Protected by Two Jaguars [The Alpha Legend 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Tara Rose

When Valerie’s eyes filled with tears, Micah and Stephen both scooted their chairs closer to hers at the same time. Stephen placed an arm across her shoulder but all she did was brush away her tears. She didn’t even lean into him. Micah rose and crossed the room to the sideboard. He poured Valerie a large glass of whiskey, then placed it down in front of her. He moved behind her and massaged her shoulders, not surprised to find large knots in her muscles. “Drink it. It will help.”

  She took a few sips, but then placed the glass back on the table. “So what now? What do I do? How do we find him?”

  Gary smiled. “You leave that to us, little lady. But first, I need to know everything you can remember about your life in New Mexico. Even if you think it’s not important.”

  “I’ll tell you everything I can remember. But were should I start?”

  “Do you remember your father and uncle talking about anything that had to do with black cats or the legends in that book?”

  She shook her head before Gary finished the question. “They were not in the League. That much I know for certain.”

  “How do you know?” asked Micah. Images from his unsettling dream played in his mind. Should he tell it to them? Was it prophetic, or merely the result of his worry over Valerie’s situation?

  “Because they talked about the League. I overheard them and their friends talking about it many, many times. They renounced it. They wanted nothing to do with it. They were all about preserving the purity of each species, not hunting down melanistic cats.”

  Gary cleared his throat and cut his gaze toward Micah’s father, then he nodded toward the book in front of Valerie. “How much of that have you read before?”

  “This was the first time. It’s not the first time I’ve seen a copy, but I was young and couldn’t make out the writing at the time.”

  “Turn to the last page we’ve marked.”

  She did, but then pushed it away. “I don’t want to read anymore.”

  Stephen pulled it over and Micah took his seat again. Stephen read silently, then glanced at Valerie. “It talks about preserving the species, but only to protect the cubs from birth defects or death before they’re born.”

  She cut her gaze toward Gary. “But we all know that. I mean the part about how the cubs might not survive. But it doesn’t say we shouldn’t mate with other species.” She glanced around the table. “None of you believe that in this village. Are you saying the League uses these passages for their perversions as well? Is that what you’re telling me? That my father and uncle are part of the League because they murdered cats who mated with other species?”

  “I wish I had a definite answer, but right now I don’t,” said Gary. “Do I suspect your father and uncle are part of the League and you never knew it? No. But do I now suspect they may be involved with them? Yes. Is it because of what you just read? Yes, again. And why do I believe that? Because your father and uncle are obviously not on the side of good. I think you always knew that on some level, but you couldn’t do anything about it.”

  He leaned forward slightly. “The League isn’t only in one village or one state. They have members scattered throughout the country. They use the magic and legends in this text primarily to pervert the good. They use it for evil. Is it really such a stretch to imagine that they would want to rid the shape-shifter community of the practice of cross-mating? Doing so can’t produce viable cubs, after all. If they eliminate it, the chances of having more melanistic cubs to sacrifice increases.”

  Micah shivered as he watched terror spread over her face. “That’s sick,” she whispered.

  “They’re sick people. And they would love to have someone like your father on their side. Part of the reason we know so much about the League is because we have jaguars who are occasionally able to get on the inside. It’s a dangerous part to play, and they usually end up dead, but sometimes they’re able to get pieces of information to us before they’re caught and killed.”

  Micah’s heart skipped a beat at the look of understanding that dawned on her face. “You mean they go on suicide missions, don’t you?”

  Gary nodded. “Yes. That’s exactly what they do. But without them, we wouldn’t know half of what we do now. And we also have long suspected that they’re using stones, herbs, or a combination of those, plus spells, to cloak their activities. It’s the only thing that fully explains why we can’t catch up to them more often than we do.”

  He pointed toward the book. “It’s been right here, all along, and we should have put two and two together before. But when my troops said they literally watched your father disappear, I remembered that tiny passage about using quartz and labradorite together. As I said, I don’t know for certain, but it fits. Did your father or uncle ever talk about stones, herbs, or spells?”

  She shook her head. “If they did, I never heard it.”

  “Doesn’t mean they didn’t,” said Drake.

  “True,” said Gary. “Much of your home life was spent avoiding them, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded. “Just about all of it was. I wish I knew what else to tell you, but that’s really all I know.”

  “It’s okay. You have helped us a great deal. You just don’t realize it yet.” Gary stood. “And now that we have more than a suspicion that your father is able to do this, we will have guards posted around this house and the village, watching for any unusual movement. I’m not saying you can’t go outdoors, but don’t do it alone, all right?”

  Valerie nodded.

  “She won’t be alone,” said Drake. “Not even for a second. I’m sure my sons will see to that. This reminds me of that shop owner in Vernal. Do you boys remember him? Frank Ellison. He owned a store that sold bait and hunting equipment. I took the boys there once when we decided to take a canoeing trip down the Green River, because we couldn’t find all the supplies we needed here.”

