Damn it.
“Rachel.” That was all he said, just her name. And that’s all it took. In an instant, her crossbow was in her hand and she was nocking a pair of bolts, her head turning left and right as she searched for the threat.
“What is it?” she murmured, eyes straining to see in the twilight dimness of the swamp’s upslope.
His nostrils flared, and his eyes changed, becoming catlike, enhancing his vision. If the danger was close enough to make the swamp dwellers hide, it was close enough for him to scent. He blinked in surprise. “Pongo,” he murmured, half in disbelief. He’d never heard of a pongo descending into the swamp for any reason. It was the reason they’d taken this route in the first place.
“The same one?” she asked in a tight whisper.
He shook his head but said, “It has to be. Keep going.”
“No!” she said immediately. “I’m not leaving you—”
“No one’s leaving anyone. We’re both getting the hell off this slope. We can’t fight it here.” It was a lie, but he needed her safe…and far enough away that he could shift and deal with this fucking pongo on his own terms.
“Fine,” she said, stubborn as ever. “You lead the way.”
“Rachel, damn it—”
Three hundred pounds of pongo swung through the air from twenty feet away to land on Aidan in a whirlwind of sharp teeth and deadly intent. Claws raked his back, and the animal’s fetid breath, reeking of dead flesh, overwhelmed his senses, making his eyes water and his gorge rise. “Rachel, leave your pack and go!” he shouted as he reached overhead and dug his fingers into the thick pelt, feeling claws dig deep gouges into his flesh as he tossed the pongo over his head and to the ground in front of him. It was a big monster, old and wily enough to have followed them through the swamp, to wait until the conditions favored its victory, with Rachel sick and Aidan stuck in his human form. The beast couldn’t have understood why, but he’d have scented out the fact that Aidan hadn’t shifted in days.
He glanced up to see Rachel had dropped her pack, but the infernal woman wasn’t leaving. She didn’t understand that she put him in more danger by staying. As long as she was there, he couldn’t shift.
“Go!” he bellowed, putting into it all the dominance of his shifter nature, the force of will that made him one of the most powerful of his generation.
The pongo leaped into the air, deadly clawed hands and feet all reaching for him, when suddenly it gave Aidan a look of raw animal cunning and twisted about in midair. Hitting the ground, it raced upslope, heading for Rachel.
Aidan threw back his head and roared, and then with a roll of sensation that encompassed every cell in his body, he shifted.
…
Rachel jerked as a tremendous roar vibrated through the thick air. It was a terrifying sound, the challenge of an enraged beast. She spun in a circle, fearing some new threat had emerged from the swamp. But what she saw made her forget everything else.
One moment Aidan was facing off against the enraged pongo, and the next he’d vanished in a spinning storm of golden sparks. And what emerged from the storm was…her eyes went wide…her cat.
The pongo, which had been charging uphill, reversed course, jumped ten yards through the air, and landed on her cat’s back, its teeth buried in the cat’s neck. She gave an enraged yell and lifted her bow.
…
Aidan heard Rachel’s scream, but he couldn’t help her if he didn’t stay alive. Understanding its danger as soon as he shifted, the huge pongo had spun away from Rachel and closed on him instead, reaching out to wrap powerful arms around him, digging in its claws as if to anchor itself to his body. Aidan yowled in rage and pain, but he finally had the only weapons he needed to win—his teeth, his claws, and his experience. He twisted and rolled, using his weight as a weapon, slamming the beast to the ground. With a loud grunt, the pongo released its hold as Aidan’s move crushed the air out of its lungs. But only for an instant. The animal jumped back to its feet and leaped for the trees, but Aidan anticipated the move and jumped faster. Landing on the pongo’s back, he sank vicious fangs into its neck and hung on, burying his foreclaws into the beast like hooks, while the deadly claws on his back feet dug in, over and over, ripping out great, bloody chunks of flesh and guts, finding vital organs and tearing at those with equal fervor.
