by Jory Strong
Rebekka jerked her arm, trying to pull away again, hating the enforcer for the prejudice he represented and for the pain she knew his words caused Levi. “If you want me to heal the cubs, then Levi—”
“Only the pack leader can grant permission for him to enter our lands. If it’s your safety he’s worried about, then I promise to personally see to your protection from the time we enter Jaguar lands until you meet him where our border touches Lion territory. If he fears sending you alone, without an ally, then the Tiger can remain with us. We’ll leave at first light and travel through the night once we’re in Were lands.”
Rebekka turned toward Levi, her hand squeezing his, asking for reassurance—acceptance of her choice and Aryck’s terms. “This will allow you time with your family.” To say your good-byes.
Levi gave a small, reluctant nod. “Promise to send Canino for me when you start home. I’ll come back to Oakland with you.”
Aryck’s fingers tightened on her arm as if in protest. Rebekka refused to acknowledge him in any way. “I promise.”
Satisfied, Aryck released the healer and moved away, passing through the doorway and into what remained of a hallway. He looked down the twisting wreck of stairway and longed to descend, to escape the confining space and nearness to the human female.
He’d touched her twice without wanting any contact at all, been unable to suppress either the Jaguar need to be at her side or the possessiveness that rose at seeing the obvious closeness between the healer and the Lion outcast.
Levi. The Lion had seemed vaguely familiar before, but injured, dying, Aryck hadn’t been able to place him until after the healing. Now he had brief memories of seeing Levi and Cyrin among the Lion pride when he’d gone there on pack business.
Alliance was rare among the Were groups, but because the Wolf and Hyena packs in the territories near theirs were so large, Lion and Jaguar maintained a cautious association. He remembered being told Levi and Cyrin had left to explore, as many males who were considering forming their own packs or prides did, then hearing later they hadn’t returned and were presumed dead.
Better dead than outcast, Aryck thought, and the Jaguar agreed even as it snarled and chafed at hearing the low murmurs of Levi and the healer talking.
Aryck could have mentally spoken with his father when they neared Jaguar lands. He could have secured permission for Levi to enter their lands. With the healer so close and the cubs in such dire need no one would have challenged the decision. But almost as quickly as the thought had come, he’d discarded it, acting on instinct and not after giving it rational consideration. The idea of Levi accompanying them, remaining at the healer’s side—
The Jaguar screamed in protest at the sound of rustling as Levi lay down next to the healer, serving as her protector. Aryck’s fingers flexed involuntarily. The muscles in his arms stood out. He was nearly overtaken by the urge to drop onto his hands and knees to accommodate the shift between forms as Jaguar soul separated further from human one.
His earlier fear returned in a heartbeat, edged once again toward horror. The unraveling of self was the first step on the rogue, outcast path. He stiffened with resolve, refusing to bend and change until reason dictated it.
Behind him the fire slowly died, no longer needed to ward off shock and provide light for the healer—
Claws raked through Aryck’s belly at his continued effort to hold her at a distance by refusing to use her name. Rebekka, the Jaguar purred, filling human nostrils and coating the man’s tongue with her scent. Flooding their shared senses with the sublime pleasure that had come from her touch. Enforcing the absolute belief of having found a mate with the hardening of Aryck’s cock and images of covering her in human form, thrusting into her as he bit her shoulder and marked her with his teeth.
Sweat coated Aryck’s skin as heat scorched through him. His hands opened and closed as he fought to suppress both desire and the morphing of one erotic scene into another.
For long moments he struggled, man and Jaguar souls at odds with each other, fighting for dominance, not in form but in will, as they had never done before.
The sound of engines drawing steadily closer halted the battle. Aryck spared a glance over his shoulder. Melina had already shifted form. The Tiger, Canino, and Cyrin were on their feet, ready to meet any threat posed by humans.
