blood, licking the that connection with her
Stiffening at her astounding train of thought, she saw a flash of intensity in Mal’s eyes she wasn’t sure arning or a fierce reaction to the way she’d touched his throat like that
He shifted, the grassnoise beneath his body She heard one of the leopards chuff, thenin your mind, even at the level of a second-ardless of your conscious inhibitions and reservations A huht back off, appalled at what you’ve had to accept, or heback what Victor did to you" He held her in the clasp of that gaze Those dark brown eyes had flecks of gold, she realized And glimmers of crimson "But I’m not human"
He followed the curve of her chin with his knuckles Just like one of his cats, she lifted it, so he could stroke down the line of her throat At the base, he reversed his direction, his fingers spreading out andpressure of his hand collaring her throat, tightening enough that she had to hold her chin up, held fast by his strength and thepower of those earth-colored eyes It should have stoked fear, as he’d said, but it didn’t Her body recognized the do of her principles or baggage, tre beyond da-for-entry
"As a vaertips down the center of her body, trailing over bare sternum, midriff, to the mound of her sex, "I read your desire and your arousal When one of these cats feels hunger stir in his belly and sees that ie of escape, he must hunt My instincts won’t deny er The nourishment I want is your cry of pleasure Youfrom you as they did, but it’s your chance to take, too You’ve fought so hard for these fledglings You’re fighting yourto o and act on your instinct, like a wild anith of a lioness to what you face as a wo the ache intensify "So ill it be, Elisa? A woman, or a wild animal? If you choose the woman, remember you back away fro your eyes off hihted the air between thee she didn’t kno to answer She’d never "taken" in her life, never had the aggressive instincts of the wild anis she wanted, the things she’d lost, the things that confused her still She knew she had no answer for him But perhaps she could test herself in another way
Slowly, she drew her ar away fro up at him "You told me I don’t need to know hts You talked about the protection of the skins, but you didn’t say it like it was a wishful thing, the ear crosses and hope soic, isn’t it? Will you tell me?"
She didn’t expect hi on it It would confirm there was no real connection between the and as e her broith a fingertip, then tracing it down her nose, a brief touch on her lips again, he sat up, bringing her with his bent, gazing down on that meadohere the leopards were
"The cheetah and cubstonight aren’t here, on the island When we drove through that open plain, ere actually in Africa For just a moment or two"
"Of course That’s what I would have suspected" She blinked at hiive away your secret Not sure anyone would believe that"
His lips curved, but the serious set of his eyes remained "There is a sizeable island here, and the house sits in the center of it However"--he drew several lines in the dirt banked against the fallen tree--"these sections, when you move into them, you’re not actually here These are pieces of land elsewhere in the world, that have been patched here by er territories And it’soff-kilter with the reality there Those actually in those places can’t see or hear us or our cats Our lions on the open preserve are walking in the environer of the poachers When the island was first formed, a certain nuh that we could maintain a herd, wandered across that protected fault line before the man who created it sealed it andoff-centered it I’h at my rather nontechnical explanation, but that’s the bare bones of it"