by Betty Hanawa
“Just do it,” Dylan said. He grabbed the briefs and scrambled into them and the jeans while Haley grabbed a terry cloth robe. “You realize I’ll have to run from here as soon as you get both of these out.”
“Right. And I’m coming with you. Come on to the kitchen.” They ran to the kitchen. “The light’s better in here and I have a powerful flashlight also. I can get a scalpel from my vet kit.”
“Why do you have so much veterinarian stuff? Are you a vet too?”
“Qualified as a vet’s assistant. Authorized to use some specific drugs.” Dylan watched her lovely hands efficiently unpack instruments and packets of things. He recognized Instant Skin and one packet that looked like a general antibiotic. “Parks and Wildlife management does a lot of treatment of injured animals. Most times the animals’ injuries have to be stabilized before they’re moved. And we always vaccinate animals we release back into the wild.”
Haley continued. “Are you sure you want both units out? I don’t think anyone will track the jaguarondi I tagged.”
“If the Hell Hospital is responsible for the shape-changing I do and put their own GPS tracking unit in me, I can just bet they’ll figure out about the jaguarondi’s GPS. Take them both out.”
She swabbed both areas with alcohol, then wiped them with another pad of something. “Where do you want to go? West Texas? The Davis Mountains?”
“Might as well. We’ll need cash. They’ll track the money cards.”
“I always keep cash on hand. Why let the blood-suckers at the IRS know exactly how much money I have? And if we’re going to West Texas, we can stop by one of the Indian casinos and run it up. Are you ready for me to cut?”
Dylan gritted his teeth. He focused on his internal clock. He was himself—the jaguarondi needed to remain deep within him. “Go ahead.”
He hissed at the first sharp cut, then again at the sharp probe into his muscle. He forced his hands and feet to remain still. “How do you intend to run the cash up? Poker shark?”
“No,” she said, calmly handing him the first bloody GPS unit. “I have phenomenal luck at slots.”
He felt her smoothing a stinging cream across the cut, then the soothing coolness of Instant Skin being applied. “Nobody has that kind of luck at slots.”
“I do. Ready for the second?”
He nodded. “Go ahead.”
“One of the men my old roommate lives with got curious and had a friend run a bunch of tests. I seem to have a photographic memory and can calculate odds in a flash. I watch the slots for a while and get the rhythm.”
Again came the quick cut, then the digging probe. Again he made himself focus on remaining human, despite the tearing pain in his hands and feet.
“The worst I ever do is double my money. And,” she handed him the second gory unit, “if we go to the Indian casino I know, we not only can collect some extra cash, but I can sell my car to one of the chiefs who lusts after it.” She finished patching the second wound.
“Why does he lust after it and not after you?” Dylan flexed his shoulders, stood and followed Hildy from the kitchen. He stopped by the bathroom and flushed the GPS chips down the can.
In the bedroom, Hildy had put on a pair of tiny panties and a lace bra. “He lusts after me too. But you’ll see. Let’s grab some clothes and get the hell out of here before your creeps come hunting us.”
In the heat of the midday sun, Dylan marveled again at the depths to which Haley gave him unconditional support. Elliot Hawksky, not only one of the chiefs but also the tribe’s head of security, counted the last of the cash for Haley’s pristine 1965 Shelby GT350 Mustang Hatchback into her outstretched palm.
“Now, Haley,” Hawksky’s voice rumbled like distant thunder, as dark as the jet-black braid hanging down his back, “if you should choose to become one of my junior wives, I shall gift you back your car.”
“Not even to be a senior wife, El. Come on, Dylan, let me show you how to play slots.”
“Please do not break our bank, Haley,” Hawksky told her. “We must earn a living.”
“You know no matter what I win, the other patrons will still give you a profit. Come on, Dylan. It’s fun.”
“I wish to speak to you alone, Dylan.”
Dylan barely heard Hawksky’s voice. He didn’t know what the chief wanted, but he knew he needed to hear it, just like he needed to get into the Davis Mountains. “You go on, Haley. I’ll catch up. I want to cry over this Mustang just awhile longer.”
