by Terry Spear
He pushed inside her again, long and hard and deeper, then thrust quickly as if he couldn’t hold back any longer.
She raked her nails down his skin, careful not to draw blood, just like she hadn’t when she bit him. But the urge to claw and bite and claim him—to breathe in his masculine, musky cat scent and to wear it on her as he wore hers on him—overwhelmed her.
His hands were on her hips, keeping her locked in place, not allowing her to thrust against him in a frantic need to finish this, and he felt the pleasure rising, intensifying. She was again ready to be set free, like molten lava seeking release.
His hot seed filled her just as she felt the new climax that sent her careening to the sun. She cried out as his mouth sought hers, his tongue pressing inside, their bodies still joined.
“We’re not done,” he promised, and she wrapped her legs around his hips, ready for more.
* * *
They all slept late, until something disturbed Kat’s sleep as she realized Connor was holding her loosely in his embrace in bed. She wasn’t sure what it had been. Maybe he had twitched in his sleep and awakened her. Embarrassed that she had struck him with her fist the night before, she couldn’t believe that not only had he not minded, but that he had made love to her, not once, but several times during the night and, most of all, had continued to sleep with her. Roger would have gotten angry, acting as though she had done it on purpose. He had even slapped her back once, saying she had been hysterical. Which she hadn’t been.
He’d used that as an excuse to get her back for hitting him and disturbing his sleep, and that was the living end for her.
What a difference there was between the two men. She hadn’t meant to make love to Connor, but she’d wanted the closeness, the tenderness, the heat and raw passion. And he had been all too happy to oblige her.
She couldn’t believe she’d bitten him—twice. Roger would have had her quarantined and tested for rabies if she’d done that to him.
She sighed. Had she fought Connor again in the middle of the night? As hard as she tried, she couldn’t remember. She hoped she hadn’t. But then she smiled, thinking of the comment he had made. If she had slept with him, she wouldn’t be beating on him. And his comment that her hitting him was only a love pat wasn’t nearly the truth. But she loved him for making light of it.
Luxuriating in the feel of his hard muscles pressed against her backside, she basked in the way he kept her close, unlike the way Roger had kept his distance in bed after they’d made love.
Then she thought about all that she had learned about Connor and Maya and herself—as far as being jaguar-shifters went. Now in the light of the day, she couldn’t believe it was true. At least part of her couldn’t get used to the notion. Another part, that half of her that recalled her moonlight run, knew she wasn’t the same as before. Now she had big, dangerous teeth and a furry body when she least expected it.
Connor stirred, pushed the hair at the nape of her neck away, and tenderly kissed her sensitive skin. She purred. Turning to kiss him back, she hoped Maya was sleeping soundly and that she and Connor wouldn’t disturb her. But then she heard men’s voices intruding among the sounds of the jungle. Before she could react, Connor bolted upright.
“They wouldn’t give us any trouble, would they?” Kat whispered, every muscle stiffening in preparation for action. She had an instant flashback of the firefight between Gonzales’s men, her own, and herself. She needed a rifle.
Connor slipped off the bed and pulled on his trousers. “Most of the time, no. Not unless they’re drug runners. Even then they usually leave us alone, and we stay out of their way. But sometimes they push too far into our territory.”
“Then what?” she asked, her voice still hushed.
He looked out the window. “Then we have to do whatever it takes for self-preservation.” He glanced back at Kat and added, “The natives say that a man travels with a jaguar near here, but sometimes they’ve seen a woman with the jaguar.”
“You and Maya?” Kat asked.
“Yeah. The rumors keep the villagers away from our neck of the woods. We believe they’re fearful that we might do something to them if they don’t leave us to ourselves. But others who are not local tromp through here from time to time. They’re ruthless and we have to be just as ruthless back.”
“You have to kill them?”
