Jungle Blaze (Shifting Desires Series, #3)

by Lexy Timms

  It was dim inside. Nikki hit a switch and lights flickered on. On the right was an open area with a dirt floor. Equipment, most of it defying explanation to a city girl, was parked in neat rows. A green tractor was recognizable enough, the rest she supposed had to do with planting and harvesting. Although she’d been working in several rural areas, in both the impoverished regions of South America and Africa, most work was done by hand. What this barn held would be considered true wealth in such places.

  Shaking her head, she glanced to the left and saw what looked like a series of horse stalls. But these had high partitions between them. Several doors were open, a few were closed. It was the closed doors that caught her eye. They weren’t what she expected to see at all, but were more like the doors you’d see inside a house not on an animal pen. Being taken out here to this suddenly felt creepy... and wrong.

  Is this the part where she kills me and buries me under a pile of manure?

  Only there was no manure smell. In fact, the smell that was strongest was almost antiseptic, with the soft intermingling of machine oil and a hint of dirt. That part at least she understood. A tractor should smell like dirt. And even oil. The rest?

  Mystified and somewhat at sea about what they were doing there she turned toward her host, a whole slew of questions poised on her lips.

  “I have some old equipment in here,” Nikki said by way of explanation, leading her to the series of closed doors. “Taylor is right; we’re a hardy lot and not prone to many maladies that shifting can’t cure. On the other hand, on those occasions where someone needs special care...”

  She pulled open one of the stalls. The inside had been converted into a sort of exam room, right down to a tile floor completely at odds with the rest of the barn. It was also very clean, the source of the antiseptic smell. The room appeared fully stocked to Angelica’s practiced eye. However, whereas a normal exam room might have the majority of its supplies dedicated to the attention of injuries, small wounds or minor burns, this had few of those. Here the medicines on the shelves seemed to be concentrated on sickness, and digestive issues.

  There was even a large electric razor mounted on a wall. For shaving the patient? She looked around the room with new eyes, realizing that it was indeed a cross between her own clinic’s exam room and a veterinarian’s office.

  Angelica blinked. “I... Why in a barn?”

  “Because,” Nikki said with more than a hint of pride, “it’s hidden. Everything about us is hidden.” She smiled and took out a thermometer. “Taylor said you’re a doctor. Have you given yourself an exam since this... whatever it was... happened to you?”

  “It was genetic tampering,” Angelica said, sidestepping the question. “Dr. Jones used a CRISPER to cut...”

  “A CRISPER?” Nikki jumped on that. “On you? On a human? That technology’s not reliable; there are risks. Horrible, terrible risks.” She shivered.

  “I didn’t exactly volunteer for it,” Angelica muttered, not liking the way Nikki looked at her, as though she’d wanted this to happen. “Neither did the entire village of locals who weren’t as lucky as I was. For some reason, my alteration took. Theirs... did not.”

  Nikki stepped back, her face going slightly pale, her lips compressed as she realized what this meant. “I suppose after all these years it shouldn’t still surprise me that humans can still do this to each other, but it does.” She looked around the room for a moment, her body tense, uneasy. “I don’t have anything nearly that sophisticated,” she said slowly. “I can’t do much about DNA. But I do know about the cells affected and the nature of that effect. I know that very well indeed.”

  “You’re the doctor for everyone who...”

  “Something like that,” Nikki said, and to her credit she tried to smile, though the effort never reached her eyes. “Off the record, I don’t have a license. But when one of our own gets in a bad way, it’s often too risky to go to a traditional medical professional. Too great a risk of ending up in the hands of someone like your friend in Africa.”

  There was no censure in her words now. Just a quiet sadness.

  “I’m sorry that you’re at risk,” Angelica said softly.

  “Why don’t we save that for the council meeting after dinner tonight, all right?” Nikki said, shaking off her maudlin mood as she reached for a stethoscope. “You neatly sidestepped my question of self-exam, so please allow a rank amateur to check you out, Doctor.” She smiled.

