Jungle Fever

by Celeste Anwar

  “Did you hear that?” Rafe asked with a laugh. “What do you reckon it´s another snake? I´ll go and check on her, make sure that she´s OK.”

  Rafe walked towards the water. He couldn´t help but feel protective of Yvonne. Although he knew that she was a strong woman capable of looking after herself if she wanted to survive in her chosen profession, his cat brain couldn´t comprehend not coming to her aid for the slightest of problems. That part of him recognized that yes, she was a hunter, but it knew that she didn´t fight to kill. Cats fought to kill, anything else was incomprehensible to them, it couldn´t understand her way of fighting and so he felt as though he had to protect her.

  He didn´t mind. A weird part of him enjoyed looking after and being needed, whether she wanted it or not. His mother would laugh if she could see him now. He knew that she would believe that Yvonne had caught him in the love trap. But it wasn´t like that, Yvonne appealed to his cat and his cock and many other ways. At this moment, he wanted to make sure that she was alright, because not only was she hot, but because she was needed in their escape plans.

  Even if they didn´t use the pheromone as bait, they would need her knowledge, no matter how slight it was, for basic details. Things that her mind might have picked up on, but that she herself hadn´t noticed. Those small subconscious memories could help in an urgent situation. Every little detail counted and could mean the difference between life and death. He´d served in Afghanistan last year, there had been one new guy in his team, who´d survived a bombing. Rafe would never forget, what he´d told him. The man had said that he´d seen a pregnant woman walking around on a busy street, he hadn´t thought anything of it, but he´d told Rafe, that he´d instinctively stayed away from her, and had kept a close watch on her. When a bomb had gone off, she´d been the terrorist bomber, and his teammate had survived because his mind had subconsciously realized and recognized that something about her pregnant belly hadn´t rung true--it hadn´t, because it had been a bomb.

  Rafe knew not only from this story, but from his own experience, how the smallest details counted, and if Yvonne wanted to, and could help, then help she would.

  He looked around the small brook, frowning when he realized that she wasn´t there. They´d left her alone this morning with some privacy, as they´d started to trust her, believing that she really did want to help. He started to react with fury, pissed beyond belief that she´d run away from them again, but he studied the scene again, something wasn´t right.

  He quickly shifted to his black panther form, sniffed the bank and instantly scented another male, a cat. With a scream of fury, he tried to pick up Yvonne´s scent, but couldn´t. He looked around, scanning the area for any signs of a struggle. He couldn´t see any, but he noticed there was an indent at one side of the bank, perhaps where she´d sat down. The other cat´s scent was strong, but Yvonne´s wasn´t, which implied that the cat had come to the bank from the jungle, and had left with Yvonne through the water.

  With another howl, he called to Armando and Remy, and started to run through the water without waiting for them. He hadn´t recognized the other cat´s scent, but it was affecting his cat´s control, in a way that had never happened before. Rafe believed that it was the threat to Yvonne that was raising the his hackles, which he supposed didn´t bode well for his other life´s love ´em and leave ´em attitude. His cat was acting with a worrying possessiveness that Rafe had never felt before, and it didn´t look good for the bastard that had taken her.

  It wasn´t long before the small brook broke into a bigger river, the stream of water picking up pace. The land on either side of him was declining, and he knew that he would come to either a waterfall or rapids soon.

  Racing further and further away from the small camp they´d settled in the night before, he could hear the rush of water that indicated a waterfall. His superior hearing allowed him to hear more than just the fast flowing water, but it became more difficult so he ran closer to the land, scanning either side of the jungle. He started to fear that he´d made a mistake. Perhaps the cat had taken Yvonne on foot through the jungle and not through the water, but he doubted it.

  Looking farther ahead, he saw the land cut away suddenly, and knew that the waterfall was closer than he´d first thought.

  Standing still, he scanned the remaining land again. He doubted he´d made a mistake, but he turned around to make the run back to camp. As he spun, he thought he saw movement to his left, he whipped his head around quickly and saw Yvonne struggling with a man. She kicked and scratched his face, lifting her legs up to unsteady him and then swinging them down hard to kick into him.