  “I remember him,” said Micah. Images from his dream danced through his head. Now he’d have to tell them about it. “He also sold guns, and that was the first time any of us had seen one. We asked you about them, and the store owner overheard you telling us never to touch one or go near it.” Micah glanced at Gary. “He gave Father an earful about how guns weren’t dangerous, people were. We didn’t know what to make of it.”

  “He said a lot of odd things that day, but one thing in particular is something I’ve never forgotten,” said Drake. “What we found in the book today made me think of him.”

  “What did he say?” asked Valerie.

  “He talked about the end of the world. It’s not uncommon to hear humans speak about apocalypse, and this man obviously lived and breathed in preparation for it. But it was more than his talking about it that has stuck with me all these years. He was scaring the boys a bit and we got out of there as soon as practical.”

  A faraway look that Micah didn’t see very often came over his father’s face. He usually only saw that look when his father was deep in thought. “He talked about only the strong surviving, and how natural selection would weed out the undesirables. That’s exactly the word he used. ‘Undesirables.’ But it wasn’t just the word. It was the way he looked at us as if he knew what we were, and we were the creatures he was talking about. Needless to say, the next time we needed sporting equipment that we couldn’t find here, we went elsewhere.”

  Gary started to leave but Micah spoke up, stopping him. “Before you go, I want to tell you something that’s bugging me. I don’t know if it’s important, but it might be.”

  “What is it?”

  “I had a strange dream earlier.” He cut his gaze toward Valerie who didn’t look as if she could take any more unpleasant news, but she had a right to know this as well as anything else she’d heard during the past hour.

  “Frank was in it. That’s odd enough since I haven’t thought about him in all these years, but that’s not as bizarre as the fact that Valerie’s father was as well. I dreamed that Frank’s shop is where Reynard got the gun he used to kill Abby.”

&nb
sp; No one spoke for what felt like several long, painful moments. When he finally dared to glance toward Valerie, she was very pale, and so still that if he hadn’t seen her chest move, he would have thought she’d stopped breathing.

  Micah tried to imagine growing up the way Valerie had, but he couldn’t. His parents had always been open and honest with them about everything. He and his brothers had grown up without any doubt how loved and cherished they were, and they’d always known that their father worked hard to rid their world of the League. Valerie had grown up with fear and no one to talk to. She’d grown up without a woman around to confide in, or explain things to her that only a mother could.

  “Well, in that case,” said Gary, “I’m going to send a few jags to Vernal and check out this shop. Thanks for telling me. As you said, it might not be important at all, but we’re going to check it out anyway.” He glanced at Valerie. “You’re in good hands here.”

  “Thank you,” she said. Her voice was full of defeat, and Micah hated hearing that tone in it. “I know that. But what if Frank and his shop turn out to mean nothing? What will you do then? What other options do you have?”

  “We will concentrate our efforts on finding out more about the stones, and where your father and uncle are. We can’t find your uncle, by the way. He and your father are brothers, right?”

  She nodded.

  “And were they always close, or do you remember a time when they fought about anything?”

  “If they fought I don’t remember it.”

  “All right. I think I’ve brought enough bad news to your home for one night, Drake. Emme, thank you for dinner. Valerie, you just stay close to this bunch, all right? Nothing will happen to you as long as you’re with them. I’ll be in touch as soon as we find out anything further.”

  His parents walked Gary out of the room, and Micah watched the emotions cross Valerie’s face. As he did, Stephen’s earlier question came back to him. He’d asked if Micah had had fun with Valerie.

  Fun wasn’t the right word. It was more like he’d been searching his entire life for something, and the moment he’d first looked into her eyes, he knew he’d found it. The play earlier in the dungeon had confirmed it, nothing more. He’d already known was what so obvious for three months now. Valerie was his mate, and he was falling head-over-heels in love with her. More with each passing hour. But what good was that if he couldn’t keep her safe?

  He and Stephen had told her that as her Doms they would protect her. How the hell was he going to protect her from Reynard? For all her worrying, she was right, after all. If her father could travel at will without detection, and had been able to escape four of Gary’s special forces jaguars, there was no telling what else he could do. They had no way to defend her against that kind of power. No shape-shifter that he’d ever known could protect her from that.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Valerie’s head ached with the effort of trying to tie all this together. She looked from Stephen to Micah, and back again. She didn’t even have the urge to cry as she’d had earlier. She simply felt numb. This wasn’t over. It wasn’t over by a long shot. And there were now complications that gave the danger from her father a new dimension. One which the jaguars in this village didn’t even know how to fight.

  She thought about everything she’d learned over the past week and realized she’d never asked Gary if the fact that Abby’s parents were in the League might have some bearing on this. Did he know that? Yes, of course he did. Abby had confessed it front of Drake, Emme, and the jaguars on Gary’s team. Is that why he suspected her father was part of with them? Or had her father always been part of the League and she’d never known it? Anything was possible, and she understood that now. For all she now knew, her entire life had been a lie.

  “Do you still want to watch the snow?” asked Micah. She followed his gaze out the windows where fat flakes cascaded down, lit by the lanterns lining the walk in front of the house. “It might help take your mind off all this for a while.”

