Morgan’s Mercenaries: Heart of the Jaguar

by Lindsay McKenna

  “Marriage…” she whispered uncertainly.

  Concerned, Mike gazed deeply into her blue-gray eyes. “You’re worried that we can’t make it as man and wife? That our worlds are so different that we won’t be able to find any middle ground?”

  Ann realized he was reading her heart and mind again. Gently, she slid her fingers across his roughened cheek. “Yes…”

  “Life has to be lived one day at a time, wild orchid. One moment at a time. Outside the walls of this place, it’s a crap-shoot. There are no guarantees. Nothing. The moment we step back across that bridge, our lives are at risk.” Leaning down, he caressed her mouth tenderly. As he eased away, his eyes burning with the passion of life that ran through him as surely as sunlight stroked the heated earth, he whispered, “The cosmic joke is that everyone’s life is at risk every day. We don’t know when our time will be up. We don’t know how we are going to die. Billions of people on the face of Mother Earth live this way. Life is risky, Ann. I have an added danger in mine—Escovar. And yes, that does put you in greater jeopardy. All we can do is be careful, watchful, and stay ahead of him and his men. I promise you,” he said in a deep, resonating tone, “that I will do everything in my power to keep you and our baby safe and shielded. With my life, I promise that to you….”

  Tears stung her eyes as she closed them and pressed her brow against his thickly corded neck. His arms drew her tightly to him. All her senses were wide-open and she felt his fear, his suffering and anguish for her and the baby she carried. Mike was right—life was tenuous at best. She could step on a venomous snake and die. Or she could contract a hemorrhagic fever and bleed to death. Yes, he was right—life was a risk twenty-four hours a day. Again, she had to adjust her attitude toward living, toward marriage and becoming a mother and a wife.

  A quivering smile touched her lips as she caressed his strong, naked shoulder. Mike felt so invincible to her, strong and pulsing with the power of life. She wished that same strength could live within her. Perhaps that was the gift of the jaguar. At least her baby would have that same powerful vital force, that sheer determination and will to not only survive, but to live life on the edge and with passion—a passion she was only now beginning to understand and appreciate by loving Mike.

  “One day at a time,” she promised him. “One hour at a time.”

  Caressing her hair, he pressed a kiss to the sunlit strands. “We can do this together. I know we can.” His fingers curved about her skull and he closed his eyes as he rested his cheek against hers. “Love is the most powerful, the most healing emotion we have. It’s ours, Ann. If we have the courage to embrace it fully, without reserve…if we can surrender to it entirely, then we’ve got more than most people will ever have….”

  Raggedly, she whispered, “Yes, I understand that…and I’ll try, Mike. I swear I’ll try with every breath I take into this body of mine. I’m not there yet, but I’m going to try….”

  Houston’s fingers tightened on her silken hair. It was all he could ask of Ann. He knew she had not yet surrendered all the way to him—nor had she completely accepted the possibility of being his wife and the mother of his child. Only time…and the will of the Great Goddess…would allow her to cross that threshold between them. Only then would their love be strong enough to carry them forward into their new life together. The commitment needed to be at a soul-deep level, like a foundation being laid. For their lives to entwine fully, that foundation had to be there; otherwise, their relationship would deteriorate over time. He knew she didn’t want that, and he didn’t, either, so he would give her the time and space necessary to adjust, accept and then surrender to him, in all ways. He wanted this to happen naturally. Beautifully.

  Chapter 14

  Ann’s heart was heavy. They were going to leave the Village of the Clouds within the hour. It was her understanding that because she was an outsider to the energy forces that kept all those within the village safe, she and Mike had to leave in order to ensure the protection of the villagers. Further, Mike had received disturbing news from his government sources that Escovar was mounting a campaign to take another village. No, real life was intruding upon them, whether they liked it or not.

  Grandmother Alaria sat at the table in their hut as they packed their meager belongings. A number of new friends Ann had made over the last two weeks had dropped by individually and embraced her, blessed her and wished her a safe journey on her newly chosen path.

