by E A Price
“And you?” Hester asked Laurel, who had started humming.
“Hmmm, I doubt anyone will notice. I once went off the grid when I backpacked across Canada. My parents are used to me being out of reach. Usually, because they are, too. I don’t think I’ll be missed.”
The three women looked a little glum, something Hester briskly tried to dispel.
“Well, I work for the SEA, and I have a nosy, interfering mother who tries to call me six times a day to tell me what I’m doing wrong with my life. They are going to notice I’m gone, and they will come looking. Don’t worry ladies; we will be fine. And I’m still up for the ball biting thing, too.”
*
“You moron!” howled Roberto, the leap’s prime. “A cheetah shifter? A cheetah shifter who works for the SEA? How could you be so fucking stupid?”
Antonio glared at him.
“Prime, please,” murmured Maria. “My son didn’t know she worked for the SEA and…”
“Maria,” snarled Roberto. “You have no say in this, go and make yourself useful elsewhere.”
Fury flashed in her eyes.
“Do not speak to my mother that way,” hissed Antonio as his jaguar roared.
“I will speak to her any way I choose,” sneered Roberto.
“Baby, it’s okay,” said Maria. “I will go.” She squeezed Antonio’s arm and left.
“Her cheetah coalition is probably already looking for her, and given that she works for them, the SEA probably already are, too. You’ve brought a shitstorm down on all of us!” grumbled Daniel, Roberto’s second in command.
“It’s taken care of,” said Antonio. He wasn’t exactly proud of himself for this, but once in Hester’s apartment, and not looking through her underwear drawer - which he thoroughly enjoyed, he had used her e-mail account to send out messages to work and to her mother to let them know she was going on an impromptu vacation. A little underhanded maybe, but he couldn’t have anyone interrupting his wooing. He was perhaps a little taken aback to find out she worked for the SEA, but his jaguar wanted her, and that was that.
“You should send her back, Prime,” said Valentina giving him a full display of pouty lips and heaving cleavage.
“Yes,” agreed her mother, Marta. “What if she gives birth to a cheetah? She doesn’t belong here.”
Antonio shrugged his shoulders. “So what if she does? Many of our leap mates are humans – and some of their offspring are human. What difference does a cheetah make? She is still a big cat.”
Valentina opened her mouth to object, and Prime held up a hand. He was not a fan of the spoiled young jaguar and did not take too kindly to being given orders by her. He tolerated her because of his sexual relationship with her mother, but Antonio knew he couldn’t give a damn about Valentina’s opinion or her impressive chest.
“What of the SEA?” asked the prime.
“If they come for her, I will tell the truth – that I abducted her, and that she was forced to stay here by me. She is my mate and my responsibility; I will take whatever consequences there will be – just as any other male would with his mate.”
Roberto narrowed his eyes. “I take it you are confident you can win her over.”
Antonio jutted his chin, and his jaguar preened. “Yes.”
“Then so be it.”
He roared as Valentina and Marta tried to squawk in protest. “Antonio has made his choice. He has two weeks.”
Roberto left with Marta chasing after him, trying to change his mind. Valentina stamped her foot and huffed at Antonio before following. Daniel let out a growl of disapproval before he left as well. Eventually, the other jaguars followed suit.
Tomas hovered around him, the huge jaguar looking uncharacteristically nervous. “That went well… considering.”
Antonio grunted, and his jaguar huffed. He supposed that was true. The prime could have demanded he take Hester back. Tradition was on Antonio’s side, but no one wanted a visit from the SEA. At the end of the day, it was a tradition of kidnapping – even if it did usually work out.
“Did you want something?” he asked of Tomas.
“I ah, I’m not sure about what to do next,” he admitted. “Mary didn’t look very happy to see me when she woke up.”
Yep, kidnapping had been the easy part. Now the younger males were uncertain about how to proceed. It was hardly the best way to start a relationship.
“We just have to show them that we’re the males for them.” By a week on Tuesday.
His jaguar was confident, but Antonio had one or two misgivings. He remembered the anger in Hester’s eyes. Talk about an uphill struggle.
Six
Hester glared at the woman in front of her. Her cheetah alternately sniffed and growled. It was the same woman she met when she woke. She looked to be in her late-forties, but the extra lines on her face didn’t detract from her prettiness.
“Is it drugged?” Hester growled, glancing at the new food-laden tray.
“Of course not,” she said kindly. “And if you don’t like this, I can bring you something else.”
Hester was about to argue, but the rumblings of the other women’s stomachs overruled her. The other women had already wolfed down the breakfast brought by Diego, but now it was lunchtime, and they were hungry again.
“Who are you anyway?” demanded Hester as the other women tentatively started eating. Hester was refraining from eating, as she had with breakfast, until she found out exactly what was going on. She wanted to hang on to the option of a hunger strike just in case she needed it.
“I am Maria, Antonio’s mother.”
Hester’s lips curled into an evil grin, and her cheetah chirruped. “Really? How would he feel if I clawed you right here and now?” She flicked out her claws, and the other women stopped eating to gawp.
