Mirror Image Seduction (Feline Shifters of Down Under Book 1)

by Tamsin Baker

  Cameron darted off across the room and came back with a large book.

  “This one.” He opened the shiny cover and flicked through a few pages before pointing with a gleeful expression at a large cheetah. Tan in color with beautiful black spots all over its body, the cheetah was an incredible marvel of speed and strength in an animal. She’d always loved big cats, and at school had done a project on cheetahs. She remembered a few things about them.

  “Did you know they can’t roar like lions? And that they purr like normal cats!”

  “Ah, no. I didn’t know that.” Lacey didn’t know what else to say. How was that even possible? There were a number of cheetahs in captivity at the open range zoo near the Grampians, but they were carnivores and would have ripped the boy to shreds if one found him, and that was assuming his story was actually true. And if a cheetah had escaped from the zoo, surely she’d have heard about it through the newspaper. Wouldn’t she?

  No, it was impossible.

  “That’s incredible, Cameron. Tell me more about the rescue. How did you get this scratch on your face?” She pointed to a red gash on his cheek that looked to be healing nicely.

  “A tree scratched me when I fell off the cliff.”

  Lacey lifted her eyes to his mother’s face, lifting her eyebrows in question.

  “Ah, we think at least that part is true. The rescue team followed a trail and found a little blood and a piece of Cameron’s shirt attached to a tree part way down a steep cliff face.”

  Her eyes shimmered with tears, and Lacey’s chest tightened. What a horrible thing for a mother to experience. The sheer terror of losing him and then the relief of his return, only to find out that he could have died yet didn’t. Lucky didn’t cover this kid’s experience.

  “Then you were amazingly lucky, Cameron. Not many people survive a fall down a cliff and a fight with a cheetah, too!” She smiled and nudged him, and he stared at her as though confused.

  “No. They saved me. I was down the cliff hanging onto the tree, and I could hear him talking to me. He said he was going to run down and save me. All I had to do was grab his fur and hang on.”

  His serious little face and the solemn tone made goosebumps rise on Lacey’s arms. She rubbed the flesh with her hands, wishing she’d worn a warmer top.

  “And did you?”

  He nodded. “Yep. And he ran me back to the camp. No one was there, but they said they had to go, that they couldn’t get caught. They made me promise to stay until Mummy and Daddy came back. I was so hungry I ate everything in my lunch box. Didn’t I, Mummy?”

  She tousled his hair and smiled gently. “Yes, you did, honey. You were a good boy.”

  “So, do you believe me, Miss Lacey?”

  She smiled down at the adorable boy, “Of course I do, Cameron!”

  That seemed to please him, and he beamed a huge grin before he turned to his mother. “Can I go and play now?”

  Lacey grabbed her camera and motioned for him to move back.

  “Just one picture for the paper, before you run off, if I can, mate?”

  Cameron pouted, but moved to stand still as she’d directed him to.

  “Ok, but can I have the book, too? To show the cat picture?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Why not? If she had to write this story, then she needed proof that the child believed it.

  Cameron picked up the book and grinned while pointing to the cheetah picture.

  Lacey snapped off a few photos on her new digital camera, and by the time she’d lowered her arms, Cameron had already dropped the book to the couch and had run off in the opposite direction out of the room.

  “He won’t change his story, no matter how hard we try to explain that what he’s saying is impossible.”

  Lacey shrugged, checking over the few photos she’d taken and smiling at the beautiful image the young boy made. His cheeky grin would win any woman’s heart.

  “Children create stories all the time. He has a great imagination. It’s most likely just his mind’s way of coping with the traumatic events.”

  She turned and smiled at Cameron’s mother, whose furrowed brow showed more concern than the situation seemed to warrant.

  “But how did he really get off that slope and back to camp? I mean, he couldn’t find it initially when he got lost. Why would be able to find it afterwards?”

  It was a good question, but Lacey didn’t have an answer.

