Risking everything for the one woman bold enough to betray him.
Julia Rierdon attacks life with everything she’s got, taking the missions no one else will touch. Refusing to slow down long enough to embrace anything or anyone else. When her plane goes down in the Smoky Mountains, being injured and alone with a dangerous shifter chained at her side is bad enough. Fighting her bone-deep desire is a challenge she could fail.
Ross Walker knew Julie was dangerous the minute she walked into his casino. She exactly matches the image of his destined mate imprinted on his dreams. One moment of distraction and he’s on his way to prison—putting at risk the future of the Cherokee Ani’Kutani, an ancient clan of shape shifters.
He ought to make a break for freedom. Instead he stays to heal her wounds. Giving in to their wild, undeniable passion, Ross prays their mystical connection will help Julia see beyond what she’s always believed about shifters and see the forever in his dreams.
Warning: This book contains a kick-ass heroine who has faced death and come out on the other side ready for anything and everything. It also contains a sexy cougar shape shifter who’s man enough to give her more than she’s bargained for…again and again.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520
Macon GA 31201
Enemy Mine
Copyright © 2010 by Barbara J. Hancock
ISBN: 978-1-60504-871-0
Edited by Heidi Moore
Cover by Amanda Kelsey
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: January 2010
www.samhainpublishing.com
Enemy Mine
Barbara J. Hancock
Dedication
For Todd—because there’s something special about a man who can build a campfire one night and look hot in a tuxedo the next.
Chapter One
She was being hunted.
Knowing it and doing something about it were two very different things.
She had a banged-up knee that made standing painful and walking any faster than a hobble impossible. She had an empty stomach and the lightheadedness to prove it. So empty in fact, that if she had claws and fangs she might be stalking him.
As it was, clawless, fangless and getting-the-hell-out-of-here challenged, she was forced to put her back up against a tree and wait.
He was out there.
And he was angry.
The wreckage of their plane smoldered peripherally to the south. Smoldered even though her stomach told her it had been many hours since the crash. She’d only regained consciousness in the last half an hour.
And now this.
It was what she deserved for taking a non-military flight with a captured shapeshifter in tow, a wealthy powerful shifter in control of half the state. She should have waited for a military cargo plane and a fighter-plane escort.
Then again, she wasn’t sure that anyone deserved to be chewed.
It was four days before the most ambitious raid ever planned against shifters. Now, because of her impatience, she was in the remote mountains of North Carolina with no help in sight and she was about to be savaged by a man she’d thought about sleeping with twenty-four hours ago.
***
Ross Walker.
He would have been incredibly handsome if he’d been a down-on-his-luck used-car salesman. As the head of a powerful shapeshifter clan, he was incredibly handsome and untouchable. Untouchable always seemed to push Julia Rierdon’s buttons.
When he had stalked onto the plane, even though no man should be able to move with predatory grace in shackles and chains, she’d gone white-hot for long, long seconds. She didn’t know if it was the challenge in his eyes or the muscles in his thighs, but she’d let herself look and look some more. The answering heat in his brown-eyed gaze should have made her blink and look away.
She didn’t.
The end of the world as they had known it had made most of the remaining human population cautious. It had made Julia determined to prove she was alive.
One thing she should have known—never shoot come-hither glances at a shapeshifter—unless you want to be up against a wall very soon thereafter.
She didn’t hit the galley wall too hard. Only hard enough to send tumblers tumbling and bags of peanuts flying. That quickly, she’d found herself with cool refrigerated metal drawers at her back and the hot hard body of an aroused shapeshifter all along her front.
Guess which had gotten the majority of her attention?
“Backup. Call for backup. The shifter’s gone postal,” a uniformed agent had shouted as he grabbed for Walker.
“We need a tazer up here, now!” another agent had shouted into the transmitter clipped to his ear as he too went for the man pinning her to the wall.
Walker ignored them.
His dark eyes had locked onto hers and he’d pressed even closer. It’s not like she could cry jerk when she’d been checking out his thighs moments before, and she wouldn’t cry mercy. No way, no how. Instead of crying anything at all, she’d tilted her chin and given him the dewy-eyed look that had gotten him into this trouble in the first place. She’d even thrown in the pouty lips for good measure. She was no longer wearing the low-cut sequined dress and the four-inch stilettos she’d worn into his Cherokee casino, but “the look” she could do in jeans and sneakers.
He’d gotten it.
He’d gotten that it was a challenge and not a come on. He’d understood she was tweaking him for falling for the oldest trick in the book. His full sexy mouth softened and tilted in an appreciative smirk.
But then, then he’d spoiled it all—her cheekiness and his humor—by pressing his lips to hers.