  Incredibly, her struggles seemed to work. The man slipped on a rock and fell into the water. He didn´t pull her in with him, or if he tried to, Yvonne managed to keep her footing on the land. He watched as she dove off the river bank and swam back upriver towards the camp.

  Rafael couldn´t help but admire her fire, then quickly shifted to human form and leapt after her. He grabbed her by the collar from behind, tugging her against him, laughing as she shrieked and started to flail her arms out, “Yvonne, it´s me!”

  She stopped hitting him, spun around, and launched herself into his arms. “Rafe!”

  She pressed her lips against his, and although he wanted to respond, he heard movement from behind him. He pushed her away and tried to turn around but before he could, he was tackled from behind. His legs buckling, he tried to stay upright, but fell hard into the water.

  Yvonne screamed as she saw the man that had dragged her through the damned jungle jump on Rafe´s back and watched in horror as Rafael fell into the water and hit his head on a rock. She thought at first that he was alright, but as she saw the water fill with the red of his blood, she screamed again, “You bastard.”

  She kneeled down in the water to look at him, when Yvonne saw that his eyes were closed, she wanted to cry. She started to lean over him, but she fell backwards, when with a snarl he shifted into his cat form. For the first time, she noticed that his hair was as black as his cat´s pelt.

  Yvonne watched in awe as he took the other man down, his chest dripped with blood as Rafe´s lethal claws dug down deep. They rolled in the water, scrapping and clawing at one another. Blood gruesomely seeped into the water.

  The sheer amount of it frightened her. She only hoped that the majority of it wasn´t coming from Rafe. She yelped when she noticed that the tiger quickly turned human, but his hands and arms remained in cat form. He lifted the black panther in front of him and threw him onto the bank, then shifted back into a full tiger.

  Yvonne hadn’t seen Rafe or Remy do a partial shift. She remembered Armando had extended claws, but this was so much more than that.

  If Rafe could subdue the tiger, then he could not only be a possible ally, but a fantastic asset to their group as well.

  She waded quickly to the bank and had to physically stop herself from flinching at the blows the two cats were trading. She´d never seen a cat fight before, but they were damned lethal. Each had cuts lining their bellies, the Siberian tiger´s blood was dyed red, and the shine of blood was easy to see against the darkness of his pelt. They ripped and bit at each other with surprising ferocity, it was as though they wanted to kill the other, but maybe that was just how it seemed. When she heard splashes in the water, she turned around and saw Remy in cougar form, and Armando in black leopard form running quickly downstream. She yelled to them loudly, and watched in relief as they sped up, jumped onto the bank and joined in the fight.

  Remy leapt onto the tiger´s back, and tore the skin with his claws as the tiger bucked his back to throw him off. The tiger succeeded but Remy left deep gorges that bled profusely down his back and onto the ground. Armando head butted him from the side and managed to knock the tiger over. She was surprised at Armando´s strength, as he was obviously a lot tougher than the the tiger, who although weighed a lot more, mustn´t have had the capabilities that Armando had. She watched the three of them quickly corner the tiger at Armando´s lea
d, who shifted and held up his hands in surrender.

  “Stop, I give in!” he shouted as all three of the cats before him snarled and hissed at him. With a growl, Armando and Rafe shifted back, Remy remained as a cougar, and he would hiss sporadically at the tiger.

  Armando snarled, “Why the fuck did you take our women, stranger?”

  She preened unselfconsciously at his 'our' woman, it was an instinctive response and for once she reveled in it.

  “She wasn´t marked as yours, I thought she was fair game!” the man answered sulkily.

  He was young, younger than all three of her men, but with the bearing of a soldier. His body was muscled and obviously strong, but in their human form she could see why Armando had been able to overpower him. Although Armando looked sleek, his muscles like those of a swimmer, his advantage over any foe was obviously speed and the force he could put behind any attack. That combined with Remy and Rafe´s help, meant that they would win any fight over any adversary.

