Jungle Blaze

by Lexy Timms

  That brought his attention back to her. He looked at her, smiling at something his mother said, eating with quiet enjoyment. She’d been different since their return from Africa. The ready smile, the quick wit, all seemed strangely muted. He’d thought it was the adjustment to becoming a shifter. He’d expected that. It was a lot to take in a single swallow; he’d had his entire childhood to mentally prepare for the change that came at the end of puberty. He was 16 before he changed for the first time; Harold had been almost 19. They’d thought he’d be an Exception, the rare one that never shifts. Sometimes the ability skipped a family member, and sometimes it skipped an entire generation. Harold’s sudden change had been greeted with no small celebration, and equal parts relief.

  The conversation droned on around him as Taylor spooned more of the stew into his mouth; he thought about his little brother and the widening gap between them. Harold not changing until so long after puberty seemed somehow appropriate to Harold, though Taylor would never voice the thought out loud. Harold wasn’t the sort to take chances. And he certainly never took risks. Harold was stolid, unchanging, unflinching, and thoroughly dull. He had his routines and his world, and anything that disrupted those was cast into the classification as being ‘bad’.

  Taylor had shaken up the status quo when he left. He’d shaken it because he had left. Harold had yet to forgive him for that. But that wasn’t the only thing about which Harold held a grudge.

  It suddenly occurred to him that the conversation had stopped and the others were staring at him. He raised his eyebrows in question.

  “I asked you,” his mother said with exaggerated patience, “about your relationship to your cat.”

  Taylor blinked. “My... what?”

  His father sighed and set down his fork. “It looks like neither of my sons is dining with us today.”

  Taylor set his utensil down, too. The clatter against the plate sounded loud. “I’m sorry, all of you—I really am. I was thinking of Harold and the gap between us...” He faltered to a halt, realizing what he was doing. It was so easy to fall into old patterns, to want mom and dad to step in and fix things somehow.

  “It’s going to take time, dear,” his mother said, and he loved her for it; for the way that she didn’t step in and try to solve things for him.

  “I know.” Taylor wiped his mouth with his napkin. “I’m just afraid that time is something we might not have much of. Now, what was the discussion I missed?”

  “I was telling them,” Angelica stepped in quickly, her hand taking his under the table, “about Melinda Johns and the pheromone spray and gene splicing.”

  Things he should have been paying attention to. She squeezed his hand under the table, letting him know it was okay, but it wasn’t really. He shouldn’t have been off woolgathering. These weren’t easy things for her to talk about.

  “Yeah... the spray.” Now that the topic was in front of him, he realized it wasn’t easy for him to talk about either. He cleared his throat. “Fortunately that stuff was destroyed, and her formula with it.” He hesitated, and then voiced the thing he’d been thinking for a while now but hadn’t dared to say out loud. “At least, supposedly it has.”

  “Supposedly?” his father echoed, frowning.

  “Well,” Taylor waved the word away, “I’m fairly positive that whoever talked about this to the military didn’t have the data—at least, so far as I know they didn’t. I think they’d be going about things differently if they did.”

  “Save that for the meeting, son,” his father murmured, glancing uneasily around the table. “What we were talking about is teaching your lovely bride-to-be how we communicate with the cat. I was saying it can frustrating because it’s always like some vague memory, and getting your cat to do what you want is...”

  “I talk to mine,” Taylor said, taking another spoonful of stew.

  “What?” His father’s head shot up and he almost dropped the roll he was buttering. “What do you mean?”

  Taylor glanced uneasily around the table. Every last person was staring at him. “There’s a voice in my head, most of the time, though lately he’s not been around much. He doesn’t like this body. Balancing on two legs is too tricky. Can I have some more?” He held out his bowl for his mother to fill from the pot resting on the table in front of her. She seemed not to see it. In fact, she was staring at him like he’d grown another head. One with fur. He lowered the bowl uncertainly. Dammit, why did he feel like a teenage kid again and not a grown man?

