by Jade Alters
"All?" She stared at us with wide eyes. "No, no, no," she babbled and then turned and went to launch herself over the side.
"Oh, no," said Ryker. We all dove for her and grabbed a piece of her as she shrieked in her fright.
"Let me go! Let me go!" she screamed.
"Shh, shh," Ryker said using his Alpha voice to calm her. But it didn't work. She thrashed under Ryker's, Gunner's, and Kane's grip.
"Let her go," I said.
"But—"
"Where's she going to go, eh? In the ocean? After she's seen what's in the water?"
Jeanine stilled perhaps as reason dawned and the guys released their grip. She whipped around though and faced me with a fierce look on her face as if she'd take me on and take me down too.
She looked terribly cute at that moment.
"What?" she retorted. "What are you smiling at?"
That she directed her attention to me made me stupidly happy.
"You," I said.
She crossed her arms and huffed.
"You didn't answer my question?"
"He's a jaguar shifter."
"Shi—what? You turned into a big cat?"
"Yep."
She turned again as if to launch herself over the side again, but this time Ryker caught her around the waist.
"Stop. No one will hurt you."
"That's right, baby," said Gunner. He sidled next to her. "We want to protect you."
"I don't understand what's happening. I must be hallucinating. That's it. Maybe I bumped my head, and I'm unconscious, and you are all products of my overactive imagination?"
Ryker shook his head. "No, doll, you aren't imagining anything."
"Ha," she huffed. "I'm sure my unconscious mind will say anything to get me to keep this delusion going."
"It might," conceded Kane, "if you were unconscious but you aren't."
She pointed a finger at Kane. "You're a delusion."
"Now, babe," said Gunner.
"Don't 'now babe' me. The only thing that makes sense is that I'm unconscious or dreaming. I don't know what's going on here but grown men do not turn into jaguars.
"We do," said Ryker.
"You all?"
"Yes," said Kane. "We do."
"Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no," she babbled.
Ryker directed Gunner to get the bottle of whiskey he found on our abandoned boat, and he opened it and handed it to her.
"Drink this."
This strictly was not a good idea, especially in the heat of day, and with limited water supplies. But sometimes you measure one risk against another.
Jeanine gripped the bottle with shaking fingers and took first one swig, then another.
"Ugh," she said.
"What?" said Gunner with a quirky smile. "You don't like our whiskey?"
She took another and pointed her fingers at us.
"What the hell?"
"At least we got past 'no, no, no,'" said Gunner with a smile. She shot him a nasty look, and I didn't blame her. Gunner's smart mouth often got us in trouble.
"Drink some more," urged Ryker.
"Nope, you take one now," she said shoving the bottle at him. "You'll drink, and everyone else too."
Ryker sucked on his lips. Like the rest of us, he knew the danger of drinking alcohol on short water rations. But he also wanted to keep her calm.
"Okay," he said taking the bottle. He passed it to Gunner who took a swig and passed it Kane, who gave it to me. I handed it back to her, but she shook her head.
"Okay, spill. What are you guys? Some weird government science experiment?"
"No," rumbled Ryker. "This is top secret stuff. We shouldn't tell you but considering…"
"Considering what?"
"We'll get to that. From what we can figure, we were born this way. We didn't even know what we were until the government brought us together."
"Ryker," said Gunner, "thinks that our people lived in greater numbers before humans spread over the earth."
Right," she said with skepticism. "You'll forgive me for not believing you." Her stubborn jaw set, and I wanted to kiss that recalcitrance from her magnificent lips.
"What?" said Kane. "Government experiments to create a race of men who shift into cats is more believable?"
"It might be."
"Well, forget it," said Kane. "No one has the technology to make those kinds of hybrids."
"Chimeras," she said. "That's what they are called."
"Human chimeras, hybrids, what you call them, they aren't possible."
"Did some scientists create pig-human hybrids?"
Kane shuddered. "Embryos implanted into pigs, and they destroyed them after four weeks' gestation. It was to see if they could use pigs to grow human organs for transplant. But that's much different from what we are."