  Angelica was impressed. For someone without a license to practice Nikki was thorough, professional, and practiced. She had an easy bedside manner and the initial gathering of data, heart rate, blood pressure, all went the way they should. Thankfully everything came up normal, though Angelica had no idea what that would mean to the sleeping lion.

  Nikki took a vial of blood and put a drop on a glass plate, that she might observe it under the microscope the next stall over. “I wish I had a better one...” Nikki murmured as she led Angelica into the next workspace. This one was set up like a lab, with a long counter on one side of the room, a small fridge, and racks of test tubes and vials, clean and waiting to be used. A case with glass doors held neatly labeled vials and bottles of solutions, giving the small space a feeling of being quite the lab, one that was every bit as good if not better than the ones in her own clinics. Nikki apologized for the crudeness of the facility, obviously feeling that it still had some failings in the small size, and in the lack of facilities. She snapped the slide into place and looked through the eyepiece, stopping her chatter mid-sentence.

  “Same regenerative tissue. Same increased activity.” She lifted her head and looked at Angelica. “You said you were having issues?”

  Angelica opened her mouth to answer when the door to the room banged open with enough force to make her jump. An old woman leaning heavily on the carved wooden cane carefully crafted to look like a very long and lean tiger, stood there, positively bristling with barely suppressed rage.

  “I can’t wait to hear why an outsider is in your clinic, Nikki.”

  THANK GOODNESS TAYLOR stood right behind her.

  “Angelica,” Nikki said, drawing the other woman into the room and presenting her formally to the young woman, “Katerina Petrov. Katerina, this is Taylor’s fiancée, Angelica.”

  A look of surprise flickered across Katerina’s face. Angelica wondered briefly just what Taylor had told her when he’d gone to pick her up. Apparently not much.

  “As charming as she is, and congratulations on your engagement, dear, why are we meeting here and not in a parlor or Margery’s coffee house like civilized people?” Her tone was brusque, her eyes still suspicious.

  “According to Taylor,” Nikki said with a rather significant look at Taylor, who was hovering in the doorway. “She’s a shifter.”

  She doesn’t believe me. Him. Us. Whatever. Angelica shot a glance at Taylor, who was looking anywhere but at her. He’d been awfully closed-mouthed since they’d gotten to Minnesota. Hiding something.

  Mrs. Petrov blinked owlishly at her. “You? A shifter?” She spoke quickly in a language Angelica didn’t understand. Something Slavic. Maybe Russian? Angelica wasn’t sure.

  “No,” Nikki said when the tirade finally ceased. “She’s not from there. Apparently, our Angelica was the victim of genetic tampering. She was experimented on against her will.”

  The look on Mrs. Petrov’s face was one of horror and disbelief. She crossed herself, a reflex gesture that Angelica nearly copied from the old woman’s reaction, a holdover from her Catholic upbringing.

  “They experimented on us in...” Katerina breathlessly and caught herself. “She’s...” she turned to Nikki. “...a tiger?”

  “Lioness,” Taylor said from behind the old woman. Mrs. Petrov jumped. She’d apparently forgotten he was there.

  “Lion?” she asked him, clearly confused.

  “While in Africa,” Taylor explained to the both of them, “we discovered a village of shifters. They shift into lions. A doctor t
here ran experiments on them and used those results to alter her DNA.”

  Mrs. Petrov looked suddenly much older, more frail. “I...I am so sorry, my dear.” Whatever censure had been in her tone had disappeared. “I had no idea there were lions out there like us.”

  “And there were reports of leopards in the Amazon,” Angelica couldn’t resist adding, though she was less sure about this particular story until Taylor shot her a look of surprise.

  He didn’t know I knew. It was another interesting fact worth tucking away.

  “Really?” Mrs. Petrov looked at Nikki and the corners of her mouth began to curl upward. “And here we were so convinced we were alone in the universe.” She shrugged. “Nikki, what did you need me for? I have the council meeting tonight, and I haven’t eaten yet.”

  “You can eat with us.” Nikki crossed her arm and stared the older woman down. “I need you here.”