  Yeah, that went well. Way to drop the bombshell. Remember how it hit you when it happened for the first time?

  “You mean to say,” Mrs. Petrov said slowly, “that you are in constant contact with your beast?”

  Beast?

  “With the cat, yes. But he doesn’t like the word beast.” Taylor rose and dished out more of the stew for himself.

  “But—” Mrs. Petrov looked at him like he’d just offered to prove the ground and sky were the same thing. Whatever she was going to say, however, was cut off by the doorbell.

  “Oh, good heavens,” Nikki snapped, coming out of her trance. “Of course. Leave it to a bunch of Minnesota farmers to be early.”

  THEY ALL ROSE TOGETHER and Nikki fussed about the table, insisting that the food and plates be left alone, claiming she would take care of things after the meeting concluded.

  The group followed Taylor’s dad into the living room, Taylor carrying his bowl and still spooning the stew into his mouth. No way was he going to let that go to waste. He hung back as his father opened the door to three men and another woman, who came in all smiles and chatter. The woman had brought a homemade selection of pastries, and Nikki took it and went to put on some coffee.

  This is not a particularly powerful group. It looks like a church social.

  What would you know of church socials? Besides, when they get going...

  I think I’m going to take a nap.

  That’s not a bad idea, actually. Taylor smiled, indulgent, as he wished the cat a good night. He looked up and found Mrs. Petrov staring at him.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the council, please let me reintroduce to you my son, Taylor. You all remember him.” Taylor nodded to them all, remembering every one of them well. He’d grown up with them; one was the father of someone he’d gone to school with. The others were neighbors. Friends. He wondered how they felt about his intrusion now, but he couldn’t read their expressions. His father took it upon himself to introduce Angelica, and Taylor realized belatedly that this should have been his job. Once again, he’d been distracted.

  Not a good trait in an agent. It’s not just the tiger that’s sleeping.

  “This lovely woman is Dr. Angelica Truman. She’s our future daughter-in-law.” Dmitri said the last part with a great flourish, and Taylor smiled at the effect it had. Their community wasn’t all that large, and weddings were things to be celebrated. He became the victim of back-pounding and glad-handing as the news sank in.

  Dmitri gestured for everyone to gather in the living room. He waited until everyone was seated to begin. The pastries were passed, coffee served by Nikki who stayed, balanced on the armrest of her husband’s chair. “You all know why we asked you here tonight. If what Taylor says is true, then we have a grave concern.”

  “Of course, it’s true,” Harold spat from the door. “He brought them. He betrayed us. He showed them what we could do and then he led them straight to us!”

  “Harold!” his father snapped. “You’re not welcome in a council meeting. You know this!”

  “HE IS!” Harold threw a finger at his brother. “AND SO IS SHE!”

  The look he gave Angelica was pure poison. Taylor put his arm around her, letting her know that she was safe with them, that his brother had no power to hurt her.

  He’d kill him himself if he had to.

  Dmitri’s eyes flashed fire. Apparently, Taylor wasn’t the only one mad at the intrusion. “They are here on invitation to tell what they know. You a
re not, because you don’t know anything anyone else needs to know. Now get out!”

  “TRAITOR!” Harold snapped at his brother and, turning, stormed up the stairs. A moment later he could be heard clomping overhead as he went to his room.

  “I’m sorry for the outburst. Harold’s been having a rough time lately,” Nikki said, eyes sad and disappointed. The group nodded without comment, though their expressions had shifted to something more thoughtful.

  He’s planted seeds of doubt.

  “The floor is open to discussion and questions,” Dmitri said with a pained sigh.

  The female member of the council turned to Mrs. Petrov. “Is this the way it was? Did it happen just like this?”

  Mrs. Petrov looked at Angelica for a long moment and nodded once, as if she had decided something. She settled more deeply in her chair, drawing her shawl up around her, as if to close out a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. “It was a very long time ago,” she said with a sad smile. “The beginning of World War I to be precise. Over one hundred years ago. I was still a young woman, but I remember it too well. They came for us then, too. One of our number, Alentri, he was taken for the war, to be a soldier. They simply came to the village and took him, calling him our ‘tribute to the war effort.’”