After Haley disappeared into the casino, Dylan followed Hawksky to a hut set away from the modern buildings of the casino, the modern housing for the tribe and the hotel for the guests. When Dylan ducked into the hut’s door, he saw an old man sitting on a blanket on the dirt floor. Facing the old man, Hawksky placed a palm to his head, then to his heart, backed out of the hut and left the two of them.
The old man waved a palm to indicate Dylan should join him on the blanket. He offered Dylan the pipe he smoked.
Always one to respect his elders, Dylan took a draw and returned it.
“I dreamed of you this morning as the dawn rose. I told Hawksky to bring me the wildcat shapeshifter who comes with the woman with the moonlight silver hair. You are he.”
After discovering he changed into a jaguarondi and struggling to control it, it didn’t surprise him to have an old Indian he’d never met before calmly recognize him as a shapeshifter and tell him he’d been the center of a dream.
“I change into a jaguarondi, yes.”
They waited in silence.
“Those of us who find our way to our animal shape are rare. You must celebrate your discovery of your inner self.”
The smoke from their shared pipe curled around them. Dylan didn’t want to celebrate turning into a jaguarondi—he wanted it to stop.
“You do not accept it yet. You must learn to not fear the change. You must learn to embrace it. You must become the jaguarondi. The jaguarondi must become you. If you do not, you will lose what you most need.”
“What I need most is to control this changing. Can you teach me that?”
The old man shook his head. “You are the only one who knows what you need. You must embrace the jaguarondi to keep what you need.”
The old man set the pipe on the ground in front of them, then closed his eyes. As though he’d been summoned, Hawksky entered the hut again and motioned Dylan to leave. Although the old man’s eyes didn’t open, Dylan copied Hawksky’s respectful hand signals to the old man before he crawled out of the hut’s small door.
Slowly, the two men walked back to the casino.
“Do you believe my father’s grandfather?”
“Do you?” Dylan tasted the iron tang of fear at being stuck with this changing shit happening to his body the rest of his life.
The chief laughed. Strong white teeth gleamed against his dark, bronze skin. “Hawksky is not just pleasant-sounding syllables. It’s what I am inside. You’ll learn.”
Hawksky’s casual gaze sharpened suddenly. “What the hell is going on there?”
Dylan followed the direction of Hawksky’s look and started running.
Both of them pounded across the empty tribal land, determined to catch the men forcing Haley, his Hildy, across the parking lot. Hawksky barked orders into the communications unit strapped on his shoulder.
Haley, his Valkyrie, wasn’t going without a fight. Reservist Amazon of the Hellcat Battalion, Master Sergeant Haley Lundberg was fighting them with dirty moves that impressed the hell out of Dylan. One man lay on the parking lot tarmac clutching his balls. A second already bled from scratches across his face.
A man in the uniform of tribal security lay in front of parked cars, bleeding from a head wound.
Windshields shattered from bullets fired by a man in the van to which four men were trying to drag Haley. Another tribal security officer spun with the impact from a bullet and dropped to the ground holding her shoulder. Tribal security officers ducked behind cars and steadied r
ifles, obviously reluctant to return fire with Haley being held.
With three men struggling to contain his fighting Haley, the fourth man hit her across the head with his gun.
Dylan’s mate drooped in the arms of three predators. Dylan pushed his way out of his remaining clothes. He launched his jaguarondi body at the predators who dared attack his mate.
He added his own claw marks to the face his mate had marked and gained intense satisfaction at seeing the man clamp his hands to his bleeding eyes.
He bit a second man in the groin. His pointed teeth easily penetrated the man’s uniform. Dylan hoped he’d bit the predator deep enough that the shrill soprano note he shrieked indicated he’d need penile surgery.
One man had a hawk tearing at his head and face. Dylan let the hawk take care of that one.
His mate lay on the ground, holding her head and groaning.
