by A. C. Arthur
Kalina wasn’t sure, but she didn’t think she wanted to be cleansed by another woman. At that precise moment a smooth almond-like scent wafted through her nostrils and Kalina’s shoulders relaxed.
“It will open your mind,” Magdalena said. “You are a shadow but you do not know the Gungi. You do not know our ways or our thinking. I will show you,” she finished, moving her body with an agility that shocked Kalina.
When she pulled out a stool and turned to grab one of those clay pots, Elisa came to Kalina’s side and guided her to the chair.
Elisa’s voice was soft as she spoke. “Do not be afraid, it is customary for the mother to cleanse and prepare her daughter. Your mother is not here, so Magdalena will do it.”
When she was in the chair Magdalena pushed the thin straps of the tank top Kalina wore off her shoulders and down to her waist. Kalina’s top half was naked, all but the necklace that connected her to these people, to this place. With both her hands Magdalena reached into the clay pot, cupping the liquid inside in her palms.
“Bow your head. Close your eyes,” she instructed Kalina. “Think only of your companheiro.”
Kalina did as she was told, a picture of Rome’s face instantly filling her mind as she closed her eyes. The liquid that splashed against her back was hot, but it didn’t scorch; it touched her skin and seeped into the pores, into her system.
As Magdalena worked she talked.
“You will hunger for him like no other male in your lifetime. Your body—human and cat—will need him always. This will not go away. He will become yours and you his. No other will ever compare and will most assuredly die for trying to come between you.”
Kalina inhaled and exhaled deeply, letting the scents and the feel of Magdalena’s hands rubbing up and down her back sink in. Never before had Kalina felt this relaxed, this at ease. And by the end of the session when she’d been stripped naked and completely marinated in the warm oil, she’d thought her languid body would never move again.
Yet now, as she lay in bed with Rome beside her, she was hot and unsettled.
She slipped out of the bed, bare feet padding across the matted ground that served as a floor. She went to a window and looked out into the dark night. Tiny beads of light showed here and there, and she assumed they were eyes of the natives, going about their normal lives. There were several nocturnal species here in the rain forest; Kalina didn’t know all of them, but felt an eerie connection to just the same. There were some in the tribe who had homes high up in the trees, but since they were only visiting they’d taken the ground huts, which were guarded like the White House. She didn’t see all the shifters that were guarding the circle of about six huts, but she knew they were there, felt their eyes deep in the foliage as she looked out into the night.
“Can’t sleep?” Rome asked from behind.
“No. I feel like … like I need to do something,” she tried to explain but words were failing her. “I want to move, to get out of here, to feel the breeze on my skin. I want…” She trailed off, her arms wrapping around her, hands moving up and down over skin that rippled with anticipation.
“She wants to run,” he said, coming to stand beside her. “Your cat knows that she’s home and she wants to run.”
“But I haven’t done that since that night. I thought maybe it was a onetime thing for me.”
Rome shook his head, running his fingers through her hair then letting them slip down to the nape of her neck. “You’re a jaguar shifter, Kalina. Now and forever. She was just giving you time to acquaint yourself with that fact. But now she wants to be free.”
Kalina inhaled deeply, loving the smell of the damp air, the scents of the forest. Closing her eyes, she tried to accept Rome’s words.
“Reach for her and she’ll tell you what she wants,” he said.
“How?”
“Just concentrate. She’s a part of you, so you’ll understand her better than anyone else. You have to learn to co-exist. You’ll recognize her signals and she’ll recognize yours.”
Keeping her eyes closed, Kalina reached for that other entity she knew was there. And as if she’d opened a door the cat emerged with power and regality that simmered throughout Kalina’s body. She was a sleek cat, long and lean, with a strong body, a rich golden coat, and vivid black rosettes. Her eyes were yellow-gold and shimmered at Kalina with recognition.
