Carpathian 21 - Dark Peril

home, and now had a long way to go in return. It was faster using the canopy to travel, but several times she was forced to go to the forest floor.

    The wound on her hip broke open, seeping more blood. She couldn’t afford the scent in the air. With a sniff of impatience, she made her way to one of her many stashes throughout the forest. Deep inside a cage of roots she had hidden a small waterproof box. A set of clothing, weapons, ammunition, dried food, clean water and a medical kit waited for her. She had to shift and sew up the wound.

    It was always important in the rain forest to cleanse and close a wound, applying an antibiotic cream—and this was no exception. Infections were rampant, easy to get and easy to die from. As a rule she was meticulous with wounds, and the fact that she’d traveled all the way to the place of her family’s slaughter without caring for the lacerations told her a lot about her mental state. She needed to find a way out or she was going to die soon. She had nothing left to give—and that shamed her.

    She shifted back into her jaguar form. It was easier to handle the deep emotion threatening her sanity when buffered by her animal, especially at the realization that there would be no end to Brodrick’s depravities.
    There were so few women in the rain forest, or even living on the edge of it, that Brodrick had resorted to using the vampire database to find jaguar-women in other countries. He had them kidnapped and brought to him. That was how Annabelle had been taken. Her husband was human, from what Solange had understood, but that hadn’t stopped the men Brodrick had hired from kidnapping her.

    The human society was in close league with Brodrick, although she’d noticed that all the men guarding the laboratory were afraid of him. As they should be. Brodrick was as cruel and depraved as any vampire, and just as cunning. He knew the rain forest—it was his home turf. Her reputation had grown over the years, and by now, he would know there was a pureblood female shifter wreaking havoc with his plans. He despised disobedience, and his punishments were swift and brutal. He demanded complete submission, especially from a female. He would want her alive—her one advantage. The males she encountered would be handicapped by trying to bring her to Brodrick still breathing.

    She hurried now, loping occasionally. They would burn the body of the jaguar male she’d killed tonight to keep their presence hidden. They would want Annabelle’s body to burn as well. Hopefully Brodrick would be there to direct the operation personally, but if not, and she managed to send him another body or two, he would stay to hunt her. He would never be able to take a slap in the face like that from a female. He would move heaven and earth to find her. She would let him and she would kill him. She expected to die, but she wasn’t going alone. She would rid the remaining jaguar-women of his evil presence even if it meant paying with her death.

    She could hear the roar of the river and she went to her belly, listening, sniffing the air, looking for signs in the animals as well. She scented the presence of at least two males, jaguar-men, but not in their animal forms. Their senses would be a little duller, their hearing less acute. She worked her way south of them until she came to another of her small stashes, again sheltered from the elements by the roots of a tree. This box was longer and held her weapons, carefully cleaned, with a wealth of ammunition. She shifted and dressed quickly, strapped on a knife, a crossbow, extra arrows and her rifle. She wasn’t the best with a handgun, although she wasn’t bad, but at a distance she was a damned good shot with both a rifle and crossbow.

She made her way through the forest, keeping to the animal trails. She had the advantage of being small and compact, allowing her into spaces the larger jaguar males might not go to pick up her scent. She crawled on her hands and knees some of the time and other times she slid on her belly to get to the site she’d chosen for her attack.

    She took a good careful look around, scent-testing the air, before she went up the tree. It was much more difficult to go half human, half cat, but she’d used the technique often over the years so she could climb to the canopy fast and yet bring the weapons and clothing she might need.

    She settled into the crook of the tree, listening to the sounds coming from the river’s edge.