"Which is?" said Jeanine.
"Grown men," said Gunner.
"Who happen to shift into jaguars," said Ryker.
Jeanine
I bit my lip. What the hell am I supposed to think? As a journalist, this was the biggest story ever to fall into my lap, but if what they said was true, good luck trying to get sources to verify it. It was a crackpot story that belonged in grocery store tabloids.
And I disliked the way they stared at me, like I was lunch and dessert at the same time. If they get hungry enough will they snack on me?
"Take another sip," said Ryker.
"Why? Trying to get me drunk?" I lifted my head to give him a defiant stare.
He shook his head. "No. I want you to steady your nerves because you're freaked out right now."
"You…want…me? What are you? My father?" This was getting too freaky. God help me, someone better come rescue me from these freaks.
"No," he rumbled dangerously. "Your Alpha."
I swallowed hard at the command in his voice and almost fell back against the wall of the raft, but then straightened my spine.
"Listen, mister, I don't know what you mean by that, and I don't particularly care. You aren't anything to me, and talk to me again like that, and I'll swat your nose. And let me tell you." I held up my hand and showed my acrylic nails which were long and sharp. "Kitten has claws!"
I did my best to sound threatening, and something worked, though not in the way I expected. Gunner opened his mouth and laughed.
"Hey, Ryker, looks like Kitten put you in your place."
"Shut up, Gunner."
Damon and Kane laughed into their hands, and Ryker's eyes blazed. In fact, they glowed a bright green, which caused me to sit back again. Holy hell, I did not know what I was dealing with.
"You're scaring her," said Damon. "And this won't get us anywhere." He turned to me. "Do you want something to eat?"
I shook my head. My nerves sparked queasiness in my stomach, and I couldn't bear a single thing. In fact, the whiskey wasn't helping my stomach either.
Kane fished in a backpack and brought up another Dramamine tablet.
"Open your mouth and put this under your tongue."
"Those taste awful."
"Not as bad as vomit," said Kane pragmatically.
I wasn't sure, but then Kane hadn't led me wrong yet.
"Okay," I said reluctantly. He placed the tablet under my tongue, and I noticed all the men gazed at me.
"Stop that," I said. Or tried to around the tablet.
"Stop what, kitten?" said Gunner. He edged closer to me.
"Staring at me like I'm dinner."
"Oh, he can't," said Damon. "Because you are delicious."
Oh hell; oh, hell; oh, hell; they will make a meal of me. I scrambled backward, my heart rattling and my mouth and throat dry.
"Back off," ordered Ryker. "Damn it! Give her space."
"Right, on a raft," said Gunner caustically.
"I swear to fucking God, if you don't back off I'll toss you in the ocean."
"Okay, okay," Gunner groused. "It's just that it's difficult."
"Yeah," said Kane.
"He's right," sai
d Damon.
I didn't understand what was going on here. Four men who could shift into cats wanted to get near me, and I was entirely too freaked out think rationally about this.
Then I felt another bump under the raft, and again, and my heart tore at my chest it was beating so fast, and I could barely breathe.
"Oh shit," said Kane. "Jeanine, cup your hands over your mouth and nose, and breath."
"What's going on?"
I didn't know who spoke.
"She's hyperventilating."
Ryker slid in next to me on the raft and cupped his large hands over mine and brought them to cover my mouth and nose.
"Breathe deeply," he growled.
His gravelly voice cut through my panic, and I stared into his eyes as he held his hand steady while I sucked in my breath. Finally, my rattling heart slowed and my breathing returned to normal. And I noticed that his eyes held something I hadn't spotted before with all the kissing and groping yesterday. It was honest care and concern.
"That's right," he said reassuringly. "That's good. Relax. I'll take care of you." He peered deeply into my eyes, and I felt the truth of what he said. The sincerity of his words cut through my lingering jitters. He would. Ryker had done nothing less the entire time I'd been with him.
