by Jory Strong
The Jaguar male joined them, crouching next to Rebekka. His posture was stiff, making her wonder if he felt beholden, or worried how to pay her. Before she could tell him she’d come at Levi’s request so there was no debt, he tossed several gold coins onto the blanket.
“For healing me,” he said. “Thank you.”
The timbre of his voice sent unexpected heat into her belly. Rebekka turned her head slightly, truly seeing his features for the first time.
He was dark, strong. Silky black hair framed a face that was breathtakingly masculine. Green eyes blazed with confidence and the underlying wildness that came with being purely Were.
A flutter went through her chest, an edgy awareness that had her hastily dropping her gaze in sudden confusion, then keeping it there in dismay at recognizing the signs of physical attraction. When he’d shifted form she’d barely noticed his nakedness before the icy chill exploded in her chest and she’d turned her attention to putting the amulet back on.
Rebekka hesitated, then reached out to scoop the coins up. They’d buy her time. They’d help buy Feliss’s freedom. The Jaguar stopped her with a hand around her wrist, sending her heart racing and an unwelcome blush to her cheeks.
Levi growled a warning. It was met by an answering one.
The Jaguar’s fingers tightened on her wrist. He pressed close enough for his body heat to envelope her and arrow downward to settle between her thighs.
“Please release me,” she said, pressing her legs together and wanting to deny his impact on her. He was pure Were. Worse, he had a mate.
The sound of her voice seemed to shake the Jaguar out of his instinctive predatory behavior. He freed her wrist and moved away, out of arm’s reach. “The coins are a token payment. I’m Aryck, the enforcer for my pack. You are Rebekka, the healer who works in the outcast brothels?”
She dared to look at the Jaguar again, embarrassed by the blush staining her cheeks from having reacted physically to him. “Yes.”
“I came to Oakland for you. Five of our cubs will die without your care.”
“Then they die,” Levi said, his cold words making Rebekka turn toward him in disbelief.
His expression was closed off. “I’ll escort you back to the red zone at first light. Cyrin and Canino can go on without me. To get to Jaguar lands you have to pass through Wolf territory. They’ll kill you on sight. No human is allowed there.”
He challenged Aryck with a stare. “Or can you guarantee her safety both coming and going?”
“There are no guarantees. Only the promise of more coins.”
Rebekka wavered, knowing there was often little difference between courage and foolishness. But to turn away from helping cubs—children—and let them die. “What’s wrong with the cubs?”
“It doesn’t matter, Rebekka,” Levi said, taking her hand, squeezing. “Say no without hearing the details. They’ll only haunt you. Think of all those in the brothels who rely on you.”
“Outcasts,” the female Jaguar spat. The derision contained in the single utterance said the cubs’ lives were more valuable than a city full of those shunned by the pure Were.
Aryck’s fingers curled around Rebekka’s upper arm. Possessive. Commanding. Sending heat spreading through her belly and shame into her heart. Without her noticing it he’d moved next to her again, so close his scent and presence seemed to wrap around her like a blanket.
She tried to pull away but his grip only tightened. “They’re being eaten alive by something humans created, a weapon left over from the days of The Last War. Even if our healer could find a way to stop the spread of whatever is consuming the cubs, infection will take them or they’ll survive so scarred they’ll wish they’d been allowed to die.”
Aryck’s voice was little more than a growl yet Rebekka heard horror in it, as well as a pain so acute it had turned to fury. The journal she’d taken from the witches in payment became a heavy weight in her pocket. There were accounts of such weapons in it.
The Were healer had called it bio-nanite technology, writing about organisms bound to programmable machines that locked onto their targets genetically. Hundreds of those in his care had died before he found a way to counter it with a combination of plant extracts that could be made into a wash to halt the spread of destruction. Hundreds more had died afterward from infection—or suicide when they rose from makeshift hospital beds and saw what they’d become.
