Evangeline cried out, a soft plea of shock and pain. His leopard was being gentle. Like he’d been. Unnatural for his beast, but Alonzo felt him, was monitoring closely just to be safe, but he shouldn’t have worried. The leopard held her with care, waiting for her female to rise. To accept him.

5

THE leopard’s teeth hurt, but not nearly as bad as Evangeline had expected. She couldn’t move, not with Alonzo’s big body pressing against her, holding her pinned to the wall. She couldn’t scream for help. The only ones that would hear her were Alonzo’s men. Other leopards. Tears burned in her eyes. He was claiming her. His leopard was claiming her female. That meant her female would be bonded to his male. There was no going back from that.

Bebe, I’m sorry, I couldn’t protect you.

She held herself very still, pressed her forehead into the wall and closed her eyes tightly against the memories flooding her. Sounds of the swamp. Her heart pounding. The slide of fur against the walls of the tiny building she was huddled in. She had only her blanket to cover her small little body. She wasn’t yet four, her mass of hair in tangles around her face. She remembered putting her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. She didn’t have that luxury now. Her hands were trapped against the wall.

Her heartbeat was a drum of fear as the leopard rubbed his face so gently against her, his fur almost comforting. But the teeth were steady. Unrelenting. The sounds of her screams deep in her head filled her ears. She remembered those same screams in her head when the large cat had pushed against the flimsy door of the tiny structure her father locked her in at night—a structure deep in the swamp. He locked her in and left her. She begged and cried but he told her to be quiet. To not make a sound or the bad leopard would come for her. And it had come. Night after night.

Way back then that wild thing inside of her had unfurled and reached out to comfort her—to try to keep her from going insane with fear. Even then, at the age of four, she knew that hideous cat pawing around the building was looking for her—for what was inside of her—and she had to protect it. They had to protect each other. She stayed very still, that little child, her fist jammed in her mouth, eyes closed, and waited for the thing to go away.