Page 3 of Lion's Prize

I ran faster and faster, bounding between the trees, over bushes and shrubs, looking for a burrow I could crawl into in the hopes that another creature didn’t already occupy it.

Another panther appeared in front of me, and I skidded to a halt. The panther held its head low, teeth bared, ready for me to come to it. Twigs cracked not too far off, and the panthers both looked in the direction of the sound.

I took the opportunity to escape, and I bounced to the side and crawled underneath a shrub.

The panthers looked around, searching for me. I’d been too fast for them. I trembled under the leaves, hoping they’d lose interest and leave me alone. If they searched for me, they would find me, and then I’d be done for. I didn’t know what they’d do to me, but I could guess, and I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t lose my virginity that way—I’d waited this long for the right guy to come along, and I wasn’t about to let them steal my virtue.

“What the fuck are you two doing out here?” someone asked, a naked man walking toward the panthers.

I stared. What was going on?

One of the panthers shifted into the burly man who’d stopped me first.

“We’re looking for a rabbit,” he said.

The third man snorted. “Seriously?”

The other panther shifted into the second assailant. “A rabbitshifter. If we bring one of those home—”

“Are you serious?” number three asked.

“Would I lie to you?”

“Well, if you’re so sure of it, you better find it and bring it home.”

A growling sound was the only agreement I could hear, and I watched as one panther started sniffing around. The other man, still in human form, started moving around the trees and shrubs, looking for me.

“Here, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit,” he said in a sing-song voice.

“You sound like a jackass, you know that?” the third guy said.

“She’s here somewhere,” Number One answered.

“She?”

“We picked her up in the streets.”

“Classy.”

Number Two, who was still in panther form, answered with a grunt.

They crept closer. I couldn’t run. If I did, they would find me, and this time, I wouldn’t be so lucky. I’d had the element of surprise on my side earlier, but pure instinct told me that this time, they were ready for me and in a group of at least two. Maybe Number Three was some kind of shifter, too, and then I was royally fucked.

The only way I could get a handle on this thing was if I used the element of surprise again.

“What are you going to do with it when you find it?” Number Three asked.

“I don’t know. Fuck it. Kill it. It would be a nice little trophy to show the others.”

“You’re sick, man,” Number Three said, but I could see the grin on his face through the leaves, and my stomach twisted. “You’ll find it the moment it moves, if it’s so different from us.”

“Yeah, the magic is something else. She’s around here somewhere; I canfeelit. If she so much as moves her fluffy little tail…”

I couldn’t run at all, then. I was in over my head. The only way to get out of this alive was to go on the offense. Wasn’t that what they said about a good defense?

I wished it didn’t have to be like this. I was just a woman, making my own way in the world. And now this!

This had become a matter of life or death.

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