Rise of the Jaguar

by Elizabeth Kelly

  “You know you can’t go back to your old life, right?” Clay’s voice was deceptively casual.

  She stopped but didn’t turn around. “I know. I have a sister I can go to.”

  “Granger will be looking for you. If you go to your sister, you’ll put her in danger as well.”

  Feeling sick to her stomach, Emerson didn’t reply. Instead, she walked into Owen’s room and shut the door, leaning against it and closing her eyes.

  Chapter 7

  “My home office is locked down?” Wilson stared out the passenger window of the SUV.

  Dax stuffed his phone into his jacket pocket. “Yes. I added another four inside the office and two more outside of it.”

  Wilson frowned. “That puts ten in the room and four outside of it. Don’t you think that’s a little overkill, Dax?”

  “He killed six humans yesterday and nearly killed a bear shifter. So, no, it isn’t overkill.”

  “I thought Randy was healing.” Wilson didn’t give a shit about the bear shifter, even if Randy had been in his employment for three years, but he’d learned early on in life that his total lack of empathy made others wary of him. He’d gotten very good over the years at pretending to care about others when the situation called for it.

  “He finally started healing this morning, but it’s slow going. Pretty sure that fucking suppressant serum is slowing his healing ability. He’s a fucking grizzly. They heal in a matter of hours, not days.”

  “Perhaps. But by tomorrow, the serum will have worn off, and he’ll be back to normal.” Wilson stared at the big tiger shifter. “It bothers you that I’ve gone into business with Mr. Grimes, doesn’t it?”

  “You pay me to do a job,” Dax said. “It’s none of my business how you run your company.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Wilson said. “But we’ve worked together for a long time. You’re loyal. The one employee I know I can count on in any situation. I might even suggest we’re friends. Do you agree?”

  “Yes,” Dax said.

  Wilson studied him silently. The tiger shifter’s next words would determine whether he continued to work for Wilson or whether his body would be in a shallow grave by this time tomorrow. “Can I trust that you’ll continue to be loyal, Dax? Even with this new business venture that could have devastating consequences for your kind?”

  “Yes.” Dax’s voice didn’t hesitate. He turned his gaze to Wilson, the golden colour of his eyes turning darker as his voice lowered and orangish coloured hair appeared on his jaw. “As long as you don’t plan on using that fucking serum on me.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, Dax,” Wilson said. They were only about ten minutes from the office now. “Did the cleaners finish my office?”

  “Yes. It’s been cleaned, and Tridell’s body sent to processing. None of the employees in the office or the warehouse are aware of what happened.”

  “Good.”

  “Boss, we need to consider the possibility that Clay will return before two weeks,” Dax said.

  “You think Grimes was lying about how long the suppressant worked?”

  “Maybe. There’s a part of you that does as well, or you wouldn’t be bothering with the additional security at your home until the two weeks were over,” Dax said.

  Wilson nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right. It is something that’s a possibility. After all, Grimes has only used the serum on shifters. Clay isn’t exactly a shifter, is he?”

  “No, sir.”

  “In fact, I’m surprised it worked at all.”

  “Maybe it didn’t. Maybe he just wants us to think it did.”

  Wilson considered that before shaking his head. “No. Clay knows exactly where his brother is. If he could return to him, he would.”

  “He’d know we’d have men waiting for him.”

  “True. But you know their background. Owen means everything to Clay. He’s desperate to get his brother back. There is no doubt in my mind that if he could teleport, he would.”

  “Which is why we should move Owen from your house to a secure location.”

  “No, Owen is too valuable to risk moving him. My home is the most secure place to keep him. Clay has only seen the office, and he won’t get out of that room. At least not when he’s conscious,” Wilson said.

  “You should just kill him,” Dax said. “Tranquilizing him, letting him live, is dangerous. He’s not weak like his brother, Wilson. He’s a fucking mercenary and one of the best I’ve worked with. He’s killed as many people as I have. Maybe more.”

  Wilson smiled. “He’s as dangerous as you. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes,” Dax said.

