“Whatever this is, Anton, it’s our problem, not Em’s. I don’t want her dragged into this.” Ricky’s hand trembled as he said the next thing; she could feel it through her t-shirt. “I’d rather go face them than put Emma in danger. If they want…” The words died in his throat as Anton came into the living room. Anton’s face was a grim, leaden mask, and some sad knowledge clouded his jungle-wild eyes.
“Brother.” His voice softened. “They do not want you.” He looked at Emma. “They want her.”
Ricky snarled. The sound cracked against the meaty cavern of his chest and rolled from his throat like thunder, shaking Emma’s bones; not a warning, just a promise of quick, horrendous violence. Emma’s mouth went dry. She had never seen him like this, even at his angriest.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ricky’s voice vibrated, deep and painful.
Anton locked gazes with Ricky. Feline intensity burned in both their eyes. “You know, brother. I am talking about prophecy.”
Ricky stalked forward, stiff with caged emotion, none of his usual easy grace. “Lies.” His voice sounded strangled. “The same lies that killed mother. After everything, you would drag me back into this.”
Emma’s mind boggled. Ricky had spoken about his mother before, but never like this. In the past he’d made her death sound like an accident; now it sounded like murder.
Anton strode toward Ricky, and Emma stepped in front of him without a second thought. Anton kept coming and ended with his face too close to hers, so close she had to either look up directly into his eyes, or pick a spot elsewhere on his face to stare at. She chose his eyes and regretted it. Her stomach tried a somersault, but he focused over her shoulder; when he spoke, his tone was the kind of patient you used with idiots or criminals.
“Lies didn’t kill mother. She died for honor, and she knew her time had come.”
Emma felt Ricky move closer, felt the tickle of his breath against her hair. “Still with this bullshit.” He sounded heartbroken. “You’re a fool.”
Anton cocked his head and glanced down at Emma. “No,” he said to Ricky. “You’re the fool. I’m not dragging you back into this; it’s already done. It’s written, Ricky. Fated.”
“The prophecy is a myth.” Ricky’s voice trembled; beneath the anger, desperation.
Anton’s voice was cold iron. “The prophecy is manifest. And the jaguar king intends to seize the prize. While we argue, he comes for her.”
Emma just didn’t know where to start. “The prize?”
Anton met her gaze, and she backed up against Ricky. She did not like what she saw in Anton’s eyes; passion, fervor, belief. He might be crazy, but he believed what he was saying. Whatever that was.
She swallowed past the taste of panic on her tongue, like bitter metal, like aspirin. She mentally shook herself. “You’re totally, stark raving nuts, you know that?” Anton arched a brow. “If you really wanted us to cooperate, you wouldn’t have laid it on so thick.”
Anton managed a wolfish smile, but it made his eyes sad and desperate. “Emma, you believe these people coming after us are dangerous, I know you do, or you wouldn’t be carrying the gun.” Anton glanced down, where she held it between their bodies. “We need to leave, and we need to do it soon, and I promise I will explain everything else as long as we are moving.”
Emma studied him, that face so like Ricky’s but older and strange. What he said made sense. But she didn’t know him, couldn’t trust him. “What if I say no?”
Anton breathed deep through his nose, nostrils flaring, chest swelling, and Emma thought she saw something like nervousness slide through the darkness in his eyes. Reluctantly, he said, “Then I will have to force you.”
Ricky growled again. It shook Emma’s ribs, stopped her breath. Bruce echoed the sound.
In a voice too high, Emma said to Anton, “You told me you couldn’t force me to accept your help.”
The nervousness in Anton’s eyes turned to resignation. He licked his upper lip. “And you believed me.”
What a bastard. Emma’s face flamed with embarrassment. “You lied your way into my home. Why the fuck should I go anywhere with you?”
He took a step, almost sandwiched her between him and Ricky. Heat seemed to roll off him, along with some scent that smelled fresh and damp and tangy, like sap. The smell of living things, so strong she had to hold her breath to concentrate on his face.
“I didn’t lie,” he said, “I can’t force you to accept my help. I just let you believe I needed you to accept it in order for me to give it. And I don’t.” He lowered his head, and for the first time, Emma saw the animal in him.
