Redemption Read Online Free Page A

cocky…okay, maybe he was. But she’d almost burned his skin with her stare this afternoon.
    He’d wanted to take her then. Drop the ladder and shove her up against the wall, rip the ugly clothes from her body and sink into that sweet flesh. He wondered if she would have let him. Probably not in the open like that. They’d been very alone and he would have heard anyone coming in time, but she couldn’t know that. And Sophie…well, she deserved something gentler than a quick fuck against a hard wall. She deserved a tender lover and a night sky like this one.
    And so he’d left the lowland valley where the site was situated to climb higher into the mountains. If the jungle had been close enough, he would have retreated there but it was too far. He hated that. Out of his element here, he wanted to be home not skulking through the shadows, hiding what he was from the humans.
    Home. Now that was hardly likely, was it? Not yet anyway. Going home now would be a death sentence for him. He wanted to go back though. He missed the friends and family he’d left behind. He missed having someone care if he lived or died, missed having a purpose and being part of something bigger than himself. His people, the Yaguara, were a secluded tribe of jaguar shape-shifters living in the Amazon jungle. Until recently, they’d maintained a strict isolationist policy, traveling within the human world but never attempting to integrate, barely interacting with other shape-shifter communities. When the new king claimed power five years ago, he changed all that. Gabriel Alvarez, a half-human outcast, won the crown by pounding every pure-blooded contender into the dirt, then killing the corrupt heads of the Silveira family who’d led the old regime. The Silveiras didn’t go down without a fight and Adriano had stupidly gotten caught in the middle of the bloodbath. A child died when his men were ordered to attack an enemy headquarters, and he’d been exiled.
    Even now, years later, the Yaguara were still fighting a civil war. When Gabriel took control of the city, most of the old Silveira supporters—those who lost power by the change in leadership, those who couldn’t accept a mutant king—fled and settled in an abandoned city to the north. Adriano had considered joining them. His skill as a warrior would be welcome there, he’d be among his own kind and he wouldn’t have to hide what he was. But he couldn’t do it. Lingering loyalty or a pathetic sense of idealism, something always kept him from going down that path. His family—his brother Nic, his aunt, uncle and cousins—had all stayed behind with the new king. So he was here, pouring all of his energy and resources into searching for a legendary stone that might not even exist.
    He believed the stone was here, buried beneath the ruins, and had wagered everything on that belief. If he was right and there was any truth to the old stories Grandfather used to tell them over the campfire, then Adriano would soon have in his possession an artifact dangerous enough to trade for a pardon, valuable enough to redeem even him.
    A deer startled from the brush just a few feet away, triggering an undeniable instinct to give chase. Adrenaline flooded his system, sharpening his senses to the pain point of pleasure, tightening his muscles and flying like lightning down his nerves. He ran, everything narrowing to the chase. The panicked animal scurried through a shallow ravine and Adriano crossed the distance in a single fluid leap, hooking his claws into warm flesh at the same time his jaws closed, driving his fangs through its skull with a satisfying crunch. He settled on the rock and enjoyed his dinner. Fresh meat, a far cry from the chemical soaked rotting flesh the humans served up.
    When he was done, he cast the carcass aside and moved on. He climbed until the air chilled the sweat on his flanks, until the stars glittering in the moonless sky above him seemed closer than the ruins below.
    It was