As soon as he was able, Rafe needed to howl to his litter. Natasha had failed in swiping the laws and traditions out from under the paws of the jaguars in Guarida. She would either try again or start howling very loudly as to how dishonorable his litter was for preventing all jaguars from reading the laws and traditions. His litter needed to start howling about how accessible the writings were to read before Natasha managed to disparage their litter loud enough for all these litters to hear. It would be just her style to do so. Especially to save face in front of so many jaguars when she didn’t produce the laws and traditions as promised.
Naria had howled something about not letting Natasha know he wasn’t mated. Rafe wasn’t sure how it made a difference, although as far as he was concerned, he was mated. Possibly they would have smelled the details of Natasha’s stench if Naria and her males hadn’t rescued them. And why hadn’t Natasha sniffed Colony out until she’d found him and Anna? Rafe didn’t remember Naria having any particular hold on Natasha. Once he could howl to his littermates, Raul’s mate Angela might have insight on how close these two females were or might have been. Naria sure hadn’t smelled as if she liked Natasha at all. Rafe had smelled her fear and distrust. He doubted she would have mastered hiding the smell of her lies, but not other negative emotions.
He glanced around as more jaguars stirred, and the smells in the cave grew stronger with the smell of coffee, kill being cooked over fire pits, and the general mixture of wary apprehension and caution as so many deadly predators managed to cohabitate for the time being in the large cave.
Rafe stood along a cool, damp wall as more females traipsed over the hard cave floor and into the smaller area where water flowed. He could hear the echoes of the females and their cubs as they bathed and probably washed off the grime from travelling. It amazed him how many jaguars lived outside of Colony yet had heard the howlings encouraging them to run here to see the laws and traditions.
He let his gaze follow a group of females, all of different ages, as they disappeared into the smaller cave. Anna was in there bathing. Rafe had no problem honoring the privacy of so many females, but he would have loved to help Anna bathe. Their sex was getting hotter and hotter every time they fucked. This morning, though, was a lot more than fucking.
Since he’d started chasing her, they’d had sex in quite a few different ways. He’d taken Anna aggressively, hunting her down and leaping on her on the forest floor. They’d been gentle, taking time to explore and know each other’s bodies. Rafe had even allowed Anna the reins, watched her glow with female possessiveness as she commanded their lovemaking while locked in the room in the den that was a cage.
But this morning, what he and Anna shared smelled strongly of love. Rafe smelled the emotion on his littermates every time either of them looked at their mate. It wasn’t something he’d ever envied or felt regret over not having with a female of his own. He saw now it was because he’d been waiting for Anna.
Rafe anticipated the pending crash inside him. Any minute now he would experience the need to run before he became completely trapped by a female. A lump of dread and fear would ball up in his gut very soon. Rafe imagined he’d feel sick once reality over what was happening between them sank into his thick brain. He’d just acknowledged his love for a female, even if it were just to himself. They’d demanded loyalty and commitment from each other. Anna claimed him as her male. He’d claimed her as his female. Not that anyone would dispute it. Her scent seeped from him strong enough Anna might as well be standing right next to him.
Rafe stood tall, watching jaguars move around him, and breathed in the smell of Anna’s sex still lingering on his body. He’d almost considered not bathing, although as many times as he’d fucked her now, her scent would remain in his pores, claiming him, just as she had. Heading around the portion of the cave where the males were bathing, he watched water stream down incredibly high walls of rock and plummet into a shallow body of water where a couple dozen males stood naked, cleaning themselves.
As he stripped and found his own spot in the water, he shivered against the cold and made quick work of rinsing his body. The fear didn’t set in. Nor did he experience panic. When Rafe had woken this morning, Anna’s warm, soft body was cuddled into him and his hand had been on her ass. He remembered stroking her soft flesh, waking up and realizing how he touched her. Watching Anna stir, the change in her breathing and finally the fluttering of her lashes as she stared up at him pulled emotions out of him he hadn’t acknowledged before.
Rafe wasn’t sure when he finally accepted he couldn’t live without her. He had a feeling it was long before he had hunted her down and fucked her in the rain forest alongside her den. Something about Anna had drawn him to her when her litter first entered Guarida.
“The water is colder than fuck,” a male announced to no one in particular when he climbed out of the water, bent over and shook his thick black hair.
“It will wake you up,” someone else howled, and more comments followed.
The morning growls and purrings pulled Rafe out of his meandering thoughts. The males weren’t being amiable, just communicating as each kept a watchful eye on those around them. More males, some with cubs, were entering the water. It was too cold to linger, and Rafe made quick work of cleaning himself and climbed out just as another male, close in age to Rafe, entered the water with cubs who were a few years old, clinging to him as their small limbs shivered from cold. With the direction Anna and he were headed, that would be him within a few years. Once again, the single male in him remained uninhibited. The thought didn’t even repulse him.
Did a female’s scent embedded in his flesh do more than change his own scent? Rafe glanced at the young cubs, their sire keeping them protectively close. They looked like their sire. Rafe jumped onto the slightly slick, smooth rock surface outside the pool of water and grabbed his clothes. Images of small cubs, the females all little Annas and the males reflections of himself appeared in his mind. Raul and Ran never mentioned excitement over having cubs. What the hell was wrong with him?