  “I want his abilities,” Wilson said. “He will work for me, just like Owen does.”

  Dax huffed in frustration. “Clay doesn’t care about anyone but his brother. You can’t blackmail him into helping you by holding someone he loves hostage. Your only leverage over him is his brother, and you sure as shit can’t threaten to kill Owen.”

  “No, but I can hurt him in ways that will make him wish he were dead. Do you think Clay will continue to refuse to work for me once I take one of Owen’s hands or remove his nose? Or maybe I’ll just do a good old-fashioned castrating on his beloved baby brother.”

  Dax looked a little pale, and Wilson grinned at him. “Clay will do exactly what I tell him to do. But first, I need to find him. Did you activate the tracking device on Emerson?”

  “Yes. We have her location.”

  Wilson’s grin widened. “You see, I told you it was a good idea to chip all of the employees. You thought it was a waste of resources. Where is she?”

  “Mount Rayneau.”

  Wilson blinked at him. “She’s in White Rock?” White Rock was the small town at the base of the mountain.

  “No, I mean she’s literally on the goddamn mountain,” Dax said. “Almost at the top of the damn thing.”

  “Why would Clay teleport them there?” Wilson said.

  “White Rock is a tourist town in the winter,” Dax said. “Lots of city people go there in the winter for skiing. There are tons of cabin rental and purchase opportunities on the mountain.”

  “Still doesn’t explain why Clay teleported them there. Unless he was a big skier back in the day?” Wilson said irritably.

  “I don’t know what his fucking hobbies are,” Dax said. “But that’s where he took her. And I think he’s still with her.”

  Wilson frowned. “Why?”

  “Because a blizzard started up about two hours before Clay teleported them there. The worst storm they’ve seen in twenty years, apparently. The town isn’t getting hit quite as bad, but the mountain is completely shut down. Nobody’s going up or down it until the storm ends.”

  “So, Clay is trapped there with Emerson,” Wilson rubbed thoughtfully at his chin. “What do you think the odds are that he killed her?”

  Eighty percent,” Dax said.

  Wilson glanced at him. “That high?”

  Dax shrugged. “If she weren’t a jaguar, I would have said ninety percent. He doesn’t like to leave witnesses. But he’s not stupid. He’ll know how dangerous she can be if she feels threatened.”

  “Take a dozen men to White Rock. As soon as the storm ends, you go up the mountain to their location. If we’re lucky, Clay will have already killed Emerson and saved us the trouble. If he hasn’t, kill her and bring Clay back to me. Alive and unharmed, Dax.”

  “I’ll need more than a dozen men,” Dax said.

  Wilson’s patience was starting to wear thin, but he schooled his expression. “He can’t teleport.”

  “He’s still fucking dangerous,” Dax said. “He kills people for a goddamn living, Wilson.”

  His patience gone entirely now, Wilson glared at Dax. “Do I need to find someone else for this job, Dax? Have you lost your fucking nerve?”

  “No,” Dax said sullenly.

  “Then take a dozen men to White Rock and bring me back my fucking prize.”

  “It’
s still snowing.” Emerson pulled back the curtains to the large bay window in the living room as soon as she emerged from her bedroom.

  Clay glanced at her ass and her long pale legs before returning to stirring the soup bubbling on the stove. He added more seasoning, stirred, and tasted it. It wasn’t half bad, considering his cooking skills were shit. He glanced at Emerson again. She stood in front of the window, her arms folded across her torso. It pulled her shirt tight and highlighted the fact that she was braless. His cock sat up and took notice immediately. Fuck, he’d been sporting a semi ever since Emerson had emerged from the bedroom yesterday looking way too fucking cute in his t-shirt and shorts.

  Why he’d lied to her and said they were Owen’s clothes, he wasn’t sure. Other than the niggling thought that she might stop wearing his clothes if he told her the truth and there was something weirdly appealing about her wearing his clothes.

