Savant saw the flash of white as the snow leopard left its hiding place in a charge. He cursed, stumbled in his hurry to get away from the water’s edge, but it was too late. The leopard was in the air, its magnificent body stretched out, its razor-sharp claws gleaming in the sunlight.

Savant cursed again as the cat hit him, its weight and speed carrying them both backward and over the bank. There was only time enough to cast a quick spell to cushion his landing. And then the erotic, shimmering energy of Sunder washed over Savant and nearly had him coming in his trousers.

“My turn to be on top,” Sunder said, his voice a purr.

Savant looked at the exotic face above his and was momentarily lost in the gray-green eyes which had first captured him so many years ago. He’d thought he might gain a familiar when he rescued the snow leopard on that dock. Instead he had gained so much more.

“I need to get undressed,” Savant said, the cold water soaking into his clothing but doing nothing to cool the heat raging through him.

Sunder’s hips moved and Savant groaned as their cocks rubbed against each other. Sunder’s naked, his own shielded by too much fabric.

“I need to get undressed,” Savant repeated, but couldn’t stop himself from spearing his fingers through Sunder’s hair and guiding the other man’s lips to his, anxious for the feel of Sunder’s cat-rough tongue.

“You were lost in your plants again,” Sunder growled, licking across the seam of Savant’s mouth and making him moan. “You left yourself vulnerable and now I have you at my mercy.”

Savant managed a laugh despite the throbbing of his cock. It was an often-played game between them. “I was safe enough. I’m still safe enough.”

Sunder licked across the seam of Savant’s lips again. “You’re easy prey.”

“So make a meal of me,” Savant said, parting his lips and meeting Sunder’s tongue with his own as his hips bucked upward, grinding their cocks together.

Sunder grunted and deepened the kiss, his thighs forcing Savant’s apart. His hands grasped Savant’s wrists and pinned them to the bed of the shallow stream.

Wild heat rushed through Sunder, ferocious and savage. The animal instinct to exert dominance over another male was only barely tempered by the human desire to love.

It was not common for his kind to take same-sex lovers. But even nearly dead, Sunder had been drawn to Savant from the first moment he saw him. Savant’s scent had called to him, had coated his leopard’s tongue and stirred a different kind of hunger. That Savant had rescued him in his leopard form, had nursed him back to health, then transported him to a safe place and offered him freedom without knowing what Sunder truly was, had cemented their bond more surely than the blood-spell making them warlock and familiar.

Sunder made a soft sound of contentment. His tongue met Savant’s, rubbed and stroked and tasted and twined. The need to dominate was momentarily under control as he enjoyed the slide of his cock against Savant’s soft trousers, enjoyed the way Savant moaned underneath him, met his kisses and yielded.

He wouldn’t be able to play for long. He was too aroused. The edginess he’d felt since first encountering the woman’s scent, the frustration he’d experienced when he’d been unable to follow it to its source had sharpened and made him aggressive.