by Milly Taiden
His lovely mate had been home for about an hour. She’d opened her balcony doors, which seemed to be the norm for her, but had yet to sit in her hammock chair. Last night she was safe since the bad guy had been busy raiding her lab. Tonight, he wasn’t sure if she would be safe since they had all her research, or if there was more they wanted. Either way, he would watch her until it was time to go back to the hotel.
Since he started working with the American government according to their “agreement,” he and his cat had become a tightly knit team. At first, he had wanted no part in the contract between shifters and humans. But in the fifty years since his species was discovered, they’d had no choice but to go along with what the government cooked up. In exchange for volunteered assistance from alpha-level shifters, the U.S. military and president would do everything in their power to keep the shifter community unknown to humans.
In reality, the powers that be didn’t want the shifters to be exposed because of the potential chaos and violence that could erupt. Humans weren’t known for sharing or tolerance, even though they liked to pretend they were.
His grandfather had been one of the original members of the Alpha League Federal Agency. Their mission statement said they would uphold the laws of the United States of America and protect her people no matter where in the world they may be. That was still the case today, but the ALFAs were usually called upon when a job required agility and resilience humans didn’t possess.
Melinda’s back door opened, catching him by surprise. He didn’t see anything fly over the rail, like another bottle of wine, so he wasn’t sure what she had in mind. He moved into a low crouch and slinked behind a tree to watch her.
She slowly came down each step, staring into the woods intently. What was she looking for? After passing the first few trees, Melinda stopped and looked around. “Here, kitty, kitty.”
She couldn’t be serious. Kitty, kitty? He could take her down in a single leap and eat her whole. His tongue licked his feline lips. Eating her little kitty would be divine. Oh, fuck.
When his back foot came down, it slid on leaves, making enough noise to grab her attention. So much for stealth, cat. Good thing we’re not prey. His animal growled at him.
Melinda moved directly toward him. Shit. He should stay away from her. But how could he watch over her then? Why did women always make things more difficult than they had to be? He headed for the concrete wall. It worked for a good escape route the first time.
His mate must’ve had the same idea. She stopped coming toward him and hurried through the trees parallel to him. Dammit, woman.
He really should be happy with his mate for wanting to see him. Ultimately, that’s what he desired, for her to want to be with him. But not like this. Not in his other form. He put on a burst of speed to get to and over the wall before she could get too much of a glimpse of him.
Behind him in the woods came a short cry, as if Mel had fallen and skinned her knee. Then her scream filled with terror froze him in his tracks. He smelled a touch of her blood and a flood of adrenaline in her system. He turned and sprinted along his path. Then the seriousness of her plight hit him.
Snakes. He smelled a momma cobra, pissed off because her nest was invaded by a human. Fuck. Hamel had seconds to reach Melinda before the cobra attacked. Dodging tree after tree, he was finally close enough to see the cobra floating side to side with the sides of its head flared. And Melinda, not seeing in the dark or knowing where she was crawling, headed straight for the nest. Not on momma’s watch.
The cobra reared back to strike. He would be too late. She’d die before he could get her to the hospital. He let out a sharp hiss, hoping to distract the agitated mother. Didn’t work. His legs pushed him from the ground, through the air between the snake and his mate.
Melinda screamed as a sharp sting bit into his shoulder. His forward momentum dragged the attached snake with him, tearing the skin, letting more venom pump into his veins. He’d never been bitten by a cobra, or any snake, for that matter.
Far enough from his mate, his cat rolled, smashing the serpent’s head, but forcing its fangs into the bone. He swatted the putrid thing off and headed back to his mate to make sure she was okay.
How strange. She had doubled; two of her sat where one had a minute ago. Then the earth tilted up. Or was it him falling to the ground. The ache that punched his nose suggested he just did a face-plant. In front of his mate. Shit. But seeing that he couldn’t move any of his body, he’d worry about his pride later.
First, he needed—
CHAPTER 14
Coming down the back stairs from her bungalow, Melinda had hoped the gorgeous cat would still be in the woods. She wondered what kind of feline it was. Uganda has several big cats and she couldn’t tell from her long-distant view last night what it might have been.
She’d never seen anything so graceful or with such raw power. She was drawn to it in ways she couldn’t explain. The wildness, freedom, sang to her, telling her to come home. She belonged here.
She saw a shadow move ahead in the trees. When he raced away, she knew it had to be him, as dark as the night itself. He ran the same direction as last night; must be going for the concrete wall again. This time she was ready. Making sure she was at a safe distance, she verified her phone was on the camera app, ready to snap pictures as soon as she cleared the trees.
Quickly, Melinda realized flip-flops were not the best choice for dashing through the woods. She should’ve thought this through better. Picking up her feet as best she could, she rushed toward the wall, hoping to catch a glimpse of her visitor.
Not able to see well in the waning light, her foot landed crooked and she fell and slid headfirst. When she came to a stop, a black-and-gold cobra raised its head a couple feet in front of her face. Instinctively, she screamed and scuttled away. The snake followed as if chasing her. Snakes didn’t do that. They normally ran, unless cornered, or their nest was threatened.
