Rage & Killian by Alexandra Ivy, Laura Wright Page A

Something halfway between Pantera and human. Rosalie narrowed her eyes on the female figure in the water. She worked with the Healers. Karen…that was her name. She deserved claws and fangs herself for even engaging with this enemy.
    A low, feral growl rumbled in Rosalie’s throat. Maybe the male wasn’t an enemy to Karen . Was this a meeting of lovers? Did the rat have a human male lover?
    “Stop!” Karen called as the male swam away from her, toward the shore. “You’ll be killed the second you step foot onto the Wildlands.”
    Rosalie’s puma grinned. Or maybe even before that .
    Her cat leapt from the flora and raced to the shore. The second the dark-haired male was out of the water, she attacked. Teeth sank into wet T-shirt, and with a growl of fury she dragged him onto the mossy bank.
    But he was no fragile human with dead instincts. In seconds, he rolled away and sprang to his feet. Wasting no time, Rosalie’s puma leapt onto his chest and sent him stumbling back. Cursing, he pushed her away, then found his footing again. Wet, his T-shirt clinging to his hard muscles, he crouched into a fighting position. Deep blue eyes raging at her, taunting her, his lip curled. He wasn’t remotely afraid. He knew how to fight. Had been trained to fight.
    Her Pantera heart sank while her cat’s boiled.
    He knew how to fight a Pantera.
    She snarled and once again leapt at him, claws extended. He ducked, then flipped her over his back. Recovery was less than five seconds, and again she attacked. This time he turned to face her and swipe her legs out from under her.
    Fuck you, Human.
    The rat, Karen, was on the shore now, and as thunder boomed and lightning flickered in the sky, she tried desperately to calm the situation. But both Rosalie’s puma and the man were oblivious. They were circling each other now, eyes narrowed, nostrils flared.
    “I don’t want to hurt you, kitty cat,” he said, his tone dark and dangerous as his blue eyes hardened. “I just want to see—”
    Rosalie didn’t let him finish. She sprang forward and took him out at the ankles. This time, the man went down. All six foot three inches of muscle and bone. She wrestled him to his back, then stood over him, pinning him to the cold ground. For a few brief seconds, she stared down at him in the quarter moon’s cloudy light. Every part of him was hard, from his mouth to his eyes to his body. He was wet, his short black hair plastered to his head. And scented of sweat and the bayou. Some females might call him… sexy.
    Rosalie would call him dinner.
    “Fucking cats,” he growled. Then Rosalie’s legs were suddenly thrust apart, hands closed around her throat and she was being rolled onto her back.
    Panic flooded through her and she unleashed her claws, tried to reach his flesh. Any bit. Draw blood. But…no. Goddess, no. He was so strong. Shockingly strong.
    She tried to turn her head, get her teeth on him, in him…
    Fuck!
    Poised above her, his massive, unyielding body weight pinning her cat down, he stared at her. Intently. Curiously. With those blue shark eyes. “I’ll let go, Kitten,” he whispered. “If you sheath your claws, close your mouth, and listen to what I have to say.”
    Hatred threatened to consume her…the puma. A human was not only demanding things from her, but he was imprisoning her. Her nostrils flared. Her puma had never felt such a desire to draw and consume blood. If this bastard thought she would ever allow herself to be imprisoned again, he was an idiot.
    “What do you think, Kitten?” he said, his tone low with warning, his hard body digging into the flesh of her cat. “Can you control yourself?”
    Rosalie granted him the puma’s equivalent of a fuck-you grin, then followed that up with a quick and painful butt to the forehead.
    The shock was immediate. The pain, too. He cursed, but his grip on her never wavered. Who the hell was this man? That he could contain her? A deadly beast of a Hunter? That he could