The Diamond Heartstone Read Free Page B

Or someone didn't pump the
    right amount of medicine in the gun. Damn newbies. She knew she
    should've shadowed his cocky ass. The tiger lifted her paw and Alycia
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    The Diamond Heartstone by Leila Brown

    turned quickly, scooped up her stuff and ran to the ATV.
    Under normal circumstances, the tigers here wouldn't let anyone
    close. A mother in the middle of birthing her cubs would be vicious. She
    drove a short distance away into a thicket of tall grass and cut the engine.
    Lifting her binoculars she prayed the tiger would go back into labor.
    The tiger awoke with a start. She wasn’t panting. She wasn’t even
    breathing hard. She licked her paws and stretched. Come on, Mama, get back
    into it . But the tiger didn't seem in any rush to expel either cub. Alycia
    waited another forty-five minutes for the tiger to expel the first cub. It
    came out slowly and didn’t move. Mama tiger bit the umbilical cord and
    licked at the tiny unmoving animal. Stillborn. Tears pooled in Alycia’s
    eyes. She knew it had been coming. Knew it from the second that the tiger
    had started waking up. Her hope lay in the second cub.
    It took another thirty minutes for that one to come out. And it too
    was still. She lowered her binoculars. She couldn’t bear to look anymore.
    Tears streamed down her face. If only she’d had more drugs, maybe she
    could’ve at least saved one of them.
    Alycia craned her head back. Her head pounded with guilt. Maybe
    it was her actions that caused this. But wild tigers rarely labored more than
    one to two hours. The policy at Big Cat Heaven was to let nature take its
    course, whatever it may be.
    Her heart squeezed as her hands contracted with memories of the
    feel of the baby tiger as it moved in her hands. She smelled the distinctive
    fragrance of blood from the laboring animal. Maybe if she’d pushed down
    harder on the womb. Maybe… There was no way to know. The mother
    may have lost both cubs anyway. The one thing she knew for sure was
    that she helped to kill those two cubs.

    * * * * *

    Barrick landed the small shuttle in the thicket of blue everlasting
    trees. He needed to get off of his ship. Get away from anyone before the
    damn burst.
    The machine touched down as he felt the first tears roll down his
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    The Diamond Heartstone by Leila Brown

    face. He could barely deal with the sense of her hands all over his body.
    This all-consuming sorrow was too much. He needed to find her now. If
    nothing else, he needed to wrap his arms around her and take away some
    of her drowning pain.
    Once clear of the ship, Barrick let the animal loose. His jaw cracked
    and popped. Bones shifted and realigned. Muscles and tissue roped
    through his arms and legs. White and black hair darkened and lengthened
    along his paws and arms. In seconds, he was the animal. It didn’t stop the
    pain. Sitting back on his hind legs, he let loose a roar that seemed to shake
    the ground. He roared again and again until his throat was too weak to let
    out even the quietest whimper.
    Nothing stopped the pain. It did nothing but make it more raw.
    More real. It ran up his arms. Burned his chest. Burned every inch of his
    heart until he couldn’t think of anything else.
    He’d give his life to find her. Run. He needed to run. Running
    wouldn’t help to find her but it might dull the pain. After a few minutes,
    his legs burned like his heart. His entire body seemed to be one big flame.
    Stop . The fog in front of him wasn’t natural. Something was warning
    him away. He stopped running and instead slowly walked around the
    mists. He should not enter. He couldn’t smell another cat’s scent, so the
    feeling didn’t make sense. But something warned him not to enter. Yet the
    closer he got, the less his heart hurt.
    If he entered the fog, it might assuage the pain. He put one foot into
    the fog. A shiver raced through him and he swore his coat changed from
    white to orange. But once he’d completely stepped through the white