Savage Transformation

by Lexxie Couper

“I’m a bloody cop, for fuck’s sake,” Jackie stormed back into the terminal, “I don’t need to change into a bloody Tasmanian tiger to find a missing person.”

  Besides, the last time she’d shifted she’d almost been captured on film, and she couldn’t risk that again, even for Delanie. The Tasmanian tiger was considered extinct to the world, and she needed to keep that misconception as it was. Stripping off her clothes, shifting in an airport toilet cubicle and sprinting through the crowd on all fours was not the way to stay out of the public eye.

  Wishing more than ever she had her gun, Jackie approached the information desk, giving the man behind it a worried, harried look. She’d spoken to him three times in the last sixty minutes and she could tell he was beginning to tire of her. “She still hasn’t turned up,” she said, hoping he saw the worry in her eyes. “Can you make the announcement again, please?”

  With a disdainful sigh, the man—David Lee, according to the name badge pinned to his shirt—snatched a mic from the desk before him and punched a button. “If Delanie McKenzie is in the terminal—” his voice boomed around the cavernous space, each word amplifying his irritation, “—will she please come to the information desk. Your friend is waiting for you.”

  He removed his finger from the mic with a pointed flick and fixed Jackie with a patronizing look.

  “Drop the attitude, David,” she snarled, before she could stop herself. “Or I’ll reach over this counter and give you something to have an attitude about.”

  He blinked, a sudden flash of startled apprehension destroying the condescending expression on his face. “S-sorry, ma’am.”

  Jackie suppressed a sharp sigh. She felt her canines lengthen in her gums, felt her blood run thin and hot again. Fuck. This was why she never came home anymore. Being too close to her natural environment lessened her control of the animal in her blood. Even the air in Tasmania was dangerous to her.

  “Damnit, Del.” She forced her hands into fists to stop her fingers from wiggling and searched the faces in the crowd for her best friend’s. “Where are you?”

  Twenty minutes later, and Delanie still hadn’t appeared. The information-desk attendant gave Jackie a nervous smile. “I suppose you want me to page her again?”

  Jackie scowled at him. “No. But thank you for your concern.” Hitching her bag higher onto her shoulder, she pushed her way through the thinning crowd, heading for the exit. She didn’t know what was going on, but she knew she needed to try and find Delanie’s scent. If nothing else, to see if her best friend made it to her car.

  The automatic doors parted as she approached them, the cool crisp air of a typical Tasmania summer assaulting her before she crossed the threshold. Her inner animal growled and flexed, hungry for release. Jackie shoved the powerful urge aside, focusing instead on the air. She pulled in a deep breath as she stepped outside the terminal onto the sidewalk, hunting for Delanie’s scent. Her senses weren’t as strong while in human form, but they were still hyper enough to hopefully find a trace of her friend.

  She filled her lungs with air, tasting the breath as it streamed past her olfactory nerves. Melaleuca, eucalypt, gasoline, tar, spent cigarette butts, rotting refuse from a nearby rubbish bin, bad BO still lingering on her clothes from her annoying companion in the terminal, bird shit baking on the row of rental cars to her left and—

  “Sorry!” Delanie’s cry came from behind, full with apologetic mirth. “Sorry!”

  Jackie spun, glaring at her best friend running toward her across the car park. “What have you been doing? I was just about to—”

  What? Shift?

  “I’ve locked the keys in the car.” Delanie pulled an embarrassed face, coming to a halt before Jackie. “And I tried to find someone to help me get them out.” She grinned. Sheepishly. “Obviously, I didn’t.”

  Jackie raised her eyebrows, doing everything she could to stay calm. The soft tingle in her belly told her just how close she’d come to transforming. She hadn’t been that close for many, many years.

  That’s it. You need to get out of here ASAP.

  “How could you lock your keys in your car? Don’t tell me you still drive Bernie?”

  Delanie’s sheepish grin turned to one of pride. “Okay, I won’t. Just close your eyes when you sit in him and pretend you’re in a Ferrari.”

  Jackie rolled her eyes. “Okay, a Ferrari it is. Although I can’t imagine you’d lock your keys in a Ferrari.”

