by Sammie Joyce
Wild Panther
Full Moon Protectors - Book 4
Sammie Joyce
Copyright © 2020 by Sammie Joyce
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Sammie Joyce
Wild Panther
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Get the Prequel - Shifting Seasons Series
About Sammie Joyce
Wild Panther
Full Moon Protectors - Book 4
Sammie Joyce
Prologue
Amity
It was difficult for me to maintain my stoic expression among the flurry of tension mounting between us like a blizzard. I hardly knew where to put my eyes because everywhere I looked seemed to be a boomerang of animosity.
For the first time that I could remember, I found myself wishing that the Council had called upon the Protectors to be there, instead of silently wishing the younger generation were off doing what they were supposed to do—protecting.
Or whatever they’re really doing these days.
I forced myself not to think about what the Protectors had become or how much my ancestors would be turning in their respective graves if they could hear how out of control the shifters had gotten. All this stress was taking its toll on my relatively peaceful nature and I didn’t like it one bit. I worked very hard to keep a Zen outlook and the Council was not helping maintain that those days.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Jackal’s equally even expression but he wasn’t fooling me in the least. I knew he hated this as much as I did but we were panthers, controlled and collected. It wasn’t in our nature to erupt and explode, even though the feeling was sometimes overwhelming. Our way was more vengeful than impulsive but even that wasn’t an option in the moment.
It could be worse, I reasoned, my gaze darting toward where Nia Howard was in her purest form, pacing around the bonfire, half-shifted. Her tail swooshed dangerously toward the flames as she walked on human legs. I had to admit, I found the phenomenon intriguing. I’d never mastered a half-shift myself. I noted how Jack, her mate (and not to be confused with my partner on Council, Jackal), sat on edge, waiting to reel her in as he always did, but without the Protectors among us, there wasn’t really anyone for Nia to unleash upon. Even so, Nia was surprisingly silent, her animal form disabling her from releasing the spew of venom I was sure she was dying to propel forth. I idly wondered if Jack had had a conversation with her before the meeting, asking her to save her wrath for the Protectors. She could get away with saying things to the younger shifters that would never fly with any of us—not that she hadn’t tried it before. Pushing buttons was most certainly Nia’s specialty.
“I think we’re overreacting here,” Bula said simply and without any great shock, Homer nodded in agreement. “No harm has really been done.”
I shot Jackal a bemused look. Typical answer from the bear councilmen. The bears were the least likely to feel threatened by any human presence. After all, they were massive and untouchable, a fact they liked to throw in our faces as frequently as possible.
“How can you say that with a straight face?” Lorna demanded. My eyebrows raised slightly. It seemed the wolves had re-evaluated their take on the situation since we’d last gathered. “After everything that’s happened, with Anticlaw, with your own boy—”
“Let’s leave Cronin out of this, shall we?” Bula interjected crisply. “We aren’t talking about anyone specific.”
“He’s a Protector, isn’t he?” Fernando retorted, crossing his arms over his barrel chest, his lupine eyes glittering with annoyance. “Aren’t we here to discuss the Protectors?”
Uh oh. Both the wolves are ganging up on the bears. That’s not common or very smart.
As usual, I kept my inner commentary to myself. There was no one to really share the commentary with except Jackal and I was sure he was having his own thoughts.
“These meetings are proving useless,” Jack said firmly, casting his mate a quick look as if he was channeling her in her shifted state. “All we do is get together and kvetch. Nothing is ever done about it.”
“And whose fault is that?”
My eyes widened as I realized it was Jackal who had spoken. I gave him an almost imperceivable shake of my head but the damage had already been done. Now everyone was looking at us, the panthers. Jackal purposely turned his body away from mine to address the rest of Council and I knew that whatever he had to say had been well thought out, despite my own reservations at hearing his voice. Oh, how I wished he wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t draw attention to us. We were so much better as flies on the proverbial walls of the Council. We learned so much more that way.
Yet Jackal clearly needed to state his piece and I could hardly deny him that. He, like me, bit his tongue far too much.
“What the hell does that mean?” Fern growled. In the glow of the firelight, I saw his fangs elongating but I knew it was more for show, an expression of power rather than an attack. We were more civilized than that. We didn’t attack each other.
Not yet anyway, but the way things were going, I couldn’t help but think that those days were not far off.
“It means that you’re in control of the Protectors—or at least you’re supposed to be. It’s your responsibility to ensure that they do what they are tasked to do.”
I felt a burst of pride at Jackal’s words, my mouth curving into a smile which I quickly swallowed even though I knew no one was looking at me.
You tell ‘em, Jackie.
