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I didn’t know how long Paddy had been watching me. He’d smelled me first—possibly before I’d left the veranda. Maybe he’d only been curious about my girl-smell, or maybe he’d started hunting me then. It didn’t really matter, because he had already overpowered me. Paddy’s jaw closed on my thigh above the knee. I felt his dagger teeth and his wet tongue. The strangely cool feel of his mouth. My head swam as I smelled my own blood, and then he released me to bellow. It was everything I’d heard from the veranda and more—a vibrating black cave of noise that swallowed the earth and sky and swallowed me, too. I closed my eyes and tried to scream, but only released a puff of air. I felt Paddy’s mouth again and knew I had no chance at all. He would eat me here or drag me off to a glade or valley only he knew of, a place from which I’d never return. The last thought I remember having was This is how it feels, then. This is what it means to be eaten by a lion. When I came back to myself, Bishon Singh was carrying me in his arms, his face bent over mine.
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