  She shook her head. “I’m afraid to go outdoors right now. But I would like to watch it. Can we do so from indoors, Sir? I would like that. I would like that very much.”

  Micah crossed the room, took her hand, and when she rose he pulled her into a tight embrace. Valerie let out the breath she’d been holding as she relaxed against him. No matter what happened, she was here now, with both her Doms. She didn’t know if they could protect her forever, but she knew they would try to. And, she knew the only place she wanted to be was with them. So for tonight, at least for that long, she was going to enjoy this time with them. She had nothing else to hold onto any longer. They were her entire world now.

  “Let’s build a fire in the back den and watch it from there,” said Stephen. “That way we can see the water as well.”

  “Shouldn’t I help your mother first with the dinner dishes?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Emme said, as she and Drake walked into the room. “You go on and spend time with my sons. I’ll take care of the dishes.”

  “Thank you. Thank you, both of you. I owe you my life. Twice now.”

  Drake shook his head. “You’re one of us now. We protect our own. I don’t want you to worry about being safe here, okay? We’re well protected.”

  “Thank you.” As she followed Stephen and Micah toward the back of the house, she hoped Drake was right. The image of her father standing across the street from her house wouldn’t leave her mind. He’d slipped into this village more than once and had played a cat-and-mouse game with her and Abby. What would stop him from doing so again? Certainly not fear of Drake or Gary. He’d already proven that he could evade them both. How would they catch him?

  Stephen lit a fire and tossed sofa cushions on the floor in front of it while Micah opened the drapes on the wall of windows that faced the lake. He flipped a switch on the wall and the lake was suddenly ringed with the same lights that lined the front walk. “We should keep these on at night anyway,” he said.

  “It’s so beautiful all lit up like that.” She couldn’t stop staring at it. The water looked like glass, and the snowflakes falling on it only enhanced that image.

  “Do you want some wine, Valerie?” Stephen had poured three glasses already, so she told him she’d love some. Might as well. She wasn’t going to sleep well tonight anyway.

  They sat in front of the fire with their backs to it, watching the snowfall, which was getting heavier now. How she’d loved to be out in it, in her jaguar form. Like most shifters, Valerie loved to be outside, and felt freer in her animal form than in her human form.

  “I’m sorry we aren’t out there,” said Micah, once again giving her the impression he’d read her thoughts. “You mentioned that earlier.”

  “And I also mentioned watching it fall while in shifter form. We can do that indoors, you know.”

  “It’s not the same,” said Stephen.

  Micah gave his brother a droll look. “Yeah, but then we get to see her naked before and after she shifts.”

  Valerie laughed softly. “Is that all you two ever think about? Seeing me naked?”

  “Yes,” they both said, at the exact same time.

  Now she did laugh, and she also put down her wine glass and climbed into Micah’s lap, as he was closer than Stephen. He wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled her neck. “I don’t know what I said to deserve this, but thank you.”

  “I just wanted to thank you, Sir. Both of you. Everything I heard tonight was a horrible shock, but you two have managed to make me feel safe and secure.”

  “It’s what we promised we’d do,” said Micah.

  She leaned against him for long, luscious moments, watching the snow pile up on top of the previous accumulation. She’d always loved winter more than any other season, although they didn’t have much snow each year, even at higher elevations, in her home village. She’d seen more here in three months than she was used to seeing for an entire season.

  “So do you want to s
hift?”

  She glanced into Micah’s face, grinning. When she climbed off him, she stood and then cast a glance toward the door that led to the hallway.

  “Don’t worry,” said Stephen, his voice rough and deep. “They won’t bother us.”

  Valerie took off her clothes, slowly, watching their faces. She was encouraged by the way their eyes glazed over and their mouths dropped open slightly. It still amazed her that these guys, who were the most gorgeous creatures she’d ever seen, found her that alluring. When she was completely naked, she closed her eyes and concentrated on her jaguar form. Within seconds, she knew she stood before them as an animal.

  They stood and undressed, which she found a bit disconcerting because in her animal form she still felt her human emotions, including lust, but the urges were different. She wanted more than anything right now to be outdoors in the snow and running free, not in a stuffy room with a fire. Every sense was magnified in this form, and even the smell of the wood burning and the ticking of the mantel clock felt wrong. She longed instead to hear the wind and feel the icy cold on her paw pads.

  She forced her gaze to Stephen and Micah, watching as they each shifted to their jaguar form. She was smaller than both of them, and even though in human form Stephen was a bit shorter than Micah, in this form they were the same size. Powerful, muscular alpha cats who could rip apart human flesh with one swipe of their claws, or kill an enemy with a single bite to the jugular vein.

  She brushed her head against each one in a gesture of love, and gazed into their green eyes, so like their human ones. The three lay down side by side in front of the windows and watched the snow for a few moments, and then Valerie shifted back first. She crossed the room and drained her wine glass, then poured herself one more as the men each shifted back to human form and joined her.

  “You’re beautiful in your animal form,” said Stephen, rubbing his erect dick against her ass crack. “But you’re even more exquisite like this.”

  “I love your animal form, too, Sir. Both of you.”