She gasped at the familiarity and reached out. They were one and the same, kindred spirits in different forms. Slinking into her mind, the cat stretched and yawned, and Kalina sensed her need. Her eyes opened and she stared at Rome. “She wants to run.”
Chapter 30
Even the rain here in the forest was different. Its smell was refreshing, cleansing. The sound it made as it trickled through the canopy, sluicing over vegetation to puddle on the already sodden ground, was almost musical. She’d run as fast as she could, pawed feet clomping over the soaked foliage on the ground. Her claws had extended as she climbed the tree and walked along its branches. Over rock formations, through brush she ran, startling the inhabitants as she went. Monkeys screeched, their little mouths opening wide with surprise. Snakes hissed, vampire bats shrieked. And Kalina’s cat ran as if she were free for the first time in her life. When she’d gone as far as she could with her heart pounding right through her flanks, she fell to the side on a large rock and just lay there. Her eyes opened and closed and opened and closed as the rain-blurred scenery wavered in front of her.
“Feels good doesn’t it?”
She lifted her head, saw Rome through her golden cat’s eyes, and growled low in her throat.
He only chuckled, his dark skin beaded with droplets of rain. He’d probably run behind her, his cat that is, since he still didn’t think he could leave her alone for long periods of time. It was the comapnheiro calor—that’s what Magdalena had called the deep hunger she was experiencing. It would subside only after the first birthing. Something Kalina wasn’t so certain she was looking forward to. She’d barely just accepted Rome and his presence in her life before he’d thrust this shifting business on her. To be fair, he couldn’t have thrust this on her even if he’d tried. Shifters weren’t like vampires; they couldn’t turn a human into one of them through a bite.
Shifters were born either pure or mixed breed. There had to be a coupling of male and female—either or both being a shifter—to birth a shifter. She knew that now, just as she knew her parents had been powerful joined shifters.
“I used to run through here as a cub. Nothing I’ve done in my life since then has matched the feeling.”
Rome reached out and stroked the long length of her tail. She nipped at him, only to have him slap playfully at the top of her head.
“You’re home now, Kalina. This is where you belong.”
With a long stretch and her human half demanding her presence be known, the cat that lounged on the rock shifted to the now naked female with fire in her eyes.
“This is not my home.” She tossed the words with the tightness she felt in her chest. “It’s yours.”
Kalina was still so confused. Although the time with Magdalena had opened her eyes to the people her parents were and what was expected of her, she still wasn’t 100 percent sure. And for Kalina, being certain was important. For so long she’d waited to belong somewhere, to someone, to be a part of something special. All this had happened so fast, she was too jaded to simply believe.
“It is ours. We are both Shadow Shifters. You know that now” was Rome’s serious reply.
“I know that I am not who or what I thought I was.” And that was the honest truth. She was not Kalina Harper, the orphan who’d become a cop and lived a solitary life, not anymore.
“And that’s a bad thing?”
She sighed, rubbing both hands over her wet hair. “It’s just something I guess I’ll have to get used to.”
“Why won’t you let me help you?”
“Because I don’t need any help. I don’t need anything.”
> He touched one finger to her chin, tilting her head up to face him. “But you do, gato. You need me. And I need you.”
The truth to his words only heated her more. “I need to find me.”
“You aren’t lost. You’re right here where you belong. You only need to let go of everything you thought you knew, you thought you were, and embrace what is. This is why you never belonged, Kalina, why you never fit in with anyone back in the States. Because you belonged here, to the Gungi. It’s been running in your blood all these years, begging you to accept your heritage.”
“I just can’t believe this.”
“You can because you know who they were,” he said lifting the piece that hung from her necklace. “And you know it in here.”
Rome tapped lightly on her chest with his fingertips, then let them slide down to feather over one turgid nipple. “In your heart you know where you belong.”
She sighed, arching her back to welcome his touch.
“And you know now to whom you belong.”
Without warning Kalina moved toward him, using her palms to push against his chest until he fell back on the rock she’d just been lying on.