And that quickly, the tide of battle shifted, with the pongo fighting for its life, its deep howl of defiance becoming a high-pitched bark of fear that was music to Aidan’s ears. He bit down harder into the ruin of the pongo’s neck, tearing through flesh until his jaws closed around the hard ridge of its spine. The vertebrae shattered with a satisfying crunch as the pongo went limp, and Aidan raised his head in a bloody roar of victory. The triumphant howl echoed through a swamp, traveling to the depths of the rift, terrifying prey who had never heard the sound before. Finally kicking aside the lifeless body as the red haze of battle lust receded from his vision, he remembered Rachel. He turned and saw her standing strong, crossbow in hand, staring at him in wonder, but with a fine dose of anger mixed in.
“Aidan?” she asked, as if testing the concept.
He dropped to the ground with a groan of pain. He’d won the battle, but the damn pongo had done some damage. Several ribs were broken and there were deep wounds all along his left side and flank. He knew he should shift to jumpstart the healing, but first he was going to lie there for a moment and catch his breath.
“Aidan,” Rachel said again, softer and from much closer, he realized as he felt her gentle hand on his injured side. “You’ve been keeping secrets,” she murmured, already digging into her pack for first aid supplies.
He could have told her it wasn’t necessary, that shifters were resistant to pretty much everything on Harp, and that all he really had to do was shift a few times to heal most of his injuries. But he was enjoying the attention too much. Plus, as soon as he took on his human form, he’d have to answer questions. Right now, he could simply lie there and be petted.
“I can’t believe you let me treat you like a big kitty cat,” she scolded as she poured water over his bloody flank. “Oh, baby,” she said softly.
There was so much tenderness, so much empathy in those two words, that Aidan wanted to roll in the scent of her.
“You have some broken ribs here,” she murmured, pressing gently.
He lifted his head to snarl at her. That hurt. He wanted to go back to the gentle strokes and soft words.
“Don’t you snarl at me,” she snapped. “I’m trying to help you again, even though you’ve been lying to me this whole time.”
Aidan needed to shift to accelerate his healing. He couldn’t keep her safe when he couldn’t even breathe without pain. On the other hand, if he shifted to human, he’d have to explain everything to Rachel, and he wasn’t ready to have that conversation. That left only one option. Taking the coward’s way out, he closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and shifted in a whirlwind of golden sparks, taking on his human form just briefly, before shifting back once more to his cat.
…
“Shit!” Rachel froze, staring down at the giant cat. No, this wasn’t a cat, it was Aidan. Part of her was pissed and a little wounded that he’d kept such an enormous secret from her after all they’d been through. She’d taken care of him when he’d been drugged and abused on the ship. She’d gone against her own crew to get him out of that cage and… She struggled for breath as the true enormity of Wolfrum’s crime hit her. He knew about this. He had to. She’d wondered why he’d go to such lengths to capture an animal for some perverted collector’s private zoo. Why he’d risk his reputation, his entire life’s work!
But this. My God, the military would pay a damn fortune for a soldier like Aidan. A shifter, for fuck’s sake! The scientist in her shoved to the forefront, demanding to know how it was even possible. It couldn’t be a spontaneous adaption. It was too huge.
She looked down at the sleeping cat and wanted to shake him awake and demand answ
ers. But this was Aidan, and he’d risked his life to defend her. She sighed and settled in next to him, stroking her hand over his flank. She pressed gently on his injured ribs, wanting to know if—
She jerked her hand up when the big cat grumbled at her touch and shoved his head into her lap, demanding attention. Rachel froze with her hand in midair, then smiled. There was no doubt this was Aidan. She shifted her hand to his big head, rubbing around his ears and stroking down over his neck and shoulders in a careful, repetitive pattern. He sighed lustily and relaxed beneath her hand, his breathing deep and regular.