Ricky moved, the front of his body touching the back of hers protectively — so when he growled again, a big cat sound like a clap of thunder, it chattered her teeth together. She swallowed a whimper; this was such a bad, bad place to be. She was just human. She didn’t belong here, with the threat of Ricky’s violence rumbling in her ears, the jungle of Anton’s eyes close and feral in the mellow light.
Anton’s gaze flickered up to meet his brother’s, hard as emerald. “You won’t stop me,” he said. “From keeping her safe.”
Ricky spoke through the growl. “You don’t know me, brother.”
“Yes, I do.” Anton sighed and met Emma’s eyes, his mouth softened, and then in a move too fast to follow he swept her into his arms and started walking for the door.
Emma’s stomach flip-flopped and panic bloomed inside her, a fresh wash of adrenalin sluiced away the fog of fear. He had her hand — and the gun — shackled in one fist. She strained against him. “Put me the fuck —”
She never got to finish; Ricky roared and leapt on Anton’s back, Anton staggered, and Ricky sank a mouthful of teeth gone thick and feline into Anton’s shoulder.
Emma heard fabric rip as Anton gave a surprised shout and tossed Emma at the couch. She sailed through the air. Her tailbone hit something hard, then she bounced off the couch, dropped the gun, almost brained herself on the coffee table and scrambled to her feet in time to watch them both go down in a twisting, writhing mass of limbs with a sound like storm clouds full of knives, sharp and rolling. A sound meant for zoos, not cozy living rooms. Bruce started barking, dove over the couch and nearly crashed into her, mismatched eyes wild.
Ricky and Anton hit the wall next to her bedroom door, Ricky on Anton’s back, Anton hunched and roaring. Plaster cracked and crumbled to the floor in puffs. Shock made every detail stand out, sparkling and rich: Anton’s face contorted with a snarl, jaguar wearing human skin, he reached up with both hands — fingers turned to claws — and tore Ricky from his back, rending long red lines in Ricky’s white shirt. Shreds of Anton’s shirt flapped loose, blood spattered in an arc from his mauled shoulder to Ricky’s mouth; they grappled, muscled forearms straining obscenely. Ricky’s lips peeled back from curved teeth, eyes glowing like Halloween lanterns. Emma almost didn’t recognize him.
She snatched up the gun from where it lay beside her. She couldn’t use it and risk hitting her best friend, didn’t know if she could shoot Anton even in better circumstances. But would Anton kill his own brother?
He threw Ricky at the adjacent wall. Bruce barked, harsh, put his body in front of Emma’s, wedging her between couch and coffee table. Ricky roared, turned midair, hit a bookshelf with his hands out and his knees bent as though he meant to catch himself, but Anton had thrown him hard and the momentum was too great. Books crashed and flew. Ricky’s roar cut out as he hit the floor, twisted in a movement too fast to follow and drew one knee up. He lifted his head, chestnut curls wild. His thighs bulged — one denim clad, one bare — tensing to pounce, and Anton lowered into a crouch to meet him or to launch himself first.
But Emma never gave them the chance.
She grabbed the Dean Koontz hardcover wedged between the couch cushions and heaved it at Anton. Her old volleyball coach would have been proud; she didn’t know what Dean Koontz would have thought, but the hefty book hit Ricky’s bro
ther in the side of the head with a satisfying smack.
The book hit the floor. Ricky stopped growling with a hiccup. Anton swayed to his feet and blinked at Emma, blood dribbling from a cut at his temple. Emma’s heart finally caught up to her brain and started beating a million miles an hour and saliva flooded her mouth as she realized she’d just thrown a book at a man who could turn into a jaguar and eat her alive.
Ricky made a noise. Emma didn’t dare take her eyes off Anton. Ricky made the noise again, louder this time, and Anton looked at him — and that was when Emma realized Ricky was laughing. Smothering his mouth with a hand. She turned to him, souring adrenalin curdling her stomach. His eyes watered, dancing amber jewels. His shoulders shook. He snorted and made a helpless little sound low in his throat.
