by Bianca D'Arc
She’d been way more committed than any of her past boyfriends. As she’d told Mark last night, that had made her more than a little gun shy. She was hesitant to commit her feelings to anyone now. She’d been burned once too often.
In a huge switcharoo, Mark was the one who seemed to want to rush into full-blown future planning. She was on the other side of the equation this time, and it felt damned odd.
Mario was driving down the road as she finished the call with Mark, with a promise to see him soon. He’d be waiting, he’d told her. A shiver went down her spine at the thought of seeing him again.
This would be their third encounter. Possibly their second date, if being whisked away to a private island constituted a date. She thought it probably did.
Was it still too soon to consider sleeping with him? She hoped not. She was quickly running out of excuses. Her instincts said to grab the brass ring while it was close enough to touch. The future was uncertain. She should probably enjoy the time she had with this amazing man while she could.
As she daydreamed about what might happen on the plane, or when they got to the island, she noticed the cars he’d mentioned, following behind. There was one in front, as well. She probably wouldn’t have spotted them if Mark hadn’t told her about them, but since she knew what to look for, it was pretty clear she had an escort.
When they reached a private heliport, she noticed that a total of three cars, including the limo she was in, drove straight out to a hangar in the distance. At least one other car stayed near the entrance, possibly to run interference.
Her limo drove right up to a helicopter that was attended by two tall, good-looking people—a male and a female, who nodded to Mario and helped move Shelly’s luggage from the trunk of the car to the back of the chopper. A handsome blond man went straight from one of the other vehicles to the helicopter and started checking things over in a confident way. The woman who’d been standing ready with the chopper conferred with him as they discussed points on a clipboard she held.
When Shelly’s bags were safely stowed, Mario took his leave of her and drove the limo back the way they’d come. She was escorted into the helicopter by the man who’d helped Mario with the bags. He made sure she was securely buckled in and gave a headset, plus a little basic instruction on how it worked. Then he left, going back into the open hangar behind the helicopter.
By the time all that was done, the blond man was in the pilot’s seat, the woman beside him. Both had donned headsets as they began to power up the machine. Shelly didn’t want to interrupt them, though she found she could switch channels on her headset and listen in on their discussion of the pre-flight checks.
It was typical pilot jargon that she only half-understood, but it was reassuring, in its way, to listen to them talk so casually. They obviously knew their stuff and were experienced pilots. When they finished, the blond man turned in his seat to look back at her. The passenger compartment was big enough to seat four comfortably, but Shelly had it all to herself.
“I’m Heinrich,” the pilot said over the headset. “This is Lucinda.” He gestured toward the woman in the copilot’s position. “Are you comfortable back there?”
Shelly gave him a thumbs up, as well as verbal confirmation. “I’m ready when you are. And I’m Shelly, by the way. It’s nice to meet you both, and thanks for the lift.”
Both of them smiled back at her, but it was Heinrich who spoke. “Happy to help. Sit back and enjoy the ride. It’s just a quick hop to the airstrip. Shouldn’t take more than ten or fifteen minutes.”
Shelly nodded as the pilots turned back to their instruments and the blades began to turn in earnest. Within moments, they were flying.
A near-vertical takeoff was new to Shelly and something to marvel at. As was the scenery below them. She recognized the streets around her home as they turned toward the west, and then they were out, past her house, and headed for a nearby regional airport. They were flying much lower than airplanes flew, and the sky was clear, so the views were spectacular.
Almost too soon, they were coming in for a landing next to a private hangar that was some distance from all the others. Shelly saw a small jet waiting there and had to admire the shiny white vehicle. She didn’t know all that much about jets, but she recognized the quality of the vehicle and the fact that it was close to brand new. Only the best for the billionaire playboy who also happened to be the secret leader of a band of highly magical shapeshifters.
For a moment, Shelly wondered if she was hallucinating this whole situation, but then, she looked at Heinrich and Lucinda—two impossibly good-looking and lithe beings—and realized they were shifters. Probably golden jaguars with spots. Slinky. Sleek. And intensely powerful.
And Mark was their leader.
Faced with the proof of them right there in the helicopter with her, she had to admit, this was probably real and not a dream. She waited for Heinrich’s signal that it was safe to unbuckle her seatbelt and then let the impossibly handsome and muscular ground crew open the door and let her know it was safe to come out.
She was escorted to the waiting plane without any delay, and she saw someone following with her bags. She felt a bit like royalty, the way they were seeing to her every need. As she mounted the steps up into the small jet, she noted Heinrich following close behind. He veered left into the cockpit as she was ushered into the body of the plane, where Mark was already seated, waiting for her.
He got up to greet her with a kiss on the cheek, and she blushed as she became aware of Mark’s people watching them very closely. Lucinda had also come aboard and was heading into the cockpit behind Heinrich. Through the open door, Shelly spotted another man already in the pilot’s seat, flipping buttons and talking into a headset.
When the cockpit door closed, only Mark and Shelly were left in the cabin for a moment. Shelly had seen her bags being stowed in a closet near the door by the man who had brought them up into the jet. Then, he’d left again with a quick nod to Mark.
