Total pages in book: 172
Estimated words: 155984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
“We didn’t get Fyodor or Timur,” Rolan reminded, his voice almost whiny.
“That doesn’t matter. They won’t be expecting an attack when we come after them. They’ll buy the fact that the Houston families wanted Mitya and Sevastyan dead. There seemed to be bad blood between them. There were implications in the news about it.” Conrad was patient. “We’ll get them.”
“Fine. Let’s go.” Rolan capitulated all at once, staring at the downed leopards in the front of the house.
“Oliver, get your men back to the cargo ship as soon as you’re done. Have them bring any bodies with them,” Conrad ordered, proving who was really in charge. “No one can be left behind or they might be traced to you.”
“I know what I’m doing.” Oliver wasn’t paying much attention. His gaze was fixed on the battle. Only minutes had gone by, but things weren’t adding up. His men hadn’t come around from the other sides to pour into the front as they’d been instructed. No one had called in to say they’d breached the back. He could see bodies lying in the yard. Too many bodies and most looked like his men. He still hadn’t spotted the big leopard they were supposed to kill.
Conrad waited for Rolan to strip and roll his clothes, put them in his bag around his neck and shift. Rolan’s leopard, Diktator, had a thick, darker Amur gray undercoat with darker rosettes scattered in wide patterns all over his lengthy body. He wasn’t short and compact, rather long and lithe. Rolan had given his leopard the name when he was very young because the kitten had been so much bigger. He’d been almost twice Rolan’s length when he was a toddler. He’d referred to him as big brother. He’d never made the mistake of calling his leopard big brother in front of Lazar, because Lazar would have had his leopard harass and hurt Diktator.
Conrad’s leopard was younger, definitely in his prime, a big male with a long, thick, ivory-and-gray undercoat and distinct black rosettes down his spine and then falling over his body, tail, face and ears in a beautiful pattern. He was a powerful male and knew it. He fell back to protect the older male as Diktator set out for the road on the far side of the meadow.
Once Rolan made up his mind to leave, he set a fast pace, moving around the bombs and heading straight for the trucks and the transports that had carried the men to the property. They’d come in the back way, over the dirt road leading to Mitya’s property, not wanting to be seen. The teams had then dispersed to their assigned locations before closing in on the house.
The moment Rolan and Conrad were away from the knoll, Sevastyan and Zakhar fell in behind them. Kyanite watched them go and then he instructed his leopard, Bahadur, whose name meant warrior, to step around the bomb and climb up the knoll to stalk Oliver. His leopard, although big and very powerful, was also extremely stealthy, able to be just as silent as any of the other smaller leopards he had trained or worked with.
Bahadur crawled on his belly up the knoll, careful to keep from disturbing any loose dirt that would roll down the hill and be heard by Oliver. He kept downwind. Oliver, a shifter, would be using all senses. At this point, there was no doubt he had to be aware the battle hadn’t gone as planned. Kyanite could clearly hear him calling softly into his radio, demanding each of his units call in to him with a report. His voice was tense, no longer confident or arrogant. No one answered him.
Bahadur had him in sight now. Crouched only thirty feet away, in the higher grasses, he watched as Oliver threw the radio down and stripped, turning to face the same way Rolan and Conrad had gone. As he shifted, Bahadur charged, hitting him in the side with such force it drove the contorting half human, half leopard off the knoll onto the ground below. Bahadur leapt after him, landing on the creature as he desperately tried to finish shifting with broken bones.
Oliver’s leopard swiped at Bahadur’s throat, but Kyanite’s leopard was far too experienced and there was no target for the downed creature to get to. He ripped open the belly of the half human, half leopard and then delivered the kill bite to the exposed throat as the creature tried to roll. Bahadur stayed several moments, making certain Oliver was dead, and then, taking direction from his human companion, turned to follow Sevastyan and Zakhar. Vikenti’s and Zinoviy’s leopards joined him.
Sevastyan and Zakhar split up. They knew the terrain much better than Conrad and Rolan, who had studied it only from a map. They circled around and got ahead of their enemies, placing themselves well between them and the road where their transports were, where drivers might see or hear if they called out for help.