Levi was sitting, gun on the ground next to him. The hea—
Sharp pain raked Aryck’s gut, making him gasp and bend over as the Jaguar returned to the fight with a vengeance. He said, “I’m okay, Rebekka,” when she sat up, obviously ready to come to his aid.
The use of her name sheathed the unseen claws tearing through him. But the sight of the unbound hair framing her face and emphasizing how very feminine she was had his stomach muscles quivering as he imagined her placing her palm against his abdomen, soothing him with heat and touch before moving lower. Stroking him. Taking his cock in hand.
The Jaguar purred in satisfaction at having accomplished its purpose. It retreated so thoroughly that all sense of separateness disappeared, leaving Aryck’s heart beating erratically in defeat.
Gunfire erupted nearby, jerking Aryck’s attention away from Rebekka. He shed his clothing and shifted form.
His black coat made him invisible as he prowled down the twisted metal staircase and into the dark. Melina and the other two big cats followed him.
They spread out, remaining close to the building and readying themselves for attack. The vehicles drew near enough for the conversation of the humans occupying them to be heard, but turned away without coming into sight.
Sporadic gunfire sliced through the night until eventually the drone of the engines lessened and disappeared completely. A wary calm settled, a thin cloak draped over a world filled with silent predators and equally silent prey.
Canino sharpened his claws on a tree growing out of rubble. Cyrin watched him for a moment, then claimed another tree, shredding its bark and making it bleed sap.
A female cat yowled its desire to mate into the night and the entreaty brought Melina prowling to Aryck. She positioned herself in front of him, presenting her swollen vulva.
She was heavily in season. Riper than she’d been the night before when, despite his resolve, the genetic imperative to breed had nearly driven him to cover her.
There was no temptation now, no stirring of desire. Aryck knew the reason, though he refused to contemplate it, to risk undoing the seamless integration of Jaguar and human souls by thinking about Rebekka and vehemently denying he’d already found his mate.
He turned away, noting both Tiger and Lion were now watching. Spectators rather than competitors.
Melina persisted. Purring and crouching.
He rebuffed her yet again, annoyed by her continued overtures. Only his conscience over inadvertently encouraging her as they traveled made him hesitate to embarrass her further in front of an audience.
As if incensed by his continued rejection, or subconsciously aware of the threat Rebekka posed, Melina became more aggressive. She rubbed, marked him with the scent of her heat.
In a heartbeat Aryck reacted, his patience and restraint at an end. He snarled and pinned her underneath him, not the rough play before big cats mate, but the warning of an enforcer.
Sharp teeth slid through fur and skin and he tasted blood. A low, rumbled growl deep in his throat promised an attack that would leave her scarred in both forms if she persisted in trying to entice him into covering her.
Melina became completely submissive, acknowledging her acceptance of his will, and in an instant she was forgotten, her behavior triggering images of Rebekka doing the same, her hair caught up in his fists, her thighs splayed and her body joined to his.
Need flashed through Aryck, human lust and Jaguar possessiveness, a scorching heat commanding him back into the building.
He took his human form and dressed. The man impatient for dawn, telling himself he cared only about getting Rebekka to the cubs, the Jaguar intent o
n reaching lands the Lion outcast at her side couldn’t enter.
Thirteen
ARYCK steadied Rebekka as her foot caught on an exposed root. Exhaustion clung to her, and this time he didn’t fight the urge to keep his hand wrapped around her arm.
Her opposite shoulder sagged under the weight of the blanket now serving as a satchel. It was laden with what she claimed to need save for one ingredient, a root he was unfamiliar with.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, not attempting to pull away from him as she had the other times, her jerky movement accompanied by an elusive hint of sexual interest rather than distaste at being touched by a Were.
Though Levi and his brother had left them miles earlier, peeling away to go to the pride’s summer gathering place, his scent still clung to Rebekka. It mixed in with that of woman, of sweat and dirt and the plants Rebekka carried.
