“You know when I discovered I wasn’t crazy, all I could feel was relief, but later, I was angry at not being normal.” He smiled a little.
Anjali tilted her head as she listened, but didn’t respond. He’d never been a ‘talker’, so it was funny how easy he found it to talk to her.
He scuffed a toe on the ground, uncovering an under-layer of paler dirt. “Now, I’m starting to like it.” It was only as he said the words that he realized they were true. He might not be normal, but maybe he was more. Maybe there was a place for him. A way for him to rejoin the world.
A grimace gripped Anjali’s features, driving away his thoughts. Her thick lashes brushed her cheeks. She inhaled, long and slow. “It’s happening again.”
The episodes of pain had come sporadically as they’d traveled, forcing him to carry her part of the way, her slender body nestled against his chest. An act he would have enjoyed if it hadn’t been for the reason.
A sheen of sweat glazed her forehead. “Talk to me. Maybe it’ll take my mind off it. Tell me how you shift.”
He sorted through his thoughts, his stomach knotted with dread. How could he talk when he knew the agony racking her? But she needed the distraction and it was the least he could do for her.
“I picture the lion in my mind.” He shrugged. “The other forms are part of me all the time. I think of them and it’s like they emerge from their cages.”
“What about—” She paused to marshal her strength as if she’d been running, then nodded at his hand. “Changing just a part.”
“Same thing. I just imagine the part I want to change.”
“What-what does it feel like?”
Her skin appeared clammy again. He started to go to her, but she waved him back with a limp hand.
Her refusal of his comfort hurt, but he squashed the feeling with a twitch of his shoulder. “Nothing really. It’s like moving a part of you. You think it and it happens.”
She seemed wrung out and he hurried to keep her mind off her pain, aching to stop and consider she was dying in front of him. “Tell me about what it was like growing up in India.”
She smiled, but her skin was ashen. “I had a wonderful childhood. My mother and I were very close. She was my best friend.”
“And your father?”
A shudder rocked her shoulders. She shrugged, hugging herself. “He loved me. He did, but when I was small, well, I don’t think I was what he’d expected of his only child.”
The tiny catch in her voice burrowed into his chest and took up residence there. He squeezed his hands into helpless fists, uncertain what to say.
She smiled, but it was the kind of smile people give when covering grief. “I ran wild. Always into everything. It got better though.”
“What changed?”
“One day when I was about ten, I saw the disappointment in his eyes.” The sun gleamed on her cheekbones as she watched a hawk trace the bowl of low peaks around them. “It was worse than any scolding. I can’t say I got control overnight, but I tried. I guess that’s why this illness is so scary. I haven’t felt so out of control since then.”
He touched her hand. “You don’t have to go through this alone.”
Her expression was stark. “In the end, everybody is alone.”
Stung, he stood and paced a stride away.
She opened her mouth as if to speak, then stopped and began again. “Jake, I’m sorry, but I can’t lean on anyone. It’s too hard when they leave.”
He took a long draw of dry desert air. What the hell could he say? He planned to go back for Kincaid and he couldn’t promise he’d survive.
He studied the horizon for a moment. “Are you ready to go?”
He helped her stand, steadying her.
She touched her temple with a shaky hand. “Whoa.”
He froze. “What?”
“The pain has mostly faded, but I keep hearing, seeing, and smelling things that can’t possibly be real.” She sighed, shaking her head. “I probably need to drink more water.”
After a long swig, her color improved.
“How are you feeling?”
“Not too bad, but—” She inhaled deeply through her nose. “This is going to sound weird, but I smell trouble.”
He imitated her, turning his head into the wind. A whiff of man, leather, gunpowder, and cold determination met his nose. “I do, too.”
Chapter 24
A crack exploded from somewhere, echoing off a hill behind them. At almost the same moment, Jake jerked and a metallic cloud of blood misted the air. A bloody hole seemed to materialize in his shoulder.