Dylan attacked the predator who had struck her. When he was done, he shifted back into human form. He wiped the blood from the bastard’s torn throat off his mouth.
Tribal security shot up the van as the gunman who had shot their co-workers tried to escape. The gunman slumped over the steering wheel, half his head gone.
Dylan gathered Haley close to him while a naked Hawksky snapped orders at tribal security. A woman calmly handed Hawksky a blanket, then one to Dylan while a doctor began to examine Haley.
“Pickle?”
“Holding you, Hildy.”
“You did it.”
“I did what I could to help you. Hawksky and tribal security got the rest of the assholes who were trying to kidnap you.”
To his relief, she opened her eyes, then scolded. “Not that, pickle head. You. You shifted to the jaguarondi and back again.”
“I had to let the jaguarondi out to keep my mate from harm. Fortunately, I had a good teacher help me learn how to do it.”
The doctor demanded Haley’s attention. After checking her eyes, he declared she had a mild concussion, suggested bed rest for twenty-four hours and to contact him if she started seeing double or got dizzy.
In the high roller’s suite assigned to them by Hawksky, Dylan watched his mate waking up after a nap. When she opened her eyes and smiled at him, he felt his heart contract with love.
“How many of me do you see?”
“Just one. And I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad. If you had a twin, I could double my pleasure. Maybe one of your brothers?”
Dylan ran his index finger down her straight nose to touch her lips. “Forget that. I’m not sharing my mate.” He slid his hand under the sheet to cup her breast and tweaked her nipple. “Are you dizzy? Lightheaded?”
“Only if you keep doing that.”
Dylan kissed her with all the tenderness that filled his soul. Her mouth opened and took him with a sweetness he knew he needed in his life forever. For a moment, the fear of losing her to those thugs returned. But it didn’t happen. She was here, warm, naked and cuddly beside him.
He moved his mouth down her throat to her full, enchanting breasts. He suckled one, then the other while her hands fisted in his hair. He finger-combed through her thatch to discover she was already wet for him.
While she recovered from the mild concussion, they needed to take it slow and easy. In fact, a down and dirty bang wasn’t what he wanted this time anyway. This time he wanted to make love to her with quiet thankfulness she was part of his life.
He rubbed her pussy while he worshiped her breasts. She spread her legs to give him more access and her moisture drenched his fingers. He inserted one finger, then a second to inflame the knot that gave her joy.
Her orgasm started. Her body shook and he swallowed her glad cries while their tongues encircled and stroked each other in their joined mouths. She rode his hand over the crest.
Her body eased into relaxation. Slowly, he entered her heated, slick passage that welcomed him like a glove on a cold winter’s day. There he waited, content for the moment for them to be joined.
When he started to move, she tightened her legs around him to draw him in deeper. She joined the rhythm he started.
Their unhurried pace gave them time to treasure the taste of skin, the texture of muscles, the solid strength of bones. They felt the kiss of their bodies meeting and sliding off each other. Their souls joined in the glitter of tears of happiness because they’d found the other half of their being.
When their passion began to crest, Dylan once again sank his teeth into his mate’s shoulder, but this time held the wildcat back from breaking skin. Intensifying his ecstasy, Haley locked her mouth on his shoulder, pulling his skin and muscle into her mouth. She broke skin the way he had the first time. The pleasure-pain pushed his control over his jaguarondi. But he held firm and contented the wildcat with the taste of her skin as he suckled the now healing bite he’d left before.
Arms and legs locked around each other, their mouths fused to the other’s shoulders, they drove each other to the final frenzy. He emptied into her, triggering her ride to the top and over. Dylan answered her call of joy with his own hoarse growl.
When the crescendo eased, Dylan rolled to his side. Haley smiled at him and put her hand against the slightly bleeding mark she had left on him. He placed his hand on his mark on her, now oozing a bit again.
Dylan looked at her and she nodded. They each licked the marks they left. Their mouths joined, the iron tang of each other commingling with their tongues.