"But why would you?"
A blush crept up his neck, which I did not expect from the rough and tough Ryker.
"Well, here's the thing," said Gunner.
"Quiet, Gunner," snarled Ryker.
"Hey look," cried Kane. "Land Ho!"
Ryker's head whipped to the direction Kane pointed. I did too, but I couldn't see anything but a blur on the horizon.
"Maybe we caught a break here," he mumbled.
At once they tore down the canopy they'd constructed earlier and plied the re-purposed oars to the water.
"Pull up the anchor," said Ryker.
"You mean my backpack?" said Damon. "Someone owes me a new one."
"Don't be such a pussy," said Gunny.
The guys snickered at the obvious joke, and I rolled my eyes. I scanned the horizon again, and the blur grew sharper, and I imagined I saw palm trees.
"Is it inhabited?" I asked.
"It probably is," said Ryker.
I swallowed hard. "By what people?"
"Makes no difference," announced Ryker. "Landing will get us out of this raft and on solid ground. From there we can recon."
"Don't worry," said Gunner as his strong arms pulled on the oar. "This is what we do." I watched as the men's muscles flexed and pulled and my stomach fluttered.
"Hmm," I said. Ahead I could barely make out an island, and I wondered how they could be so sure.
"What these guys aren't saying," said Kane, "is that the sailors trawled the Caribbean for five hundred years at least, not counting the natives. This is all well-traveled, more like your everyday neighborhood than the wild mid-Atlantic. We haven't seen a ship is an aftermath of the storm, but if we hung out another day someone would run into us."
"If it weren't for your propensity to jump ship, we'd just hang out."
"Yeah, drinking whiskey." I snorted.
"And eating fisherman's sushi," said Gunner with a wink. "What guys don't like to hang out, drink and fish?"
I rolled my eyes. "You make a joke of everything, don't you, Gunner? I'm sure if we were drowning you'd make a joke of that too."
"Anything to keep up morale," said Gunner.
"Who made you morale officer?" said Damon.
"First, take back those nasty words. I'm not an officer. Second, I volunteered."
This set the other three men laughing, and I didn't understand the joke. I sat and crossed my arms.
"What?" said Kane.
"I don't get the joke."
"No one volunteers. Officers do that for us," said Gunner with a big grin.
I shook my head. What the hell have I gotten into? Sure, they were hot, like I mean, I could melt at looking at any of them. Ryker with his muscles and dark eyes Gunner, blond, tan, and succulent; Kane, with his chestnut hair and green eyes; and Damon with his blue-black hair and blue eyes. They were all delicious.
But they were shifters. Shifters? Jungle cats?
No, I can't process it. Damon changed before my eyes, and I still couldn't believe it. I'd rather chew on Ryker's lie that the sun got into my eyes.
But I'm a journalist, damn it—dedicated to the truth, and sometimes you just have to look at the stark naked version and put it out there. But how do I tell this story without looking like a lunatic?
No way, that's how.
However, I still needed to find my friend, Surma, and learn her fate. I didn't accept that she was dead and needed to see the evidence if she was. I had to get back to St. Lucia and track down Aedan Morgan. It would be harder, now that my cover was blown, but I'd manage. All I had to do was to escape from these guys, these impossibly sexy men, and I'd attack my mission once again.
The island loomed larger, and when we moved closer to shore, we saw an expanse of white-sand beach and a tropical forest rising above it.
"Where are we?"
"Not sure yet. One of the islands," said Gunner. He had pulled out the satellite phone and stared at the GPS.
"An island," snorted Kane. "That's informative."
"Doesn't do much good without a map, does it?" sniggered Damon.
"You guys rag on each other hard, don't you?"
"Oh, yeah," said Ryker.
"It shows how much we love each other," sneered Gunner.
They were more relaxed as we got closer to land, and they'd lost their grim expressions. The tropical forest became a solid wall of green straight ahead, and a jut of land rose on the left covered in scrubby bushes. The closer we got to the beach, the crashing of the waves on the shore became louder. We bobbed in the surf, and then they jumped out and dragged the raft up on the shore.
