Primal Heat 3 Read Online Free PDF Page B

experienced it. No matter what her father had done to her she’d always vowed not to let it dictate her life, her happiness. So while there were some victims of abuse that could not sustain healthy relationships, or refused to even try, she was different. She wanted the normal, the real and pure love of two people, and if she couldn’t have that honestly and truly, then she would have nothing at all.
    Eli’s silence had seemed to make that choice for her.
    Shake it off, Cannon. Now’s not the time.
    If she didn’t tell herself to move on, she might not be able to. That alone told Nivea she was in pretty damned deep with Eli Preston. Taking a concentrated breath, she yanked open the door that almost fell off the hinges with her efforts. With a frown she thought of how she wasn’t supposed to be on this little trip alone.
    The plan had been for Caprise to join her, but she’d been drafted for babysitting duty. After the kidnapping, Nick and Ary rarely left Shya alone and when they absolutely had to, they only trusted people closest to them to care for her. Today was Caprise’s turn since Ary had a very important appointment with Kalina for her first ultrasound. So the hit they’d received from the shifter database on a group of suspected rogues in the south side D.C. area was on Nivea to investigate. Caprise had asked if she wanted to wait, to go the next day, but Nivea knew what they were up against. If these rogues were going around killing then it stood to reason they were just as hell-bent on exposure as Crowe and his hybrids. She’d decided to come alone.
    Taking the stairs two at a time, her adrenaline buzzing with the scent sifting surely through the air, she came through a door on the top floor. Her cat was wide awake, moving just beneath her skin so that she had to roll her shoulders to appease it.
    “Just chill,” she spoke aloud to the cat inside. Nivea loved the feeling of her heritage, knowing the power that rested just beneath the human skin, but she’d always been sure to keep it under control as well, to not let that hellion of a feline get the upper hand. If she hadn’t, Richard Cannon would have been dead a long time ago.
    She walked slow and steady, knowing exactly which apartment she was headed to without checking the address she’d programmed into her phone. The rogue scent was calling to her, and … there was something else, someone else …
    Her heartbeat thumped, her cat hissing the closer she came to the door. She didn’t dare speak, but kept her gaze locked on the door, and she heard it. The thinking was over, adrenaline pumped through her veins, the cat inside taking over as Nivea kicked in the door.
    This wasn’t what she’d been expecting to see. Then again, there’d been no way she could have known what was going on behind that door.
    Eli stood in the middle of the messy apartment. More than six feet long, over two hundred and fifty pounds, his mouth opening wide as the second warning roar was released. In front of him, with their backs to her were two more cats—a cougar and a cheetah, poised and ready for battle.
    “Shit!” she cursed just as the cheetah turned in her direction and charged.
    They were fast as hell so Nivea barely had a second to drop to all fours and shift before the cheetah was on her back. She reared back quickly, not giving it a chance to sink its teeth into her, tossing the cat across the floor. Then she was charging and pouncing. The cheetah moved, jumping onto the back of the couch. Nivea was faster this time, leaping up and taking a bite out of the cheetah’s flank. It hissed and fell back off the chair. Nivea continued battering the cat until it was in a corner, hissing and swatting until finally, tired of the nonsense, Nivea jumped on the cheetah’s back, sinking her teeth into its skull and biting down until its bones cracked and the cat crumpled to the ground.
    Turning quickly, blood dripping from her teeth, flanks heaving from her efforts,