  Delanie grinned wider. “Probably not, but where’s the romance in a Ferrari? At least Bernie has history.”

  With a laugh, Jackie hitched her bag farther up her shoulder. “A history is right. In and out of the mechanics more time than on the road. I’m convinced the only reason you keep him is so you have a legitimate excuse for seeing that mechanic you rave on about.”

  “Mmm, Shaun Whitmore. Now there’s a six-pack I could lap up.”

  “That’s it.” Jackie shook her head. “I’m going back to the rental desk. Maybe I can get that convertible after all.”

  “No, no, no.” Delanie draped her arm around Jackie’s shoulder. “We’re good. I’ve called roadside service. They’ll be here in ten minutes or so.”

  “Called? With what? I’ve been ringing your phone for the last forty minutes.”

  A pink tinge painted Delanie’s cheeks. “Ummm, my phone’s flat.”

  Jackie pressed her hand to her face. “Damn, I’d forgotten what it’s like.”

  “What what’s like?”

  “Being your best friend.”

  Delanie grinned. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

  A warm glow flooded through Jackie and she smiled. It was wonderful. Frustrating, irritating and down-right exasperating, but wonderful as well. Delanie reminded her to laugh. Delanie reminded her there was goodness in the world. Delanie reminded her she had someone real to turn to. That she wasn’t alone in her secret.

  “Anyways, enough of this idle chit-chat.” Her best friend tugged her into a rough hug. “Let’s get our sexy, desirable arses back to Bernie so we can ogle the roadside assistance’s butt.”

  Jackie laughed and shook her head. And then stopped. The tall, blonde man from the terminal stood beside a low, black Audi about ten yards to her left. Looking at her.

  She blinked, and in the space it took for her eyelids to open, he dropped into the sports car and slammed the door.

  Jackie frowned, staring at the vehicle as its engine kicked over.

  “Jackie?”

  The windows were dark. Too dark for her to make out the man behind the wheel, but she could feel his gaze on her. Her nipples pinched tight.

  “Jack? What’s up?”

  The Audi sat motionless in the car space, engine idling like a sleeping beast. Jackie studied it, a tingle growing in the pit of her belly. Current model S5. Tasmanian registration plates RRF 042. Small sticker on the top right corner of the windshield: Luxury Rentals.

  “Earth to Jackie. Come in Jackie.”

  With a soft growl of its engine, the car moved, rolling forward before turning right and smoothly purring away from her.

  “What’s up?”

  She tuned out Delanie’s voice. Her throat felt tight. Twice in the space of one hour?

  Now you’re being paranoid, Jackie. It’s an airport. People come and go all the time.

  “Jack?”

  True. But do they move as quick as this guy?

  Do their eyes seem to bury into you, even from a distance? And are they as sexy?

  The last thought turned Jackie’s frown into a scowl and she clenched her fists. Damn it. If she’d known she was coming on heat she never would have come back, regardless of her foster father’s funeral. Marsupials didn’t have mating cycles but, thanks to the combination of her dual existence, whenever she drew close to her human menstrual cycle, the urge to mate grew to a fever pitch. She’d suppressed that urge for the last eighteen years; the big-city air and taste of Sydney acted like an antidote to her primal needs. Being in her home e
nvironment however, with its sweet unpolluted air, its rich, fertile soil…

  She stared at the taillights of the distant Audi and her sex constricted.

  Bad timing. Damn it, bad timing.

  “Jacqueline Huddart, if you don’t tell me what’s going on this very second, I’m calling animal control.”

  The worry in Delanie’s sardonic statement snapped Jackie’s stare from the Audi. She turned to her friend, forcing down the unexpected surge of animal agitation. “I’m sorry, Del.” She smiled, the action feeling brittle. “I’m a bit off at the moment.”

  Delanie fixed her with an intent look. “I get that. I didn’t expect coming back to be easy.”

  Jackie’s wry chuckle caught her by surprise. “Easy is not the word I’d go for right now, no.”

  With another closer inspection, Delanie nodded her head. “Well then, let’s get this farce of a funeral over and done with then, shall we. I want to make your brief time home enjoyable. Maybe I can find a ball and we can play fetch.”