“You’ve lost hold over your wolves, our sole bear, and one of our leopards. Do you see a pattern here?” Jackal was apparently just getting warmed up. I hoped he wouldn’t gloat that our panthers were staying in line. Those would not only be fighting words but a general curse over our good fortune.
Thankfully, Jackal stopped there and waited for a response from the other members of Council. I could have burst with the smug glee I was feeling. Though I never would have raised the subject myself, it was as though Jackal were taking the words directly out of my mouth and speaking them with surety.
A heavy silence fell over the group, one I knew was not rife with good feelings, but it was impossible for anyone to deny what Jackal had said. It occurred to me then that was the reason Nia wasn’t off on one of her usual tangents; she was ashamed of what her Protector leopard had done.
“Not all humans are bad,” Homer said, breaking the silence weakly. I stifled another sigh. It troubled me that this argument was coming into play here, with the Council. It was the kind of thing I would have expected from the Protectors, but the Council? We were better than this. I found myself wondering if certain members of Council were being swayed to the Protectors’ way of thinking.
Once upon a time, we all shared a common outlook, I thought, gritting my teeth behind my closed lips. Once upon a time, we all agreed that the human world and shifter world needed to be kept separate. Now loo
k at us.
It was all the work of the younger shifters, I knew. They had been raised with a different sense of how life worked. It was partially our fault, the elders, permitting them to mesh and intermingle with the humans, but our reasons had been to protect them. Our generation had thought that integrating our young with the humans would teach them to assimilate better so as to not get us caught. Instead, we had created a new brand of monster.
Well, not “we”. They did that. I would have raised my offspring to be smarter.
I didn’t remind myself that I was thirty-eight years old and without a mate. It was easy for me to say.
“What would you have us do?”
Nia finally fell back into her mortal form but the usual spark of ire in her eyes was oddly absent. I had been right—she was humiliated.
“Lock them down? Flog them into submission?” Nia went on. “We can’t really go that route, can we?”
I swallowed a smile. If anyone were going to do those things, I would have put my money on Nia. She was by far the hardest on the Protectors of all of us.
“I don’t know what you were supposed to do,” Jackal replied evenly, his tone not wavering. “But whatever it was, you didn’t do it.”
“So now what?” Lorna demanded, the defensiveness oozing from her almost palpably.
“Now what can you do?” Jackal agreed, shrugging before plopping down at my side to cross his long legs. “The damage is done. The humans are more aware of us than ever before and Anticlaw is rampant. We’re no longer just rumors or dismissed as the rantings of a crazy person. Too many of us have been seen. Your Protectors are dating the humans. I’d say we’re past the Hail Mary phase of our situation.”
A low grumble of consensus flowed through the group and no one added another thought, the reality of our new situation washing over us like a blanket. Knowing that we had accomplished nothing and without anyone calling a formal end to the meeting, we slowly began to disassemble, heading to our respective homes strewn across western Oregon.
I was looking forward to retreating to my waterfront property in Heceta Beach, the run apt to take me an hour still. I lived the furthest of everyone in the area but I had always liked being out of the way… until recently. Suddenly, I found myself wanting to be closer to the community and the other shifters and I was thinking about selling my beloved property for a place in the city. It was almost as if loneliness had struck me in a way I’d never felt before.
Before I could shift to make the stealthy run back home, Jackal stopped me, sensing my need to escape the oppressive heaviness of the meeting. He knew me too well.
“Sorry about that,” he murmured when we were out of earshot of the others.
“About what?” I asked, genuinely confused. An apology from Jackal’s lips was… strange.
“Blindsiding you with my soliloquy.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at his characterization.
“It was hardly a soliloquy,” I countered. “And it didn’t bother me. It probably got through to them too, coming from you.”
I didn’t add that I was secretly grateful he’d said something. As much as I had admired and appreciated it, I didn’t want it to become a regular thing. It simply wasn’t like us to be the focus of attention.
“I’m just so sick of their excuses,” Jackal went on, feeling the need to explain his actions even though I honestly didn’t care. I nodded in agreement.
“Me too,” I replied. “And I’m glad you said something. They needed to be set right.”
Jackal gave me a half-grin, the first I’d seen on his face since arriving.
“I’m glad you’re on my side.”
“Of course I am,” I said, my brow rising in surprise. “Was there ever a doubt?”
He shook his head.
“No… but then again, I never thought I’d see the day when Council members would side with humans.”
“They need to save face in light of the way their Protectors have been acting,” I suggested. I wasn’t sure that was true but it was better than believing we were coming apart at the seams. Jackal considered my words carefully.
“Why do you think our Protectors are walking the straight and narrow while everyone else is getting caught up in this human craze?”