The first shock? It wasn’t hard, bruising domination. The second? That it was seductive, soft and teasing. She was so taken off-guard she’d actually liked when a hint of moisture, just a hint of tongue, had brushed against her slightly open lips.
She might have kissed him back given one more second. She might have even sighed or whimpered because that slight hint of heated moisture was so not enough.
Thank God, she’d been saved from that humiliation by two more uniformed agents. All four big men were able to pull Walker back…but only because he’d been ready to step away.
“We’re not finished,” Walker had said to her calmly, even though four burly agents were handling him way less than calmly.
Just before they’d tazed him, she’d looked into his hot, soulful eyes…and she’d gotten it.
He had wiped the fake look right off her face and replaced it with the real deal. He’d made her want him. Really, really want him. His smile had returned when he saw her get it, and even the uncontrollable twitching that followed had not make her loss of control okay.
***
Julia didn’t have a tazer. She didn’t have a gun or even a Swiss army knife. Her holster was gone, lost in the crash or taken off her while she was unconscious, who knew? She only knew that sticks and stones were not going to protect her when Walker decided to pounce, and those were the only weapons within reach, within sight.
She heard him approaching.
Chapter Two
In his mountain lion form, a form his people called tlvdatsi, he had searched for a shelter big enough for two. He had also remained shifted to speed the healing of his wounds.
And Julia Rierdon?
She would not heal so easily.
The thought should have made him glad. He wasn’t surprised when it didn’t. The FBI agent had worried him for weeks only to trick him in the end, even though he was entirely aware of her true identity and her agenda.
One of the dangers of being the head of a shapeshifter clan was that eventually you almost believed the fawning submissives. He had known her attraction to him was real. He had thought he had more time to decide what to do about it.
It was his bruised pride that had him padding toward his tormentor on predatory paws. He could have shifted. He was healed, good as new. Instead, he moved toward the daredevil agent as if he would like to have her for dinner, starting at her ankles and working his way up.
It wasn’t a total charade.
***
He didn’t pounce.
He approached slowly, stride by stride by stride, but he didn’t attack.
Julia straightened as much as her knee would allow, using the tree as a brace. She didn’t admire his sleek gold coat. She didn’t try to search deep for the man hidden behind his amber cat eyes. Those urges were all hallucinations brought on by hunger, thirst and pain. It was also a hallucination that she was disappointed when she swayed, closing her eyes for an instant, only to miss his shift and find him warm and solid and human beside her in the blink of an eye.
“I’m sorry. This isn’t the time for games,” he murmured, soft and low, and it vibrated against her cheek because he had lifted her in his arms.
She hummed a response because his chest was solid and muscled and sturdy and she’d forgotten how that could possibly be a bad thing.
There was movement, gentle and fluid. There were glimpses of trees, thick undergrowth and the scent of growing things, wood and wet leaves. Then there was nothing but the feeling that she was safe and supported, as if it was okay to let go, let him take charge and once—just this once—relax and let life happen without trying to bend it to her will.
***
Julia woke less woozy, less disoriented, and way less at peace with the world. She didn’t stay on her surprisingly comfortable bed of leaves for very long. Her knee carried her several feet before it protested and then several more before giving out. Who needs crutches when you’re surrounded by trees? She leaned against one as she had when she’d regained consciousness after the plane went down.
Walker was nowhere to be seen.
Someone had made her a bed of leaves and placed her on it. Someone had started a fire to keep her warm. There was no one else in the woods except for her and the shapeshifter. The pilot had died in the crash. She had seen the cockpit, twisted and crumpled and scorched.
Why?
Why help her when she was his enemy?
She refused to give him a decent motive. Unlike vampires who were cold loners still living on the fringes of what was left of society, shapeshifters were organized and powerful. They had become even more powerful since the global economy had crashed leaving Armageddon in its wake. Shapeshifters had used the chaos of endless wars and military conflicts to position themselves as humans struggled to regroup and survive amid constant violence and frequent terrorist attacks. Walker was a criminal, a killer, and he was the head of a clan made up of lesser criminals and killers. How could hands stained with blood have helped her when she was helpless?
As if in answer, those hands brought an armload of firewood into the camp and dumped it with a thump and a clatter near the glowing embers of a fire that was almost out.
“It gets cold at night and I thought you might like yours cooked,” Walker nodded toward a fish, already cleaned and prepared to roast on a stick.
She looked at her dinner. It was too far away. If she let go of the tree she would fall. And hadn’t she just been cataloging his crimes in her mind? She couldn’t ask him for help. Her stomach wasn’t going to let logistics or morality get in its way. She was starved and growing weaker wasn’t going to improve her situation.
