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
