Change of Heart

the nightstand. "I will not allow Domin or anyone else to ever touch you, let alone hurt you. Nothing Yuri could do, outside of killing me, would keep me from your side."
    He was blurring as hot tears filled my eyes.
    "And as far as anyone...." He took a deep breath through his nose, and I saw him struggling for control, trying to hold his smile for me. "I read the law, and I asked Yuri about winnowing...." He cleared his throat, suddenly clutching me so tight I gasped. "Never, and that's my final word to you. I will not allow you to step a foot into that pit."
    I shook my head. "I can't allow you in, either."
    "I know." He nodded, and suddenly his mouth closed on my throat, and I felt his fangs pierce my skin. There was no time to be surprised; he was on me so fast, and my struggling was in vain. I felt like I was drowning, but there was no panic, only lulling heat filling my body. I was heavy 208
    Change of Heart
    by Mary Calmes
    and hot at the same time. I could not keep my eyes open. I felt like I was looking down a dark tunnel that got smaller and smaller until there was only darkness.
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    Change of Heart
    by Mary Calmes

Chapter Twelve
    I was freezing and exhausted down to my bones.
    Everything hurt, and I wanted to sleep, but I struggled to open my eyes and regain consciousness. I needed to wake up so I could kill my mate. How dare Logan bleed me to try and make me too weak to move! I was supposed to be protecting him and saving him, but instead, he had humiliated me in front of his tribe, made my sacrifice inconsequential, and betrayed the trust between us. I hated him, and he would pay. I rolled over onto my stomach and shifted.
    I stretched every muscle in my body and stood up into my human form before I shifted back to panther again. Every time I changed, my body was forced to go through the metamorphosis that caused muscles to stretch and reform and new blood to pump furiously through my veins. With every shift, I got stronger, and had Logan ever once seen me turn, he would have known that his trick, the bleeding, was not going to work. But he didn't know anything about me, not really, and in that second, I was glad I had never confessed my love for him aloud. To have spoken the words and to then suffer his betrayal would have been too much.
    I staggered to the glass door that led outside to the balcony, opened it, and stood there a minute gathering my strength before I bolted forward. By the time I was up and balanced on the stone railing, I was a black panther. From the balcony, I leaped across the space between the house and the enormous oak tree that grew beside it, and from there, I ran 210
    Change of Heart
    by Mary Calmes
    down the trunk to the ground. It took only seconds. Instantly, I raised my head and inhaled. The smell of my mate was there faintly on the wind; I just needed to trace it.
    I ran in every direction until I found the scent, first just a trace, and then, as I started to run, I could almost taste him.
    He was closer than I had imagined. Wherever the pit of the tribe of Mafdet was, it was on Logan's land. Even in the driving wind and the falling snow, I could find it. I stopped suddenly, shifting one last time before I took off again. I felt better, almost completely restored, and by the time I found Logan, I would be ready to fight him for the right to face Domin and the others. As I ran toward the woods, I took in the warring scents of fear, panic, and blood. The pit was very close.
    The amphitheater was built into the side of the mountain so that it was a wall of enormous stones on one side and smooth marble on the other. There was one way in, at the top, so that if you were one of those fighting for your life, you had to take the stairs down past everyone to the floor. I hid in the shadows near the entrance; everything else was lit by hundreds of kerosene lanterns. The way the shadows fell, the way the flames flickered in the huge bonfire in the center of the floor, the howling wind, the snow just dusting the ground—it seemed primitive and almost haunted.
    The growling and snarling made my teeth grind together as I saw Logan cut around the edge of the fire and turn to face the four others. In that instant, I realized that the challenge had begun, and I had been out longer than I thought. What I had presumed to be an hour had actually 211
    Change of Heart
    by Mary Calmes
    been more like two or three, and as I looked at Logan, I saw the toll the