  She shook her head. “As luck would have it, poor Alentri was shot. It hit him in the lung and he began to bleed, badly. He was far away from the hospitals they set up on the line, and there was no way to get him to safety. He was going to lie there and bleed out, like the others around him. He lay there in the dirt, listening to the screams of the dying, and knew that death was coming for him.” She paused, her voice wavering a little. “He also knew that, if he shifted, he would live.”

  The group seated around the room exchanged glances. Taylor stared at his hands, holding a china plate with an untouched Danish on it that his mother had pressed into his hands. He’d been there, in the position of the young man, Alentri. He’d been shot, dying, and had known very intimately where survival lay. But to do so in front of those within his unit...

  He licked his lips, feeling suddenly devoid of moisture. No. He couldn’t judge this man for his decisions. Had he not also been making poor choices in the name of survival, in the name of Angelica’s survival? It was truly impossible to know what you would do unless you were there. It had to have been horrific.

  Mrs. Petrov bowed her head. Her face seemed to have aged in the telling of this story, the lines around her eyes, around her mouth, more deeply etched, wearing her age in a way she hadn’t when she’d come into the room. “It’s not that he didn’t try. He suffered, writhing in pain and anguish until he thought he was alone. The battle had shifted, and he was behind enemy lines. They were using mustard gas. So he changed. The bullet was expended, the tear in his lung healed, the wound sealed.”

  Taylor winced. What an incredibly difficult decision that must have been. A shifter who tried to transform with something like a bullet within his body took his life into his hands. The bullet could lodge elsewhere. The heart, for example. The brain. What might have been a survivable injury could turn deadly if the bullet shifted to someplace more vulnerable.

  “But Alentri was a lucky man. He was alive, but weak. And in shock. Only he wasn’t alone like he’d thought. There were witnesses.” She stopped and looked at each in turn, taking in the scowls, the expressions that held angry judgment on a man who had fought this battle over a hundred years ago. “You may say that you think he should have died rather than betray his people.” Mrs. Petrov held out her hands, palms up, in supplication. “Maybe. But I beg you to understand. You haven’t had to make that choice.” She looked over at Taylor, her expression shifting, becoming more calculating, as though she saw things no one else did. Perhaps she did. “Most of us haven’t,” she amended. “Whatever the case, someone saw. Someone from the war department. Someone who thought that a man who can be a tiger should fight as a tiger all the time. As if fur and teeth and claws were a protection against bullets and bombs. But some people have to be proven wrong at the expense of others.”

  “What happened?” It was Angelica who asked, the others in the room too caught up in the story to ask.

  “They came for us all then. They came in tanks and wagons and trains, and even horseless carriages.” She smiled, a genuine smile this time. “But we fled. We all changed and slipped through the countryside in the middle of the night like cats dancing on shadows, and we fled the country. When we regathered, we ran again as humans. We came here. This was still so much a wilderness then, with only loggers this far north. Loggers and those who had been native to this place, who saw us and respected us for what we were, and bade us live in peace.”

  Mrs. Petrov dabbed at her eyes with a hanky pulled from her sleeve. “Alentri... he bought us the time we needed. In the end he died anyway. He gave his life to bring us that extra time, leading our pursuers off on wild goose chases, and when they caught him he gave them only misinformation, that his mistake could not be compounded further. For his reward, they dissected him instead of us.”

  She sighed sadly, and turned to Angelica. “My late husband was a hero. I want you to understand that. He gave his life for us.” She smiled again, but this time her eyes were wistful. “He gave his life for me.” She reached out and grabbed Angelica’s hand. “I know you understand that.”

  Angelica patted her hand. “I do. But I’m confused. Don’t you mean World War II? Even that would put you—”

  Mrs. Petrov laughed and those around the room smiled also, for they understood the joke. Taylor winced, for he hadn’t thought to tell her. “I’m one-hundred-and-sixty-two years old, dear.”