Rachel shrugged. He’d watched over her last night, and now it was her turn. He could sleep and heal while she kept watch. As she sat there, every sense finely tuned, hyperalert to any sign of danger, she thought about Wolfrum. How did that kind of man—a decorated fleet officer, one of the most highly regarded scientists in his field, given award after award for research and discovery—how did such a man fall so low as to contemplate capturing human beings for slavery and experimentation? Because she knew what the fleet would do if they got their hands on someone like Aidan. They wouldn’t see the beauty of the animal or the magnificent human adaptability—they’d see a super soldier, a weapon. They’d break him down to his DNA, figure out a way to breed a new crop of shifters with all the aggression and fearlessness but without the alpha characteristics that would make them too hard to control. And they wouldn’t stop with one shifter. They’d take over the planet. There’d be no more closed status for Harp. Oh, it would be closed, but not for anyone’s protection. The military would want its secrets all for themselves.
She squeezed her eyes shut, thinking miserably. She had to tell Aidan about the second ship now. No more lies about heading to the city to meet Wolfrum. She’d kept silent for fear of what Wolfrum and the second crew might do if they were cornered, the people they’d kill, the animals they’d butcher. But now she understood what she’d seen when the cats had attacked her ship. She’d thought it had been wild cats against a wounded and unprepared ship’s crew. And afterward, when Aidan had claimed the entire crew had been killed, she hadn’t been convinced. There was simply no way a bunch of wild animals could defeat her heavily-armed shipmates. But now, after witnessing the fight she’d just seen between Aidan and the enormous apelike pongo, the viciousness of the battle he’d won… She imagined a dozen or more Aidans against her Earther crewmates. They wouldn’t have known what was hitting them. They’d have been torn apart. It was obvious that Harp and its shifters could take care of themselves, but now they needed to know the face of their enemy. And she had to tell them.
Chapter Eleven
“No wonder you’re always half dressed.”
Aidan paused in pulling on his tunic and turned to face Rachel. He’d woken to find her dozing next to him, one arm draped protectively over his back. It had touched something deep inside, created a tight feeling in his chest that he’d never felt before and wasn’t sure he wanted to feel now. But he couldn’t deny the connection between them. From the very beginning, when her fellow Earthers had dragged him half conscious onto their ship, she hadn’t seemed to recognize the danger he posed to her. Or maybe she’d had the right of it, because as satisfying as it had been to slaughter her crew, he’d never once considered attacking her.
Earlier, he’d wanted to put his arms around her and hold her close. But he hadn’t been sure how she’d react to waking next to a naked man instead of a cuddly big cat. So he’d forced himself to slide out from under her grasp, moving one muscle at a time so as not to disturb her. She was safe as long as he was in the vicinity, so there was no need to clutch her to his chest, no matter how tempting the idea was.
He studied her now, trying to gauge her reaction to his big reveal. Shit. Rhodry was going to kill him when he found out. But that was in the future. Right now, he had to deal with Rachel.
“Shifters don’t worry much about being naked, but others do,” he explained. “We can’t drag a full set of clothes around with us, so we cache these throughout the Green.” He shrugged. “There’s none in the swamp, though, and this is my last pair. So, if I have to shift again…” He grinned, then stilled, waiting for her response.
“Don’t bother on my account,” she said dryly. “I enjoy the view. And don’t pretend you don’t know how good you look.”
His grin widened. “I try.”
She rolled her eyes, then sighed, her expression grim. “We have to talk.”
“About this,” he asked, gesturing at himself. “Nothing I can do about it, sweetheart.”
“No, not that. Although, you must know I have questions. And I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me, but…there’s something more important, something you need to know about Wolfrum.”
Aiden stilled. “Wolfrum?” he repeated. “You mean Guy Wolfrum?”
She nodded. “He’s your traitor.”
Aidan wanted to be shocked, but he wasn’t. There’d always been something off about the Earther scientist, something that had offended shifter sensibilities like a piece of bad meat. Rhodry hadn’t trusted him, nor had Amanda. Her instincts had weighed heavily on Rhodry’s opinion, of course, but they’d carried weight with Aidan and the other shifters, too. She’d proven herself too many times, both during the Guild trials and after, proven her intellect and abilities, not to mention the strength of her connection to the Green. Plus, she’d served with Wolfrum on the Earther ship. If she sensed something suspicious about him, they had to listen.