  “What are you having?”

  “Rabbit stew.”

  Mrs. Petrov blinked. “Fine, I’ll stay.” Her tone made it very clear that she was doing them a favor by doing so. “What do you need?”

  “What kind of problem are you having, dear?” Nikki asked Angelica.

  “She changes without warning,” Taylor said and Angelica flinched. Somehow hearing it like that made it sound like a failing on her part. “Like a pubescent. But the exercises aren’t working.”

  Angelica sighed. Definitely felt like she was failing. Those damn exercises that he’d been harping on for weeks hadn’t done her a bit of good. He’d been alternating between frustration and blaming her for not doing them right.

  Maybe I can just go away and come back when they’re done? Of course, he was only trying to help, but it would have been better to be able to talk about this, the two of them, before he’d decided to air it all like so much dirty laundry.

  “Taylor, dear, why don’t you get your bags and put them in your old room? We’ll be along.”

  Taylor looked from one woman to the next as if he were a child who been asked to leave the room so that the grown-ups could talk. She could see in his face the moment he realized he had been asked to leave the room.

  Angelica wisely bit her tongue, to keep from commenting on the rest of that thought.

  Without a word, Taylor disappeared back through the doorway and was gone, whether he was lurking somewhere in the barn or had actually gone to take the bags out of the car. At this point she was rather hoping for the former, as the latter would leave them trapped here for the night and Angelica still wasn’t all that sure she wanted to stay. Or that anyone else wanted them to either.

  Speaking of welcoming committees...

  Mrs. Petrov slowly approached her. Her walk was smoother now, all pretense gone. It occurred to Angelica that the reason Nikki flowed while she walked was the same reason this old woman glided even when she needed the cane. It was the cat. They moved like the cats they were.

  Mrs. Petrov took Angelica’s face in her hand and stared into her eyes. She looked so deep Angelica wondered what she was looking for.

  “Do me a favor, dear,” Mrs. Petrov said, releasing her. “Walk over to the door.”

  Angelica rose, headed to the door, and returned. Mrs. Petrov asked her to open her mouth and took a deep breath.

  Finally she turned to Nikki, a frown creasing her brow. “I can’t find her.”

  “Are you sure she’s in there?”

  Mrs. Petrov pursed her lips and looked again at Angelica. Finally, she shook her head.

  Nikki nodded, like she’d been expecting that.

  “Who?” Angelica didn’t like the way they seemed to be talking without saying anything at all. So much passed between them in just those expressions, in the way of old friends who had known each other forever. Normally she wouldn’t have minded but right now she felt very left out, especially since it was she they were discussing.

  “The exercises are created to teach you to master the inner tigress—lioness. To control it, to meld with it. But I can’t find yours. It’s like...” Mrs. Petrov floundered for a moment, searching for the words. “For you, shifting is just like...like trying to tell your heart to not beat. It’s purely physical. Without a cat, hmmm. Well, it’s not shifting, it’s...”

  “It’s going to get worse,” Nikki said, interrupting her suddenly. “If that’s true, then it’s going to go from difficult to manage to impossible. And you’ll start shifting at random.”

  “And you can partly shift,” Mrs. Petrov said and shook her head. “Tell me, when you’ve shifted... how much do you remember from being the cat?”

  “All of it,” Angelica said, not sure why that was such a big deal, especially now that Taylor was melding with his tiger more. He remembered more from shifting than he ever had. Was she so terribly different?

  The two women looked at each other. “How do you handle the difference in the body? It’s a different balance, a different movement, things that should be handled by the inner cat. How do you manage?”

  “I analyze the body,” Angelica said slowly, working out the answer as she spoke. “I use a trick I taught myself in med school. My brain is eidetic.”

  “A what, dear?” Mrs. Petrov asked.

  “Like photographic,” she explained. “I remember medical facts. They occur to me, like triggers when I diagnose something. I use that part of my brain to manipulate the body. It’s... like driving a complex car.”

  “That’s going to work for only a little while, dear,” Mrs. Petrov said softly, with a glance at Nikki for confirmation.

