He leaned down and sniffed her hair, snuffled over her eyelids and delicate cheekbones, pressed the tip of his tongue into the hollow of her throat where her pulse beat. He could taste all of the elements that made her what she was, what he desired. She shuddered.
“Dax told me they didn’t trust anyone around me now. It’s whatever drug they were giving me.”
He grabbed her arm and started walking and she wheeled away.
“This time, I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder, waiting for you to kill me.”
He shook his head and she gave an answering shake. “The stakes weren’t this high before. Alvarez sold me to the Brotherhood. They know what I am, and according to my guard, they paid dearly for me. They won’t stop chasing me. So make up your mind.”
He swept an arm under her butt, slung her over his shoulder and headed for Juan and the only sanctuary he’d ever been sure of.
* * * * *
Machetes and silver bullets. The combination had been guaranteed to stop the Jaguar Warriors but Alonzo Alvarez only had so much faith in the Brotherhood or anyone else he didn’t own. His pilot was armed and so were the six bodyguards at his back, fighting their way to Kira, locked in her room. His ace in the hole.
That wasn’t going to do him a damn bit of good if he didn’t stash her somewhere until the crazy motherfucker with a hook for a hand paid him. Religious bastard had sacrificed one of his own. He still had nightmares remembering the man’s scream. Volunteer, his ass.
One minute they were making headway through the maze of headless and dismembered Jaguar Warriors and the next they were surrounded by more. Snarling and hissing, they were cleaving their way toward him through a rain of bullets.
He raised his gun and fired until the gun was empty. Still they came. He could smell blood—it was all over him. The pilot’s face was gone and the Warrior was still slashing, biting. Alvarez turned and ran.
He tripped over bodies, slid in blood and started to whimper until he saw the door to her room ripped from its hinges, hanging by a scrap of metal. Impossible. No one would have dared. They were all too afraid, if not of him, then of that crazy Jaguar Priest.
A roar took Alvarez by surprise. Fontaine, the Jaguar Warrior, a blur of fur and fang was on top of him. And then he heard gurgling screams—his own—as he flailed. Endless, ripping pain. No one dies instantly, was his last thought as he tried to claw at the teeth holding him.
Fontaine held on until Alvarez stopped struggling. The double-crossing little bastard wasn’t going anywhere. He opened his jaws, dropping Alvarez and staggering to his feet. No one would stop him. Reynaldo had assured him that the halfling was here somewhere.
He stepped out of the room and into the path of a man wearing a black cassock. He wielded a flat silver club in one hand and brandished a hook where his other should be. The first blow stunned him. He turned his head, felt the hook dig into his eye socket and tried to grab hold of it.
“Demon,” the man hissed.
Chapter Nine
Kira hadn’t complained about being jostled around on Bastian’s hard shoulder. She rubbed her stomach while she watched him dig out the soft side of a small hill. He made short work of the spindly tree roots, ripping them out as he tunneled until he had what looked like a large, recessed doorway. But it wasn’t large enough for them both.
“What is this?”
His answer was to shove her into the opening and push her shoulders down until she was curled, knees up. That’s when she found out what the tree limbs were for. He placed them over the opening, concealing her from sight.
“Don’t you think tree limbs springing from a mound of dirt are going to look suspicious?” She peeked out and found him surveying his handiwork. “Oh crap. You’re going once again for your famous ‘hide in plain sight’ plan.”
He still didn’t respond, unless she counted the sideways glance he took around the perimeter. They hadn’t heard any voices for miles now but that didn’t mean whoever was tracking them had given up. It just meant that they were being sneakier. An uneasy thought slid through her empty belly, twisting it worse than the hunger she was trying to ignore.
“We’re not hiding are we? I’m bait.”
He nodded once, slowly, his only sign of distress was the slight heaving of his chest. Bastian was all that was standing between her and death and she knew he couldn’t afford to have her taken alive. It didn’t stop her from wanting things to be different. It didn’t stop her from being angry, wondering why her life wasn’t as important as the lives of any of the other thousands of Jaguar People.
