Midnight Predator

“Thank you, milady,” Turquoise said with mock formality, addressing Shayla, who did not look up from meticulously cleaning her right forepaw.

Shayla seemed to sense that the atmosphere had mellowed; she chose that moment to pounce, which engaged Jaguar in a round of kittenish play.

Turquoise could not keep herself from laughing. She was watching a vampireromp.

Shayla was the one who disengaged first, when Jaguar managed to roll her nearly into the irises. She walked off with her ears perked, her posture saying, “I meant to do that,” as she retreated to the trees.

Jaguar remained lounging on the ground. He propped himself up on his elbows to look at Turquoise. “I’ve been told that I spend too much time in jaguar form, and it affects my behavior. Do you think it might be true?”

“Definitely.” He had given her leave to speak as she wished with him, and she sought to explore how far the limits on that freedom stretched. “How long have you known Shayla?”

Jaguar sighed. “I’ve known her family since her great-grandfather was a kitten. Shayla was injured by a hunter a few years ago; she lost one eye and nearly lost the other, and she still walks with a slight limp where the bone was set too late. She never would have survived in the jungle, so I brought her here.” Jaguar glanced toward Shayla, and Turquoise followed his gaze; in response to the attention, Shayla yawned widely.

“A lot of the older cultures in Central and South America thought jaguars were gods, or messengers of the gods,” Jaguar noted absently.

The comment prompted Turquoise to ask, “Your homeland?”

His expression cooled slightly, but he answered, “My mother’s.” His voice was carefully neutral as he added, “My father was Spanish.”

He turned away abruptly, and Turquoise berated herself for asking the question. She would never have asked any other vampire, as they tended to respond violently when questioned about their origins. For a moment, she had almost forgotten what Jaguar was.

Now would be a good time to back off and let him simmer alone. Vampiric tempers could be volatile, and when set off they could be deadly.

“Jaguar—”

He had assembled his walls again. “It’s almost noon, Audra. I’ll speak to you later.”

She nodded, and watched in mute fascination as he returned to jaguar form and loped back into the grove of trees.

You can stay here as long as you like,he offered belatedly. His voice slid through her mind, unwelcome and threateningly open, almost an apology about his abrupt brush-off.

Turquoise had to fight her instant impulse to throw up walls and keep him out of her mind. While most hunter groups taught how to guard one’s mind at least partially against vampires, that was not a skill most humans had, and doing so while Jaguar was already in her mind could only make him suspicious.

As it was, she sensed him pulling back mentally. When he spoke again, his mental voice was fainter, and carried none of the flavor of Jaguar’s mind.Relax, Audra. Enjoy the sunlight.

She could not tell whether he was sincere or sarcastic.

Shayla tilted her head, curious, as Turquoise sighed heavily and sat on one of the stones. Turquoise regarded the puzzled jaguar tiredly.

“Do you understand him any better than I do?” she found herself asking. Shayla reacted to the words by nuzzling at Turquoise’s side.

Why bother to understand Jaguar? The most obvious answer was so she could predict him. An unpredictable opponent is far more dangerous than one whose moves can be guessed ahead of time, and Jaguar would figure prominently in any move Turquoise and Ravyn made against Jeshickah. But nagging at her was the thought that she wanted to understand Jaguar simply because he confused her, and she was not used to being confused.

She was human. She was mortal. She recognized the fact that she was not all knowing. However, in the two years she had spent hunting vampires, she had never met a creature she so completely failed to grasp.

Nathaniel had painted Jaguar as a dangerous, cold foe; she had wanted to plant a knife in the creature upon hearing the mercenary’s words. Yet Nathaniel’s arrogant Master of Midnight had turned out to seem sincere and open, and she found herself wondering about the contrasts in his character. One moment he was coldly dismissing Lord Daryl, and the next he was affectionately wrestling Shayla. Turquoise did not understand him, and for that reason above any other she did not trust him.

Trust. That was a word she had long ago learned to avoid. The only thing anyone could trust was that everyone else would look out for himself first.

Shayla was trying for Turquoise’s attention again; the jaguar was as bad as a kitten wanting a playmate—a very large, deadly kitten, but just as spoiled and restless.

Barely noon, and Turquoise had little she could do for hours. Ravyn had looked exhausted; she would sleep for a while yet. The courtyard, while beautiful, had proved far less interesting than when it had been forbidden. And fortunately, the vampires would mostly be asleep at this time.

She stretched out next to Shayla. The sun felt wonderful on her bare arms. She was pale, having spent most of the past two years following the nocturnal schedule of the creatures she hunted; she could not remember the last time she had simply lazed an afternoon away in the sunlight.

That was exactly what she decided to do. She had not slept much, and combined with the loss of blood, she was tired. She dozed, and then wrestled with Shayla for a bit, then dozed again.

CHAPTER 10

“FIRST LESSON: TITLE,” he said calmly as Catherine struggled for breath past the pale hand wrapped around her throat. “You will address me as Lord Daryl.”

“Get your hands off me,” she hissed in return, her voice made hoarse by the difficulty of drawing breath. Lord Daryl backhanded her nonchalantly, and sparks danced in her vision.

“Say it,” he ordered, one hand still wrapped around her throat and holding her against the wall.

Instead, she tried to kick him; with reflexes faster than a striking snake he caught her ankle and pulled her off her feet. Her back slammed against the ground hard enough to knock the already scant breath from her lungs, and she choked around a gasp of pain as her head snapped against the polished wooden floor. The world swam; she could not have stood if she had tried.

“Well, Catherine?” he prompted.

“My lord,” she growled in response, “you can go to hell.”

She started to push herself back to her feet and he kicked her down again, the tip of one steel- toed boot glancing off the side of her ribs hard enough that breathing became instant agony and she wondered if anything was broken. Another couple of those love-taps would probably kill her. But why should he care? He had already killed her family.

The thought gave her the energy to try to stand again despite the ache in her ribs and head, but the attempt was rewarded by another blow.

“Lord Daryl,” she whispered, still on the floor, unable to get the breath to speak louder. “You happy now?”

He nodded, those fair, sculpted features betraying nothing past a cool mask of derision. “Almost.”

She woke struggling for breath, aching from phantom injuries long healed. That first beating, the first night she had woken in Lord Daryl’s manor, had been minor compared to what she had later endured, but it had been the first and that made it the most terrifying in her memory.

A modern American teenager in a white-collar, preppy town, Catherine Minate had never been hit in her life