  “Eventually, your body,” Nikki explained, “will learn that it can heal from shifting. Without a cat persona to work that complex car, your body will take over the change and it will determine the when and where.”

  “Like falling asleep while driving,” Mrs. Petrov added. “If you’re tired enough, your body will sleep no matter what you’re doing.”

  “So, I could change...”

  “Without warning,” Nikki finished for her.

  “And...” Mrs. Petrov said, her large eyes filled with worry and compassion, “you might not be able to change back.”

  “How...how...” Angelica swallowed, feeling more uneasy by the moment. “How do I get this cat to listen?”

  The older two women looked at each other. “That’s beyond us, dear,” Nikki whispered. “I’ve never experienced this. I don’t know.”

  Mrs. Petrov shook her head. “I am so sorry.”

  Chapter 7

  “Dad, this is Angelica. Angelica, this is Dmitri Mann, my father.” Taylor made the introductions awkwardly, still unused to the words. And not entirely sure how the news would be received. He took a breath and added, “Angelica is my fiancée.”

  As it turned out, he shouldn’t have worried.

  “About bloody time!” Dmitri boomed, a huge grin splitting his face. It was a look Taylor had grown up with. His father’s good humor was always the one thing he could count on. Even back when things had gotten difficult, he’d been one to find the silver lining in whatever black cloud Taylor had brought home with him. It was with thankfulness that Taylor realized that this hadn’t changed, and that his father would accept him back into his life despite the long time apart.

  “This is a wonderful thing!” Dmitri engulfed Angelica in a hug that seemed to wrap around her twice. As affectionate and warm as his mother was, Taylor’s father always gave the Santa Claus of hugs; always plenty for everyone, and always given in warmth and adoration. This illusion was aided by the fact that Taylor’s father was a large man—in every way. Tall and broad-shouldered, he stood about an inch or so shorter than Taylor, but still topping six feet. He had huge hands, weathered and callused from his work on the farm. He rubbed those together in delight now as he met Angelica, his eyes bright and interested, and warm. Most of his face was lost in a heavy beard that had more grey in it now than Taylor remembered. But he still moved as one who was young. Strong. His father was older, but not old.

  He spo
ke now against her hair, his expression delighted. “It’s a great pleasure to meet you, my dear!”

  And just like that she was accepted. One of the family.

  Taylor had to look away, swallowing hard to hide the sudden lump in his throat. He’d expected everything to be so much more like... well, like how Harold had reacted.

  Angelica, on the other hand, seemed absolutely overwhelmed. Accepting the hug, but reserved. Withdrawn. Her eyes still wary. Wounded, the way they’d been since Africa. Whatever had happened in the barn had left her... the word that occurred to him was ‘shattered.’ He wondered what his mother and Mrs. Petrov had told her. She seemed to warm under the attentions of his father, though, thawing in his arms. But then, no one was immune to the old man’s charms. He was genuinely pleased to see people and that delight showed.

  “Thanks,” Angelica said, stepping back from the embrace, a soft smile starting to play on her lips.

  Taylor hadn’t seen her smile much lately, and to watch it come back now was heartening. Maybe, despite all the tension, some good would come of this trip after all. He certainly hoped so.

  “Where’s Harold?” his father asked as he led the way to the dining room. The table was already set, Taylor’s mother and Mrs. Petrov seeming to have things well in hand.

  Taylor winced. “He said he was going to have dinner at a friend’s house tonight.” He omitted the other things his brother had added. Those words were between the two of them and not to be repeated. If there was to be any closure between the two brothers, it would have to start with discretion. Thankfully his father didn’t press, though his sharp look seemed to say that he knew there was more to the story than was being told.

  They sat at the table, Mrs. Petrov motioning Taylor to what had always been Harold’s seat, while Angelica took his own. Taylor couldn’t help but smile at the aroma of the stew. This was home to him. His mother did a good rabbit stew; it was one of his childhood favorites. She’d probably made it today in anticipation of his arrival.