by Cougar (lit)
* * * *
The tank viciously rocked Sierra when it hit some type of depression where the largest silent yet sympathetic brother Jackal steered the military vehicle back toward their village. We headed for a trading post, she guessed.
"We'll stop at Lenox to refuel," Demon said.
He studied me with interest.
My skin prickled at his curious gaze. But returning the attention was dangerous. Guardians read eye-to-eye contact with females as an invitation for bonding. Albeit, any Normal female would be determined to catch a werewolf in The Wild in such a manner. Mating with a killing machine who would love you unconditionally as long as he drew breath was the goal of any sane woman surviving on the fringe of what remained of civilization after the extraterrestrials turned human society on end. But Demon just wasn't my John.
My heart squeezed and ached.
My John is gone.
Warm tears stung my eyes again.
"Sierra, you need to remain hidden inside the tank. I don't want Hunters or their sympathizers spotting you," Demon said softly. "Do you understand?"
I almost ground out I wasn't born yesterday at the insulting way he babied me. My father taught me more than the average female learned in life. Father knew I was a Cougar. He knew how dangerous my life would be. He taught me the science Shifters learned to keep alive the knowledge in hopes of fighting the aliens one day. And he taught me hand-to-hand combat as well as how to use all sorts of weapons. But I nodded at Demon respectfully, staring at the toe of my boot. Demon was the group leader here. The only way I could survive was to cooperate with Demon's demands.
The tank jerked.
The bobbing tilt of my head loosed the ring of tears from the rim of my eyelids.
I felt Demon flinch, most likely just a reaction of mine to his movement in my peripheral vision as he turned away from my tears. Or my Cougar was en guard. They couldn't know my Cougar senses were as heightened as theirs though. That I controlled my inner cat in a manner they wished to control their inner mangled wolves. But that was the great joke in the aliens' genetic alterations. Males were turned into vicious volatile monsters, werewolves. Whereas the few females the aliens altered became beautiful manageable golden felines. A cat a woman could hide deep inside herself. Control her ability to shift. Even the color change in my eyes could be gulped back into my soul. Maybe we didn't have the extraordinary hearing, scent, and sight the way a werewolf did when out of his Wolfskin. But we did when we'd shifted. Why the differences? All had to be part of the extraterrestrial's use of Cougars. And they wanted every Cougar they could catch. To this day, nobody had seen more than a dozen Cougars for that very reason. And if anyone saw my Cougar, I'd be tagged for retrieval. Hunted. Traded to the extraterrestrials. For what? A mysterious undefined future on a distant world.
Because captured Cougars disappeared forever.
The tank shook abruptly, coming to a halt, its engine dying.
The trading post's sounds of chatter and movement wafted through cracks in the tank's walls where sunlight penetrated the massive vehicle's almost perfectly overlapping metal structure. Fortunately for us, a few cracks in the framework allowed small shafts of bright light to stab through and illuminate the shadows where we rode.
The Guardians rose and shoved into fresh air through the sun-lit hatch.
All but Jackal, the hulking attentive warrior, who knelt by my outstretched leg. "Do you need anything while we're in the village?"
Just some time alone. Asking for anything meant I was awfully demanding. Needy females were considered a hardship on the group. I locked my gaze upon my faded camouflage pants and wagged my head.
"If you think of anything, let me know when I return, Sierra. I have to take care of something. But you won't be left unguarded." He started to turn toward the exit.
Maybe they should trade the extra weapons. I had no use for anything other than Black Betty, the handguns at my hip, and the sawed off shotgun. I searched for his retreating gaze. "You can trade John's guns for anything. Fuel? Or whatever."
He turned pinched dark eyebrows back to me.
So much compassion dwelled in his shadow-darkened green gaze. Empathy.
I choked on my display of emotion.