Melinda froze, eyes wide, lungs pumping for air. Was she moving closer to the cobra’s nest? She put weight on her ankle and a stab of pain streaked up the side of her leg. Okay, she would stay on the ground, trying not to move. Maybe it would go away if she didn’t look like a threat.
The slender head started to fan out, like the cobras’ did before they struck. So not good. She had to move, but which way? The last thing she wanted was to step or crawl into a slithering batch of babies, or eggs, or whatever the hell might be there.
As if hearing her words, the mother snake reared back, ready to attack. Mel screamed and her body moved without her thinking where. Then a black blur moved in front of the snake, and both were gone from in front of her.
A crash to the side snapped her head around. It was too dark to make out details, but something big rolled through the leaves. She stared until she saw her beautiful cat, her guardian cat, stumble toward her.
What was wrong with him? Was he bitten? When he collapsed, she shot to her feet then skidded to a stop on her knees before her savior. The cat panted, sides heaving up and down. Melinda laid a hand on his shoulder and felt tremendous heat and blood where fur was torn away. Oh, god. He was more than bitten; he’d had the entire venom sack drained into him.
Shit, shit, shit. What should she do? She felt panic creeping in. She rubbed her hands over her face and told herself to get a grip. If she didn’t, the beautiful creature would die from saving her.
Melinda took off her long sweater, laid it on the ground, and rolled the animal onto it. Damn, it didn’t look as heavy as it was. Her flip-flops had to go. Her ankle pain had pretty much gone away with the adrenaline rushing through her system. Didn’t matter what she stepped on. Sore feet were a small price to pay to return a favor of life.
Dragging the sweater and animal through the yard, she saw the neighbor boys playing basketball under a floodlight. She yelled to them to help her. When they reached her, they were agog
with the sight of the giant cat lying helplessly. She heard the word for “jaguar” muttered several times. Was that what the cat was? A jaguar?
In broken Ugandan, she told the boys to put the animal in the back of her car. She ran into her house, grabbed her purse and keys, and was back out before the front door closed from her coming in.
One of the boys asked where she was taking him. She said the Reptile Wildlife Center. She was sure they had antivenom for all the snakes in the area. Mel helped the boys wrestle the cat into the backseat. The same boy said the center would be closed by now. She cranked the engine in her car, praying the kid was wrong.
Flying down the pothole-infested road, Melinda avoided the bigger ones and couldn’t care less for the others. She was on a mission. Car maintenance be damned. The tires squealed making the turn from the road into the center’s concrete medical parking lot.
At the sliding emergency doors, two men argued. The younger one was dressed in scrubs and standing outside the open doors. The older—much older—guy stood with his arms crossed, face stoic as if making a point. She wasn’t sure what the older man wore, but it wasn’t medical gear.
As she came around the emergency entry like a bat out of hell, both men stared at her. She skidded to a stop in front of the door. “I have a jaguar bitten by a cobra. He needs anti-serum now.”
The young man looked at the older one, who had a satisfied look, then whipped his head back to her. “Ma’am, maybe you have a large house cat. Jaguars are very rare around here. There hasn’t been a sighting for many years.”
She slammed her car door shut and ran around to the other side. “That’s fascinating, but this jag needs medicine now or he will die.” She whipped open the backseat door, revealing a sickly black jag.
The man’s eyes popped open and words she didn’t know left his mouth. She turned to the old man, but he was gone, nowhere in sight. The technician rolled a gurney up to the car and together they loaded the feline onto the bed and wheeled him inside.
Melinda followed the man into a triage-like area, where he whipped aside a curtain and stopped the gurney. Quickly and efficiently, he set up an IV line and needle. He raced toward tall cabinets, opened one, and pulled out two handfuls of vials. He hurried back and laid them on the bed. Over the next several minutes, he slowly fed six vials through the IV.
He watched the animal’s face intently. She asked, “What are you looking for?”
“Watching for allergic reactions. Need to make sure we don’t need an Epinephrine shot, too.”
“Oh” was all she could think to say. This was so different than her use of vials and needles and IVs. The work she did usually didn’t determine if the patient lived or died in the next few moments. Her legs began to give. She plopped in a chair by the curtain.
The man continued moving around the gurney, listening to the animal’s heart and lungs. “So what’s the story? How did a jaguar end up in the backseat of your car?”
Melinda laughed. “When you say it that way, it sounds rather crazy, doesn’t it?”
“Miss, any way you say it, it sounds crazy.” He smiled.
Her insides started to calm down. He had a soothing way about him that made the emergency situation seem like the everyday. “My name is Melinda. I work at the virus lab.”
“I’m Nsubuga. Friends call me Buga.”
“Nice to meet you, Buga. About our story: not much to tell. I saw the gorgeous cat last night in the woods between my home and the lake. I was hoping to get a picture of him with my phone. So I went out to see if I could find him and ran into a cobra and her nest. Just before the snake attacked me, the jaguar jumped in front of me and took the bite before killing it. It was amazing. I had no idea a jaguar would do that.”