  Jackie gave her a sideways glare, her lips twitching into a grin. “Maybe I can bite you on the butt and ruin that perfect backside of yours.”

  Delanie laughed. “Ooh, now that would be interesting in a kinky, paranormal male-fantasy kinda way.” She began walking, smiling broadly even as she squeezed Jackie closer to her side in a tight embrace, as if she worried Jackie was going to run off.

  A deep, ancient longing stirred in Jackie’s gut at the thought of running away.

  Run off, run wild, run free, run, run, run.

  Jackie slid her arm around her best friend’s waist, shutting the enticing, dangerous notion down. Damn, she wished she had her gun.

  The hunter studied the two women walking through the car park—one tall and animated, one petite and radiating controlled savagery. Jacqueline Huddart. A creature of forgotten myth. A creature of primordial magnificence and ancient spirituality.

  A shape-shifting thylacine. Part-human, part-Tasmanian tiger.

  And he’d found her.

  A small thrill shot through him, clenching a cold fist in his chest. To discover a living Tasmanian tiger in itself was something considered impossible. Hunted to extinction in the nineteen thirties, the animal now only existed in the dreams of scientists deluded enough to believe they could resurrect the species through DNA cloning.

  To discover the existence of a shape-shifting thylacine…

  The thrill in his chest spread to the pit of his belly, his groin.

  The moment he’d learnt of her existence, he’d flown to Australia. He’d hunted more deadly game before, he’d tracked more unpredictable, but Jacqueline Huddart had proved the most difficult to find.

  With no name for his quarry, he’d only had a location to start with, a last known sighting: Pyengana, a tiny town with barely more than one hundred and twenty people living there.

  Moving about the small town unnoticed was not hard. Trying to decipher whom of the one-twenty was his target proved a bit trickier. Two months spent tracking each one, following their every move, studying their behaviour, their garbage, their interaction with the other townsfolk finally revealed what he’d begun to suspect on his second day of observation. The shifter was not there.

  Another month and he had located the whereabouts of every person once living in Pyengana. A month after that, he narrowed his target down to two: a female in Far North Queensland and Jacqueline Huddart.

  All it had taken was one precise act of violence—the brutal murder of a werewolf bitch in Sydney—to draw her out. He’d found her.

  And then she left Sydney.

  Just as he was about to begin the true hunt.

  Which brought him back here. Tasmania. An island state at the bottom of a country older than time.

  Shifting his weight slightly, he watched her move across the bitumen, the deepening shadows of dusk folding around her.

  She moved with animalistic grace. Fluid. Smooth.

  He felt himself smile. It was a thing of perverse beauty to observe. He doubted any man would not find her walk hypnotic. A steady, purposeful stride. Hips swaying, spine straight, shoulders square. An ancient energy radiated from her. He could feel it even from this distance, some fifty-five yards away. Like the trapped fires of a dormant volcano simmered through her veins.

  She would not succumb easily.

  Nor would she be easy prey. That was evident in the way she surveyed everything around her. To a casual observer, she would appear calm and composed and confident. To a trained eye however, an eye specializing in the behaviour of such creatures, Jacqueline Huddart was in a constant state of heightened anticipation. Alert. Ready.

  Just the way Daeved Einar wanted his quarry to be.

  He smiled, sliding his stare over the shifter’s petite form.

  “So begins the hunt.”

  Chapter Two

  Jackie stood motionless, watching the coffin lower into the ground. She knew she should feel something. She knew she should shed at least one tear, feel a lump in her throat, anything, but she didn’t. Her foster father had meant little to her besides a hard fist, a swift kick and a contemptuous meal twice a day.

  She looked at the spray of peace lilies adorning the coffin’s deeply polished lid, a white blanket of beauty hiding the lies and violence. If only those sobbing around her knew the truth.

  About what? Richard Smith? Do you really think they’d care? Or do you mean the truth about you? About why you became a child of the state? About why you stayed one?

