Taming The Cougar by Vonna Harper

Author:Vonna Harper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2009-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

“I was Navajo.”

Listening to himself, Hok’ee silently cursed the stupid comment. He only had to look at his dusky complexion to surmise that he had Native American blood, but until now he’d dismissed his heritage as immaterial. What mattered was the here and now, specifically learning how to survive in this land of remote canyons he felt compelled to stay in. Once he’d reconciled himself to stealing in order to fill his human belly and have a bed to sleep on, he’d been forced to come face-to-face with something even more difficult to accept than reconciling himself to Cougar’s existence—solitude. Yes, there were the other Tocho, but none of them was female.

And so he’d captured a woman in a damn insane attempt to end the lonely nights. But look where that had gotten him.

“You honestly have no memory of your childhood?” Kai asked. “If we knew where and when you entered the foster system—”

“What does it matter?”

“Maybe it doesn’t,” she said after a short silence. “At least not yet. But you deserve a past. I can’t believe you aren’t interested in it.”

“I can’t go back.”

“No, you can’t. Hok’ee, I saw you die. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“The way you said I was driving, I deserved it.”

“Your mind wasn’t on what you were doing because you couldn’t stop thinking about that woman aborting your child.”

They were back to sitting on the bed because he’d led her to it. She’d been shaking, so he had been concerned she’d pass out. He’d held her until she’d stopped trembling. Then, although he’d already sensed some of what she was going to say, she’d told him what she’d seen. He wasn’t sure how he felt knowing the manner of his death; he’d deal with that later.

He still cradled her naked body against him, just him because Cougar had gone back to wherever the predator existed when he wasn’t trying to take over. Why should he? After all, Cougar could care less about human emotion.

“There’s nothing,” he admitted. “I appreciated the pictures you drew for me, but none of that resonates.”

“Maybe later. I think, Hok’ee, that I don’t believe you were killed outright the moment of the crash. I heard moaning, and for a while you tried to move.”

Despite the hot distraction of her body, he clawed into his mind, searching for something, anything. Maybe he was simply feeding off what she’d told him, but was that the sound of metal against pavement? And that smell—rubber?

Crushing her against him, he concentrated. His right thigh started to burn, and his left wrist throbbed. Pain gnawed at his spine, and he felt like there was blood in his mouth. The sensations grew. His wrist more than ached; he had no doubt it was broken, maybe shattered. And his thigh burned because the skin had been scraped away from hip to knee. Agony now chewed at his knees, and he’d scream if he hadn’t bitten off his tongue.

“Enough!” he bellowed. He jumped to his feet, knocking Kai to the ground as he did.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.