I returned his smile and shrugged.
“Good parenting, I suppose,” I laughed dryly. “Maybe it’s just a phase.”
“Their parents or our parenting?”
“A bit of both? I’m not opposed to taking credit for Anton and Ty. They’ve been good, kept their eyes on the job. Whatever indiscretions they’ve had haven’t shattered my faith in them.”
“I can’t fathom how they would put themselves through such a competition for a coveted position and throw it all away for the sake of being with a human,” Jackal sighed, shaking his head sadly. “What is wrong with that generation?”
“Well, as you said,” I offered brightly. “Poor parenting.”
I could have reminded Jackal that our boys had aligned themselves with some questionable actions in the past but I realized he hadn’t forgotten. He was merely relishing the fact that the panther Protectors hadn’t gotten in over their heads like the others and I decided to let him have the win.
Jackal chuckled appreciatively and nodded, stepping back as if to permit me to leave, but I would have excused myself anyway if he hadn’t.
“Do you want a ride?” Jackal asked as I prepared to fall into my sleek, black body. “Don’t tell me you ran here from Heceta Beach.”
I flashed him a quick wink and nodded.
“When else am I going to get my exercise in?” I teased. “I barely get any steps in at the museum.”
Jackal shook his head admiringly and allowed me to fall forward, my icy blue eyes shining silver in the moonlight when my paws landed in the foliage.
“I don’t know how you do it, Amity,” he called to my retreating back as I sprinted into the night, my muscular form disappearing against the blackness. I couldn’t have answered him even if I’d wanted to but the response resounded in my head melancholically all the same.
I do it alone, I thought. I do it all by myself.
1
Wes
Can he hear my heart pounding?
It was impossible to tell as I studied my client’s face, his iridescent eyes trained on the contract before him. I could certainly hear it pounding, the blood rushing through my ears like it always did in these situations. I was trying not to gawk but it was hard, knowing what he was.
No matter how many times I met with the shifters, I couldn’t help but be awed by their very existence. They defied everything I’d ever been taught about nature and science, their ability to become other beasts in the mere blink of an eye absolutely fascinating on every level.
Malcolm Warner, for example, was able to transform himself into a bear on a whim. I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes but I took pride in vetting all my clients, shifter and human. I knew, without a doubt, that Mal was a bear shifter and could kill me with his teeth. I wondered if that should bother me more.
“You need to stop staring at me,” Malcolm sighed, finally raising his head to meet my gaze steadfastly. “You’re making it impossible for me to concentrate on the contract with your eyes boring into me.”
“Sorry!” I mumbled, shooting my glance elsewhere. “I didn’t realize I was staring.”
I didn’t miss the half-smile that formed on Mal’s lips as he turned his attention back to the pages I’d delivered him.
“If it’s any consolation,” he said, reaching for a pen, “this is somewhat new for me too.”
My dark blond eyebrows shot up and I peered at him expectantly, despite my resolve not to look at him directly.
“Financial planning?” I asked innocently, suspecting that was not what he meant. The man was worth millions. He had probably been using a financial consultant when he was in diapers. Mal scoffed at my inane question.
“Working with humans,” he replied,
scrawling his elegant signature against the fresh copies of our contract. “Well, working with humans on matters like this. It’s next to impossible to avoid working with you guys these days, isn’t it?”
I was intrigued but I didn’t want to pry. There was so much I wanted to know about the shifter communities and how they operated but I was aware that too much prodding would cause them to shut down. Eventually, I would get to know what I wanted but I needed to be patient.
“We tend to keep money issues between us shifters,” Mal continued, sliding the contracts back across the table and meeting my eyes once more. “You know, religion, politics, sex, money.” He chuckled. “Things we don’t discuss with just anyone, although these days, nothing seems to be off the table.”
“Because it’s so personal,” I agreed, nodding. Mal wasn’t the first shifter to tell me this. There were certain aspects of the shifter realm that would always be separate from the human world.
“Your secrets and money are safe with me,” I assured him with a joking smile. “And I promise not to ask you about religion, politics, or sex.”
I wondered if I needed to waste the words. Mal wouldn’t be there if he was worried.
“You don’t need to sell me, Wes,” Mal laughed teasingly. “You’ve already got my signature, don’t you?”
He winked to soften the words but there was a heavy truth behind what he said. If something were to go awry, if I were to screw with him in some way, there would be no mercy for me.
Of course, I wouldn’t do anything like that. I liked the shifters and I appreciated my clients, no matter who they were. The idea of making a quick buck through nefarious means never once occurred to me. Long-term relationships with clients was all I desired and over the years, that was what I’d accomplished.