“It’s either that or they kill us or attempt to take us hostage. They wouldn’t free us for years until someone paid our ransom. And we don’t have anyone who would pay to have us released. Confinement as a jaguar-shifter out here in the jungle isn’t something that we could live with.”
That she could agree with. “But you come here anyway.”
“Most of the time it’s safe enough.”
Maya slipped in through the screen door, her eyes wide. “Four men. They’re looking for the dark-haired American woman by the name of Kathleen McKnight.”
Connor’s mouth gaped, then he turned to stare at Kat. “What is this all about?”
Kat frowned at him. “Manuel… he must have come back for me.” She began to button her shirt. “He must have gotten some men together to try and find me.”
“And if it’s not him?” Maya asked, her eyes narrowed with worry as she tied her hair back into a ponytail.
“Who else would know my name?” Kat asked incredulously.
Connor shook his head. “Gonzales.”
She glowered at him. “I’m no longer in the Army.”
“All right. But you can’t go with this Manuel, if that’s who is with the men, or anyone else. Not now that you are one of us.”
Kat snapped her mouth shut. Intellectually, she had known that. Connor was right. She just hadn’t wrapped her mind around the fact that she wasn’t exactly normal any longer.
“I need to speak with them to let Manuel know I’m all right and that I’m returning to the States with you. He’ll go away.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows what their agenda truly is.” Connor got his rifle and handed it to Maya. “Take the lookout post. I’ll stay with Kat.” He looked down at Kat as Maya hurried out of the hut. “You can’t speak with them. We don’t know who they really are or what they’re up to.”
She was glad that he took protecting her from any eventuality seriously, but she still couldn’t believe that they would have to kill anyone to stay alive themselves. Then she instantly tossed that reasoning out. If these men were anything like Gonzales’s men, she knew just what they were capable of.
Would Maya and Connor shift to take care of the menace? Or use Connor’s rifle?
Killing as jaguars seemed barbaric, but she shuddered, realizing the jungle was a beast-eat-beast world. Definitely survival of the fittest.
She’d had firsthand experience with that already—one year ago, in this very jungle.
Chapter 15
His senses on high alert, sniffing the air and listening for any movement, Connor walked with Kat onto the screened porch. He had a bad feeling about the men looking for Kat and didn’t like where this seemed to be headed.
Then to his astonishment, Maya roared. What the hell? She was supposed to be watching from the lookout post with the rifle aimed and ready.
He knew her unexpected behavior meant that the men they had heard talking in the jungle were dangerous. Maya must have overheard more of their conversation and changed tactics.
“Kat, can you shift?” he asked quietly.
She would be safer as a jaguar, he thought. She could climb high into a tree and stay hidden in the canopy while he and Maya took care of the men.
She shook her head, her expression schooled.
“Stay here, then.”
“I can shoot. You know I was in the Army. I had rifle and handgun training. I even qualified as a sharpshooter. I can shoot.”
He knew she must be able to, though he had not seen her actually kill anyone.
“I don’t want them to know where you are or even be able to get close to y
ou.” His heart was pounding furiously, and he realized he didn’t want her anywhere near the men. He could see losing her in a shower of bullets. Yes, he and his sister healed more quickly than humans and could survive injuries a human might not be able to. Although if they bled out too fast, their healing genetics wouldn’t have time to take care of the wounds. But what if that part of the genetic change hadn’t taken effect for Kat? What if she wasn’t exactly like them?
“I can’t shift,” she said, her voice urgent, hushed.
He wasn’t sure if she meant she truly couldn’t or she wouldn’t, although he suspected she didn’t have the ability to shift at will like he and his sister could. Hopefully, with time, she would.
“Come on.” He took her to a vine-covered tree trunk that looked as though it was part of the vegetation, a naturally occurring fallen trunk high up in the canopy that butted up against their primitively made lookout post.
It was a heavily concealed spot high in the trees that easily hid the viewer from sight, perfect for observing unwelcome visitors while staying camouflaged from view. He stood with her there now, not wanting to leave her but having no other choice. He didn’t want her to see what he might have to do to the men, and he had to hurry and join Maya before she got herself into a dangerous bind.