Anjali gasped, her heart rate surging.
“Jake! Oh my God!” Her hands flew to cover her mouth. She shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that he’d been shot, reaching for him, but he dropped to his knees, dust rising from beneath him like dun-colored smoke and her hands clutched empty air.
Throwing herself over him, she slapped one hand over the wound to apply pressure. Warm liquid coated her palm, but it was seeping not spurting. The bullet had missed the artery in his shoulder. She scanned the sparse desert landscape for cover, but no dice. The shooter had chosen the perfect place to ambush them. The crunch of footsteps on the heat-cured surface gave the first clue to their attacker’s position.
A man, heated air currents smudging his outline into a monstrous amorphous shape, strode toward them. The illusion dissipated as he drew closer and Anjali could see the huge rifle he held at the ready above his shoulder. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Horror rippled through her. There was nowhere to turn, no cover, no protection. They were going to die.
“Get behind me,” Jake said, shoving her off him and shielding her body from the gunman.
Before she could do anything, another shot slammed into him and through his body, whizzing past her and thudding into the desert floor.
He cried out, the sound so guttural she felt it in her bones.
Her stomach rolled in sympathy for what she imagined must be excruciating pain. Tears glazed her vision, splintering the glaring sunlight into fiery shards. He pushed her down further and jumped to his feet, sprinting at the gunman. Each footfall struck the ground with percussive force, rebounding off the hills.
A flash, as dazzling as the sun reflecting off a windshield, tore dark holes in her vision. Hearing roars and grunts of exertion, she blinked quickly, desperate to regain her sight.
When she could see, she found their assailant wrestling with Jake in lion form. Jake’s enormous paws braced against the man’s shoulders. The man, his teeth bared, pushed against Jake’s chest, his fingers almost disappearing into the wall of fur and flesh. It seemed Jake’s wounds had healed when he’d shifted. Thank God.
The gun lay on the ground beside them.
The hunter slid a hand up under Jake’s mane, thrusting his chin and his head, with its piercing fangs, up and away, then fumbled for the gun with his other hand.
Anger and fear roused something inside her. Instincts that weren’t her own crowded Anjali’s head. She needed to run, to fight, to sink her teeth into the man’s thin, insignificant flesh.
She pressed trembling hands to her temples.
The world narrowed down to fury and pain, Jake dug his claws into the man’s shirt. Spots of blood welled up, soaking the rugged tan cloth. This was a fight for survival, no holds barred. He roared in the man’s face, preparing to pierce his skull with his teeth. The man’s hand grasped Jake’s windpipe, choking him. He reared back.
A sharp pain burst in his head. The hunter had hit him with something hard, a rock probably. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the feeling as he would a fly. Blood spattered the ground. He staggered a little, releasing the hunter, who rolled to his feet.
Jake shook his head again, fighting the shadows edging his vision.
A scraping noise brought his attention back to the gunman.
Terror stretched time. The barrel of the gun came up in a slow arc. The
man’s face gleamed with triumph, his tanned skin ruddy over broad cheekbones, his gritted teeth white. The muzzle, long and black, pointed at Jake’s head. Inside the barrel, death waited to explode.
A roar that wasn’t his rolled through the heated air and a golden blur leaped out of nowhere, hitting the hunter like a freight train, sending him to the hard earth. Puffs of dirt billowed up, making a soft hiss as it rained down.
When the dust had settled, Jake saw his rescuer was a lioness. He recognized her at once, though his brain had yet to sort through the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’.
Anjali.
The man lay still, unconscious. Had hit his head probably. Standing on top of the still body, the lioness roared as if celebrating her victory and Jake roared back. The sounds bounced through the shallow valley. The rich topaz of her eyes held him until she lowered her blocky head to sniff around the hunter beneath her and sneezed.
She sidled to the side and nudged the body with a paw. It rocked, but the hunter didn’t awaken. She pawed him again and he stirred, groaning. She growled low and leaned down to his neck.
