Regardless of where she’d landed, she couldn’t use her supernatural powers to harm a natural creature of this world.
She needed a defense plan or someplace to hide if she didn’t find Tristan soon.
What did he use for shelter here?
She suffered another swipe of misery at sending him back to isolation in this place. From her perspective, living in a jungle beat being confined in a basement for eighteen years, but she doubted Tristan would see it that way.
She couldn’t blame him.
Loss of control over your life sucked even if you lived trapped in a castle, like Brina.
Poor Brina could never leave the Isle of Treoir except in a holographic image. Doing so would put the whole Belador tribe at risk of destruction.
Hair stood up along Evalle’s arms.
Two bright eyes, probably yellow, peered at her from between wide palm fronds and froze the blood in her veins.
She could tell it was a large jungle cat but not much more.
For a moment, her heart leaped to the hope that the animal stalking her might be Storm in his black jaguar form. But even if he could track teleportation he couldn’t have found her in another country—and on another continent—this quickly.
She’d probably never see him again and wouldn’t be able to help him find the woman he was hunting either. If she didn’t satisfy the Tribunal’s demands, the list of people she’d let down would continue to grow.
The animal watching her didn’t blink.
Running generally excited a predator, but she couldn’t stand here all night. She had to find a hiding place before daylight, too. With her deadly intolerance to sunlight, she’d fry faster than fish in hot grease the minute rays hit her skin.
And end up just as dead as being eaten by a three-hundred-pound, four-legged killing machine.
Evalle took a step back, then one more.
Another set of predatory eyes with narrow black centers appeared several feet to the right of the first cat. A hunting party, or just taking advantage of a snack dropped in front of them?
Both cats moved forward at the same time.
Game on.
She swung around and dove headfirst into the jungle, swatting low branches and thick undergrowth out of her way. Thorny vines clawed at her clothes and arms. Her boots sucked in and out of wet bogs of mud. She felt as though she ran against a current of energy, like swimming in a resistance pool.
Even her natural Belador speed was useless here, which pretty much confirmed she was inside Tristan’s enclosure. She couldn’t see any other reason she’d slow down to the speed of a human.
She could hear the snap of twigs and rattle of vegetation as the cats stalked her at a steady pace. She hurried ahead, willing herself to outrun them in spite of her mind arguing that was unrealistic.
When she entered a moonlit clearing, she stopped in the center and turned slowly.
Three more sets of yellow eyes faced her from the other direction.
Now she got it. The first two cats had been herding her.
The amulet around her neck warmed and glowed again.
Great. Like these cats needed help finding her in the dark?
All the cats converged at one time.
Golden jaguars. Must be a mother and her grown cubs.
Evalle fisted her hands and crossed her arms in front of her like an X, prepared to block her face and eyes. She couldn’t even use her dagger because the blade was flush with supernatural power. For a moment, she considered shifting into her beast just to frighten them away, but that would probably backfire here even if she didn’t have to worry about having to face the Tribunal again.