“Good hunting,” a slightly older male next to him said once he finished dressing and pulled rather long black hair streaked with gray out from under his collar. The male gave Rafe a pointed look and sniffed the air with a raspy wheeze.
“Good hunting,” Rafe muttered, giving the stout older male an assessing once-over. He didn’t smell of hostility but instead something bordering close to curiosity.
The male studied him then tilted his head and continued to sniff the air. Someone had provided stacks of rather rough towels, of which at least half were now in crumpled damp piles on top of each other. Rafe stood on thick moss that covered the ground to the side of the enclosed water cave. The towel he’d grabbed was slightly damp but served its purpose. He wasn’t completely dry when he pulled on his boxers then slipped into jeans.
Loud snarling started just outside the entrance to the water cave, and Rafe yanked his shirt over his head, struggled with his socks then shoved his feet into his boots before hurrying into the larger cave where it seemed even more jaguars were than there had been the night before. He instinctively looked at the entrance to where the females bathed. Taking inventory on the jaguars around him, he didn’t see Anna. Rafe edged toward the entrance to where the females were bathing. It was congested with females and cubs who had stilled and now watched anxiously as the males yelling began to circle one another.
Anna couldn’t possibly be soaking in the frigid water. What was taking her so long?
Spicy anger drifted toward him. The pissed-off males were at the edge of where quite a few jaguars, some with cubs, stood huddled. Rafe guessed someone was handing out meat as he also detected the thick aroma of fish and venison cooking. The jaguars near the males created a half-circle around them, those with cubs pulling them close or lifting them into their arms.
One male lunged at another, his howling loud enough easily to be heard. “It has already been announced exactly how it is worded.�
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“You smell as if you’re stupid enough to believe everything howled around you,” the male facing him returned, his growl deeper but still managing to echo off the cave walls a bit more effectively than the first jaguar’s accusation had. “Any jaguar willing to follow laws based purely on speculation is a waste of fur. And I’ll gladly perform the deed of killing him to make room for those of us smart enough to wait and read for ourselves the laws and traditions that will once again make us strong and powerful.”
“Do you really think some ancient writings are going to make us stronger? Jaguars will be strong when they decide to take over and show the world how deadly we are.” This declaration came from a female who leapt in between both males and squared her shoulders as she snarled at them.
The female’s shrill voice immediately set off the tempers of a few more jaguars. Rafe watched the volatile scene for another moment before turning and searching once again for Anna. They were idiots for being in this cave. Anyone would know so many jaguars in close quarters would inevitably start attacking each other. He needed to find Anna.
“And I suppose you believe a female will be the one who will lead us to this dominating world.”
That accusation caused a handful of jaguars to jump into the fight until claws were finally bared and snarls turned into deadly, blood-curdling screams. A small, cold hand gripped his arm and Rafe jumped; his lip curling as he looked down at Anna. Immediately the rush of defensive energy over having just been touched spiked into an urgency to protect what was his. He felt the sparks attack his spine, his primal instincts ready to surface from the smell of aggression and outrage.
“This is going to get really ugly,” Anna whispered, and glanced up at him. “There are too many jaguars in this cave.”
“Just what I was thinking,” he growled, pulling her close. The top of her head fit under his chin and her long hair was damp and smelled of the smoke from the fire pits. Like him, Anna had rinsed off without soap or shampoo. “If you hadn’t shown up in the next second, I would have stormed into the cave where the females are bathing.”
“And started a stampede of females,” she snarled, pulling her head from under his chin and tilting it to look up at him. She rolled her eyes but didn’t smell upset. “Not in a good way either.”
Rafe dared to take a minute to run his thumb down her nose then kiss her red lips. “The only way that would be good is if it were a stampede of one female,” he growled against her mouth, and cupped her ass in his hands.
Jaguars began pushing around Rafe and Anna, edging closer to the fighting. Rafe guided Anna swiftly around and away from the growing crowd. Unfortunately it led them farther into the cave and not toward the entrance he knew to be on the other side of the fight. He couldn’t see the passageway they’d used after leaving the pitch-black tunnel they’d walked through from Naria’s den.
“It would be nice to know if there was another way out of here,” Rafe said, his arm around Anna now as he watched their footing over the wet floor near the bathing area. “And I don’t like that we have to split up in order to bathe. We need to get the hell out of here.”
“I’ll hurry back to your side to protect you,” Anna offered, making a face at him that was probably meant to show her humor in light of the growing spiciness thickening in the air.
He was ready to comment and pulled her closer by gripping the hair at the side of her head when a loud, reverberating sound began echoing through the cave. It continued, drowning out the fighting jaguars and burning his eardrums. He wrapped his arms around Anna, pressing her body against his as every inch of him tensed.
Anna almost leapt out of his arms in an effort to turn around. Rafe held on to her, and at the same time managed some skillful footwork to prevent them both from slipping when jaguars around them also jumped into defensive positions, either protecting those around them or jerking their heads around in an effort to learn where the loud repetitive sound was coming from.