Choices, Rebekka thought. Had the witches somehow known she’d be presented with this one? Was it a test to see if she would turn her back on the outcasts in favor of going to aid the pure Weres? And the price she would pay if she did—her own death?
It was safe to go home. Tir had seen to it. She could heal those in the brothels with the greatest need, taking off the amulet long enough to do it. She could give the recipe for the wash to Aryck. But if the damage was already too extensive, the infection too pervasive . . .
The thought of children suffering and dying tormented Rebekka, stirred her compassion and her conscience, touched the place inside her that longed for a family of her own. She healed the prostitutes so they could be abused and injured again, but with the cubs, she could make a real difference in their lives.
“I’ll go with you,” she told Aryck.
“I’ll accompany you,” Levi said.
“Not into Jaguar lands,” Aryck said, a deep growl in his voice. “Not unless you can shift to lion form and prove you’re not outcast. You smell almost completely human.”
Rebekka jerked her arm, trying to pull away again, hating the enforcer for the prejudice he represented and for the pain she knew his words caused Levi. “If you want me to heal the cubs, then Levi—”
“Only the pack leader can grant permission for him to enter our lands. If it’s your safety he’s worried about, then I promise to personally see to your protection from the time we enter Jaguar lands until you meet him where our border touches Lion territory. If he fears sending you alone, without an ally, then the Tiger can remain with us. We’ll leave at first light and travel through the night once we’re in Were lands.”
Rebekka turned toward Levi, her hand squeezing his, asking for reassurance—acceptance of her choice and Aryck’s terms. “This will allow you time with your family.” To say your good-byes.
Levi gave a small, reluctant nod. “Promise to send Canino for me when you start home. I’ll come back to Oakland with you.”
Aryck’s fingers tightened on her arm as if in protest. Rebekka refused to acknowledge him in any way. “I promise.”
Satisfied, Aryck released the healer and moved away, passing through the doorway and into what remained of a hallway. He looked down the twisting wreck of stairway and longed to descend, to escape the confining space and nearness to the human female.
He’d touched her twice without wanting any contact at all, been unable to suppress either the Jaguar need to be at her side or the possessiveness that rose at seeing the obvious closeness between the healer and the Lion outcast.
Levi. The Lion had seemed vaguely familiar before, but injured, dying, Aryck hadn’t been able to place him until after the healing. Now he had brief memories of seeing Levi and Cyrin among the Lion pride when he’d gone there on pack business.
Alliance was rare among the Were groups, but because the Wolf and Hyena packs in the territories near theirs were so large, Lion and Jaguar maintained a cautious association. He remembered being told Levi and Cyrin had left to explore, as many males who were considering forming their own packs or prides did, then hearing later they hadn’t returned and were presumed dead.
Better dead than outcast, Aryck thought, and the Jaguar agreed even as it snarled and chafed at hearing the low murmurs of Levi and the healer talking.
Aryck could have mentally spoken with his father when they neared Jaguar lands. He could have secured permission for Levi to enter their lands. With the healer so close and the cubs in such dire need no one would have challenged the decision. But almost as quickly as th
e thought had come, he’d discarded it, acting on instinct and not after giving it rational consideration. The idea of Levi accompanying them, remaining at the healer’s side—
The Jaguar screamed in protest at the sound of rustling as Levi lay down next to the healer, serving as her protector. Aryck’s fingers flexed involuntarily. The muscles in his arms stood out. He was nearly overtaken by the urge to drop onto his hands and knees to accommodate the shift between forms as Jaguar soul separated further from human one.
His earlier fear returned in a heartbeat, edged once again toward horror. The unraveling of self was the first step on the rogue, outcast path. He stiffened with resolve, refusing to bend and change until reason dictated it.
Behind him the fire slowly died, no longer needed to ward off shock and provide light for the healer—
Claws raked through Aryck’s belly at his continued effort to hold her at a distance by refusing to use her name. Rebekka, the Jaguar purred, filling human nostrils and coating the man’s tongue with her scent. Flooding their shared senses with the sublime pleasure that had come from her touch. Enforcing the absolute belief of having found a mate with the hardening of Aryck’s cock and images of covering her in human form, thrusting into her as he bit her shoulder and marked her with his teeth.