He would judge the men while listening to their conversation and learning what they had in mind. If they turned out to be a danger to Kat or his sister or himself, he would take care of them.
Maya was already stalking the men, listening and waiting for him to join her. That’s what her roaring was all about. He hoped she wouldn’t act until he was there to watch her back.
“Maya’s out there,” he warned Kat, as if getting permission from her to take his leave.
Kat looked determined to see this through and scooped up the rifle lying where Maya had left it on the wooden floor of the small lookout platform. Maya’s clothes were sitting in a pile in one corner where she had shifted.
“Go,” Kat urgently whispered. “I’ll be all right. I’ve done this before. Protect Maya.”
Her raw concern for Maya touched him. If he’d had any doubts before about Kat’s loyalty to him and Maya, he now knew Kat was truly one of them. Part of their little jaguar-shifter team.
He cupped her face quickly, kissed her, and hugged her, wanting to hold her forever and protect her from the evils of the world. Beyond a doubt, he knew she would be his. He might have a time convincing her they were meant to be together, but he would do whatever it took.
Then he released her. He was out of his clothes in no time, feeling Kat’s eyes on him the whole time, and then he shifted into his jaguar coat. After giving her one last lingering look, feeling torn by needing to keep both Maya and his sister safe and not being able to be in two places at once, he leaped onto the tree branch above Kat. She gazed up at him and gave him a slight nod, telling him she would be okay.
No matter how much he wanted to believe it would be so, he had his doubts. Anything could go wrong in the rain forest. All he had to do was think back to that day a year ago when Kat had nearly died.
He leaped to another branch and then another, the adrenaline speeding through his blood, propelling him to seek out Maya and the men and determine what they intended to do next.
He didn’t want to kill them if he didn’t have to. But if he needed to kill to save Maya or Kat’s life, or even his own, he would have no qualms about doing it.
* * *
Maya had been following the men, who were still a distance from the hut. They were walking along one of the paths that Maya and Connor had made, so the trek wasn’t all that difficult for them. She counted five men, all dark haired and bearded, unwashed and armed to the teeth.
“I still don’t know why the hell you left her behind in the jungle, Manuel,” one of the men said in Spanish.
Manuel. The man Kat said had been her guide.
“I told you. I was trying to lead Juan’s men away from her. If he’d found her, he would have ransomed her. You wouldn’t have been able to turn her over to Gonzales, who would have been most generous with all of us. I was doing what I thought you wanted.”
“Then later you couldn’t find her, damn you. By now she’s sure to be dead. If we can find her body, we can give it to Gonzales to prove she’s dead, but he won’t like it. He had plans for the woman.”
“I didn’t think it would take me that long to get away from Juan’s men. I was afraid they suspected I worked for you and Gonzales. When I returned for her—”
“Yeah, what? Two days later?”
“I couldn’t get back. But one of the local villagers swore he saw a man carrying her to the falls in the area. Kathleen had to be the woman, from the description the boy gave of her.”
Hell, Maya thought to herself. She had been guarding the falls in her cat form while Connor was helping Kat to wash, but she had never seen anyone watching them. When had it happened?
“The same villager who said that a jaguar god lived near there? That the god had found a new mate?” The hefty man shook his head.
A shiver stole up Maya’s spine. These men thought that a jaguar god existed? Had the natives actually seen Maya or Connor shape-shift? This was so not good. She and her brother could hold their own against these men, but Kat could be in real danger.
Movement in the jungle was constant—lizards scurrying across branches, monkeys swinging into nearby trees, birds taking flight, but the large spotted cat that sifted in and out of shadows like a feral predator on the hunt caught Maya’s eye. Connor leaped to a branch opposite the tree she was in, acknowledging her with a slight bow of his head. Then his ears perked and his gaze focused on the men.