“Your blood is my blood,” Dylan told her while holding his hand once again on her shoulder, stopping the slight bleeding.
“As mine is yours,” Haley answered, applying pressure to the skin she’d bitten open.
“My mate.”
“My mate,” she answered.
A knock on the door broke into their quiet bonding. They each grabbed guns off the bedside tables. Haley peered through a thin opening between the curtains while Dylan checked the peephole.
“Hawksky,” he told Haley. He caught the robe she tossed him. He noted she hadn’t put the safety on the gun she held either as she tucked her hand and gun into the pocket of her robe. Dylan shrugged on the robe and cautiously opened the door with the security chain still on.
“I’m alone.”
Dylan eased open the door and double-checked the hallway as he let Hawksky into the room.
“How are your officers?” he asked Hawksky after he activated his gun’s safety. His mate, he realized, was quite as trusting but kept her hand on her gun in the pocket.
“One of them is in the hospital with a concussion from the bullet that grazed his scalp. The other has already been treated and released. Her husbands are trying to talk her into taking a desk job.”
“If she’s anything like Haley, they can forget that idea.”
“She was my instructor in dirty fighting in the Amazons.” Haley yawned and leaned against Dylan. She finally pulled out the gun and thumbed the safety before putting it back in her pocket. He put his arm around her, tucking her tightly to his side. As much as he admired Hildy’s strength and courage, he hoped he never had to see her fighting for her life again. Still it was a comfort to know she could not only take care of herself, but watch his back when he went after the group who messed with him. He controlled the wildcat now, but he resented he had been forced to literally become his inner beast.
Hawksky frowned at Haley. “You’re supposed to be in bed. You have a concussion. She’s supposed to have bed rest.” Now his glare went to Dylan. “Not bouncing and banging.”
Dylan just grinned at Hawksky. “My mate, not yours. Ever try to stop a member of the Hellcat Battlion of the Amazons from bouncing and banging if she wants to?”
“Fat chance of that,” Hawksky said with a grin. “One of my junior wives was in Haley’s unit. Several of our women were or are Amazons. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least to be voted out as chief someday to one of them.”
“I don’t know how they put up with you. You’re overprotective, El. That’s why I
don’t want to be one of your wives.”
“The offer remains open, Haley.”
“No way in hell are you marrying him,” Dylan growled. “You’re my mate. If you want the big girly wedding and party, we’ll do it all legally, but you’re my mate.”
“And you’re my mate. But, yeah, I do want the girly wedding with all the hoopla at some point.” She kissed him and Dylan once again drowned in the taste of her. “Not exactly the girly vision I had of a proposal, but it works.”
“I love you, Hildy. Even if I am an ass about doing the proposal thing. I’ll do it to your specifications later.”
“After the Davis Mountains trip,” Haley suggested. “I love you too, wildcat.”
As they kissed again, Hawksky cleared his throat. “I think it’s time for me to leave.” He put his hand on the doorknob.
“Wait, El.” After one more peck on Dylan’s lips, Haley asked, “What’s going to happen to the predators who grabbed me?”
“We don’t have to worry about them. Those who didn’t die immediately must have had suicide capsules. They were dead before the medics had a chance to treat them for their wounds.”
“Any charges being brought against Dylan?”
“What charges would those be? My officers and a bunch of tourists here to play craps, poker and the slots saw nothing but a wild jaguarondi and a hawk attacking some turds with guns who were trying to kidnap a lady.”
“Good,” Haley nodded at Hawksky.
“Do either of you know who the turds were? The van has no prints and was stolen from San Antonio two days ago.”
“I have an idea,” Dylan said, “but you’ll never be able to track them.”
“You don’t know my tribe. We can track anything. But as long as they stay off our land, I don’t give a damn. How do you know who they were?”
“I think they’re after me and were capturing Haley to get to me.”
“My people and I will protect you as long as you’re on our land. Are you going to stay? If you do, we’ll keep them off our land. Flying bullets upset the marks at the casino.”
