Perry started shaking his head as if to rid himself of her presence. She swung from the right to the left like a not-so-loved stuffed animal in the hands of an angry child. Kylie's fingers started to slip. She glanced back down, trying to figure out an escape route, but her thoughts shifted when she saw Kevin's jaws sink into Perry's soft lion underbelly. Tightening her hold on the thick mane, she raised her foot and kicked the attacking lion right in the eye to stop him from killing Perry. Kevin let go, but when he retreated, Kylie saw blood dripping from his mouth.
Perry roared, from pain or fury Kylie wasn't sure. Maybe both.
Kylie heard Della yelling something. Next, Kylie felt her friend flying past as if in an attempt to rescue her, but each time she passed, Perry would shift direction, moving Kylie out of Della's reach.
"Enough!" Kylie screamed at the lions. "Both of you, stop it! Stop it or I'll get the death angels here."
The words no more than left her mouth when Kylie felt the temperature drop around her. The air in her throat felt icy. Her idle threat rang in her ears. But then she couldn't help but wonder ... Did she have the power to call forth the death angels or was this just Daniel or another ghost making their presence known at an inopportune time?
Or maybe an appropriate time.
Hadn't Daniel helped her in the past? Suddenly it didn't matter, because she saw bright orange sparkles appearing around Kevin. Perry drew back his right paw as if to attack Kevin during his morphing stage.
"Don't do it, Perry," Kylie demanded.
Perry roared as if complaining, but he came back down on his four paws. Kylie let go of his mane and dropped. Still a couple feet off the ground, she landed off balance on her feet and then fell flat on her butt.
When she looked up, there were sparkles appearing around Perry and she saw his human form take shape. With clothes, thank goodness.
He looked down at her, his eyes glowing bright yellow, and fury still filled his expression. But he wasn't bleeding. "That was stupid of you. Never, never ever get in the middle of a fight with shape-shifters. You could die."
"You're scolding me?" Kylie asked, flabbergasted that he had the nerve to reprimand her. "I wasn't the one trying to maul a fellow campmate. And I was trying to protect you." She leaned on one hip and rubbed her bruised backside.
"I didn't need protecting." His voice boomed and his gaze shot to Miranda.
Glancing back at Kevin, Kylie realized his changing process took longer than Perry's. As soon as Kevin appeared, he stepped away from Perry.
"This isn't over. We'll finish this later," Perry said to Kevin, his voice sounding more like a roar.
"Fine." Kevin stared Perry right in the eyes, and Kylie almost thought they were going to start again, but Kevin turned and walked off.
Kylie realized it took nerve to turn your back on Perry when you'd just taken a chunk out of his belly. But somehow the fact that Kevin was the one to walk away, that he never once looked at Miranda, left Kylie with little doubt which of the two held more power.
When Kevin disappeared into the woods, Kylie waited for Perry to say something to Miranda. But no one spoke. The birds in the distance started back on their song.
"Are you okay?" Miranda asked.
Kylie looked up to assure Miranda that she was fine, but then she realized that Miranda wasn't talking to her, but to Perry. Kylie shifted her gaze to him. He looked fine. Not a scratch on him. Which meant that when shape-shifters changed back into human form they healed from any injuries they'd received. And that meant Kylie had thrown herself in the middle of the fight and gotten a bruised ass for no good reason at all. She could have let them rip each other to shreds. She should have.
Just friggin' great. Still sitting on the ground, propped up on one side of her hip, she gave her backside another rub and watched as Miranda moved closer to Perry.
"Why did you do that?" Miranda sounded half honored he'd fought for her and half pissed because, well, he'd fought for her. "Tell me." She took another step toward the source of her anger.
"I felt like it," Perry growled back. Indeed, his anger became apparent in the way his body changed the moment she stepped closer. His posture hardened as if he was unable to bend. His blond hair hung scattered over his sweaty brow. His eyes were blue for a second, then changed to bright green.
He still personified the fierce appearance of an angry lion-gone was the jokester, the guy who always had something funny or sarcastic to say.
And for the first time, Kylie understood why everyone was a little frightened of him.
"You didn't do it because of me?" Miranda asked, obviously not picking up on the fury he wore like an outer skin. "Because you were jealous?"
Perry didn't answer Miranda. He just stared at her and asked his own question. "So it's true?"
"What's true?" Miranda said.
"You kissed him," Perry said. "I didn't believe him when he told me. I thought he was just trying to piss me off, but he wasn't making it up, was he? You really did it. You kissed him."
Miranda's eyes grew a tad larger. "Yes."
Silence hung in the hot morning air.
"No," she blurted out, and shook her head, sending the streaks of pink, black, and green in her hair intermingling with each movement. "I didn't kiss him. He kissed me."
"But you kissed him back," he accused.
Kylie held her breath. Della came to stand beside Kylie and extended her hand. Kylie accepted Della's help and, once upright, she reached back and gave her rear end another rub.
"Answer me," Perry demanded.
Kylie's gaze shot back to Miranda and Perry. The tension radiating from the couple seemed to suck all the oxygen from the air and made it hard to look away.
"This could get nasty," Della said.
Chapter Seven
Kylie crossed her fingers that this whole mess could somehow have a good ending to it-that the only thing nasty to come out of it would be her sore ass.
"Be honest," Perry demanded.
Miranda hesitated before answering. "I ... I didn't kiss him back."
Della shifted her head closer to Kylie's ear and whispered, "She's lying."
Perry took a step closer to Miranda and studied her as if trying to figure out if he believed her. "Why don't I believe you?" He paused. "And even if you didn't kiss him back, you didn't stop him."
Miranda hesitated and then her shoulders dropped as if in defeat, and Kylie knew Miranda had decided to come clean.
"No. I didn't stop him. And yeah, maybe I did kiss him back just a little. But-"