  Removing her gaze from the wooden box, she studied the handful of mourners standing beside the open grave. Dairy farmers and cheese makers. All dressed in their rarely worn Sunday bests, suits pulled from the back of the cupboard, moth balls withdrawn from pockets, replaced with handkerchiefs and eulogies printed at the Photo-Copi-To-Go in nearby St. Helens. All standing there with red-rimmed eyes, not wanting to look at her, not wanting to see the lack of misery in her face.

  She sighed, wriggling her fingers by her side. The black, tailored trousers and shirt she wore prickled her skin, the material of each sucking up the sun’s rays like a thirsty child, turning her clothes into a pliable oven she longed to be rid of.

  God, she didn’t want to be here.

  A soft hand threaded through her fingers and she turned to look at Delanie.

  You’re growling, her best friend mouthed.

  The silent words stabbed into Jackie’s chest and she sucked in a hiss, earning more than one furtive glance from those beside the grave.

  She looked back at the rectangle hole on the ground, before studying the artificial grass spread out around its edges. Growling?

  Run, run, run wild, free run, run.

  The latent urge to run away snaked through her, an insistent itch she wished she could scratch. The delicate scent of melaleuca threaded through her breath, the damp earthiness of freshly turned soil teasing her taste buds, feeding the primitive longing to transform. Jackie closed her eyes, her pulse rapid.

  Shift, run, hunt, kill, mate.

  Wild impulses assaulted her. Potent and all too compelling. Her stomach knotted. Her chest tightened. She felt her muscles begin to tingle. A blistering cold heat—fire on ice—rushed over her flesh.

  God, no!

  She turned away from her foster father’s grave. “I have to go,” she muttered. The words sounded strange. Her mouth felt full, like her tongue was battling too many teeth. Wicked, sharp teeth designed with one purpose only, to kill. Teeth evolved to tear and rip and rend raw flesh asunder.

  “What?” Delanie’s surprised whisper scratched at Jackie’s senses, but she ignored it. She had to get away. Before she lost control of her animal.

  She pushed through the silent mourners, head down, shoulders bunched. The sweet Pyengana air streamed into her nostrils, fire to dry tinder. Another tingle rippled through her muscles and she bit back a curse.

  Not a curse, Jack. A growl.

  “Damn it.”

  The sound of disgus
ted grumblings rumbled behind her, like thunder on distant clouds, her foster father’s friends following her rapid escape with disapproving glares. She could feel their contempt stabbing into her back. Her skin prickled.

  Run, shift, kill, mate.

  “No!”

  She shouted the denial, breaking into a sprint. The heels of her shoes sank into the soft soil, releasing the rich scent of earth to the air. It threaded into her breath and a surge of icy heat blossomed in her belly. The transformation was beginning. She couldn’t stop it.

  Oh, God, no. No, no, no, no, no, no.

  She vaulted a headstone, stare locked on the dense grove of melaleuca and eucalypts edging the cemetery. Cover. Concealment.

  Territory.

  Her palms itched. Her pulse roared. She ran, wind-whipped hair tugging at her temples, beads of sweat popping out on her forehead. She ran.

  Until she saw the man from the airport.

  Her feet stumbled beneath her. She scrambled for balance, her gaze locked on his tall, lean frame.

  He stood under a large snow gum on the cemetery’s perimeter, the ancient tree’s branches shrouding him in deep shadows, muting the golden streaks in his short hair, turning the dark sunglasses on his face to a black mask. Yet even from this distance, she felt his stare drilling into her. Hard. Unrelenting.

  Inescapable.

  Exciting.

  Her sex constricted and she pulled in a sharp breath, forcing her feet to stop. What did she do?

  Run, mate, fuck.

  Jackie clenched her jaw, shutting out the primitive suggestion. She wriggled her fingers, her hand moving toward her torso before she realized she was reaching for her gun.

  Why? Are you going to shoot him, or fuck him?

  Her forehead pulled into a scowl. Neither.

  Fixing him with a steady stare, she began to walk in his direction, ignoring the pulse between her thighs and the hammer in her chest. Just a question. That’s all she wanted to ask. Just one question: who are you?

  She quickened her pace, feeling his gaze move over her body, a slow inspection that turned the beat in her sex to a damp tightness.

  One question, Jackie. Just one.