“Was the chopper flight okay?” Mark asked as he motioned for Shelly to pick a seat from the choices available.
The jet was laid out like someone’s living room, not like a commercial airliner. Instead of rows of seats, there was a conversation area with a couch and coffee table. There were also a few seats that looked like they had workstations built in for those who might want to set up a temporary office while they flew from one place to another.
Mark had been seated in one of the comfy-looking chairs, so she chose the one next to him. She’d try it out. They could always move later, she supposed, if they wanted to.
“I’ve never flown in a helicopter before. It was seriously cool,” she admitted, grinning at him.
“I’ll have to take you up more often,” he said, smiling in what looked like approval. “We’d better buckle in for takeoff. The sooner we get off the ground, the sooner we get to the island. I can’t wait to show it to you.”
He sat in his seat, next to hers. They took a moment to buckle in, and when Shelly looked up, she realized they’d been joined by a few more people. There was an older woman with a kind face, a younger woman who looked enough like her to be her daughter, two very large men who could have been twins, and Nick. They were all buckling into seats farther up the cabin, closer to the cockpit.
“I’ll introduce you once we’re underway,” Mark told her quietly as the jet started taxiing toward the end of the runway. He surprised her by taking her hand in his. Their chairs were close enough that her left armrest brushed against his right. He lifted her left hand to rest between them, entwining his fingers with hers. “I missed you.”
His softly voiced words rang true in her mind, and she realized she’d missed him too. Odd as it seemed. She’d almost been counting the hours between the moment he’d left her last night and this morning when she’d see him again. She couldn’t remember ever being this eager to see a man—even when she’d been a hormonal, daydreaming teen. Only Mark elicited her stalker-ish tendenc
ies.
The flight passed in a bit of a blur. Mark introduced the team once they were airborne, but the others kept a respectful distance for the most part. The older lady proved to be Marie, Mark’s personal chef, and the younger woman was, indeed, her daughter, Janice. They produced an array of breakfast foods they had packed to share among them all. Shelly noted that they brought trays up to the cockpit, as well.
There was no real demarcation between Mark and his people. Sure, they all treated him with respect, but he treated them the same way. As if he valued each and every one of them. Like they were family, not mere servants. Shelly liked that.
For the most part, she sat and talked with Mark about his visions for the type of community he wanted her to design on the island. He described some of the terrain and showed her a smaller version of that topographical map at one point, but she knew the reality of the place, when she saw it, would spark her imagination.
Although…some of the motifs Mark was describing were already causing creative thoughts to flow. He’d brought along a portfolio of inspirational images. Everything from penthouse apartments to ancient ruins in South America. The jaguar motif was something he wanted to feature, not hide, and she thought of ways to include the cat’s attributes into her buildings.
There would be the obvious artistic representations, of course, but she also thought about doing something subtler. Like using the sinuous tail of the cat as a model for the curved façade of one of the larger buildings. It would be like nothing she had ever designed before. It would be unique. Magical. Challenging.
She was looking forward to getting started.
By the time the jet landed, Shelly was ready for her adventure to begin. She peered out the window of the plane eagerly, not surprised to find a lush green landscape waiting for her. It looked like a tropical paradise. She could also see the classically-styled mansion set on top of a nearby hill.
“That’s the original owner’s house. We use it as a base of operations now. After the new community is built, the mansion will serve as a buffer between our Clan home and the outside world,” Mark told her as the jet taxied toward a distant hangar. “We don’t get a lot of outside traffic here, but there is some, and we do have to maintain the human fiction for the rest of the world. As far as anyone outside the Clan knows, I’m going to live in that monstrosity over there, and you’re here to design unobtrusive staff housing.” He shrugged. “We might even build a bit of it in plain sight near the mansion, in case anyone is watching via satellite, but the real work will be under cover of the jungle canopy, where eye-in-the-sky can’t see too well.”
It was an ingenious plan. He’d hide his new community in the jungle where few, if any, would ever even suspect it. She already knew all the building would be done by his Clan members. They’d probably also be the ones bringing in the supplies. It would be next to impossible for anyone outside his Clan to keep track of what they were building here. The plan was nearly perfect.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The air was moist and humid, but not unpleasant, when Shelly walked down the steps of the private jet. The scent of tropical flowers was in the air, along with moist, loamy earth, delicious to her senses.
She noted a large docking facility for boats not too far away, along with a very utilitarian warehouse near it. That was where the supplies came in and were stored, she realized. In fact, a large boat was moored there right now, with a few bare-chested men toting boxes back and forth. An efficient-looking woman with a clipboard was overseeing the whole operation.
Shelly waited on the tarmac for Mark. She’d seen one of the men from the cabin take her bags down already, and she gave up worrying about where they’d end up. Mark’s people were competent and well-organized. She’d probably find them waiting for her when she arrived at her room for the night.
The only thing she’d kept back was her drawing case. She’d asked Mark about it during the flight, and Nick had been able to easily retrieve the small portfolio that contained the tools of her trade, which included a laser measuring device, as well as a good old-fashioned tape measure, just in case. She also had pencils, plenty of paper and a fully charged tablet computer that she might need, depending on what she found when she got to the building site.