She was going to kill him.
The thought came in a lighting bolt of insight. Jake leaped forward, tackling Anjali. She came up fighting, lips drawn back above wickedly sharp teeth, claws slashing, and in a moment of heart-stopping panic he knew she was lost deep inside her cat.
“You’ll have to turn off your cell phone, sir.” The young flight attendant spoke over the whine of the jet’s engine. Her voice was stern, but her eyes were flirtatious. Kyle could smell the musk of her interest over the grease, metal, and bodies in the air-conditioned fuselage, but it didn’t stir him. Goddamnit.
He bit back a growl and clicked shut his phone, his anger directed as much at the photo he’d seen on the screen as at being out of contact for more than five hours. Not to mention being forced to take a public plane, since his jet was currently being serviced.
He inhaled slowly, mastering the claws threatening to explode from his fingertips. Going out of town couldn’t have come at a worse time, but there was almost nothing he wanted more than to finally see his youngest brother. To finally fulfill the promise he’d made to his mother.
He made sure the flight attendant was occupied and picked up his phone to check the Internet. The same picture dominated the page, a stream of cars heading in and out of the Mojave National Preserve beneath the caption, Lion at Large.
The man next to Kyle nudged him. “The attendant’s coming.”
The friendly touch riled his lion and Kyle smiled at the man, his mouth closed to hide his fangs.
The man gestured to Ky’s phone. “I can’t believe those idiots are going into the preserve with a lion on the loose. You’d think the park service could control them.”
Ky nodded, unable to trust his voice.
The man grinned. “Well, if we’re lucky he’ll eat a few meth heads before they get him.”
He returned to flicking through his magazine, and Ky leaned his head back on the seat.
Hunters, meth heads. Could it get any worse?
Jake had no more than a moment to consider Anjali’s condition before she struck, attempting to bury her teeth deep in his neck. Her teeth pierced the thick, dark hair of his mane, scraping his skin. He body-blocked, flinging her away and she tumbled back several feet. She sprang up, pacing a step to the left and then the right, mouth open, head lowered beneath the powerful muscles and ligaments forming her shoulders, her breath coming in harsh gasping pants.
Though the lion in him hated to expose his flank, he pivoted and trotted off, hoping to coax her into following him, leaving the vulnerable man behind. Afraid to glance back, he listened for the faint impact of her paws against the hard ground.
There was silence for a moment and he almost turned around, but then a soft sound met his ears. The almost imperceptible strike of velvet-covered paws on the desert pavement behind him. He almost sighed in relief, continuing to draw her further from the site of the attack. She padded after him for several minutes.
When he was far enough from the gunman, he turned his head and glanced at Anjali. She stopped when he stopped, crouching onto her haunches. Her tail twitched as she watched him, awaiting his move.
God, she was beautiful. Her coat gleamed like golden sand against the low-growing, grayish-green vegetation. Her eyes glinted topaz, behind eye rims so black they might have been coated with eyeliner.
A current of wind swept in from the north and he angled himself upwind.
Her ears flattened as she lifted her pointed chin, half-closing her eyes to scent the breeze. The tension left her in the blink of an eye, and she flopped onto her side, batting one large paw in his direction like an enormous house-cat inviting another to play.
Relief rocked him. She might be lost inside her cat, but the cat recognized the smell of her mate.
A motion caught his eye. A rabbit, probably scared up by their movement, pelted across the rocks. He bounded toward the movement before centering himself.
She joined him and, the rabbit forgotten, the race was on. He ran full out, with her beside him, the breeze pushing back his mane, the sun hot on his back, immersing himself in the pure joy of the physical. The smooth, strong propulsion of his limbs, the rhythmic cadence of paws drumming the ground in time with his heartbeat.
When he could run no more, he leapt toward her, rubbed against her body, nuzzling her. She purred in return and patted at him with a large compact paw. They tussled for a few minutes, delighting in the freedom of these forms. Joy suffused Jake at their play.
