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She’d pulled her bright hair back and secured it in a casual knot, leaving her lovely features drenched indown at her, his chest ached

"I feel theaze arer and excitement "Dozens of them Maybe ht of her attacked by sowith the other Ferals upriver, but of course the others couldn’t knohat Olivia could do What she was

"Liv, I’m not sure about this"

Pa I’ll be fine"

"The Huh those trees if you need it It’s unlocked"

She lifted up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek "Thanks for worrying about me" Her words were soft, but no less heartfelt for their quietness

Her arainst his bare chest as he pulled her close He’d stripped down as soon as they got out here, ready to shift when the moment came

They stood like that, locked in one another’s arht sky that never went coht pollution of nearby DC

"They’re here, Red" He kissed her hair "Be careful"

"You, too If I start draining you, move away"

"You can feed from me even in my animal?"

Pamela Palmer Rapture Untamed

"I’m almost positive I’ve fed off creatures before when there were no people or draden around"

They pulled apart and he shifted into his full-sized jaguar, watching with cat eyes as she pulled two six-inch knives frorew closer, not as big as soood-sized swaraze went back to Olivia, and he saw the quick trace of fear that tightened her features

What’s the matter?he asked sharply She’d sounded so sure she could handle this

"Nothing"

You’re afraid

She glanced at him with surprise "No I’ve done this a thousand times"

You’ve never done this You’ve never taken on a swarm this size, have you?

Pamela Palh her "The night ht I was turned I don’t kno many there were, in truth, but it seemed like thousands"

He heard the pain in her voice, a pain so old, yet living inside her as sharp as if it had just happened Soot He knew that all too well

I’h that

She nodded, her face turned toward the approaching draden cloud "Life is what it is, Jag You choose to deal with it, or you don’t, but it is what it is"

Her words pricked at hiut-wrenching dread, the swar his cat’s jaws around draden after draden, sucking their tasteless hearts down his throat, destroying them in puff after puff of s the life from the mass around her, but she didn’t With fascination, he watched her fight thenificent, twisting and stabbing, raphed the fight, the h to bite her died aler She was a far- machine than the Ferals

Lyon would be ecstatic if he could see her

If he didn’t kill her first

"Jag, I can feel thelanced at him with eyes as filled with excitement as her voice "I can feel each one as a distinctive life force This has never happened before"

A draden high above her head turned into a puff of smoke Then another, a draden she’d touched with neither hand nor knife

"Jag" The excite her iet the toward her, filling in for those who’d already died Like a conductorat each, one by one

One, two, three, four

Puff, puff, puff, puff

"I feel like I was blind and can suddenly see" She grinned at hi her face A fist contracted around his heart even as his chest swelled and swelled and swelled

Strong, beautiful, precious girl

Mine

He sat back on his haunches, watching her with fascination, sharing her excitement

She didn’t need hi a symphony of massacre

The little fiends died by the dozens, but the rest kept on coy, to their primary source of food And they, too, died

The cloud di swiftness until finally, with a last puff, the draden were gone

Olivia did a quick turn, then stopped, facing hiht with a triu shifted back into his hurinned at her "You looked like Superwoman A one-woman draden-demolition team"

"It’s never been like that I’ve never been able to sense them individually I can even" She cocked her head, her expression turning thoughtful "I can feel you Your life force, bright and whole I think" Her brows drew together "I think I could feed just froet you alone"

It occurred to hi for his knives, but she was no danger unless she wanted to be He was as sure of that as he was of the sun’s rising in the ht her back to Feral House

She watched hi hi"

He did, that sense of her feeding Not painfully strongly, but not lightly either

Pa"