She could hear them now—soft, gnarled voices. No dogs. Fontaine’s mercs. Which meant well-fed Jaguar Warriors with a mission. She settled back against the cool earth and listened to Bastian’s footsteps grow faint. If she could change, morph into her jaguar form, she’d be more help than just sitting here waiting for Warriors who could probably already smell her, hear her frantic heartbeat. She closed her eyes and willed herself to change into her jaguar. I am the power in my world. But there was no surge of heat, no shifting of muscle and bone. There was nothing to do but wait.
Sebastian lay in a shallow trench that he’d dug downwind. He could smell only two Warriors, which meant they were an advance team, scouts. Killing them would buy some time. Or maybe they were all that had survived the attack on Alvarez’s compound. He couldn’t be that lucky. They’d stopped talking a while back but they were still coming and they were breathing heavily.
Two Jaguar Warriors, their snouts lifted to catch the scent they followed made their way toward Kira’s hiding place. The smaller of the two stuck his nose between the tree limbs and Sebastian heard a resounding crack. He sprang from his hiding place and was on the other Warrior, burying his teeth at the base of his skull, severing the spinal cord. Kira screamed. She was throwing dirt into the face of the Warrior who bled from his nose as he stumbled backward, clawing blindly at the air.
Sebastian dropped the dead Warrior, turned and caught his stumbling companion with one hand, sinking his claws below the kidney and tearing through muscle. The Warrior froze, arms outstretched, before he pitched forward.
He used the momentum of the Warrior’s fall to free his claws and blood gushed from the wound, spraying Kira. She gazed at him—open-mouthed, covered in blood and stunned. But she didn’t look away.
Sebastian knew that blood trickled from his mouth, dripped from his claws and spattered his throat, chest and abdomen. This was reality, a moment that he knew would forever be etched in her memory. He could see it in her eyes.
In the end they might not be able to save one another, but right now, right this minute, he wanted to know if she could accept this. Accept who he was and what it would take to keep them safe.
Her mouth pulled into a tight, grim slash and she pulled her bloody shirt away from her skin. “Do you think we could figure out a way to make you the bait next time?”
He flexed his claws.
“Right.” She uncurled and stood, still holding her shirt away from her body. When he reached for her she backed away. “If you throw me over your shoulder before I wipe some of this off, I’ll stick like glue.”
He didn’t blame her for wanting to wash but he needed to dispose of the bodies. He didn’t particularly care if Fontaine’s bunch found them but they’d died in Warrior form and in Warrior form they would stay. Burning them would alert whoever was following them, so burial was his only option.
Sebastian did the digging but Kira helped cover them, piling dirt, leaves, twigs and anything else they could find. Too bad they couldn’t shove a couple of hundred pound boulders over them to keep the wildlife from digging them up but there weren’t any around. Kira was on her hands and knees, filthy from the past few hours.
“I wish I was standing under the Jaguar water spout in the bathing room of Sangre de Luna,” she muttered, swatting a mosquito while he finished packing debris, blending the makeshift grave into the jungle floor.
He
stopped for a moment and nodded, trying to remember just how long ago it had been since he’d taken her with water pouring over them, her hands clawing at him as he’d pounded into her welcoming heat.
He shook himself and stood, watched her become immediately alert. He couldn’t give her a bathing room but he could find some water. Which he did, right before dusk. It wasn’t safe to put even dried blood into the river but if he were careful they could wash.
He stopped her from sinking to her knees on the bank, bent and scooped up some water while he watched for telltale ripples. Caiman were wily and could drag her under before he could get to her. He scooped up two more handfuls of water and threw them on her.
Which she didn’t take kindly to. So he tried one handful.
“Okay, I get the idea,” she sputtered, and wiped her face. That only succeeded in turning dirt and dried blood into a red-brown paste that covered her hands. She stared at them for a moment and then started to unbutton her blouse.