  After he’d lost his temper with her yesterday, she hadn’t emerged from the bedroom again. Annoyed by her hiding in her room like a moody teenager, he hadn’t tried to coax her out to eat lunch or dinner. If she wanted to starve, that was her problem.

  Of course, it was hard to deny the relief he felt now that she was actually out of her room. And no, he hadn’t made a deliberately fragrant soup in the hope that it would lure her out. He realized she was staring at him as he stared at her tits. She pulled the shirt away from her chest and said, “Does the cabin have a washer and dryer?”

  “Yes. Stacking ones behind the closet doors in the hallway.” He stirred the soup again. “Soap is on the shelf above them.”

  She stared out the window again. “I think the storm is worse, not better.”

  “It is.”

  She sighed in frustration. “Shit.”

  “You should settle in,” he said. “Storms like this one tend to last more than a day or two.”

  “Oh my God.” She paced back and forth in front of the window. “Screw it. I’ll take my chances with driving the SUV down the mountain.”

  She started toward the bedroom, and he pointed the wooden spoon at her. “Like fuck you will. In a storm like this, you’ll drive off the side of the mountain and kill yourself.”

  “It’s better than being in the cabin with you,” she said.

  Her words stung a surprising amount. He shook it off. “What the hell is your problem? You should be grateful that I’m even letting you stay in the cabin and not kicking you out into the fucking storm.”

  She growled at him, her face flush with colour and her dark eyes starting to turn the colour of jade. Holy fuck, she was gorgeous when she was riled up. He could only imagine how hot she’d be in bed. All of that seething anger with him would probably result in her giving him the best fuck of his life. His urge to kiss her was overwhelming.

  “I need to leave,” she said. “Staying isn’t an option. If you don’t let me use the SUV, I’ll walk.”

  He laughed in honest surprise, and she growled at him again, her eyes now completely green and glowing with an angry light.

  “You’re not stupid, so stop acting like you are,” he said. “You can’t leave, and you know that. What the fuck is up with the attitude?”

  She hissed, a soft sound that shouldn’t have made his cock hard but did. She smacked her hand against the wall in frustration before collapsing on the couch and staring moodily into the fire. “My heat starts tomorrow morning.”

  “Fuck,” he said.

  She glanced at him. “I’m guessing you know what that means.”

  He dropped the spoon on the counter and turned the burner down to low before pacing back and forth in the narrow space between the island and the counter. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  He knew what it meant when a female cat shifter went into heat. Hell, he’d seen a lynx shifter in the middle of her heat once while working a job. He’d been hired to kill her lover, a black bear shifter with ties to a Russian cartel who didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.

  Clay had tracked him down while the bear shifter was at the lynx shifter’s house. Clay could have killed him that first night, a simple matter of a well-placed shot through the bedroom window. But he’d waited to kill the bear shifter until her heat finished.

  He wasn’t a total bastard. Forcing the lynx shifter to lose her fuck buddy only a few hours into her heat had felt like a dick move to him. Especially with the look of almost desperate need on her face and the way she’d gone at him over and over. Clay could admit that he’d been impressed by the guy’s stamina. He lost track of how many times the two shifters had fucked. They’d stopped only for sleeping and for the cat shifter to gorge herself on raw meat.

  After forty-eight hours of the most intense fucking Clay had ever seen, the bear shifter finally left with a self-congratulatory smile on his face. Clay shot the man in the head the moment he stepped outside of the cat shifter’s house. The bear shifter died instantly, collapsing on the sidewalk with that same smile still plastered to his face.

  Emerson hadn’t looked away from the fire. He gripped the edge of the island, studying her intently. “Aren’t there drugs to help with that?”

  “Yes, and I take them,” she said. “But they’re in my purse, which is still in Wilson’s office.”

  “Fuck,” he said again. “You’ll just have to take care of the problem yourself.”

  She glared at him, her lip curling up. “Thanks for the tip, Einstein. What would I do without you to mansplain to me how I need to handle my fucking heat?”