  She was kneeling on the mat in the bedroom of the hut, folding clothes that she’d recently washed and sun dried. Mike was nearby, looking through the black paramedic pack he always carried with him no matter where he went, checking the contents and organizing items in case he had to use them.

  Ann’s body glowed from recent lovemaking they’d shared. She lifted her head to look at the man she loved. As if sensing her attention, Mike glanced in turn. Their gazes met. Her lips parted and she drowned in his tender look. His love for her was so strong and palpable that wave after wave of warmth embraced her. She sighed softly. Yesterday, they had been married by Grandmother Alaria, with the entire village in attendance. It had been a beautifully moving ceremony, the thought of which still made tears come to her eyes. Ann was beginning to understand on a much deeper level about the people of the Jaguar Clan. She knew now that the incredible loving power they held was centered in life and family.

  Because she was now considered one of them due to her blood transfusion and becoming Mike’s mate, she had to learn to accept the unsettling feeling of being in touch with the villagers’ subtle emotions. And her own startling ability to share her thoughts and emotions with Mike was remarkable.

  Mike didn’t have to say “I love you” aloud. All he had to do was think about the love he held in his heart for her and a warm euphoria flowed through Ann just like a physical embrace. It was, as Grandmother Alaria put it wryly, a gift and a curse. There would be times, the old woman had explained the night before, as they shared their last meal with her and Adaire when they would fight and disagree, and Ann might want to ask Mike to shield himself from her. After all, that was the only fair thing to do, since she didn’t possess his more advanced abilities.

  Or did she? Ann wasn’t sure. She eased back on her heels and continued to fold the clothes across her lap. Nestling her hand against her abdomen, Ann could sense the baby she and Mike had created down by the pool of life. She knew as a doctor that it was impossible to know this soon that she was pregnant, yet there was a warm flame of feeling, a thrilling joy that resonated throughout her belly and up to her heart ever since that day. Grandmother Alaria had confirmed that she was carrying a baby—a very special little girl soul, she had told them with a twinkle in her eyes.

  Suddenly a voice startled her out of her reverie. “Have any names come to you yet, Ann?” Grandfather Adaire asked softly as he leaned on his staff at the door, watching her through kindly eyes. He then exchanged a tender smile with his wife.

  Ann looked and laughed, a little embarrassed. She’d given Adaire and Alaria permission to monitor her thoughts and feelings while at the village. They and Mike were the only ones, however, and everyone else remained shielded, as was the policy.

  Mike smiled and placed his paramedic pack aside to welcome Adaire. He took the folded clothes off Ann’s lap. “I know she’s thinking about it, Grandfather.”

  “Aye….”

  As Mike’s hand settled over hers, Ann leaned against his strong, steady body. Today he was dressed once again in his combat uniform. That frightened her. It was a reminder that once they left the safety of the village, Mike would be a hunted man again—but so was she, now.

  “How do you name a baby you haven’t seen yet?” Ann teased them. “This is not fair. You know so much more than I do….” She leaned over and pressed a kiss to Mike’s recently shaved cheek. Each minute here with him was precious, moments she wanted to brand into her heart and memory.

  A rumbling chuckle rolled out of Adaire. “She is a child of the J
aguar Clan. She will come into your dreams very shortly, my dear. Believe me, she will become a pest to you each night you close your eyes. You think you will sleep?” He slapped his thigh and chuckled again. “This little girl is precocious. She will tell you exactly what she wants to be called when she arrives.”

  “That is true,” Alaria said as she rose slowly to her feet. “I am being called,” she told them. “I will meet you down at the bridge?”

  Mike nodded. “Of course, Grandmother.”