He remained on his haunches and his breath caught when she shrugged out of her blouse, thrusting her breasts forward in the process. He remembered their shape and size, the taste of salt and musk on his tongue.
She threw her blouse at him and peeled her jeans over her bare hips and blood-spattered feet. When she glanced up, he caught her gaze. She blinked, swallowing hard and he followed the movement. There wasn’t any part of her he didn’t want to touch. She threw him her pants. She was right. They couldn’t run through the jungle smelling like wounded prey. It was worth the risk of getting blood in the water.
“Get them wet and wash yourself off. I’ll use my blouse,” she whispered huskily.
He couldn’t take his eyes off the triangle of dark curls at the juncture of her thighs. For a moment his blood surged and his cock lengthened, sliding outside its leathery sheath of skin. It was almost enough contact to make him come.
He took a deep breath, swiped her blouse through the water several times and threw it to her. He had to turn away. He watched the water and listened to the glide of wet fabric over skin. He washed off with rough, wet denim, trying to scour away the blood.
It took several attempts but when they were finally clean he had no choice but to turn around. She hadn’t buttoned her blouse and her breasts were partially exposed. He twisted water out of the heavy, wet denim and his mouth went dry.
She was breathing hard, her nipples stiff behind the wet, silky fabric that brushed the top of her bare pussy. He could almost taste her, and from her pained expression, that was exactly what she wanted to happen. He shouldn’t acknowledge the hunger that lit her eyes. That would have been easier if she hadn’t latched her gaze on to his hardening cock and licked her lips. Her eyes traveled slowly upward, met his.
He could smell her desire and his blood began to pound. She backed away, toward a sturdy tree, but it was an unmistakable invitation. Hot and needy. He stalked her, lunged.
She quivered when he caught his claws in the bark, caging her. The first brush of her lips over his nipples drew him. Her breath fluttered over his chest and her small hands skimmed over his waist, down over his ass, urging him closer.
He kept the claws of one hand extended, retracting those on the other. He questioned his sanity for the moment it took to slip his hand beneath her blouse and close over her breast, molding the firm globe with his palm.
She sucked harder on his nipple, seizing it between her teeth and tugging. The delicate pain sizzled through him, making a beeline for his cock. He didn’t dare lower his other hand or he would throw her down in the dirt and fuck her just as hard and fast as they both wanted. He dug his claws deeper into the bark and circled her waist with his other hand. It glided down, molding her hip as he’d molded her breast, squeezing and rubbing, teasing himself as he teased her.
He could scent her rich, musky arousal, taste it on his tongue. Curling his hand, he covered her sex, cupped her vulva and dragged one lean finger up her slit, separating her.
She drew back her head and he caught a glimpse of his wet nipple before she latched onto the other with a ferocious nip that made him hiss. She groaned and widened her stance. He crooked two fingers and slid them into her wet heat.
She went up on her toes and came back down with a force that surprised him, shifted the angle of her hips and met his thrusts with her own. Her mouth over his nipple grew slack and then her hands were around his waist. She leaned back into the tree, biting her lip as he pumped her and felt her inner flesh spasm around his fingers, her cream pouring over them as she shuddered and shook.
He slid out of her and held up his hand, daring her to watch as he sucked his fingers into his mouth and licked them clean.
Maybe if he didn’t move, just placed his smooth cock head against her clit and—
She reached between them and he jerked his fingers out of his mouth and put his hand between hers and his cock.
“Why?” she whispered, and followed his gaze downward to where he lifted her hand away. He knew she hadn’t been able to see the tiny barbs that covered all but the tip of his cock the morning he’d come without touching himself while she watched him on the video monitor. She shook off his hand and tentatively touched a small hooked barb.