Sweat coated Aryck’s skin as heat scorched through him. His hands opened and closed as he fought to suppress both desire and the morphing of one erotic scene into another.
For long moments he struggled, man and Jaguar souls at odds with each other, fighting for dominance, not in form but in will, as they had never done before.
The sound of engines drawing steadily closer halted the battle. Aryck spared a glance over his shoulder. Melina had already shifted form. The Tiger, Canino, and Cyrin were on their feet, ready to meet any threat posed by humans.
Levi was sitting, gun on the ground next to him. The hea—
Sharp pain raked Aryck’s gut, making him gasp and bend over as the Jaguar returned to the fight with a vengeance. He said, “I’m okay, Rebekka,” when she sat up, obviously ready to come to his aid.
The use of her name sheathed the unseen claws tearing through him. But the sight of the unbound hair framing her face and emphasizing how very feminine she was had his stomach muscles quivering as he imagined her placing her palm against his abdomen, soothing him with heat and touch before moving lower. Stroking him. Taking his cock in hand.
The Jaguar purred in satisfaction at having accomplished its purpose. It retreated so thoroughly that all sense of separateness disappeared, leaving Aryck’s heart beating erratically in defeat.
Gunfire erupted nearby, jerking Aryck’s attention away from Rebekka. He shed his clothing and shifted form.
His black coat made him invisible as he prowled down the twisted metal staircase and into the dark. Melina and the other two big cats followed him.
They spread out, remaining close to the building and readying themselves for attack. The vehicles drew near enough for the conversation of the humans occupying them to be heard, but turned away without coming into sight.
Sporadic gunfire sliced through the night until eventually the drone of the engines lessened and disappeared completely. A wary calm settled, a thin cloak draped over a world filled with silent predators and equally silent prey.
Canino sharpened his claws on a tree growing out of rubble. Cyrin watched him for a moment, then claimed another tree, shredding its bark and making it bleed sap.
A female cat yowled its desire to mate into the night and the entreaty brought Melina prowling to Aryck. She positioned herself in front of him, presenting her swollen vulva.
She was heavily in season. Riper than she’d been the night before when, despite his resolve, the genetic imperative to breed had nearly driven him to cover her.
There was no temptation now, no stirring of desire. Aryck knew the reason, though he refused to contemplate it, to risk undoing the seamless integration of Jaguar and human souls by thinking about Rebekka and vehemently denying he’d already found his mate.
He turned away, noting both Tiger and Lion were now watching. Spectators rather than competitors.
Melina persisted. Purring and crouching.
He rebuffed her yet again, annoyed by her continued overtures. Only his conscience over inadvertently encouraging her as they traveled made him hesitate to embarrass her further in front of an audience.
As if incensed by his continued rejection, or subconsciously aware of the threat Rebekka posed, Melina became more aggressive. She rubbed, marked him with the scent of her heat.
In a heartbeat Aryck reacted, his patience and restraint at an end. He snarled and pinned her underneath him, not the rough play before big cats mate, but the warning of an enforcer.
Sharp teeth slid through fur and skin and he tasted blood. A low, rumbled growl deep in his throat promised an attack that would leave her scarred in both forms if she persisted in trying to entice him into covering her.
Melina became completely submissive, acknowledging her acceptance of his will, and in an instant she was forgotten, her behavior triggering images of Rebekka doing the same, her hair caught up in his fists, her thighs splayed and her body joined to his.
Need flashed through Aryck, human lust and Jaguar possessiveness, a scorching heat commanding him back into the building.
He took his human form and dressed. The man impatient for dawn, telling himself he cared only about getting Rebekka to the cubs, the Jaguar intent on reaching lands the Lion outcast at her side couldn’t enter.