  Ann saw the love between Adaire and Alaria as the old woman reached out and touched her husband’s hand briefly and then was gone. With a sigh, Ann said, “I don’t care what our baby wants to be called so long as she’s born healthy.” She cast a glance up at Mike, who had sobered slightly. “That’s all I want. And a safe place to have her…”

  Houston’s arm tightened around her shoulders briefly. “I’m going to do everything I can to keep you—and her—safe.” Frowning, he glanced at Adaire, then continued, “The best thing, we believe, is to have you go back to the States. Wait for me there. Escovar won’t follow you. I could fly up every few months and see you and—”

  “Absolutely not!” Ann muttered defiantly. “I’m not leaving your side. I need you, too, you know.”

  “Ann,” Houston soothed, keeping his voice purposely low and shielding her from his chaotic feelings, “we’ve discussed this before.”

  “Yes,” Ann said firmly, “and we’ve agreed that I’ll work in the villages as a doctor. My name will change because we know Escovar has linked me to you, as well as to Morgan, whom he hates almost as much as he does you. Yes, I know—” Ann held up her hand as Mike started to interrupt “—that he’ll try to find me and kill me because of that link. What is in my favor is that he doesn’t realize we love one another, or that we’re married. I can pose as a doctor from the Peruvian Red Cross, on assignment to this region. You said yourself that Escovar usually leaves the medical people in the villages alone. He won’t kill priests or nuns, either.”

  “It’s the only place of light in his dark heart,” Houston growled. “I don’t know what stops him. He kills everyone else—babies, children, women and men. His murdering soldiers don’t give a damn about life, not at all….”

  Ann felt his raw, cutting anguish even though she knew he was trying desperately to shield her from his worries about her safety. Moving her hand from beneath his, she pressed it against her abdomen. “Mike, don’t do this to yourself. Please. I’m a doctor. I can help the people—your people. God knows, they need someone like me in every village, but that’s not going to happen, either. I promised you that I’d stay in areas that you considered safe, far away from wherever you’re going to engage Escovar as he tries to take over Ramirez’s territory. I won’t like not seeing you for weeks at a time, but I know you have a job to do. I’m not asking you to stop doing what you need to do, and you can’t ask it of me, either.”

  Mike tried to protest.

  Ann held up her hands. “I’m a doctor,” she repeated. “I save lives in my own way, just as you do. Besides, I’ve grown to love the people of the villages—they are born and bred in the same mystical land that is our child’s heritage. We’re both committed. Neither of us is going to leave the field of battle we’ve chosen to take a stand on.”

  “But,” Houston said huskily, glancing over at Adaire for help, “you’re pregnant, Ann.” He slid his hand across her belly in a tender motion. “I lost one family—” He stopped abruptly.

  Ann reeled internally as his feelings deluged her. His terror over losing her and the baby were haunting him even more than she’d realized.

  “Children,” Adaire counseled soothingly, “be at peace with yourselves. Each of you must trust and surrender to the other. Each of you must respect the needs of the other to pursue the goals you’ve chosen to work toward. It is that simple. You must make your individual decisions work for, not against one another.”

  Bitterly, Ann admitted, “I wish you could leave Peru, Mike. That would solve everything. If you could come back to the States, lead a normal life there—”

  “My child,” Adaire said in a low tone, “Michael is in a death spiral dance with Escovar. No matter where in this world he tried to go, Escovar would seek him out, find him and try to kill him. It is better that this dance be played out here, in Peru, on the turf of the jaguar. It is to Michael’s advantage that it be done here. I know that the constant threat to his life is very hard on you. But it would be a threat wherever you tried to live. You cannot outrun fate.”

  Frustrated, Ann fought back tears. “I keep hearing of this death spiral dance.” She glared at Mike and then at Adaire. “What is it?”

  Houston sighed raggedly. “It’s something that was chosen by both of us—Escovar and I—before we ever came into physical bodies in this lifetime. There is some old karmic debt still unresolved between us. Only someone like Grandmother Alaria would know what that debt is. She is the only one allowed to see the Akashic Records, a place where all our deeds, actions and words in our hundreds, maybe thousands of lifetimes, are accurately recorded.” Shrugging, Mike gave Ann a gentle squeeze. “I don’t know why Escovar is after me like this. I can’t explain why his family died in that accident, or why he chose to murder my family in revenge….”