Maria jutted her chin, unimpressed. “Baby, I’ve lived in a jaguar leap for over thirty years, you don’t scare me. You’re angry right now, but I don’t believe you’ll hurt me.”
Hester narrowed her eyes, and her cheetah sagged. Damnit, she was right. Hester might be a ball-buster, but she wasn’t about to attack a perfectly sweet little Latina woman – even if her son happened to be hell spawn. Grrr.
“How long are we going to be kept here?”
“Not much longer,” said Maria mildly. “I know you’re all scared right now,” Hester growled loudly, “but please just keep your minds open. You might be surprised.”
She gave them all patient, encouraging smiles and then left, locking the door behind her.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” asked Laurel.
“No,” hissed Hester.
“Yeah, starve yourself, that’ll show them,” chuckled Sadie. “Seriously, you should keep your strength up. You’re probably the only one who can run for help.”
“You’re not going to leave us here on our own, are you?” whimpered Mary, her huge eyes shining.
“She’s a cheetah – she can run out of here and tell the cops there’s a lunatic asylum filled with kidnapping jaguars.”
“Perhaps Hester can negotiate with the jaguars to let us go,” suggested Laurel peaceably.
Hester felt unease as the other three women looked at her expectantly. They were looking to her to take care of them, to think of a plan, to get them out of there, and for all of Hester’s bossiness, she wasn’t sure she had it in her.
She was actually a little relieved when the door unlocked, and Antonio strode through it. Not that she let him know that. Nope, she was all snarls for him.
The handsome asshole had the gall to smile at her, and her cheetah almost swooned. “I hope you’re all a little refreshed from the journey.”
“And the drugging?” taunted Hester.
His expression didn’t dim one iota, although the three younger jaguars all crowding in the doorway looked at their feet.
“That too. If you’d like to come with us, we’ll show you to your rooms.”
Hester bared her teeth – her cheetah was
a little taken with Antonio, but she was no fool. “You’re joking, right? You really expect to kidnap us, and we’ll just let you have sex with us – just like that?”
Sadie tut-tutted, and Mary gasped.
“Not at all,” said the unflappable douchebag. “You’ll be sleeping in the guest quarters. But don’t worry, Hessie, I’ll show you where I live. Just in case you get an urge to visit during the night.” He winked and her treacherous sex twinged in arousal.
“Better sleep with one eye open,” she growled.
Antonio chuckled. “None of you need worry. If you accept us as your mates, we will have our matings blessed, and only then can we consummate our relationships.”
Hester folded her arms. “What if we don’t accept you?”
“If you reject our mate claims, you can leave.”
“I reject it right now; I’m leaving.”
Antonio held up his hands. “We can’t let you go yet, it’s…”
“Let me guess – it’s tradition?” Hester curled her upper lip derisively. “So what happens until I finally get to reject you and your stupid face?” Stupidly hot face her cheetah amended.
“Between now and then, we have to persuade you to want to stay.”
“And just how are you going to do that?”
“We’re going to woo you.”
*
Hester’s laughter still rang in his ears. If he didn’t know she was a cheetah, he’d swear there was some hyena in her. Never mind uphill, wooing her was more like climbing a mountain.
Her face was pinched as he showed them around the compound. Other leap members greeted the new women with interest. Laurel was pleasant enough if a little strained, Sadie was standoffish, but Hester downright growled at anyone who tried to come near her. Except for Mary – who was currently clutching at Hester’s hand – much to Tomas’ disappointment.
He introduced the women to many leap members, and he had to say, he was glad he did. His leap did him proud in their friendliness, and warmth when greeting the women. He sensed that all of the females – even Hester – relaxed on seeing the other human females and their adorable cubs. Even his idiot twin brothers managed not to screw up and scare them away. Though, he made sure not to let Hester spend too much time talking with them – there were a lot of stories about his childhood she didn’t need to hear.
Laurel even seemed impressed by how much of their own food they grew, going so far as to talk mulch with a few of their head gardeners.
Hester curled her lip at him every chance she got, but damn if that didn’t make her even hotter. His beast hadn’t been this giddy in years. Her appeal wasn’t lost on the younger, unmated males either. Most of them had lusted after sultry Valentina since they first shifted, but he could see their interest was very much piqued by his blonde bombshell.
Valentina was twenty-four. She would be looking to mate soon, and many males had hoped she would choose them. Antonio supposed many felt a pull to find a fellow jaguar. But on seeing Hester the cheetah shifter, more than one young male expressed the sentiment that he couldn’t wait for his chance to go to Los Lobos and find his own shifter.
Hester’s stomach rumbled something fierce.
“Hungry?” asked Antonio.
“No!” she snarled making Mary jump.
Damn female was way too skittish for her own good. Why Tomas chose her was beyond him. Though maybe Tomas was wondering why he had chosen such an aggressive female. Each to their own.
The guest house was one of the prettier buildings in the compound, well kept to ensure the females’ transition was as easy as possible. Other leap females had already been in cleaning and cooking and depositing large bouquets of flowers in every room.
Antonio gave the women a tour, and they quickly picked out bedrooms. Sadie gave Lorenzo a sultry look before very definitely sneering and slamming the door in his face. Laurel and Mary scuttled off to their rooms, which left Hester glaring at all the males.