“I’m glad someone thinks this is funny,” she said, and managed to keep a straight face.
That finished him. He put a hand over his eyes and shook his head, laughing through his nose, mouth curved in a grin that dimpled his cheeks and reminded Emma that under all the blood and animal violence he was still Ricky.
Anton said, “You threw a book at me.”
Emma just nodded, didn’t trust her voice enough to apologize.
He cocked his head at her, eyes still wide, speculation dawning on his face. “Why didn’t you use the gun?”
The giggles died in Emma’s throat. She took a deep breath and glanced at Ricky, then met Anton’s eyes dead on. “Because I might have hit Ricky.”
A muscle ticked in Anton’s cheek. “That the only reason?”
No . “Yes.” Emma didn’t look away. He wasn’t the only one who could lie. Maybe she shouldn’t have said it, maybe the fight wasn’t over, maybe he’d try to take the gun away from her when he could — but it didn’t occur to her to play it safe when she opened her mouth and said it.
And she fancied the look Anton leveled at her was respect. Better than anger. Even better than the soft resolve she’d seen on his face when he picked her up and tried to carry her out of there.
But in an instant it was gone. Anton jerked his head towards the front windows of her apartment; the drapes were drawn, but he looked like he was watching. Or listening. The hairs on Emma’s arms stood up. Anton hunched his shoulders and a thin growl trickled out of him, but before Emma could open her mouth to ask what was wrong, he straightened, frowned, cocked his head — and Emma’s whole body went up in freezing, invisible flames.
She gasped. Her skin crawled. Ice, it felt like ice, shocking and heartstopping, it poured down her spine and spilled over her breasts and plunged frigid fingers through her hair. She stood rigid and met Anton’s eyes as he turned a wild, confused look on her.
“You can feel that, can’t you?” He turned to Ricky. “She can feel the call.”
“I know,” Ricky said, grim wonder in his voice.
Emma gritted her teeth. “Feel what call? The call of the fucking wild?”
Anton shook his head. “You’ve sure got a mouth on you.”
Suddenly the invisible ice bath just disappeared. Emma breathed out deeply through her nose. “Fuck you.”
Anton’s mouth twisted and he turned to Ricky. “They’re coming. If you stay here, they’ll have her. Stay here and you’ll die.”
Ricky looked panicked. “They won’t hurt her.”
Anton snarled, took a step towards him. “Hurt is a relative term. They won’t kill her. But they will kill you.”
He was appealing to the wrong person; Ricky cared more about her than he did himself, but she felt the same way about him. He started to shake his head, but Emma said, “No.” Ricky met her eyes. “I can’t lose you. We’re going with him.”
He knew that tone of voice.
They moved.
5
Emma crossed the living room and snatched her handbag up from beside the phone. She made a quick mental inventory of its contents and then whirled, spotted the gun on the couch, swallowed the lump in her throat that rose at the thought of how stupid it was to leave a loaded gun lying around. She grabbed it and stuffed it inside her handbag, trying not to recall the criminal sentence for unlawfully carrying a concealed firearm, trying to keep a lid on the part of her brain that at any moment would start shrieking in protest.
She caught sight of Ricky heading for the door, and that part of her brain did start shrieking. “Ricky, wait.” Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. “Your pants. Your face.”
Ricky scrubbed a hand across his mouth, smearing blood up his cheek. His eyes were too wide. “I can —”
“Don’t,” said Anton, “I have something you can wear in my car. We’re going. Now.” If the wound on his right shoulder gave him trouble, he didn’t show it.
Emma shoved her sneakers on her feet, engaged the security lock and then they were out the door, dog at her heels — should have brought a leash, damn it, should have brought a doggiebag — into the hall, then out into milky predawn gloom. The air was cool, but the sky promised crisp spring warmth as soon as the sun made it up for the day.
Anton’s pace turned into a run across the gravel of the parking lot. “My truck,” he called over his shoulder as they raced past Emma’s little Mazda. They hit the sidewalk and she spotted it: a beat up white Ford monster.
Anton reached the truck first, and Emma got there a step behind Ricky. She swung the back passenger door open as Ricky reached the front, and stopped dead when she saw the lean faced, shirtless stranger slumped in the back seat.