Thirteen
ARYCK steadied Rebekka as her foot caught on an exposed root. Exhaustion clung to her, and this time he didn’t fight the urge to keep his hand wrapped around her arm.
Her opposite shoulder sagged under the weight of the blanket now serving as a satchel. It was laden with what she claimed to need save for one ingredient, a root he was unfamiliar with.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, not attempting to pull away from him as she had the other times, her jerky movement accompanied by an elusive hint of sexual interest rather than distaste at being touched by a Were.
Though Levi and his brother had left them miles earlier, peeling away to go to the pride’s summer gathering place, his scent still clung to Rebekka. It mixed in with that of woman, of sweat and dirt and the plants Rebekka carried.
Aryck’s lips lifted in a silent snarl at smelling the outcast, at remembering Levi embracing Rebekka and making her renew her promise to send Canino when she was ready to go back to Oakland. Not for the first time he wondered if Levi had been made outcast by the ancestors because of her, if she was Levi’s downfall as well as Cyrin’s and Canino’s.
Their smell was nearly pure cat and neither of them had changed into human form. It made him think the ancestors had been merciful, allowing them to retain their beast form.
They could live their lives in Were lands, could even take mates and breed there as long as they didn’t go feral. And if they were willing to risk it, they could enter the bone cave in a Petitioner’s Rite and perhaps regain their human forms with an ancestor’s intercession.
Aryck took his hand from Rebekka’s arm as he considered the possibility she might carry a witch-charm that worked on male Weres, making those around her feel protective.
As they’d traveled directly through Wolf territory rather than staying to the border routes where there was some neutrality, he’d felt watched. Yet no one had emerged from hiding to challenge or attack.
Then again, it could be word had spread of what happened to the cubs, and the Wolves had decided to let a human pass through their lands without openly acknowledging it. They might be waiting on the outcome, concerned there were similar weapons buried among the ruins on their lands.
Aryck glanced at Rebekka, seeing fatigue on her face. They’d traveled with little rest and been forced to push hard to make up time when the plants she needed required detour or delay.
More than once he’d seen her touch the jou
rnal in her pocket, rubbing over it as she worried her bottom lip. Her concern for the cubs was easy to read, though he didn’t need to see it in her expression; her actions told him as much.
Despite the pace he set she hadn’t uttered a sound of complaint or protest. Each time he’d thought she would falter and demand they slow down or stop, she’d draw from a well of internal strength and find additional stamina.
Mile by mile his resistance to the Jaguar’s claim weakened, though he hadn’t fully accepted it and didn’t intend to. Nor would he allow himself to act on the desire continuing to simmer in his bloodstream.
In jaguar form Melina ranged ahead, moving farther away and faster in the relative safety of Lion territory. Canino prowled at Rebekka’s other side, streaks of tree-shadow merging with the stripes on his orange coat.
Each time he brushed against Rebekka, whether the act was unintentional or by design, the Jaguar made its presence known to Aryck. Suddenly waking like a separate entity to growl in protest.
Resisting the Jaguar set a battle for dominance into motion. After the first one, Aryck acquiesced, maneuvering Rebekka away from Canino while telling himself the sooner he got her to camp, the better.
A day to heal, perhaps another to rest and get her strength back, and then she would be gone from their lands, her safety entrusted to Levi. With her absence he would no longer have to fear the unraveling of his earthly souls into two separate entities.
Another mile passed. Twice Aryck reached out to keep Rebekka upright.
Each time it was more difficult to end the physical contact. The Jaguar grew edgy. Or he did. Aryck couldn’t discern where the emotion came from, only that thoughts of stopping so Rebekka could rest warred with the need to get to the cubs.
Close to the border of Jaguar lands he reached mentally for his father. The alpha’s relief swept into Aryck. Hurry. Three of them are close to death. The other two are not far behind. Nahuatl holds their souls to this world.
Koren didn’t ask if the healer accompanied them. To do so would be to doubt Nahuatl’s vision from the ancestors.