Aidan finished pulling on his tunic. “Tell me,” he said, but she wouldn’t look at him. He hadn’t known her long, but long enough to know that wasn’t typical for her. She was nothing if not forthright, sometimes defiantly so. The news about Wolfrum was bad enough, even if it wasn’t a complete surprise. That she wouldn’t meet his gaze meant there was more, and maybe worse.
“What is it, Rachel?”
She sighed, and when she finally looked up, her face was lined with misery and…guilt?
“You need to know,” she said as she drew closer, stopping a few feet away as if unsure of her welcome. “Fuck. There’s a second ship, Aidan. I think that’s where Wolfrum is.”
Aidan stared. “A second ship?”
Rachel nodded, then crouched down to dig her damn map out of her backpack. He watched her in disbelief. She’d been lying to him all along about going to the city to confront Wolfrum. She wasn’t trying to get to the city, she was trying to find the second ship.
“So what was your plan?” he asked. “Unless Wolfrum’s somehow managed to land his ship in the middle of Ciudad Vaquero, you were never going to the city. So how’d you plan to get there? And why didn’t you tell me the truth?” He was angry at her deception, but even more at her betrayal. They’d fought and survived together. He’d started to think there was something more between them, more than traveling companions, more even than friends. She’d been lying to him all along, keeping the truth about the threat to his people from him.
There were tears in her eyes when she met his stare. “It sounds stupid now, but I swear I thought Wolfrum would kill you if I told you where they were. I knew you’d go after him, and I was sure Wolfrum would butcher you and the other hunters.”
“Shifters,” he growled. “We’re called shifters.”
She nodded. “But don’t you see, this is so much worse now. Wolfrum knows what you are. That’s why he wanted you, why he wants you, still. And by now, he must know that the first ship failed. They had to have some way of signaling each other. Radios wouldn’t work, but flares would, or who the hell knows what else? If Wolfrum knows, or even suspects, the first ship is dead, he’ll also know that you and the other shifters are the ones who took it out, and that he’s finished, in every way that counts. He’s betrayed not only Harp, but everything on which he built his career.
“He has one last chance to gain something out of this venture, and that’s to capture a shifter and get it to his buyer. But he’ll be desperate by now. There’s no
thing he won’t do.”
Aidan clenched his jaw, knowing she was right. He had to get word to Clanhome, and to Rhodry in the city. “Show me where it is,” he growled.
“I’m sorry,” she said earnestly.
He just grunted and jerked his chin at the map.
She lowered her head, chin hitting her chest, eyes closed in resignation. She hung there a long moment then unfolded her map and smoothed it out on the back of her pack. “Here,” she said and looked up expectantly, almost challenging him to join her.
He crouched next to her without a word.
“Okay.” She glanced up once, as if fixing the location of the sun in the sky, and then rotated the map slightly.
Aidan didn’t need to check the sun. He reached out and turned the map to the proper position.
“Ah,” she said, seeming to understand. “This is where we are now.” She pointed. “And this…” She slid her finger in a westerly direction and slightly north, closer to the mountains and Clanhome. “This is the second landing site.”
Aidan studied the map, fixing the site in his head, recalling everything he knew about the area. Wolfrum, the bastard, had chosen well for both ships. He’d picked two remote landing spots, both far from the city. They were on opposite sides of Clanhome, but still in clan territory, guaranteeing the presence of shifter patrols who would respond to an attack like the one that had brought Aidan out of hiding, bringing Wolfrum’s prey right to him.
“There’re no settlements out there,” he muttered, thinking out loud. “No lumber camps that I know of.” He frowned. The first site had been completely remote and unsettled, but there was something about this second site that was striking a nerve. “Right,” he breathed, as it finally hit him. “Cristobal,” he said.
Shifter Planet: The Return Page 18