  “The most important thing is that you got him back. If some magical creature carried him home for you, then it’s probably best for your sanity to simply thank the Universe for it and move forward. You’ll drive yourself crazy with questions if you’re not careful.”

  Cameron’s mother nodded and pulled out her phone. “True. Can I show you something before you go?”

  Lacey nodded as she turned off her recorder and began to pack up her things. This was going to be one weird story to write, but she’d have fun with it. Should she dare say a guardian angel had been watching over him?

  “Look, I took a photo to show the rangers, but they just ignored it. Tried to tell me it was from one of the search dogs, but I saw the dogs they had out there. None of them were this big. But it’s not really possible, is it?”

  She handed Lacey her phone, and Lacey’s mouth hung open as her eyes absorbed the picture of a big animal footprint in the mud.

  “Is that…” It could be a cheetah she supposed. It was certainly large enough. She’d have to do some research. “Would you mind sending that to me? I’d love to look into this a bit more.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Cameron’s mum put the photo into a message and handed the phone back to Lacey. “Just type your number in.”

  Lacey did as she asked, her belly fluttering a little as she stared at the paw print once again.

  “Please save my number and call me if you or Cameron remember anything else.”

  The woman smiled properly for the first time since Lacey had arrived as she stood to walk with Lacey to the front door.

  “Of course, and thanks for covering Cameron’s story. It was really nice of you to come so far to talk to us.”

  “No, not at all. It was really great to meet you both.”

  Lacey made one more quick check of her handbag to make sure she had everything and called out her goodbye to Cameron. The little boy came hurtling through the house towards her, skidding to a stop just before he bumped into her. She laughed as she squatted down and got onto the same level with him.

  “Hey, mate, where’s the fire?”

  “No fire! Do you really believe me?”

  Lacey put her hand on her chest. “Cross my heart, I believe you.”

  “I remembered something else, but it’s a secret. Do you wanna know the secret?”

  Lacey nodded solemnly and leaned forward when he cupped his hands around his mouth so he could bring his lips to her ear.

  “They said not to tell, but you believe me so I’ll tell you. Their names were Dylan and Ryan. They were brothers.”

  He stepped back and gave her a triumphant grin. “But you promise you won’t tell anyone I told you?”

  Lacey shook her head, a strange feeling of awe fluttering through her belly. “Of course not.”

  “Cool.” He waved as he tore off through the house once again.

  Feeling a little like she was in a trance, Lacey thanked his mother once more and left the house with a wide grin spread across her face. She bounced down the outside steps and walked over to her car.

  What an incredible story this was going to be. Magical cats in the Grampians, she could just see the headline now. She giggled to herself and let out a happy sigh. Her life was finally heading in the right direction, and she had an unusual and uplifting story as her first ever solo journalism piece.

  Her phone buzzed, and Lacey lifted it to see who had messaged her this time. Her stomach dropped along with her heart-rate as she saw the name of her ex-boyfriend on the screen.

  “Damn.”

  She used to ch
ange her number whenever he started texting, but it was such a pain to let everyone know the new one and when he always managed to find it within days, she just didn’t see the point. She pulled open her car door and slid in before she slammed it shut. Maybe it was time to get a restraining order sworn out against him. Her mother had wanted her to after they first broke up, but Lacey hadn’t wanted to give him a reason to turn on her. She’d read some horrific stories about women who were beaten, raped or murdered, after they got restraining orders on their exes.

  Pissed off that he’d ruined yet another good mood, she turned the key with a heavy sigh before she pressed her foot against the accelerator.

  Time to go home.

  Chapter Three

  Still getting used to his human form, relief spread through Dylan as he slid onto the stool at the bar with a groan. Whenever he spent a long period of time as a cheetah, it always took him a number of hours to readjust to his human form.

  “Man, do I need a drink!”

  His twin pulled up next to him as Trent came over to serve them, a glint of humor in his eyes.

  “You know watching you two is spooky as hell, right?”

  The familiar bartender was shaking his head as he rested his hands on the bar and stared at them.

