Rapture Untamed by Pamela Palmer

another knife out of her jacket with her injured arm. But the knife slid through her fingers and dropped to the ground.
    Jag growled, his mind searching desperately for an answer. If he thought he could outrun the swarm, he’d toss her over his shoulder and take off, but draden on the scent could fly twice as fast as even his cat couldrun. On human feet, he and Olivia would be nothing but sitting ducks.
    Running wasn’t an option. And Olivia sure as hell wasn’t up for defending herself. How could anyone defend himself against more than forty draden? She was going to die .
    Unless he shifted, they were both going to die.
    The cold truth washed down his spine in an icy sweat. No!
    “Back on the ground, Red. Now!”
    Pulling on the power of his animal, he shifted into his jaguar, not for the first time wishing he possessed the ability to make his animal larger instead of just smaller. Still, at more than six feet long, not including his tail, he could protect most of her. Her back. He had to protect her back.
    When he looked up at her through his jaguar’s eyes, she was still standing, still determined to fight.
    Your listening skills need some work , Red. Get on the ground , now! Fast!
    “Why?” She sank to her knees.
    On your back and keep your knife at the ready , though I’d consider it a favor it you’d try not to stab me.
    She looked at him like he’d lost his mind, but after only a small hesitation, she finally did as he ordered. As the first of the draden descended, Jag dove on top of her, blanketing her with his animal’s body.
    Get under me. And tell me if they bite you anywhere.
    “Jag, this isn’t going to work. We have to kill them.”
    I’ll bite the ones I can reach.
    “And the rest will wait here, trying to get at me for the rest of the night. We won’t find that Daemon.”
    Screw the Daemon. I’m trying to keep you alive. If I get up , they’ll swarm you. You’ll be dead in minutes.
    The draden cloud descended over them, fighting their way in, pressing into every opening. And they were reaching her, dammit. He snapped at them, eating the tasteless things, draden after draden, but he didn’t seem to make a dent in the numbers.
    They’re getting you .
    “I’m okay.” But her voice said otherwise. He heard pain. A thread of fear.
    His mind spiraled back to that other place, that other time. He felt those blows to his far younger body, the fists attacking him as the enclave leader’s furious voice roared in his head across three and a half centuries.
    “You let her die. You let her die! You selfish , coldhearted bastard.”
    Yes, yes he was all those things. But not this night. Not this night. Olivia was not going to die while he lay here, protected and safe. Useless.
    In a flash of colorful light, he shifted back into a man. In one corner of his mind he reveled in the feel of her soft curves beneath him. Then the draden attacked, and any thoughts of lust disappeared as if they’d never been.
    “What are you doing?” Olivia cried.
    He leaped off her. “Curl up, Red!”
    The draden swarmed them both, but he grabbed the knives off the ground and fought them with everything he had, keeping them off himself as best he could, but his focus was on her. He had to kill the ones who came near her.
    She is not going to die.
    Those gray eyes would not turn cold and sightless, that fiery spirit would not be doused. Goddess knew what she’d done to him, but she’d touched him, connected with him in a way no woman had, perhaps ever. They might do nothing but battle one another, but he was beginning to care about her, dammit. He cared. He wasn’t going to let her die.
    Olivia ignored him and sat up, stabbing draden nearly as quickly as he did. Still, they kept coming. There must be fifty of them. With two hands, he couldn’t get them all. They latched onto his shoulders, his scalp, his back and flanks and legs.
    “Jag, shift back!”
    “No.”
    “You idiotic, stubborn, Feral!” she