Blond hair, messy, eyes like glinting slits of sky. High cheekbones, golden skin. But the eyes were what stopped Emma. Cruel and wise and empty. He arched a sandy brow, laugh lines crinkling at the corners of his eyes, and Emma had to ditch any estimation of his age.
“Hey,” he said, flashing teeth. “I like your t-shirt. Get in.”
She took a step back, shaking her head. She wasn’t stupid. She knew bad news when she saw it — even if it did look like a young Kevin Bacon crossed with one of Tolkien’s elves, with insane abdominal definition and arms like muscled velvet and a smile like the cat who ate the canary.
“Anton?” Ricky put a hand on the door Emma held open. He stared.
Anton twisted in his seat and gave Ricky a frustrated look. “You know who he is.”
“That’s why I don’t want to get in the car.”
The truck coughed to life. “Get in the car, Ricky,” said Anton, “He’s with me, it’s fine. He won’t —”
The sound of tires squealing on pavement froze them all, and they looked up as a black SUV rounded the corner three blocks up and roared down the street. Emma’s heart leapt. Behind her, she heard Ricky make a strangled sound deep in his throat.
“Get in NOW !” Anton gunned the engine; it roared like a tortured animal. The dog leaped into the backseat and didn’t seem at all perturbed by the stranger. Traitor , Emma thought and launched herself after the dog, felt the slam of the front passenger door as Ricky shot in, but she was looking over her shoulder out the windshield and watching the black SUV accelerating towards them. It swerved from side to side along the street and clipped a nice gray BMW parked on the curb, orange taillight glass spraying up and bouncing off the asphalt. Then Emma met the eyes of the blond guy. They were intense and unafraid. He grinned at her.
The truck lurched forwards with a bass rumble and the screech of rubber on asphalt. Emma faced the front seats, Bruce swaying against her as she groped for her safety belt. Her fingers found the big metal latch but the belt wouldn’t extend. Great, just great. She pressed her back against her seat and braced her feet against the base of the seat in front of her, one hand on the door, the other on the edge of the bench seat beside her. Neither Ricky nor Anton belted up, but unlike them, she wouldn’t survive a car crash at high speed.
Anton took the corner too fast and the truck rocked to the right, almost spilling the dog into her lap along with mister blond and grinning. Hair in her eyes, she couldn’t see his face, could only hear his laughter as the tires scre
amed again.
They’d come out onto the avenue, traffic thankfully not heavy, because Anton drove like a maniac. He swore when a large sedan somehow failed to see him coming, yanking the wheel into the opposite lane and accelerating terrifyingly through an almost nonexistent gap. Horns blared, noise receding as they sped along. Emma wanted to close her eyes, couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not gonna die, not gonna die . She had to hope supernaturally fast reflexes really did make one a better driver, and not just better at withstanding the impact of a ten car pileup.
Ricky twisted around in his seat with no regard for what would happen to his spine if Anton had to suddenly stand on the brakes, turning all the way around to kneel on the seat. At least he had the presence of mind to wrap his arms around the headrest. “You okay?” He sounded out of breath, and he glanced at mister blond and creepy like he wanted to say more, but didn’t.
Emma stared at him. “No, I’m not. Your brother drives like a psychopath.” And the truck felt like it was about to fall apart. “Are they still behind us?”
Anton answered her. “I’m losing them. And I drive just fine.” He punctuated that comment by taking the turnoff to the freeway so fast it left only two wheels touching the road, and Emma’s stomach jumped like something taking flight. She flung out an arm to stop Bruce from spilling into the front seat. The momentum of the turn swung Ricky into his seat; he hissed and arched his back, and Emma remembered the claw marks from the fight. He met her eyes, saw the worry there, and shook his head quickly. Hell, it wasn’t like there was anything she could do about it now. When they stopped she could help him — if they stopped, wherever they stopped.
Emma dug her fingers into the peeling vinyl bench seat and twisted to pin the blond with a stare over Bruce’s shaggy head. “Who are you?” She hoped she sounded pissed off, and not terrified for her life.
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