  Chapter 8

  “Your mother doesn’t agree.”

  “My mother has never seen an artific—a man-made shifter before. She doesn’t have all the answers.” He tried to keep his voice calm. Talking to Angelica didn’t always make that easy. She knew how to make him frustrated. Him, and his cat, too.

  “Neither do you!” Angelica sat on the edge of the bed and ran her fingers through her hair until it stuck out in all directions. “Taylor... we... I can’t keep doing the exercises; they were made for someone who isn’t artificial. They’re not helping me.” She threw a fair amount of vitriol into that word. Obviously, she’d caught his earlier half-usage. “Your mother and Mrs. Petrov said they were designed to communicate with the internal cat, and mine isn’t realized yet.”

  Taylor took off his shirt and kicked off his shoes. “Honey,” he said as he tugged on his belt, “you’re not going to have one. Internal beasts only happen with the natural-born, not the way you got it.”

  “How do you know that?” She stood and began undressing. There was nothing seductive in her movements. This was the practical act of getting ready for bed.

  He watched her and wondered if they were abandoning any sort of lovemaking for the night. The thought made him sad.

  “You’re the only one who thinks so. What if I do need to wake it, or activate it?”

  “It’s not possible,” Taylor insisted gently. “I’m sorry, but what was done to you was done to your body. It was an alteration of the way your genes behave. There’s no inner cat, because you weren’t born to it.”

  “Then...” She threw up her arms in disgust. “Then there’s no hope for me. I’m screwed.” She plopped again, her jeans unbuttoned and gaping open. Her shirt lay on the chair. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to notice when things between them were so tense, but he was struck by how intensely beautiful she was, how beautiful she always was.

  He walked around to her side and perched next to her, reaching out to hold her hand. “We will find a way to control this,” he whispered. “I swear it.”

  She groaned and leaned against him.

  It was nice to feel her against him again, her soft hair tickling his shoulder. He kissed the top of her head.

  The intimacy might have ended there. He certainly never expected more, nor would he
have asked it, given how upsetting the day had been. But she turned to him and put her hand on his cheek, looking into his eyes for a brief moment before looking away. She seemed shy, uncertain. Maybe it was being in the house of his parents. Maybe it was because the tension was so thick between them. He caught her chin and brought her eyes back to his so he could try to decide which it was. She met his gaze unflinchingly, maybe a little sad. Very much frustrated. He leaned in, closing his mouth over hers, cautiously, letting her decide how much of him she wanted tonight. But her hand came up and cupped the back of his head, drawing him in closer, her mouth opening under his. Tongues met. Explored. Danced. He felt the familiar surge of passion that he only ever felt with her and drew her in closer, thanking God with every breath that, in all of this, he hadn’t lost her after all.

  She arched her back, her bare skin meeting his as she turned to face him more fully. He cupped a breast with the free hand and let his thumb roll over her nipple. She leaned into his touch and his hand fell, slowly, caressing her belly and dropping lower, into the opening of her jeans.

  She broke off then, gasping with pleasure and arousal as he stroked her mound through the thin fabric of her underwear. For a moment she savored the sensation, head back with her eyes closed, lips parted. She gasped, held her breath a moment as he pressed just... there. She reached over and took hold of his manhood, stroking it slowly, showing him that turnabout was fair play. He groaned, the sound torn from his throat as she squeezed just so, right... there. Her hands were skilled, her fingers sure.

  They half fell, half lay back on the bed, impatient as they moved up to nestle against the pillows. They needed each other too much to want to take time for even things such as that. Two battered and bruised lovers seeking to heal each other, wanting to be healed in ways that shifting couldn’t do. He traced his fingers up toward her hair and then ran his hand from her neck, over her breasts and down the flat of her stomach, exploring her, memorizing her as though he hadn’t already memorized her before. Maybe he hadn’t. Every time with her was new, and lately even the lines of her body were changing. She’d lost some weight since she first became the lion.