“What if what they say is true? That a jaguar god lives here? Hunts here? Kills here? What if she’s with him? What if he has taken her for his own woman? That would explain why she’s still alive,” Manuel said.
Hmm, Maya thought. A jaguar god and a goddess, too. In fact, there are two of us now. She gave a big cat’s version of a smile.
“You sound like you’ve been getting into our stash,” the one who seemed to be in charge said.
“Yeah, but we heard its distant roar late last night all over the damned place. He could be here, watching us now.”
“And he will die if he shows his spotted hide here.”
Manuel looked nervously about, but he didn’t see either Connor or Maya sitting high above them in their jaguar forms, watching them and ready to strike when they had the advantage, if Connor decided it was necessary.
“Besides, didn’t you say he lives in a hut on stilts? Why would a jaguar god live in a man-made dwelling? A crummy hut?”
Manuel slashed at a vine with his machete. “He’s a man sometimes. I told you. He was carrying the woman to the falls.”
“Maybe we can ransom him, too. Surely someone would pay good money for a god,” the man said, sounding as though he was making fun of Manuel.
Connor was ready to take the men out because they intended to turn Kat over to Gonzales, and Connor and Maya couldn’t get Kat to safety quickly. He motioned to Maya to go after the last man, who was trailing way behind on the path and would soon be out of sight of the other men. Was he afraid to keep up and face what Manuel feared? A jaguar god?
And what had the villagers really seen? Either Maya or him shape-shifting at some time or another? As careful as they had been and as thick as the foliage was, screening them from long-distance viewing, he hadn’t thought anybody had ever seen them. He supposed being a jaguar god would be all right as long as the villagers kept it to themselves and the word didn’t spread. But the word already seemed to have spread, at least to these men.
What would happen next? If anyone in the scientific community believed there was any truth to the rumors, Connor could imagine teams of biologists descending on the area to search for the jaguar god. Forget Bigfoot or werewolves. Here, they could have the real thing. Not the stuff of myths or legends, but a true jaguar-shifter.
>
As far as Connor knew, the big cat-shifter genes had been passed on from generation to generation and had been part of ancient cultures. The problem was that too few jaguars existed, and wherever the jaguar-shifters were, they were too elusive to band together and help each other. Besides, communicating with each other didn’t seem to come naturally to their kind.
Maya leaped from her branch to another and continued to move through the canopy until she could come up behind the last man in the group.
He couldn’t see what she was going to do next, but he was ready to target the next man who fell behind. Connor had sent Maya after the one who was farthest from the group so she wouldn’t have to face several if any of the men sounded an alarm.
As if nothing was amiss, Connor moved through the trees, getting closer to his prey as the primal need to hunt raced through his blood. He prepared to jump from the tree, stalk the man, and pounce.
* * *
Maya had smelled the wretched man long before she attacked him and witnessed the array of weapons on him—the belts of bullets, the rifle, the guns, the long wicked knives, and the machete. He smelled of weed and sweat and fear.
He was falling farther and farther back from the others. She assumed that he hoped the other men would encounter the jaguar god first and take it down before he had to deal with it, if such a creature existed. And if things didn’t work out for the other men and the jaguar god came out on top? The man she was stalking would vanish into the thick rain forest, pretending he had never been with these thugs. Then he’d hotfoot it out of there and tell the world what he had witnessed.
The moisture from the ground was rising into the steamy atmosphere like primordial mist as it always did in late morning, forming clouds that filled the sky high above the canopy. Thunder booming in the distance warned of an impending storm.
Water from a nearby tributary had overflowed its banks, and the water on the path came to halfway up the man’s calves. He sloshed along, the mud sucking at his black boots and gripping them as he struggled to pull one foot out and then the other, his progress slow. He looked warily about, a bearded man with hard, black eyes and the smell of blood on his person. He had killed or injured people and drawn blood; his clothes reeked of it.