What she knew right now was what she wanted. Under the dark cover of night she wanted her mate. Her pussy pulsated, swollen lips dripping with arousal. Her breasts were heavy, nipples painfully erect. What she wanted was right here and she planned to take every inch of it.
Rome watched her steadily, his hands reaching up to cup her face.
“My gato inferno,” he whispered. She let the endearment roll over her body, let the hunger of the cat take over.
With long, slow strokes she licked at his chest, felt the ridge of his pectoral muscles, the tight bud of his nipple beneath her tongue. She moved along slowly over the ridges of his abs, determined to taste every inch of him. From above the rain tickled her back, provided a slight reprieve to the heat boiling inside her.
Moving down his torso, she licked at his muscled thighs, loved the light sprinkle of hair that tickled her lips as she did. His erection was thick, long, hard, and as she moved along she loved the feel of it on her cheek, over her face, whispering past her lips. Her fingers roamed, touching lightly the base of his dick then moving down to coddle the heavy sack of his balls. Dipping her head lower she put the sack into her mouth, moved each one over her tongue, suckled deep, then released and licked again.
Rome was groaning low, the sound mingling with that of the jungle and the light pitter-patter of the rain. Her tongue continued its assault until her thirst for more brought her mouth upward to his thick length. She licked him from the base to the tip like a fudge ice cream pop. Her tongue stroked over him hungrily, drinking in the scent of their union as she did. His hands were in her hair now, pulling the short strands, gripping her head, guiding her to take him deep. She didn’t want that just yet, was content to lick him for a little longer.
When her tongue slid over the tip she paused, pressed into the tiny slit of his dick, loving the taste of his arousal as it slid smoothly over her tongue.
Rome’s hips jutted forward at the sensations ripping through him. Moving his hands to her shoulders, he pulled her away from his dick before he exploded right then.
When she looked up at him in question he simply shook his head. “You little temptress. Now I’ve got to punish you for that stunt.”
Kalina licked her lips slowly. “Punish me, huh? I’m so afraid.”
“Oh, it’s not fear you’re going to feel, baby. Nothing but pleasure for you, I promise.”
Lifting himself up off the rock, Rome turned Kalina so that her palms splayed along the smooth, wet surface. With his palm to her back, he pushed her forward. Spreading her legs, he sank his length into her with one deft stroke. She hissed then turned to cast him a satisfied glare over her shoulder.
His gato inferno, he thought as his thrusts began. She was tight and hot and sweet as hell as he fucked her here, in their home, in the Gungi. His palms smacked the wet cheeks of her bottom as she thrust back to meet his deep stroking. And just when Rome felt the first tremors of her thighs, knew she was about to come, he pulled out. Falling to his knees, he moved his face between her legs to lick and stroke her plump folds, capturing her release into his mouth with a satisfied groan.
“My turn,” she whispered once her release had racked through her body not once, but twice, and his mouth continued to feast on her.
Moving out of his grasp, she found his still-burgeoning arousal and took the length into her mouth, suckling hard and deep continuously until he was roaring in the air with the other night animals. His release came in thick hot spurts that she took wantonly, loving the essence of him moving through her body.
Lying on the damp floor of the forest, they caught their breaths and stared up into the night.
“I love you,” Rome said, reaching for her hand.
Kalina would never know if it was his words, or the oils Magdalena had used to cleanse her, or her mother’s necklace, or the scent of the Gungi itself. At this moment it didn’t really matter what one thing had pushed her over the edge of indecision. None of it mattered anymore.
She let his fingers wrap around hers, relishing the feeling, the sense of belonging that filled her so completely. The Gungi was not only a place, it was the birthplace of her parents, it was where the man she loved originated. It was her home. And she was a Shadow Shifter; her cat lying languorously sated inside her proved that point.
“I love you, too,” she admitted out loud for the first time.
Seconds later they both shifted, running through the forest, beneath the sheets of rain now dropping around them, finally free.