Aryck’s lips lifted in a silent snarl at smelling the outcast, at remembering Levi embracing Rebekka and making her renew her promise to send Canino when she was ready to go back to Oakland. Not for the first time he wondered if Levi had been made outcast by the ancestors because of her, if she was Levi’s downfall as well as Cyrin’s and Canino’s.
Their smell was nearly pure cat and neither of them had changed into human form. It made him think the ancestors had been merciful, allowing them to retain their beast form.
They could live their lives in Were lands, could even take mates and breed there as long as they didn’t go feral. And if they were willing to risk it, they could enter the bone cave in a Petitioner’s Rite and perhaps regain their human forms with an ancestor’s intercession.
Aryck took his hand from Rebekka’s arm as he considered the possibility she might carry a witch-charm that worked on male Weres, making those around her feel protective.
As they’d traveled directly through Wolf territory rather than staying to the border routes where there was some neutrality, he’d felt watched. Yet no one had emerged from hiding to challenge or attack.
Then again, it could be word had spread of what happened to the cubs, and the Wolves had decided to let a human pass through their lands without openly acknowledging it. They might be waiting on the outcome, concerned there were similar weapons buried among the ruins on their lands.
Aryck glanced at Rebekka, seeing fatigue on her face. They’d traveled with little rest and been forced to push hard to make up time when the plants she needed required detour or delay.
More than once he’d seen her touch the journal in her pocket, rubbing over it as she worried her bottom lip. Her concern for the cubs was easy to read, though he didn’t need to see it in her expression; her actions told him as much.
Despite the pace he set she hadn’t uttered a sound of complaint or protest. Each time he’d thought she would falter and demand they slow down or stop, she’d draw from a well of internal strength and find additional stamina.
Mile by mile his resistance to the Jaguar’s claim weakened, though he hadn’t fully accepted it and didn’t intend to. Nor would he allow himself to act on the desire continuing to simmer in his bloodstream.
In jaguar form Melina ranged ahead, moving farther away and faster in the relative safety of Lion territory. Canino prowled at Rebekka’s other side, streaks of tree-shadow merging with the stripes on his orange coat.
Each time he brushed against Rebekka, whether the act was unintentional or by design, the Jaguar made its presence known to Aryck. Suddenly waking like a separate entity to growl in protest.
Resisting the Jaguar set a battle for dominance into motion. After the first one, Aryck acquiesced, maneuvering Rebekka away from Canino while telling himself the sooner he got her to camp, the better.
A day to heal, perhaps another to rest and get her strength back, and then she would be gone from their lands, her safety entrusted to Levi. With her absence he would no longer have to fear the unraveling of his earthly souls into two separate entities.
Another mile passed. Twice Aryck reached out to keep Rebekka upright.
Each time it was more difficult to end the physical contact. The Jaguar grew edgy. Or he did. Aryck couldn’t discern where the emotion came from, only that thoughts of stopping so Rebekka could rest warred with the need to get to the cubs.
Close to the border of Jaguar lands he reached mentally for his father. The alpha’s relief swept into Aryck. Hurry. Three of them are close to death. The other two are not far behind. Nahuatl holds their souls to this world.
Koren didn’t ask if the healer accompanied them. To do so would be to doubt Nahuatl’s vision from the ancestors.
Aryck updated his father with a stream of images. Starting at the place where he and Melina had encountered the first of the hyenas. Ending with their current location.
Show me the root she seeks.
“Stop for a moment,” Aryck said, his hand on Rebekka’s arm halting her as he spoke. “Let me see the picture of the root you need.”
She pulled the journal from her pocket and opened it. He bent lower, and though he couldn’t read the words describing where the plant came from, they were locked in his memory from having detoured numerous times only to meet with failure.
It grows near springs where the water tastes of iron, he said, eyes traveling slowly over the drawing as he made himself look at every detail, from the shape of the leaves all the way down to the root.
Come directly to camp. I’ll describe this plant to Phaedra, then Nahuatl and the elders if she doesn’t recognize it.