"Okay, recon," said Ryker. "Let's figure out what country we're in and who we need to call. Gunner, Kane, Damon, spread out, and find some landmarks."
"Right, Chief," said Gunner, and they sprinted off into the jungle.
"Landmarks?"
"All the islands in the region are inhabited and occupied by some country. The ocean currents sweep north, and we weren't at sea long enough to drift toward Venezuela, so I'm guessing we've hit either Martinique or the Dominican Republic."
Good. Either island was not too far from St. Lucia. First, I'd find a U.S. Embassy to get an emergency passport and scare up a new debit card. Then, I'd catch local transport back to St. Lucia after I said adios to the cat people who would have to go back to the military.
See? Easy. No probs.
Then why was my gut shredded? This was ridiculous. I barely knew these men.
But you feel Ryker's lips against yours. Gunner's mouth on your spine, his hard cock against you. Damon and Kane holding you warm and tight after the worst day of your life. Why wouldn't you like that?
This couldn't be happening. I buried my toes in the warm wet sand and stared at the air bubbles rising from it as the ocean pulled and washed over this sliver of shore. The water here was a gorgeous blue. I truly sat on the sands of paradise.
But four men at once. Nope. That was insane. Four shifter men who turned into cats? Even crazier.
Sand grating startled me from my reverie, and I lifted my head to meet Ryker's eyes as he pulled the raft more firmly onto the shore. His mouthwatering muscles bunched as he pulled the plastic beast out of the water and toward me.
His mouth on mine. Questing. Eager. Possessive.
My face flushed with these thoughts, and the less ladylike part of me tingled, eager for more of his touches.
No. I must stop thinking this way.
I shaded my eyes with my hand to stay meeting his gaze.
"Will they remain away long?" I said.
Ryker huffed as he dropped the raft.
"They'll be back," he said. "I'd go with them…"
"But someone has to watch me? Th
at's a load of bull."
Ryker's eyes and mouth creased with worry lines, and I recognized this expression as his prelude to laying down the law.
"We are in unknown territory with unknown hostiles."
"Bull. We are in the Caribbean. All I need to do is find the American Embassy, and I can work things out on my own."
Now Ryker's mouth twisted in extreme dislike.
"Is that what you want?"
"What else would I want? Hey, it's been a fun adventure, but I've got a life, you know. And an employer. It's time I got home."
Ryker squatted before me and took my hand.
"I can’t let you do that," he said.
Ryker
I'm going insane.
When Jeanine said she wanted to leave and go home, my cat growled deep inside me. My heart flip-flopped. It'd been a long time since it performed gymnastics like that. My gut clenched.
Without realizing it, I bent before her and took her hand.
"I don't think I can let you do that."
Which apparently was the wrong thing to say because she snorted derisively and twisted her lips in disbelief.
"So, you will keep me prisoner?"
The challenge in her voice snapped me to the sickening reality. If she didn't want to stay with me—with us, what could we do that wouldn't break the law?
Persuade her, said my cat.
A low growl rumbled in my gut that I could not contain, and her gorgeous blue eyes flew open in surprise. Jeanine scooted backward.
"Don't do that," I pleaded.
"You growled. Cats growling signals a threat." She stared at me fiercely, and I melted. Then I said something I rarely do.
"Sorry."
"You are?" she said with skepticism.
"Yeah. It's just…well…I…we…" I lowered my head, clueless as to what to say. How did you explain to a woman you just met that she's your forever mate? It sounded insane even to me who long ago got used to the quirky nature of my blended selves.
Jeanine laughed then, and my head snapped up again.
"What?"
"You're all tongue-tied."
My face flushed. Damn it. This woman turned my head around. I was the Alpha here, and one small woman should not turn my guts inside out.
Even if she did.
"You do that to me," I admitted. "Look, this is uncharted territory for me."