“What do you think?” Mark asked, coming up beside her.
“It’s beautiful. Although, I might clad that warehouse in something a little less reflective, which would cut down on the glare off the roof. There are a few materials available now that are both protective and insulating that might do the trick.”
“We went with that skin to keep the temperatures inside within reason,” Lucinda said, coming up beside her. The woman moved so silently—all of the jaguars did—that Shelly had to try hard not to jump at her sudden appearance.
“Yeah, I can see that. It’s a good way to go, but there are newer materials out there that could do the same and be less of an eyesore. I bet that roof shines over at the house when the angle of the sun is just right,” Shelly commented, judging the distance from house to warehouse and the position of the sun.
Lucinda laughed. “Yeah, that was an unexpected side effect when we built the warehouse, but we got used to pulling the shades or just not going into those rooms at certain hours.”
“You were involved with the warehouse project?” Shelly asked, since the female pilot seemed knowledgeable on the topic.
“My little brother designed and built the thing,” Lucinda said proudly. “He’s not formally trained, but he’s got a bit of talent for construction. He got the plans from one of his contacts in the Redstone Clan.
Now that was a familiar name. “Redstone Construction? They’re one of the best companies out there,” Shelly agreed. “But why do you call them a Clan?” Shelly wondered at the implications. “They’re not… They…” She turned to look at Mark, who was just standing there, looking amused. “Are they jaguars too?”
“Cats,” Mark replied. “But not jaguars.” He paused, and she absorbed the meaning of his words. Holy crap. There were shifters everywhere!
“Cats? Like housecats? Or like lions?” she squeaked.
Both Lucinda and Mark laughed as the three of them started walking toward the path that led to the mansion. It would be a bit of a hike to the building, but Shelly needed the exercise after being cooped up for the past few hours.
“Cougars,” Lucinda finally replied. “The Redstone family are all cougars, but their Clan is a very inclusive one. Basically, any shifter group that wants to work for the construction company agrees to come under the leadership of the Redstone Alpha, so Grif Redstone has all sorts of shifters under his banner. Wolves make up a large part of the construction crews, but there are bears, other cats, raptors and who knows what all working for Redstone in one capacity or another.”
“Raptors? You mean like birds of prey?” The only other thing that word brought to mind was the scary velociraptors from that old movie franchise, but Shelly didn’t think there was such a thing as a dinosaur shifter. Was there?
Lucinda was nodding. “Hawks, eagles. That sort of thing. They make natural born iron workers since heights aren’t really an issue for them.”
“Wow.” Shelly didn’t realize she’d said that aloud until Lucinda chuckled. Well, she probably already looked foolish, so she decided to ask the question still lingering in her mind. “Are there such things as dinosaur shifters?”
Mark guffawed but then seemed to control his amusement. “Sorry. As far as I know, the dinosaurs really are extinct, though I did hear a rumor that there were once dragon shifters. Of course, I’ve never seen one, or know anybody who has. I think, if they ever did really exist, they probably died off in the Middle Ages when knights were actively hunting them.”
“I’ll see you up at the house,” Lucinda said before taking her leave off a side path that connected with the one they were on.
Lucinda was gone before Shelly even had a chance to raise her hand in farewell, her mind was still stuck on the idea
of dragon shifters. Though her responses were probably a bit sluggish from all the travel. These jaguars were quick. Shelly would have to up her game if she was going to keep up with them.
She assumed the path Lucinda had taken would lead to the warehouse. She’d practically disappeared into the jungle foliage. Even here, where it was carefully manicured and held at bay along the pathways, the leaves were thick, though Shelly noted someone had already felled any of the larger, old-growth trees in this immediate area. It had probably been done when the mansion was built by the previous owner.
“We already have a skeleton crew living on the island. Most are housed in the mansion, but a few like to live a bit wilder, so don’t be surprised if you run across a few folks like that.” Mark nodded his head toward the curve in the path ahead of them, where Shelly was surprised to see an absolutely gigantic jaguar sitting in the shade of a huge fern.
The cat stirred itself as they approached, sitting up and nodding to Mark as they passed. Shelly felt her heartbeat accelerate. The cat was massive, and she had no doubts those sharp teeth could rip her to shreds. She just had to remember there was a human mind in there, along with the cat’s. It wouldn’t attack her without provocations, right?
“You maintain your intellect while you’re shifted, right?” she asked, realizing she should have clarified some of this before she had agreed to come to Mark’s private island.
He put his arm around her shoulders and tugged her close. She went, enjoying the protective feel of his warmth. “We do. None of my people will harm you, Shelly. You are our honored guest. And on this island, the only big cats you see will be my people. Nobody will hassle you, even if you’re out here alone. I promise.”
Reassured by his words, she was still a little leery when they came upon another spotted cat lazing in the shade around another bend in the path. This one was much smaller, and Mark stopped to bend down and gently stroke the youngster’s head with clear affection.