  “Why’s that, Trent?”

  “Not only are your looks a mirror image, you move opposite, too. Like just now? One of you got on your stool from the right, while the other was from the left. Never seen anything like it before I met the two of you.”

  Dylan cracked a lopsided grin at Trent as Ryan cleared his throat to reply. His brother defended their anomaly every time someone said something. Mostly, Dylan just laughed it off … or played it up to really annoy whoever was dumb enough to comment about it.

  “Approximately twenty-three percent of identical twins are mirror-image twins. It’s not that rare. But I will admit, it’s fun freaking people out. You should see us when we’re actually trying to mess with someone’s head.”

  Trent chuckled a little. “I can only imagine how insane you two drove your parents while growing up.”

  Dylan barked out a laugh. “We have seven older brothers, mate. I’m pretty sure our folks were insane before we were even thought about!”

  The way the bartender’s eyes peeled wide had both Dylan and Ryan belly laughing.

  “I hope you’re joking, but I’m pretty sure you’re not. Nine kids? All boys.” He paused to shudder, “I don’t want to know anything else. Okay, what can I get you both?”

  “A couple of pots of full strength, thanks mate.”

  Dylan watched in silence as Trent efficiently went about getting their beers. Dylan left Ryan to pay as he snatched up his glass and took a deep swallow of the cool amber liquid.

  “Oh, yeah. That’s what I’m talking about.”

  After the rescue just over a week ago, they’d arrived home to find their father waiting on the front porch for them. He’d heard on the radio what had happened and had been pissed at them for exposing themselves like they had. Their punishment was that they had to spend an entire week at the zoo in cheetah form, where they couldn’t cause any more trouble.

  They were lucky that their parents had settled so close to an Open Range zoo. All the animals were in huge pastures. The fifty or so different animals had a total of around fifteen-hundred hectares all told. They kept the carnivores like the lions and the cheetahs away from the herbivores like the giraffes. But as a rule, they did a great job at providing a large, animal friendly zoo. You needed to go on a forty minute bus safari just to get ‘round to see everything.

  “Uh huh. That sure does hit the spot.”

  Yep, he completely agreed with his twin. In cheetah form at the zoo, they’d been on a diet of water and raw meat. While it provided all the nutrients they needed, and in animal form they didn’t have a problem with uncooked food, it was boring and repetitive. Although, he did have fun chasing the odd rabbit or kangaroo that was dumb enough to hop into the cheetah field at the zoo.

  “You need to scrub out that water trough when we get to work Monday.”

  Ryan laughed at him.

  “Yeah, that was not the best tasting, was it?”

  Dylan mock shuddered, the memory of dead insects floating in the already muddy water enough to make him gag.

  “It’s going to take at least three days before I can taste anything other than sand.”

  “Oh cut the crap. It wasn’t that bad, Mr. I’m-a-chef-now-so-all-food-must-be gourmet.”

  Dylan shrugged.

  “You know I like the finer things. And really, why settle for scraps when you can have a juicy steak? There has to be some benefit in being able to shift form. I happen to believe cooking one’s food to perfection is one of them.”

  “I know you do. I will admit I’m glad to be back on two feet again. An entire week is way too long to be solely in either form.”

  Silence filled the space between him and his twin. As shifters they needed to spend time in both their human and feline form regularly. Being stuck in one form for any length of time was not healthy. They lost themselves to that form and found it hard to merge once again with the other. Like now, they were struggling a little to keep from following their animal instincts. At least he was, so he assumed Ryan was dealing with the same animalistic desires.

  Dylan suddenly shuddered. His skin was super sensitive without his feline’s thick fur, and he felt every little brush of air. Damn air conditioning. His stomach began grumbling for more food than he’d allowed himself to eat for lunch. As a cheetah, he ate a massive meal every three days or so. Readjusting to three small meals every day took at least a few days to do each time. Their father certainly knew how to pick punishments. Maybe coming out to the pub on their first night as humans wasn’t the best idea, especially considering their lack of control over their baser urges.

