Dark Peril by Christine Feehan Page A

Head down, she somersaulted off the branch and into the raging water. The bellow of the jaguar followed her down. She tried to enter the water straight, feet first. The cold was shocking to her body as the dark waters closed over her head and threw her tumbling downstream. She rolled over and over, lungs burning. She lost the rifle and crossbow immediately, the weapons ripped from her hands as the vicious current took her.
    Exhausted, her body numb, Solange fought her way to the surface to grab a lungful of air before the current rolled her under again. She tucked her legs into her chest and tried to ride it out, no longer fighting the pull, just allowing the strength of the river to carry her far from her enemy. She had to grab air when she could, and twice she slammed into rocks. Their surface was too slippery for her to hold on to, so she went spinning down river again.
    In the inky darkness she caught sight of a tawny jaguar lying on the bank, stretched out, and she swept by so fast she couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive. She tried to stay quiet, to suppress her gasps for air, the sobs trying to escape her burning lungs. She was so exhausted it was becoming difficult to move her arms or try to keep her body straight, feet pointed ahead of her. She couldn’t see rocks until she was on them, and had no chance to pull herself out of the water.
    For just one moment it crossed her mind to let the water take her. She was tired of fighting and her body was battered and bruised. She could barely move her arms, let alone find the strength to pull herself out of the water. And she was bleeding from several punctures and bite wounds. She couldn’t swim, she couldn’t see, and her clothes were weighing her down. She could just let go . . . but there was the problem of her Carpathian.
    The water shot her around a bend and something large loomed in front of her. Her heart leapt. A fallen tree lay partially across the river, branches sweeping out. If she didn’t kill herself by knocking her head on the trunk, she might have a chance. She gathered herself as she neared the outer branches. She hit harder than she expected, the solid wood driving her knees into her chest, robbing her of the small amount of air in her lungs. As the river sucked her under, she threw her hands out and managed to hook her arm around a branch. Sending up a silent prayer that the branch was strong enough to hold against the pull of the water, she gathered her strength for the next step.
    Before she could drag herself onto the branches, she heard a chilling noise. She barely caught the sound above the roar of the river and her own heartbeat thundering in her head, but there was a distinctive voice, a mixture of growling and human vocals. For one terrible moment she nearly lost her grip on the branch, shocked that she wasn’t alone and that the voice was distinctly jaguar. Shivering continually, she held herself still, trying not to allow her ragged breath to escape.
    “She can’t be alive,” the voice snarled as it came closer. “He’s out of his mind.”
    She tried to pull herself into the tangle of branches. She didn’t want to let go. She knew she’d drown. As she inched her way inside the labyrinth of branches, her shin hit a thick limb beneath the water line and she quickly wrapped her legs around it. She had to let go of the death grip she had on the higher branch. It was terrifying to even consider such a folly, and it took several seconds to force herself to allow her fingers to slide along the branch until her body was no longer stretched out in plain sight. She closed her eyes and let go, using every bit of strength she possessed to hang on with her legs.
    The current dragged at her, a powerful force intent on ripping her free to send her careening down the river. But she fought back, slowly pressing her upper body back toward her legs. Her fingertips brushed leaves and small twigs. She strained harder and managed to curl her fingers