Buga grunted. “They don’t.”
That was an odd reply. He almost sounded mad. “After that, some boys helped me load him into my car to bring him up here. I’m glad you were still open.”
“You can thank my grandfather for that. He wouldn’t leave yet. Said it wasn’t time, despite what the clock said.”
“Was that the older gentleman I saw you talking to?”
Buga laughed. “He’s no gentleman. He’s a witch doctor.”
Her eyes widened slightly, but she kept her mouth shut. Witch doctors were in the same league as ghosts and magic. But she would’ve said that about telekinesis a few days ago. “Why was he here?”
“Technically, he owns all the land the Wildlife Refuge is on, but I think he’s mainly here to irritate me.”
“Ha.” The other man she saw at the main entrance entered the large room. “Don’t think yourself so high because I spend time with you, grandson. My time very precious. Not much left, but lots to do.”
“Don’t say that. You’ll be here as long as I am so you can torment me.” Buga winked at Melinda. Being closer and in a lit area, she saw this older man more clearly. His skin was very dark and roughly weathered. Deep lines were etched into his forehead and around his mouth. He wore a white button-down shirt buttoned all the way to the top and a long dark coat over khaki pants. Melinda wouldn’t have guessed he was a witch doctor, but he did look very wise in the old ways of things.
“Ha, grandson. You have sad sense of humor.” The old man laid a hand on the unconscious cat, then turned to Melinda. “Your mate be fine. Transformers hard to kill. Go home. Sleep. You need rest for what is to come.”
CHAPTER 15
“Sweet Home Alabama” played in Melinda’s dream until she woke. Her dream slipped away like sand through fingers. She wasn’t one to remember her dreams, but these past few days had been stressful. Maybe that was the reason for the sudden change in her not only remembering her dream, but it being so real.
Realizing it was only Thursday, she groaned and rolled in her warm covers. This was the longest week from hell. Would it ever end? Maybe she should buy out the local market’s stock of chocolate and eat it all herself for Halloween. It was on a Saturday, so she had all day to gorge.
Even though Uganda had an official six-day workweek, her contract with the lab allowed her both weekend days off. She rarely took them, though. It’s not like she had lots to do around the house. Besides that, she loved what she did, so it didn’t feel like work. Most of the time. This week was an anomaly.
She wondered how the jaguar was. Later in the day, she’d call. The old man had assured her that it would be fine. What did he mean when he said “mate” and “transformer”? Obviously he didn’t have strong command of the English language, but she was thankful he was considerate enough to speak it so she could understand what they were saying.
By “mate” he must’ve meant someone who stands beside you, like a bodyguard. She could see the big, beautiful cat being her protector, her guardian. Maybe he just liked the smell of mouse she probably had soaked into her clothes and hands. That was a funny thought. A badass jaguar hanging out with her because she held mice all day.
“Transformer” was not as easy to figure out. The only transformer she knew was the kind that sat on a telephone pole and carried electricity between houses. When she was a kid, she’d seen lightning strike the top of a pole and sparks flew everywhere as a big metal thing virtually exploded. Then the family sat in the dark for hours waiting for the electric people to bring the lights back on.
So whatever the old guy meant by transformers being hard to “kill,” she had no clue. She let it go. It was too early to ponder such deep issues. She needed a shower and tea to get going.
• • •
At the research facility, her door no longer had the yellow tape, nor the guard from yesterday. She sighed with relief. She could get back to normal now. She had a lot of paperwork and testing to re-create for the file. Fortunately, it was more of a time thing than actual running of tests. She had the images of each page in her head, so it was just the arduous task of making them real.
She needed to bring her mice back into the lab also so she could get some work done. She’d figure out later where the best place to keep them safe would be. Hopefully their night in the strange room didn’t affect them any. She considered it a sleepover party at someone else’s house.
That thought made her angry. Because of her parents, she didn’t experience half the life most kids did. She’d missed out on so much. If she were to ever have a family, she’d make sure her children got to see and explore everything the world had to offer. She would never hold them back and tell them they couldn’t do something because of their gender or that they weren’t smart enough.
She’d never really thought about a family before. Shit, she was thirty years old. How long was she going to wait? She didn’t feel like she was waiting as much as the time simply hadn’t come yet. Inside, she felt confident it would happen; there was no anxiety over it. Okay, there was some anxiety, but mostly because her dream man had mentioned babies, and boy, had that made her hormones remember what nature had intended. As of that night, her biological clock had decided to start making itself known.
Maybe she just wanted a friend with benefits. Unfortunately, that friend was more of the make-believe kind. She’d still need help from her toy. The thought of him and her toy brought a flush to her face. Good god, she was so pathetic.
After unlocking the lab door and flipping on the lights, she was relieved to see everything back to where it had been. Tables were upright, machines off the floor, papers in stacks. She’d have to do an inventory to see which items were broken beyond repair.
From her purse, she pulled out the tissue-wrapped virus serum she’d snuck out of the building last night, ready to put it in the fridge again. Then she noted the complete destruction of the refrigeration unit on the other side of the room.