Epilogue
Nick heard the night sounds and cringed at the thought that Aryiola was out there somewhere. He had no doubt that Sabar had taken her, if not personally then by orchestrating the mission.
He wished to hell Kalina would have shot his ass that night in the row house. But she’d frozen, a mixture of fear and confusion at what had happened around her taking control. He understood but still wished Sabar were dead. Then he couldn’t have taken Aryiola, he couldn’t have touched the one thing in Nick’s life that he couldn’t control.
Getting up, he went outside, let his cat rip free, and charged into the depths of the jungle, roaring his displeasure as he went. He hoped Sabar was near and heard him, prayed that fucker knew he was coming for him. Because Nick vowed not to leave the jungle again without the woman he loved.
Read on for a sneak peek at the next scintillating Shadow Shifter novel
SEDUCTION’S SHIFT
Coming Fall 2012 from St. Martin’s Paperbacks
It was dark but at least it was clean. The last hut reeked of filth, body odor, and other less appealing things. When they’d stuffed that gag into her mouth, Ary had wanted to vomit, and when she’d seen him, she’d wanted to kill.
Sabar Tavares, adopted son of Elder Julio and Maria Sabien Tavares. A Topètenia shifter who should have walked in his parents’ footsteps, striving to enforce peace and equality amongst their kind. Instead he was doing this. Again.
And this time she was his target.
Ary had heard of him before; she’d seen him in the village throughout the years before he left for good about six years ago. After that she’d only heard of what he was doing and even that was just whispers. Nobody wanted to be caught talking about the Shadow who’d gone Rogue.
Now he was back and he was holding her captive. Why, Ary had no idea, but she knew it couldn’t be anything good.
This new location was an old building. She’d seen a little through the blindfold she’d managed to loosen by rubbing her head against the cab of the truck they transported her in. It was a dilapidated shack once used to mix the drugs that were eventually shipped out of the forest and sold. They were beyond the Gungi now, on the other side of the river through the thick brush that was good for hiding drug houses such as this one. The boards around her creaked and had slats missing from the w
alls. But it was covered with a huge, dark-colored tarp that kept the elements out and whatever unlawfulness that was going on inside in.
They’d dragged her through one large room, her legs slapping against table legs that wobbled and fell. The racket they’d created was deafening, but they were so far out there was no one to hear. They could do whatever they wanted to her out here and she could scream until her lungs dried of air, but nobody would hear her. Nobody would come to her rescue.
Ary inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. Her chest hurt with the action because they’d kicked her when she fell to the ground. She’d done so hoping to roll out of their reach, but one grabbed her up, throwing her over his massive shoulder. The other had tied her ankles and hands, and when she’d screamed a string of obscenities at them, they’d gagged her. She suspected the bruise to her face came when they dropped her to the floor and she’d landed painfully on her cheek. But after Sabar’s directive, they’d moved her a little more carefully this time around.
She was still tied up so escape wasn’t going to be easy. The disgusting gag was thankfully gone, left on the floor in the first hut where Sabar had thrown it. And they’d taken the blindfold off, probably figuring she couldn’t see much. But her cat could see everything. If she could just get outside, she could figure out her exact location, shift, and go home. Or she could just shift.
The idea had come to her many times since they’d taken her. Shift into a jaguar, kill her assailants, and call it a day. Then what? The bodies would be found; autopsies would prove a vicious predator had taken their lives. Humans would be outraged and pour into the forest looking to shoot anything on four legs. It would be like leading the lamb to slaughter, something she would never do to her people.
But she would escape, there was no way in hell Sabar Tavares would have the satisfaction of killing her. That’s what she assumed this was all about. After all, killing was what Sabar was best known for.
Closing her eyes to that thought, Ary let her head fall back against the rickety wall, felt spears of loose wood sticking into her scalp but didn’t care. She needed to think, needed to figure out what to do.