  Seeing them fight, she could understand how strong a pack they were, and how well they fought together. She could easily understand why the project wanted cats like these back. They were the perfect soldier and killing machine. Even she, without any formal military training, could see that.

  When Rafe had fallen down and hit his head on the rock, she now realized that he had been faking his injury to surprise the tiger, but she knew that he must have a slight concussion--the force of his head hitting that rock must have caused at least that. If it had slowed him down, she hadn´t seen it though. He´d fought with surprising strength and a wicked ferocity. She didn´t doubt that he would have overpowered the tiger eventually, his fury had made him fiercer and stronger. The tiger hadn´t had that on his side.

  “You must have scented us on her and in the area,” Rafe scowled at the tiger. “So why the fuck did you take her?”

  “Yes, I scented you, but I smell a lot of fucking cats everywhere, how was I to know that she was yours?” He was Russian, she could hear the slight sibilance and the faintest accent lying beneath his words.

  “Well she is ours, so leave her the fuck alone. How long have you been able to do that?” he asked the tiger, then told Armando, “He can partially shift. Be human with tiger paws.”

  Both men looked at him. Armando looked intrigued. He obviously wanted him for their pack.

  “Since I first shifted. I´ve just escaped those bastards, apparently I was the test tube experiment of their next virus batch. Don´t want to infect their American soldiers with the wrong virus, now do they?” he spat furiously.

  “Do you want to escape the island?” Armando asked.

  “Do bears shit in the woods?” he replied crudely.

  “You can help us then, we´re planning to escape, sooner rather than later, with that lady´s help. Don´t fuck with her, or you fuck with us, and this time we won´t stop, even if your abilities will be a great help to our cause. You will not touch her,” Armando thundered threateningly.

  He held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, Okay, I got that already. The name´s Nikolai Aleksandr.”

  He got to his feet and stood up warily as Remy growled savagely at him. He focused on Remy for a second, which gave Yvonne the time she needed, she´d been edging closer to him all throughout the men´s discussion, and with his attention focused on the still-shifted cougar, she whipped out her hand and slapped him once then punched him with the heel of her palm, slamming upwards against his nose.

  With a howl of pain, he yelped, “You broke my nose, fuck!”

  She gave him the evil eye. He laughed for a second, then rubbed his slapped cheek and set his nose back to the correct position with a grunt. She couldn´t help but be pissed that they were willing to class his attempt at dragging her through the river to whatever fate laid ahead of her, as a fucking misunderstanding. She spun around and gifted them all with the evil eye, and walked back over to the river bank to wash her hands. Nikolai´s face had already been covered in blood from the fight before she´d smacked him. She washed the blood of his hands away with satisfaction.

  “We´re trying to gather a bunch of cats together so that we can overhaul a ship and get off this fucking place. Yvonne told us that the only way in and out of the island is the port. She said that there are a lot of boats in the water, but the one she came in on is the one we´re after. We should be able to take one over--if we have enough men. That´s the plan so far,” Rafe told the Russian.

  “If you follow me, I know where there are a pack of lion shifters who want to escape as much as I and you do. We escaped together last week. They´ve clumped together, but I went on my own way. I know where they are though,” he told them all earnestly.

  Armando raised his brows for a second, then shrugged, “Lead the way.”

  Chapter Nine

  The small group had followed Nikolai for the past hour.

  Remy, not trusting their new ally, remained in cougar form.

  Yvonne remained beside Armando and Rafe took the rear of them all.

  She was pissed off at them, and couldn´t help herself, so even though Armando kept trying to draw her nearer to him, she ignored his overtures, but stayed close since she knew they would protect her from any threat.

  Armando leaned behind and hissed to Rafe, “The pheromone´s gone, I can´t smell it anymore, can you?”

  At Rafe´s nod, Armando grinned in satisfaction. “Good! She should be safe from any randy fucking cat, must have been when they traveled through the water, the drenching washed it all way.”