  “Well, look who’s come out of hiding at last.”

  A growl rippled up Dylan’s throat, cutting off his immediate response. Yep, definitely shouldn’t have come out tonight.

  “Piss off, Luke. We’re in no mood to put up with your shit tonight.”

  “What? The great and mighty Dylan and Ryan aren’t gloating?”

  Dylan clenched his teeth, spun around and slid from his stool to get into Luke’s face. Being a lion, Luke was built big, a lot broader than Dylan. Cheetahs were sleeker, more athletic to the lion’s body builder stature. But Dylan could take him. He knew he could, because he’d done it before. Speed and agility won over brute strength. Most times.

  “You know full well we won’t say a damn word about it. We went in and did what needed doing, while you were sitting on your ass thinking about it. As per usual.”

  Luke shoved his shoulder, hard, and Dylan growled, not giving him an inch.

  “I was following the rules. You know? Those things that are put in place to make everything run smoothly? The things you always ignore.”

  “We got the job done. That storm was coming in, and if we’d waited for you to finish following all your rules it would have hit the range and Cameron would have been washed down that cliff along with a torrent of water. I don’t believe that would have ended well for the lad, do you?”

  Ryan’s strong fingers gripped his arm and pulled. He held his ground, but with one hard tug his brother got him off balance and dragged him back to his stool.

  He shook his brother’s hand off as he glared at the agitated lion before him. This wasn’t going to end well. Luke was clearly looking for a fight, and Dylan was holding onto his temper by a thin thread.

  Finally, Ryan sucked in a deep breath and spoke up.

  “Here’s an idea, Luke. How about you just say ‘thank you’ and we’ll all move on? Picking a fight about it isn’t going to do anything, and you know it.”

  Luke snarled at Ryan.

  “You’re too much of a pussy to fight me anyhow, Ryan. You always leave it to your twin. And a fight would certainly help me de-stress, which I need, espe
cially after my day of dealing with a fucking reporter crawling up my ass.”

  “What for?” Ryan asked as Dylan tilted his head in query. He wanted to know that, too.

  Luke glared fire and daggers. “Over the fact Cameron is sticking to his story that two big spotty cats rescued him. Maybe I should have just given little Miss Reporter your mobile numbers. Let you deal with the mess you’ve made.”

  Dylan grimaced a little and looked away from the man before him. He’d hoped the boy would think he’d been dreaming or something. Hell, who took anything a four year old said as truth? Ryan had another go at placating Luke.

  “Luke, honestly, we wouldn’t have done the rescue in feline form if we absolutely didn’t have to. That slope was too steep, and there were too many loose rocks and debris. We didn’t intend to cause any issues for you. We were simply attempting to save a scared little boy before he slipped and fell, probably to his death.”

  Dylan rolled his eyes and flexed his biceps and shoulders. He didn’t know why his twin was trying so hard to talk their way out of this, when Dylan was more than willing to solve things with a good old fashioned throw down with the guy. His animal instincts were flaring on high alert and needed an outlet. Apparently, Luke was in a similar state of mind.

  Luke stormed up to stand in front of Ryan, his nostrils flaring. Dylan growled, and when Luke made the mistake of grabbing a fist full of his brother’s shirt, he pounced.

  That was a mistake, asshole.

  Dylan shoved Luke’s shoulder so that the prick faced away from Ryan. He pulled back his arm and quickly landed a punch to the guy’s jaw. The sound of his fist cracking against thinly veiled bone had his senses buzzing, so much so, that he barely felt the sting in this knuckles. He heard Ryan’s sigh as Dylan attempted to land a second punch. Dylan growled when Luke blocked the blow before delivering one of his own. As Luke’s fist slammed against his ribs, Dylan’s breath rushed from his lungs. Damn that hurt. A growl rumbled out of his chest as he fought down the urge to shift before they both fell to the floor while they wrestled each other for control.

  “Oi! No fighting in the bar! You boys calm down or take it outside!”