What happens with the human encampment?
Quiet. There was the briefest hesitation, marking Koren’s distrust and suspicion. Tracks from one of the heavily armored vehicles went into Wolf territory near where it borders Bear.
You think the Wolves are dealing with the humans?
It was a distasteful idea to Aryck. But in the histories the elders passed down through their stories, there were tales of Wolves being rewarded for attacking other Were groups for the benefit of humans.
Aryck could follow his father’s line of thought, his suspicion that perhaps the Wolves wanted to expand their territory. Guns could be found in the rubble and salvaged. But without ammunition, they were useless, and ammunition was difficult to acquire. It required a trip into the human world and could wipe out a pack’s store of recovered coins and gems.
Coyotes preferred flight over fight. Their land was ruin-filled, more suited to hiding than hunting. They held it unchallenged because it served as a buffer of sorts between stronger, larger predatory groups.
After a long moment of silence, Koren answered, I don’t know if the Wolves are dealing with the humans. The sudden quiet bothers me as much as the gunfire did. For now, we wait. We watch. We try to make sense of what the humans are looking for on Coyote land so we can assess the danger of them moving into our territory.
The link with his father fell away. Aryck offered the book to Rebekka, unconsciously holding it in a way that forced her fingers to brush against his. Only to release it and walk away when his cock responded instantly to her touch, and his mind filled with fantasies of pulling her more firmly against him.
Rebekka placed the journal in her pocket with shaky hands. The sudden race of her heart edged out exhaustion and cleared the fuzziness from her mind.
Why now? she wondered, trying to ignore the fluttering through her chest and the lingering heat where their hands had touched. Why him?
It was obvious from the way Aryck stalked off that he wasn’t any happier about the physical attraction than she was. So why did he find excuses to touch her? In a day, maybe two, she’d be on her way to Oakland.
She closed her eyes but couldn’t escape the sight of him. He was there in a hundred images. In both of his forms.
It wasn’t just his physical beauty affecting her; it was his determination. His relentless resolve to save the cubs that caused a melting sensation in the region of her heart and a traitorous internal voice to whisper, And he doesn’t have a mate.
Despite what she’d thought when she first saw Melina crouched next to Aryck’s jaguar form, they weren’t paired. There was no bond-scent, Levi said, so they weren’t permanently mated.
She felt a blush rising to her face as she remembered the awkward conversation she’d had with Levi before he left with Cyrin. It was a talk spawned by her embarrassment at not being able to hide her physical reaction or the shame she felt at desiring someone she thought was already claimed by another.
Despite Levi’s warning her against getting involved with a pure Were, one who might play with her but who would never take her as a mate or leave his world for a human one, a fantasy crept into her thoughts. Of touching her hands to Aryck’s chest, exploring with her fingertips. Tracing the smooth flow of muscle and circling tiny nipples.
The melting heat in her chest slid downward, through her belly and into her labia. Her channel spasmed.
She opened her eyes, banishing the images. Levi was right.
Getting involved with a pure Were, especially one who lived outside the red zone, would be a mistake. It would only lead to heartbreak.
The crushing weight of exhaustion returned and Rebekka wanted to close her eyes again and sink to the ground. She doubted landing on hidden rocks would matter at this point. Sleep would claim her before she touched the bed of leaves on the forest floor.
Imagining it increased the pull of gravity. Her knees bent in preparation for yielding.
Canino rumbled and rubbed against her, jolting her to wakefulness. She placed a hand on his shoulder as ahead of her Aryck turned, his lips pulling back in an instant snarl and his eyes going fierce.
As silently as he’d stalked away, he returned, his movements holding the dangerous grace of a jaguar going after prey. His hand gripped her wrist like an iron manacle, the impact of it forcing her to take a step away from Canino.
Canino snorted before yawning widely. His emotions brushed against Rebekka’s empathetic senses, amusement coupled with satisfaction at having delivered a barbed taunt to another big cat.