He head-butted her teasingly on her side and took off again, racing for the horizon as fast as he could.
The winds whipped his mane from his face, carrying scents and tastes to his open mouth.
A glance behind him revealed her hard on his heels. She gained, swerved, and nailed him in the side with her shoulder, sending him somersaulting.
He roared and came back at her, rolling her down. She gnawed gently at his neck, her amber gaze meeting his.
A whirling sound shocked him back to their surroundings. Helicopter.
Don’t move, he warned, praying there was enough woman left in the lion for her to understand.
He could sense her fear as she stilled, see it in her stiff body, hear it in her speeding heart. The lion felt every emotion keenly. He prayed the lioness could control the instinct to bolt. The color of their coats should allow them to blend with the dun desert landscape, but if they moved . . .
For a long moment the chopper hovered, then circled like some massive buzzard. The vibration of the rotors reverberated through his body. Dust and tiny pebbles bombarded their tangled forms.
A raven spiraled nearby, then swooped down and landed on Jake’s upper shoulder. He hissed as the bird jabbed at him with its sharp beak, but forced himself to remain still.
Finally the chopper moved on. And his heart remembered how to beat regularly.
As soon as the helicopter went behind a hill, Jake swatted the raven away. It gave an indignant caw and, ruffling its feathers, hopped off, but regarded him through one blinking eye. Jake growled and pounced, driving the bird into the sky.
When he saw Anjali had turned back to human form while he’d been chasing off the raven he sighed, relieved she’d managed to ground herself in her human side. Why was his relief tinged with sadness?
He was happy she’d managed to find her humanity, of course he was, but lions felt no guilt, or shame, no worry or fear for the future. They simply were and he mourned the loss of that simplicity.
While running, they’d circled back near their things. Anjali opened her purse and began pulling on her clothes, avoiding his gaze he thought.
Are you OK? he asked, sinking down onto the dirt, reluctant to change back into a form less suited to the environment.
She finished dressing and turned to him, biting her lip.
“I’m a chimera.” She let out a huff. “I don’t think I’m sick.” She opened her mou
th and closed it again, as if thinking on the fly. “I don’t think I was ever sick. It all fits. The fevers, the pain.” She inhaled slowly. “My DNA was mutating.”
A wash of emotions cascaded over Jake as he recognized the truth. She didn’t have cancer. It was all he could do not to change so he could grab her and swing her around, but he’d hidden his emotions for too long to give in now.
“I’m a chimera,” she repeated. He could hear the wonder in her voice. “The transformation was amazing, but I never imagined how hard it was to . . .”
To fight your instincts?
“Yes. I almost killed that man.” Brow furrowed, she glanced around, searching for the hunter. “Oh my God, he’s gone.”
Shit. She was right. While he’d been playing, caught up in the exhilaration of her transformation, the hunter and his weapon had disappeared. No doubt to regroup. We’ve got to get out of here.
Nodding, she glanced up at the bright sky. The sun glinted on her pale gold skin, making her look like some ancient sun goddess. “When the helicopter came, the lioness wanted to run so bad, and then the raven landed. I almost gave us away.” She wrapped her arms around herself.
Her face was drawn. She was exhausted.
He wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t know how. He felt as helpless as he had when Kincaid had captured him again.
For me, it’s harder to stay human sometimes.
“Do you think strong emotions make it more difficult?”
Seems like it.
She compressed her lips and moved suddenly, as if she could outrun her demons by keeping busy. “When we were running, I smelled water in this direction.”
Before he could nix that idea—the hunter would need water, too—she scooped up her purse and started up the hill.
A faint rattle split the night air.
Anjali!
Heart pounding, he vaulted in front of her in a split second, forcing her back. White-hot needles pierced his fur and skin of his chest. Fear wrapped spiny fingers around his heart.
In Like a Lion (The Chimera Chronicles) Page 19