  He would have laughed at her snotty but totally deserved comment to him if he wasn’t panicking a little at the thought of being trapped in a cabin with her. He might be attracted to Emerson, but he didn’t fancy being torn to pieces by her because she wanted his dick.

  “I haven’t had a heat in well over a year, which means it’ll be bad.” Her face paled. “Very bad.”

  She glanced at him, her gaze drifting down his body. Despite the way his cock went half-hard again, his sense of self-preservation overruled his desire to fuck her. “I won’t fuck you.”

  Her upper lip curled at him again before she said in a haughty, but Jesus was it fucking sexy, tone, “You couldn’t handle fucking me. I’d tear you to pieces.”

  His back went up even though he’d had the same thought. “Trust me, sweetheart, I could handle it just fine.”

  She laughed, the sound more bitter than mocking. “Shifter or human, it doesn’t matter. Men are all the same. Arrogant sons of bitches who think they’re God’s gift to women.”

  She stood and walked down the hallway toward her room.

  “Lunch is ready,” he called after her.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Chapter 8

  Emerson was hungry. Starving, in fact. It didn’t help that the soup at lunch had smelled delicious, nor did it help that dinner smelled equally good. Whatever Clay was making had her salivating and her jaguar practically pleading to join him for dinner.

  She didn’t move from the bed. She burrowed a little deeper under the quilt and stared at the ceiling as her jaguar growled. She was even hungrier than Emerson, and if Em didn’t feed her soon, she’d make a push for control.

  She could hear Clay’s footsteps in the hallway and smell his much too enticing scent. She ignored him when he knocked on her door. He waited a few seconds and then knocked again.

  “Dinner is ready.”

  “I’m not hungry.” She pressed her hand against her growling belly.

  She didn’t need her shifter abilities to hear his sigh through the door. “You have to eat, Emerson. Going on a hunger strike like a pissed off toddler won’t solve anything.”

  “Fuck off,” she said.

  He laughed. “Okay, I deserved that, but if I say I’m sorry, will you eat some dinner before you faint?”

  Her stomach growled again. Hating that Clay was right about her acting like a spoiled toddler, she shoved the covers down before climbing out of bed. “Fine.”

  Her jaguar pur
red happily as she opened the bedroom door. Clay was already halfway down the hallway, and she studied his ass as she followed him to the kitchen. Fuck, why did she have to be attracted to him?

  It wouldn’t matter even if you weren’t. Once your heat starts, you will try to fuck him. How long do you think he’ll last before you kill him, Em?

  She shuddered at the thought of hurting him, even if he was a total dickhead who had stranded her in a cabin in the middle of a snowstorm.

  He also saved your life.

  Wilson wasn’t going to kill her.

  Fine. At the very least, Clay saved you from having your brain zapped into forgetting your own fucking name, so maybe show him a little appreciation.

  She didn’t care for her inner voice reminding her what Clay did for her. It really messed with her, ‘he’s a complete asshole’ narrative.

  She sat down at the island, staring at the lasagna sitting on her plate. It looked and smelled delicious. He poured them both a glass of water and sat on the stool at the end of the island.

  “You made lasagna?” she said.

  “If by made you mean heated up a frozen store bought one, then yes, I made lasagna,” he said.

  She didn’t laugh even though she kind of wanted to. “It smells delicious.”

  “I think your hunger strike has fooled you into believing it smells better than it does,” he said. “Trust me, it’ll be mediocre at best. But still better than if I tried to make one.”

  She ate a bite of the lasagna.

  Clay paused with a forkful of lasagna held near his mouth. “Well?”

  “You were right,” she said.

  He laughed and popped the bite into his mouth. God, he had a great laugh. She drank some water and shoveled more forkfuls of lasagna into her mouth. Her jaguar was hungry enough that she couldn’t be ladylike about it, but what did she care how it looked? This wasn’t a date.

  They ate in silence, and when Clay slid a second piece onto her plate, she ate it as well despite the mediocre taste. Her rumbling stomach and her grumbling jaguar had both quieted for the first time in hours. She drank some water and wiped her mouth as Clay ate the last bite on his plate.