She didn’t ask. He didn’t offer. He was suddenly just there. He picked her up and she didn’t protest, not when he held her high and tight against his chest as if she didn’t weigh any more than the firewood, and not when he placed her on a fallen log near the fire. Strangely enough, she had wanted to protest both, his touch and his release.
Instead of examining her odd instinct to shy away from his touch and crave it at the same time, she picked up the stick, holding the fish he’d provided over the coals.
When the bones were picked clean, and only then, did she look up to meet his eyes. She paused with a finger in her mouth, realizing she was savoring the trout with the same relish she would normally reserve for chocolate. Her cheeks were heated, but she didn’t pull her hand from her mouth.
He stared.
The firelight danced in his eyes and the movement of its glow was striking because he held himself so quiet, so still. The reflection of the flames was the only thing that moved and Julie was suddenly not quite sure what would come next.
Slowly, slowly she brought her index finger out of her mouth and replaced it with her ring finger. She would not be intimidated. His gaze flicked down to her mouth, then back up to her eyes.
“What?” She was forced to ask around the finger because she couldn’t stand the silence. She was not giving up one calorie because of his stare. Not. One.
“There’s more where that came from,” he replied. His tones sounded calm in the face of her defensiveness. His one-sided smile as confident as ever. Even though his silk shirt was smudged and torn, even though his normally shiny black hair was mussed and dusty, he looked like a shapeshifter in his element and totally in control.
Julia wasn’t surprised.
He had looked confident in shackles and would certainly look confident now that he was freed by an “accident” that left his captor helpless.
“I salvaged a few things from the plane. Judging from the scenery and where we were before we went down, I’d say we’re about ninety miles from Cherokee.”
Not far enough from his family.
Not nearly far enough.
Thankfully the Smoky Mountains were steep, rugged and hard to traverse.
He shrugged one shoulder as if he heard her thoughts.
“They’ll come for me. It shouldn’t take long.”
It was bad news, but it wasn’t news to her. As soon as she had realized she wasn’t going to be eaten, she’d begun wondering “where” and “when” she would be. Being stalked by Walker was bad enough. Having to face his entire clan would be hell as long as it lasted.
In ancient times there had been a clan of Cherokee priests known as the Ani’Kutani. Their close ties to the natural world were seen as mystical, magical and dangerous. That ancient clan had disappeared hundreds of years ago, but they hadn’t been wiped out the way history speculated. The Ani’Kutani had been shapeshifters and they had gone into hiding when the other clans of the Cherokee people had seen their power as corrupt and evil. The global turmoil that had followed world-wide economic collapse had brought them forward once more. Shapeshifters were incredibly strong, fast and virtually invulnerable because of their healing abilities. Who better to rise to power from the ashes of the old world. While various human factions fought among themselves, the shapeshifters had united to survive and thrive.
Facing Walker’s clan would be bad.
It would have been better to die in the plane. Better, but not her style. She didn’t want to go out, but going out without a fight was unacceptable.
“And your plans?” Julia asked. She had never been any good at sitting back and waiting for the other shoe to fall.
His tilted lips straightened into a m
uch more serious line. The night had grown darker with each passing moment until the firelight no longer danced only in his eyes. Now it caressed his skin with oranges and golds, using the handsome angles and planes as a playground. She could see his Native American heritage in his bone structure—the cut jaw, the high forehead, the strong nose, but the varying light made his expression a shadowed mystery. Grim? Resigned? She couldn’t be sure.
“You are a problem, Julia Rierdon, and my people expect me to take care of their problems.” It didn’t matter that his words had a deadly connotation. Something about the low masculine vibrato still made her shiver. Not in fear, as she should, but in pure feminine reaction.
“You carried me from the wreckage. You could have left me there. You could have…” She couldn’t say the words, but they both knew what he could have done with his puma teeth and claws. “You brought me fish and firewood,” she said instead.
It was a puzzle she stated out loud. They sat in the dark with only the leaping flames providing any light, and she felt certain she would be confused by Walker’s actions even in the bright sun of midday.
“Perhaps I like to play with my food,” the man across from her teased. There was a threat in his voice and it was one that caused a cool flow of adrenaline to rush down her spine because it wasn’t a threat of violence. His teasing was sensual, just as his kiss had been on the plane.
He threatened her with seduction.
Her body reacted even as her mind rebelled. Her breath came quicker. She moistened lips gone dry with the tip of her tongue. She had enjoyed that kiss. It embarrassed her to admit it even in her private thoughts. She had liked the soft slide of his lips. She had wanted more of his tongue.
In those moments she’d felt more alive than she’d ever felt even as being near him endangered her life.
They were alone now.
Enemy Mine Page 1