  Yvonne was just relieved not to have that burden on her shoulders anymore. She was tired of these cavemen thinking they could haul her off and have their way with her, just because she was the only available woman in the area. It stung her pride, and worse, she hated the helpless feeling it evoked to be utterly defenseless against such superior strength.

  That the pheromone had finally been erased from her body was good. It was probably the reason why the Russian had come after her, so how could she not be glad that it had gone? She didn´t want to experience anymore kidnappings. Twice was enough for any person!

  She supposed the idea of using her as bait had been scraped from the list, as not only was Armando glad, he sounded relieved too. They were probably going to try and persuade other cats to join them and help them escape. She couldn´t foresee there being any problems, who wouldn´t want to escape this bloody jungle? Surely they would jump at the chance to go home?

  Although she was pissed at them for just forgiving Nikolai--he hadn´t suffered enough in her opinion, bastard--just dragging her through the bloody water like she was a dead dolphin or something. No, he definitely hadn´t suffered enough!

  Her mind kept wandering back to the fight, how magnificent they´d all been, and truth be told, still were. As cats though, there was something elemental about them. She was no longer repulsed or sickened by the thought of them. They intrigued her and probably always would.

  She was a fighter, a hunter and tracker by trade, although she chose never to do any undo and unnecessary harm, she knew that at times, it was very necessary. Either she harm her attacker or they would hurt her. Simple as that, obviously.

  She’d thought herself immune to the shows of testosterone, and didn´t need to be protected by a man--in the normal world that is. Here, she was in a parallel universe where she needed the strength of men to protect her because she physically couldn´t it herself. She didn´t have the strength or speed to beat the cats, or the weapons to defend herself.

  So here she was, in this unique situation, where she could no longer rely on herself, something that she´d done from an extremely early age, now, she needed men. Not just any men though, these three men.

  In the real world, she wouldn´t have needed those men to come to her aid, the tiger would have been on his ass within seconds, his balls up his butt and his dick in a knot; she wouldn´t have to think about the fight--she´d been in it and seen to the outcome. Here, she´d watched a fight over her, and she
was equal parts pleased at their care, and equal parts aroused at watching them fight. She felt a little mortified that she was attracted to their display, albeit unintentionally, of testosterone, but that cave woman was rearing her ugly head, and truth be told, she couldn´t wait to jump them.

  She could practically feel the hard thrust of their cocks in her soft welcoming pussy, wanted to feel it in her mouth and ass. She wanted to suck them dry and be pleasured in the process. Anger and irritation aside, damn, she sure was randy!

  As she thought about the men themselves, she knew that she was fond of them, that her feelings for them could very easily turn to love, and if she wasn´t so hell bent on denying it, she could probably admit to being more than halfway there anyway.

  Time in the jungle didn’t move at the same rate. She’d been struck by a fever in her blood that only they could quench. It was unstoppable, and she was dreading leaving them.

  Yvonne had never relied on anyone—it was a weakness she’d never been capable of affording. She’d never needed anyone and never had anyone who’d actually wanted her to need them.

  That she wanted, needed, and relied upon Armando, Rafael, and Remy, wasn’t lost on her.

  Her feelings scared her more than anything, and it was the reason why she couldn´t admit the truth to them. How could she? She´d gone past thinking of social approval--that had been a smoke in the mirror diversion, she didn´t give a shit what anybody thought.

  If she wanted to fuck three men, then she would. Nothing would stop her. She didn´t have to worry about parental approval, didn´t care if people thought of her a slut, with these three men she wanted to be theirs with a desperation that bordered on obsession.

  She fully admitted it.

  But she couldn´t admit, not even to herself, her feelings for Remy, Armando and Rafael. They were intense and varied, she felt one thing for one and another thing for another, whatever the emotion they inspired in her though, it all rounded up to the same for each. She wouldn´t say the words, couldn´t think them; she doubted any feelings were reciprocated. It was highly unlikely that they thought anything serious about her, nothing more than--she´s a good fuck, she´s an easy lay, or we can use her information to get off the island.