Antonio nodded at the three younger males and glumly they left. He wanted to tell the males to give them time, but honestly, he was sure that advice would earn him a kick to the nards from his own future mate.
Instead, he ignored his beast and heaved her case into her chosen room.
Hester scowled. “I just realized that you must have been the one to pack my suitcase.”
“Yep.” He gave her a shameless grin.
“You touched my underwear?” Her eyes flashed dangerously, but that just made his animal purr.
“Yeah, is your favorite color red? Because there was a lot of red stuff in there.”
“Get out!” she roared.
Antonio hesitated for a second, wanting to stay, but he thought better of it. His beast was sure Hester was meant to be his, but Antonio was still kind of, a little, sort of had one foot on the fence... so to speak.
Sure, she was sexy as hell. Yes, she called to him on a level he didn’t understand, and boy did he love her fieriness, but… He had his doubts as to whether she could get over the way they came together.
“I’ll see you later,” he muttered, pretending the door didn’t almost hit him on the ass on the way out.
Mine rumbled his beast. Antonio growled back. He hoped so.
Seven
Hester counted to ten and unfolded her tightly clenched fingers, flexing her claws. Douche bag. Double douche bag!
Handsome douche bag purred her treacherous and obviously insane inner cheetah.
Ugh. No, no, no, no! She did not find kidnapping sexy – there was no way. Just because there happened to be a sexy guy doing it, it was not romantic! Romance meant… ummm, well, it entailed… Hester was stumped. She’d dated more than her fair share of guys, but not one of them had ever tried to romance her.
Well, there was that time Derrick bought her flowers. Except they were actually the flowers he bought for his secretary who turned out to be allergic – the secretary he had been boffing on the side. Grrr.
Okay, so maybe she had no idea what romance was. She was used to shifters who thought a sexy come on was ‘drop your panties and bend over’.
Woo her indeed! Hester paced her room. No, there would be no wooing. There would only be escaping. Away from his suffocatingly delicious scent and twinkling eyes.
Hester noticed that their guest house didn’t contain any phones – the jaguars weren’t quite that stupid – but the windows didn’t have bars. On their tour, she also noted that while this was called a compound, it was hardly a maximum security kind of deal. Basically, there was just a wall around the area – not even a particularly high one. Clearly, they didn’t think anything more extravagant was necessary. Perhaps crime was virtually non-existent on the mountain. Perhaps the males thought they were so irresistible that none of their kidnapped brides would make a break for it. Then, she would be the first.
The house was as the back of the compound, she could slip out, over the wall and Bob would indeed be her uncle.
Against the agitated murmuring of her beast, Hester flung open the window and took a peek outside. She was on the second story, but there was grass below. If she climbed out in her human form and shifted mid-drop, she’d probably be okay. Probably. Hester was a fast enough runner – even the curviest of cheetahs could run fast – but she’d never been a great climber. Her mother had never considered anything like tree houses ladylike enough for Hester and had always worried about her breaking her neck. She was tremendously overprotective, and things only got worse after her dad died.
Hester allowed a moment of sadness before shimmying out of her clothes – lest she become tangled mid-shift – and carefully clambering out the window. No point in delaying, the longer she thought about this, the more she’d want to change her mind.
All she had to do was run to the nearest town, house, outhouse – whatever the hell they had in this backwater hell – and beg for help.
Hester gently lowered herself until she was clinging to the window frame with her fingertips, gritting her teeth a
s she felt the rough brick of the house against her bare skin. Perhaps she should at least have left her top on. Her girls were not meant to be treated so roughly. They were meant to be caressed, suckled, loved… by Antonio.
Hester let out a curse. Stupid male!
As if he knew she was thinking of him, he chuckled, and too late she scented his presence.
“Need a hand?” he offered more than a little smugly.
“No thanks,” she hissed, hideously aware that she was currently dangling from a window, bare-ass naked and sweating up a storm.
“Okidoke,” came the laconic reply.
Hester ventured a peek under her arm and found Antonio leaning against the house, sporting a pair of sunglasses and folding his arms as though he had nary a care in the world.
She groaned and tried to lift herself back up into her room. Easier said than done; all her efforts just resulted in jiggling of certain body parts. A sight that had Antonio biting his lip to stave off the laughter. Great, this would be how he saw her naked for the first time – with her biggest asset staring him in the face. Not that there would be a next time!
“Having fun?” he asked.
“Sure am,” she panted. “Best way to get an all over tan. I love the sun.”
“And it loves you,” he murmured, his gaze inscrutable under his glasses.
The seconds ticked by as Hester became increasingly uncomfortable – even more uncomfortable than she naturally was. She could drop and shift, but in the time it took her to do that, Antonio would be all over her. Plus… the ground looked a lot further away now that she was in imminent danger of meeting it and her cheetah was having cold feet about the whole plan.
“Fine, help me,” she muttered.
Without even a smirk, he stripped out of his t-shirt, making her jaw drop, and then proceeded to help her. He reached and grasped one of her dangling ankles.
