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“Hello, Eleanor Whitman.” His gravel-like voice sent horror scraping across her nerve endings. “You have something I want.”
“Oh fuck,” Eleanor said and ran for her car.
CHAPTER 19
Eleanor didn’t even make it close to her car. The guy was scarily fast, and when his big meaty hand landed on her shoulder and whipped her around, she screamed piercingly.
His hand immediately closed around her throat, cutting off both her scream and her ability to breathe. Her bag slid off her shoulder, landing in the grass with a heavy thump, taking the precious Mace with it.
She clawed at his hands as he lifted her easily into the air, her feet dangling, black roses blooming in her vision, and her head feeling like it was about to pop off like a cork. She kicked at his groin, but he twisted away and grinned at her.
“Now, now, Eleanor Whitman, no being naughty. I want the flash drive. And if you give it to me without any fuss, I’ll kill you quick. How about that? Would you like that?”
He leaned closer and pressed a kiss against the throbbing vein in her forehead. “Poor little human. So weak, so fragile. I can smell your fear, and it,” he inhaled deeply as his pupils turned to slits and his fangs dropped, “smells delicious.”
She kicked again at his groin, this time the toe of her sneaker connecting, and he growled before shaking her. “Stop that, I said! Don’t be naughty. Naughty girls get their guts torn out, and their eyeballs eaten. Do you understand, Eleanor Whitman?”
Her lungs screamed at her for air, but the man’s grip didn’t loosen, even when she dug her nails into his flesh.
He growled again. “As soon as I have that flash drive, I’m going to fuck you up so bad, you’ll wish your momma had never given birth to you. You’ll wish...”
He lifted his head and sniffed the air, a grin crossing his face as Wes’s voice rang out. “Get the fuck away from her.”
The man dropped Eleanor, and she collapsed on the ground. She sucked a whistling breath of air into her screaming lungs and then immediately coughed and gagged. Her eyes watering, she tried to get to her feet, but her trembling legs refused to hold her weight. She fell on her butt, still gasping in air through her swollen throat, still coughing and gagging.
“Lion shifter,” the man said with a low growl as his body swelled. The back of his shirt tore, revealing rippling muscles covered in thick gold fur. “Give me what I want, or I’ll kill the girl slow and make you watch.”
Wes roared so loudly it made Eleanor’s ears hurt. She stared in wide-eyed shock as both Wes and the man shifted abruptly. The stranger was a lion shifter like Wes, but he was… holy fuck, he was twice the size of Wes’s lion. As he bounded toward Wes, she tried to scream Wes’s name, but her ravaged throat immediately rebelled, and she doubled over with another coughing fit that made her dizzy.
She watched in horror as the two lions leaped at each other. Wes was sent flying by the heavier weight of the man, his lithe body slamming into the side of the house before dropping to the ground. He was on his feet in an instant, rising onto his hind legs and swiping one claw tipped paw at the bigger lion.
The lion roared with rage when Wes’s claws raked across his face, drawing bright red blood. He crouched and leaped onto Wes, their bodies writhing and rolling on the ground. Eleanor staggered to her feet when Wes screamed. His attacker had sunk his fangs deep into Wes’s shoulder. Eleanor stumbled forward, grabbing her bag and fumbling the Mace out of the pocket.
Wes twisted away from the larger lion, his tail lashing back and forth and his golden eyes glowing with anger. Bleeding heavily from his bitten shoulder, he didn’t hesitate to charge forward and attack again. The lion swiped at him, barely missing Wes’s face. Wes leaped onto him, using his weight to drive the lion to the ground.
Before he could bury his fangs into the lion’s throat, the massive lion heaved Wes off like he weighed no more than a bug and quickly pinned him to the ground.
“Wes!” Eleanor screamed as the lion roared in triumph.
“No!” she screamed again and ran across the lawn toward the two lions. She wouldn’t make it in time. She was too fucking slow. The man would rip out Wes’s throat, and she’d have to watch the man she loved die. Her heartbeat tripled, sending a frantic rush of blood through her veins as she continued to run forward anyway, the Mace can held out in front of her.
Heavy footsteps thudded behind her, and a large, sleek tiger ran by her and leaped at the lion about to kill Wes. He landed on the lion with a meaty roar, knocking him off of Wes and driving him into the ground.
A second tiger ran past, his tail flicking out to snap around her legs and trip her. She hit the ground, her teeth snapping together and her knee screaming at her when it slammed into the ground.
Wes jumped to his feet as the two tigers fearlessly attacked the lion. He joined in, snarling and growling as the three of them tore at the lion with their teeth and their claws. The lion fought back savagely, his big body twisting and turning and his claws slicing through the air.
He howled in pain when one of the tigers danced forward and snapped his front leg with a hard bite of his immense jaws. Wes raked his claws down the lion’s back, and the lion howled again, saliva dripping from his fangs as blood poured out of the wounds on his back.
Sirens wailed in the distance, and the lion swiped his paw across the bigger tiger’s back, drawing a roar of outrage from the striped beast. The lion darted past the tiger and, with one final baleful glare at Eleanor, ran down the street and leaped over a neighbour’s fence, his broken front leg dangling uselessly.
She climbed to her feet again, lurching forward as Wes shifted to his human form. He tore across the lawn, pulling her into his embrace and cupping her face. “Eleanor, baby, are you all right?”
“Are you?” she rasped as the sirens wailed and the neighbours stood on front porches and lawns, staring wide-eyed at them.
She touched his bitten shoulder, the bright red liquid making her stomach churn. “You’re bleeding so much.”
“It’s fine,” Wes said dismissively as he tilted her head up and examined her throat. “Your throat is bruised and swollen. You need to go to the hospital.”