“That is enough!” Naria stood on a rock on the other side of the fighting, holding a large pole in her hand, one end of it wrapped in cloth, which she had used to bang against a gong that stood taller than her. The round, flat gold disc hanging by chains from a steel frame swayed back and forth next to her as she held the pole up in her hand.
Her voice echoed, causing her command to repeat itself several times before fading.
“While all of you are ready to tear each other’s jugulars out,” she yelled, her voice shrill and emotional, “the laws and traditions are on their way here. Would you kill each other over our laws before being able to sniff them out, read how our ancestors howled about our destiny?”
“How will we know these laws and traditions were even howled by our ancestors?” a male yelled.
“Seems damn convenient they suddenly appear the same time that Kalusian bitch takes over Colony!” The male who yelled his bold attack on Natasha silenced the cave.
Rafe shot his attention from Naria to the direction where the two males had howled. Anna stiffened next to him and glanced around them, sniffing the air. She smelled the hostility, the pent-up anger and adrenaline mounting. He searched the cave, trying to identify the location of all of Naria’s jaguars. Even if there were more than those he knew about, they weren’t enough to control every jaguar in the cave.
“When will these laws be here?” someone else yelled from the far side of the cave.
“They should be here by now.” It was a female’s shrill voice that shot out the accusation. “Natasha isn’t going to allow any jaguar to see them until she’s sniffed over them very carefully to make sure all the laws agree with how she wants all of us running.”
The growling grew to echoing howls, and once again it appeared many of the jaguars were ready to break out into a heated fight. Rafe smelled it in the air and he wasn’t the only one. Those standing around him and Anna were tense, braced for the inevitable. Some would fight, others run, depending on their motivation.
“I think they are here already.” The male who’d passed him earlier glanced toward Rafe after he yelled his speculation. He looked toward Naria but then returned his attention to Rafe. “Isn’t it true that the VicMoran litter will try to prevent all jaguars from knowing the laws and traditions?”
Anna turned into Rafe, her expression twisted with horror and disgust. “He recognizes you,” she whispered then looked past him. “We need to disappear. This won’t be an honorable fight.”
He nodded, taking in the male who had turned to howl at Naria. He didn’t recognize the male. Neither he nor his littermates were by any means famous. None of them had a reputation others would be able to sniff out. Anna was guessing, but her hunch smelled accurate. Without saying anything, he tightened his grip on Anna’s hand and moved them behind a litter huddling close to each other, protecting their cubs. They worked their way toward the entrances leading into the smaller caves where everyone had bathed. Beyond that there were smaller caves, although Rafe didn’t have a clue if any of them led outside. He kept his pace, holding Anna’s hand firmly, as he led them into what appeared to be a maze of underground hallways.
“Change,” Anna snarled next to him, her voice breathy.
She tugged against his hand, trying to free hers. At the same time she slowed her pace. Rafe dragged her for a moment before reluctantly slowing. He strained his ears, forcing his hearing to go beyond what his human ears were capable of mastering. For the life of him he couldn’t tell if they were being followed or not.
“We don’t know where these tunnels lead.” His response had nothing to do with her suggestion. He merely uttered the main thought on his mind. Or one of several main thoughts. He stared hard into the darkness ahead of them then turned his head, doing the same thing in the direction behind them. “Okay, be quick and don’t let any of the clothes you take off your body out of your hands for a moment.”
“Okay.” Anna didn’t ask questions.
His instructions were clear. If they let go of a
nything, it would take precious time they might not have trying to retrieve them in the darkness. Once they were in their fur, they would be able to see, hear, smell and protect themselves a lot better than in their human form. Picking up their clothes with their paws would take a lot more time than simply holding on to them, twisting them into ropes and tying them to their bodies as they changed.
“Hit all four and run,” Anna said, her voice already garbled. “We’ll keep running until we smell fresh air.”
* * * * *
Anna had found several decent-sized dried branches and stacked them on top of each other, making a temporary table of sorts where she’d placed their clothes. Now back in cat form, she lay nearby, giving herself a very detailed bath. Rafe could easily watch her lick herself for the remainder of the day. The urge to take over, ensure every bit of her body was clean as he licked her for hours, forced him to quit watching. Even as he wandered into the thick trees around them, his cock was harder than stone. Also in cat form, he found a large boulder he was able to climb and stared at a breathtaking view of the Rocky Mountains. Wherever they were, there were no jaguars or humans anywhere nearby.
There were, however, other animals. He smelled bears somewhere close. Wild creatures were baffled by jaguars, and any other species who could hold on to two different forms. Like humans, wild animals didn’t trust them. Rafe remained alert to his surroundings as he lounged on the edge of the cliff.
The sun was directly above them. Rafe wanted to make love to Anna. It was a distraction that prevented him from believing anything else they might do right now could be any more important. They’d been through hell the past couple days. Yet here, on this mountainside, too rugged for most humans to endure climbing, and too far from Colony for most jaguars to come this far hunting, it seemed they’d found their own hidden sanctuary. He smelled when the tension left Anna. Her scent was relaxed, peaceful, and her movements lazy when he again glanced in her direction.
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