He squatted sideways before me, again, completely at ease, muscles bulging even though he did nothing to cause the display. His facial features had a softness to the strength and power of his overall persona. He was the type of warrior who would have had a squared jaw-the kind that looked like he constantly ground his teeth in thought, but his features were rounded a bit to take the sharp edges off. Even his nose. From genetics. Probably from his sire because John had the pissed-off angular jaw that meant business. But they didn't matter. Nothing about Jackal told me he wouldn't kick Demon's tail if necessary.
These Guardians really meant to take care of me.
His elbows casually settled atop his bent knees. "We have trade goods. Don't worry about what we require to return you safely to the village. All has been taken care of. Rattler saw to that. His sire, Tornado, will decide what to do with your possessions."
Tornado? Not the meanest bastard left on the planet. "You're taking me to Death Summit?"
A hint of suspicion danced in his eyes before he turned his body to completely face me. "Didn't Rattler tell you he was next in line to replace Tornado?"
No. But the mindboggling news that my deceased mate had been the successor to one of the only Shifters who could have kicked my father's tail thankfully dried my well of tears. I just stared at Rattler's assessing expression and wagged my head.
"I don't understand the secrecy," Jackal sighed. "Why hide for eight years?"
Why did I have to discuss the reasons now? John made the decision. In my state of mourning for my parents, I simply followed the Shifter who saved me from the Normals who had killed my parents. But nobody needed to know those details about my past. I just wanted to disappear. Become somebody else. Find a new life where no one knew who or what I was. I might be safe from the aliens then. And from the Rites-of-the-Goddess sisterhood. Gods know I don't want to return to my training. Mother had been wrong about that order. Her idea of devout reverence left a bad taste in my mouth. Only Father's science softened that bitter note. I shrugged and stared back at the toes of my beige boots.
Jackal sighed and disappeared through the circular doorway.
"Welcome, Demon. Jackal. Steel. Badger!" a man yelled beyond the tank's metal shell. "It has been forever since you visited."
Apparently the other two Guardians weren't significant enough to mention. Demon made most of the decisions. Led the mission. But Jackal seemed older. Wiser. And so damned emotional for a Shifter. Every time he looked at me, his eyes registered my sorrow.
"It's good to see you, Carter," Demon replied.
Carter. A human name.
Just a Normal.
And Normals had personal agendas strangers couldn't trust.
And most Normals would do almost anything to protect their families. Hence, their alliances with werewolves to police Normal villages or cities from Bounders and scavenging human hordes. Although Shifters found a niche when life turned into murder and mayhem after Earth's conquest, everything revolved around capturing Shifters now. Still desperate Normals betrayed the intense Shifter determination to save humanity. The fools. Shifters had maintained what little hold humans had on retaining their identity. Only to be betrayed by money hungry Normals. That's what happened to my father. You couldn't pay me to work with a Normal. Not after what they did to my parents.
What they did to me.
But Demon led this little expedition. And Jackal didn't intend on allowing anything to happen to me. I just needed to bite my tongue and keep my mouth shut. I was inside the tank. Safe.
A shiver fluttered through me nonetheless.
I shook off the resurging misty memories of Mother's violent rape by the Normals and tried to focus on the conversation outside. But how do you forget the humanity b
ehind the hand grasping the knife the bastards fucked her with? The men who caused her to bleed to death?
I cringed.
"I've got Bourbon," Carter announced. "Tornado would be extremely displeased to hear you didn't trade for his beverage of choice."
Talk about leverage. This Normal had trading down to a fine art.
"We don't have time to trade, Carter," Demon replied. "Tornado wanted us home today. As you can see, we have another day's journey."
"Then rest a few minutes. Stretch your legs in the walk to my humble abode. Buy your sire a peace offering for your tardiness."
The Normal's last point had a wink implied in his tone.
Would the Guardians hurry back on the road? Or tempt fate with a delay?
Shit would fly if the Normals saw me.