  “It’s like a stain on the soul,” Adaire interjected gently, his gaze on Ann. “A stain can be caused by some terrible decision made by one soul against another in a particular lifetime. In order to remove the stain, the same event must be turned around, opposite of what it was before, and played out again. In that way, the scales of karma are once again in balance.”

  Struggling to understand, Ann whispered brokenly, “Lifetimes? Reincarnation? My God, I’ve never even considered them as possibilities. But then, to tell me that Mike murdered Escovar’s family in one of these so-called lifetimes—”

  Adaire held up his hand. “Wait, child,” he murmured, “you cannot know all the possibilities that occurred between Michael and Escovar. I’m not at liberty to speak of it, either. To do so would be to interfere in the karma between them, and the clan can never interfere on that level. To do so is to break the code. Michael understands this, and I know it’s very daunting for you to try and comprehend it all. A death spiral dance is a simple way of saying that Michael is locked in a life-and-death struggle with another person. In this case, Eduardo Escovar. And like actors, they must play out their parts. They must walk through the scenes, make decisions and work through their karma with one another.”

  Sniffing, Ann gave Mike a dark look. “And no one knows what the outcome will be, right?”

  Unhappily, Mike gently rubbed her tension-filled shoulders. He wished that this topic hadn’t come up. “That’s right, mi querida. Look, don’t worry about it. I’ve been evading that bastard for over ten years now. I’m slowly but surely getting the upper hand on him. We stopped him at the village of San Juan. I’ll stop him at the next village he’s preparing to attack in a couple of weeks. The people here are worth protecting, Ann, regardless of the death spiral he and I are locked in.”

  “Call it what it really is, my blood brother—a major death spiral confrontation between the Sisterhood of Light and the Brotherhood of Darkness,” a woman’s voice interjected. “It is the first of several clashes between the light and dark before the darkness descends upon all of us and we are hurled collectively into the pit of hell.”

  Ann snapped her head toward the entrance to the hut. A woman, very tall, built like a lithe, well-muscled jaguar and dressed in camouflage combat fatigues just like Mike, stood there looking commandingly at them. The power emanating from her made Ann gasp. The woman had a rifle slung over her left shoulder. Her hair, backlit by the morning sun, was a shining blue-black waterfall, like a glistening raven’s wing. It was her proud, almost arrogant carriage that made Ann tense. This was no ordinary woman. No, she was special…and dangerous.

  Quickly, Ann perused her golden face, which glistened with a s
heen of perspiration. Her willow green eyes were large, intelligent and slightly tilted. Her black hair framed her oval features, emphasizing her high cheekbones and full, grimly set lips. On the web belt around her slender waist were weapons of war. Ann saw: grenades, a deadly knife and a canteen. Across her shoulders were bandoleers of bullets for the rifle she carried.

  Ann had seen female combat soldiers before, stateside, but never anything like this woman. She saw the glittering laughter in her eyes, the supreme, unshakable confidence in her proudly thrown back shoulders, and the way she lifted her chin at a cocky angle. There was no doubt in Ann’s mind that this woman was, indeed, a member of the Jaguar Clan—she looked half human, half jaguar. One second Ann thought she saw a jaguar covering the woman soldier, the next, that stunning human visage reappeared. Power emanated from her in battering waves of such magnitude that Ann found herself recoiling.

  “Shield yourself!” Adaire growled. “This woman is with child, Inca. You know better than that.”

  Ann watched the woman give Grandfather Adaire a smile of annoyance, a one-cornered lift of the right side of her mouth. “Old One, as usual, you are here to chide me.” In the next instant, Ann felt the battering waves of energy cease, and she breathed an inward sigh of relief. Mike leaped to his feet, calling out Inca’s name. Ann looked up at him in surprise as Adaire moved aside, scowling heavily in displeasure.