Jaguar Fever

For two nights in a row after supper when Kat and Connor were at it again in their cottage (Maya was certain the jungle did something to their libido), she went on a run as a jaguar by herself just a short distance from the cottages. The overwhelming need to see if Wade had been anywhere nearby was making her crazy. The longer she didn’t see him, the more anxious she was becoming. Besides, Connor had agreed that the hunters wouldn’t be out hunting at night. It would be dark soon.

She was only about two miles from the resort, not having meant to wander that far, when she heard a man shout, “The jaguar’s down! We got her! Whoa, watch out for those claws! She’s not out!”

Maya’s heart jumped.

She… female… the jaguar that had been seen around the cottages? Maya glanced behind her. It couldn’t be Kat. Unless the ones who grabbed the cat weren’t shifters and didn’t realize Kat was a shifter. But Kat and Connor couldn’t have come looking for her yet. And Connor would have been with Kat. It had to be the non-shifting female jaguar.

Maya was afraid to go to her brother for help. What if the men took off with the jaguar, and she and her brother were too late in returning to rescue her?

Her heart drumming, all Maya could think of doing was rescuing the jaguar herself. She’d get close, then wing it.

“Holy shit! Where’d he come from?”

A roar met her ears. She paused. It wasn’t her brother’s roar. Was it David or Wade trying to rescue the female cat?

She wasn’t in the Service or elite forces Golden Claw, but she damned well wasn’t going to let the men take the cat from her environment. She’d kill them first.

She moved silently through the jungle, her spots rippling across her muscles and making her golden skin appear to mix and meld with the dappled leaves of the rainforest. Lifting her nose, she paused to smell the air. There was no breeze, the air perfectly still.

Dogs began to bark some distance away.

“Shoot him!” one man said.

“I don’t have any more tranq darts!”

“Kill him, damn it!”

She ran full out, no longer using caution.

“Wait, got one!”

A dog yelped. The cat roared again.

A pop sounded. The cat screamed.

A chill raced along her spine. Then she got a whiff of wet smelly dog, and her hackles rose. She could easily kill a dog, though she preferred not to. They could smell her scent, and they’d probably give chase if they weren’t being confined. No matter what, she had to get to the cats.

After climbing onto a branch, she leaped from one tree to another, then jumped to the ground again and ran through the dense foliage until she was close to where the men were speaking and stopped dead in her tracks. Hidden by leaves and vines and two fallen trees, she quickly scanned the area.

Beyond her hiding spot, she saw two jaguars down.

Wade Patterson. She barely breathed. He was lying on his side in his jaguar form, breathing in and out, his heart rate slow.

Anger welled up inside her, and she fought the idea of attacking the men that instant and risking all the jaguars’ lives.

A female was down also, not a shifter. Not Kat. Both were drugged, their tails twitching slightly. Thank God. Not dead.

And the men—there were two of them. One she didn’t know. The other—she clenched her teeth together. Bill Bettinger, the bastard. Dressed in camo clothes as if he was in the U.S. Army, in combat boots with a billed cap tugged tightly over red curls, he was staring at Wade as if he was trying to figure out what to do with him. He couldn’t take a shifter back to the States, pretending he was a jaguar. He couldn’t leave him here and remove the female from the jungle, knowing Wade had his number.

But if Bettinger killed Wade now, the other man would see Wade turn from a jaguar to a human. Dark hair fell to the hunter’s shoulders, his eyes gray-blue, his clothes a more worn version of what Bettinger was wearing. He looked like bad news.

“The buyer is going to love this,” the human said. “We could sell him both cats. If he kept them for a while at his ranch, the male might breed with the female and then if she had cubs, he could have some more to hunt later. I don’t blame him for feeling there’s more sport in hunting a wild beast of prey rather than a deer.”

Bettinger snorted with disdain. “How are the hunters going to kill the jaguars? Riding ATVs? Or are they going on foot with a bow and arrow? Not much sport if they’re going to gun it down from a protected vehicle.”

She was surprised to hear the pride in Bettinger’s voice when he spoke about jaguars, considering he was selling them out.

The human shrugged. “They see themselves as big-game hunters. Who knows how they take down their prey? As long as the buyer pays us, that’s all that matters. If he doesn’t want them, we’ll just sell off the cats to the highest bidder at any of the dozens of auctions across the U.S. What do I care as long as we get the money for them?”

Bettinger smiled. “To think we could still be in the drug trade, risking our necks.” Then he turned icy-blue eyes from the cats to the man and said, “Mylar, I need you to leave, now. Go see to the dogs.”

“But…”

“Now, damn it. Go!”

The man looked at Bettinger like he was crazy. “What are you going to do?”

“Kill the male. And you if you don’t get your ass out of here.”

“What? You’re only going to take one of them? We could sell both. We could get twice the money.”

Bettinger turned the rifle on Mylar. “He’s rabid. We can’t take him with us. I’m… not… going… to… tell… you… again. Go. Now.”

“How do you know he’s rabid? He looks fine to me.”

Bettinger settled his finger on the rifle trigger, and Mylar looked back at him, his eyes rounded. Then he let out a grunt, turned, and headed in Maya’s direction. She quickly crouched behind the trees, listening to his heavy footfalls as he walked past her fallen tree barrier, headed in the direction of the barking dogs.

Wade’s eyes opened for a fraction of an instant, widening when he saw her through the fallen trees. He looked groggy. His eyelids dropped into narrow slits. He was too tired to be of any help in this mission. She was on her own.

Bettinger was watching the other man’s progress, waiting until he was out of earshot. She was getting ready to leap from her hiding place before he shot and killed Wade, but she hesitated when Bettinger said, “What the hell are you doing out here?”

Not that Wade could reply to him in his jaguar form.

He kicked Wade in the chest.

The jaguar growled, but he was so out of it that the sound was barely audible.

Maya bared her teeth in silent protest.

“This won’t do.” Bettinger raised his rifle to shoot Wade somewhere less vital, but he had to know that wouldn’t trigger the shift. Only a kill would. “Maybe if I shoot you somewhere that’ll hurt but won’t be fatal, you’ll want to talk? Tell me why you’re here? I don’t believe in coincidences. You must be in the Service. You and your brother. The other guys, too, that you were with at the club? Hell. Forget wounding you. Too bad for you that you weren’t better at your job. I thought the Service only hired the best.”

His finger moved to the trigger again as Maya roared and leaped for the kill.

Chapter 13