His cock jumped and he almost came from the slight contact. Aching disappointment was the only way to describe the look on her face. She finally understood that there was no way he could be inside her without ripping her apart until he was able to change into his human form. With the drugs they’d been given, he didn’t know if that could ever happen. And he needed to get her to some sort of safety before he reverted to a more primitive version of his Warrior.
It had happened in the distant past—Warriors so dedicated to their nature that they could only be happy if they chose to live away from civilization entirely.
He closed his eyes when he felt her hand settle over his, hissed when she closed around it, forcing the leathery pads over his cock. She reached down to cup his balls and slide back up and over the sheath she used to protect herself from the sharp little barbs. He wanted to be inside her, feeling her flesh grasping him, drawing him deeper. He wanted to bury himself inside her and feel her come, shuddering in his arms.
This was who he was and might always be, or he could revert so far that he would cease to think of her safety. He jerked his claws from the tree bark where he’d anchored himself, shaking as he stepped away from her. Restraint just might kill him before anything else did.
She didn’t say anything when she looked away. She seemed to understand but with her it was hard to tell whether she knew it was for the best or that this was just another rejection. If he tried to explain or touched her again he would just make matters worse.
He watched her wrestling the wet denim over her hips, heard the zipper’s rasp. “How much farther?” she asked, her voice shaking. When he didn’t answer she squared her shoulders and turned.
He held up two fingers.
She shrugged. “What is that? Two miles? Two hours? Two days?”
“Daw-ys,” he managed, but his tongue felt thicker, his canines longer.
“Then what? You still want me to be your messenger to Juan and hope the Council is grateful enough that they don’t order you to kill me?”
There wasn’t any other way. He could feel himself losing ground. They’d stayed too long here because her scent was driving him crazy and pretty soon it would draw him into making a mistake. They needed to leave this place, get clear of the blood that had marked them both and stay ahead of everyone who was following them.
* * * * *
Kira woke up hungry, her stomach growling so loudly it could probably be heard through the cover of twigs and leafy branches thrown over the hole that Bastian had dug so they’d have some cover. Two days of running with only snatches of rest and no food had them both edgy.
He’d finally stopped long enough to hunt. As hungry as she was, the thought of raw, bloody meat, still in its recognizable form, made her shudder. With any luck,
maybe primitive need would overtake her completely. Because as hungry as she was for food, she was hungrier for the man Bastian had been at Sangre de Luna, three-natured beast that he was. And she couldn’t have any of them.
She was dancing on the edge of sanity. She kept hoping the drugs would wear off, ratchet down to a comfortable level so that her first and last waking thought wasn’t of when Bastian could be inside her again. She was running for her life and part of her knew she should be running like hell away from him because there was no way, outside of a miracle, that when he came to his senses, he would choose her over the entire Jaguar civilization.
If he’d been in his right mind he would have killed her before he escaped Alvarez’s compound. Because at the moment, she was little more than dead weight. Or maybe she was his human shield. As cynical as that was, it almost made sense. Fontaine still needed her alive to make all his dreams come true. The Brotherhood, on the other hand, would never allow her to live. Not even if they didn’t know she was the halfling of prophecy.
She shivered and her empty stomach clenched. She was tired of lying in the dark waiting for something to happen. She hadn’t waited for anyone’s permission for years. And she was damn tired of being carted around like an invalid. She stuck her hand through an opening in the leafy twigs and cleared them away.
There had to be something she could eat around here, some recognizable fruit, at least. Unfortunately, that might require climbing a tree and exposing herself to anyone who was looking for them. Not a good plan. But neither was just sitting here and waiting for Bastian to come back.
A wave of heat rolled through her. Something primitive and dark fired her blood and for a split second she felt her insides shift and expand. She got so excited that she clambered out of her hidey-hole and started to chant, “Thought is deed and I am the power in my world.” She braced herself on all fours and the heat dissipated.
Frustrated, she beat at the ground and cursed beneath her breath. A full-blown change would have given her hope that her drug-induced state of heat was drawing to an end and her body was returning to normal.
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