If even one got a wild idea to kidnap me, I'd have to rely on these Guardians to deal with the problem and hide my shape-shifting ability. My survival hinged upon my hiding my fighting skills. Or maybe it didn't. Either way, I'd learn whether they would defend a woman with weak ties to them. Making them think I needed their assistance was the best way to appeal to a Guardian though.
"Hannah has the hind quarters of a hog on the spit, sizzled to mouth-watering perfection. Come. Eat with us. I promise not to take you in trade." Carter laughed.
Roasted pork. Melting in my mouth. I hadn't had pork in years. Dear. Gods.
My mouth watered.
Oh. Carter could talk a bird out of a tree. If only I could tag along.
Light fluttered overhead.
Jackal dropped into a thumping crouch before me, eyeing me with a straight-lipped smile. He waved a palm and placed one solid tanned finger over his lips.
Almost full lips with just enough definition to allow him a choice in wearing an expressive tightly reined-in Guardian circle beard or going clean without facial hair. His short dark stubble noted his preference of shaving most of the hair away for the circle beard ringing his mouth.
Or his choice to work as a Guardian.
Guardians rarely wore facial hair to mark themselves differently from Normals. Father always said it was a universal Shifter choice to be as hairless as possible when not in were-form though. To tame the inner Wolf trying to rip free of each one of them. Or maybe all the shaving was a conscious effort to look as normal as possible? Either way, the irony was Normals tended to look furrier than werewolves.
"We won't be long," he whispered, as if Normals already eavesdropped outside the metal walls. He plucked a loaded rifle from my bag and departed in silence.
So they chose to feast instead of protecting me.
Apparently, I wasn't that endangered.
If so, why do I feel so damned screwed?
Jackal shut the hatch and turned its squeaking wheel to seal me into murky shadow.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled to chilly attention.
Alright.
I'll just wait.
Locked away. Inside this shadowy box.
Thank goodness it wasn't a hot day. But the sun would melt my curves away if I had to hide out inside this tomb too damned long. Just what kind of imbecile Guardians did Tornado have under his wing these days? I'd definitely been in hiding too long.
Or Shifters like my sire were rare.
I could have watched time literally fly given a fair view of the sun's march overhead and the crawling shadows. But shut away inside the vehicle I had no clue how much time crept by.
The sound of whispering precluded a flutter of light at a slit in the tank's wall.
Hopefully it was Jackal. Those gentle green eyes were growing on me.
"We're screwed if anyone catches wind of us opening that hatch," a man sneered.
Shit.
The voice wasn't one of my Guardians' voices.
"Underneath. There's another hatch on the underside."
Make that a holy shit. I yanked a pistol from my hip and surveyed the floor looking down the short barrel.
"There'd better be something worth stealing since we're about to piss off some Death Summit Guardians," the first voice grumbled beneath the tank's floor of metal sheeting. "Tornado will send all of them for revenge. He's the meanest son of a bitch."
"Shut up!" someone snarled the talker.
Probably because the rambling imbecile's blathering would get them discovered in their stupid little quest for treasure.
A squeak to the left indicated the thieves' whereabouts.
Just where in the hell would the floor open? I rose, bent over, surveying the dark floor with my vision aligned with the linear length of my pistol's barrel, finger kissing the trigger as I searched the dark floor for the entrance.
A circular section of floor cracked, raised, allowing a sickle-shaped ring of light to invade the shadows.
An eerily-lit hand shoved into my shadowy shelter.
Followed by an arm.
An elbow.
The crown of a head carpeted in mousy brown hair.
His dark eyes locked on mine.
Goodbye. I fired.
His body shook, blood running from between his eyes. He went limp and fell away.
"Holy fuck!"
How bright was his buddy? Surely he wouldn't decide to see who shot whom.
"Give me a fucking grenade, Bob."
Two more?
With candy.
Shit. I was dead if I stayed here.
Movement fluttered beyond the slit in the tank's impenetrable wall.
"Whoever you are, fuck you, you're dead," the voice threatened. "Give me that fucking grenade."
I leapt for the three bars on the ladder and shoved my shoulders into the upper hatch.
The solid metal didn't budge.
They were fools to blow up any tradable goods inside the tank.
But I didn't want to stick around to make the point. I grabbed the hatch's wheel and yanked the squeaking latch, heaving solid metal upward with a sting in my shoulder as I turned the curved pipe.
The hatch flung into blue sky.
I shoved into the sunlight, casting my body across sun-warmed flat metal, and scanned the trading post's hard-packed earth.
"Out. He's getting away," someone yelled.
Crap. Could things become any more ridiculous? I got my boots beneath me and fired at the barren ground.
Anything to trap the bastards beneath the tank with a warning until I could get off the vehicle. Especially since they had a damned grenade. The homemade ones were the worst. Full of all sorts of nasty sharp recycled metallic debris. I had to get the hell away from the idiots. I kept shooting until I leapt down in front of the tank.
Would the bastards even come out? I'd hide inside if I were them.
A large man burst from the left, plowing his lean mass in my direction.
A little target practice never hurt me. He landed a bullet exactly where his buddy had.
His eyes rolled back into his head.
"Goddammit, get her," someone yelled.
Oh yeah. I have plenty of bullets. And shooting them wouldn't make me look like I didn't need a few Guardians to help me. "Come on if you think you can, you bastards."
Two more stalked toward me.
One from each side of the tank. They'd probably crawled out at the rear. Still they were easy pickings.
Disgusting trash among the living.
Thin.
Scraggly-toothed with shoulder-length hair that looked untouched since birth save for someone sawing the ends off for whatever reason.
"Now don't do anything stupid, honey," one moron cooed with his palms held up in feigned submission. "We just want to talk."
End of discussion. "You mean discuss how you want to steal anything of value in our tank?"
The moron wore threadbare blue jeans full of frayed holes and a light-colored filthy shirt with lovely six-inch sweat rings in the pits. His friend didn't look any more appealing. Both needed to shave what had to be lice-infested eight-inch beards.
Prophets
.
Members of one extremely repulsive Christian Normal culture.
"Come home with us. We'll save you from bearing their monsters. You don't want any of that, honey."
My skin crawled at his condescending tone.
"You don't want to go with those Shifters," the other taller jerk said. "Come back with us. Return to your people."
Like they'd cut me any slack for traveling with Shifters. I was soiled to them. Diseased by a Shifter's touch or simply by association. They'd pass me on in trade.
If they had any clue I was a Shifter, my fate would be far worse. I trained both weapons on the fools' chests. "Leave. Or I'll shoot. Don't misunderstand me. I'll kill you like your friends."
"Brothers," the shorter one announced.
Just where were John's Guardian brothers? I had a family pack of Normals here trying to steal from us. Should I just shoot them all? The whole damned trading post had to know I was here by now. Village law varied from town to town. What would result from this little excursion into civilization?
Hell, I didn't need to make trouble for Tornado.
A hand grabbed my waist from behind, locking me backward into an iron body.
The body's other hand clamped over my eyes.
The instant slight shift in the pressure of my fingers on the trigger sent off two rounds.
I couldn't see.
I had to get loose. I kicked and squirreled both guns around beneath my arms to shoot.
But couldn't tell if I pointed away from myself. I had a chance alive as trade goods. But bleeding, they'd rape me and leave me for dead.
"Come on, boys. Let's get the fuck out of here," the man behind me roared.
With or without me?
Hands grabbed mine.
Squeezing. Pinching. Wrenching the guns from my grasp.
Chapter Three
Jackal never ran so fast in all his life, leaving his half-brothers behind, in their quasi-state of Shifter transformation, to save the only thing of significance in the gods-be-damned trading post. The shame from losing Sierra would be far worse than refusing an order from the mission leader. But this wasn't my fault.
