“No, I didn’t and I haven’t a clue as to why. You’d be more of an expert on shape-shifting matters, I would think.”
She flushed at his praise. Coming from a man like Jonah, it meant a lot to her. She was quietly thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe it’s for purposes of safety.”
Jonah looked over at her. “Safety?”
“Yes. If you could imagine the two of us mating as panthers—”
His sensuous lips turned up in an evil smirk. “I can definitely imagine that.”
“Jonah! I’m trying to be serious.”
“So am I.”
“Anyway, if two panthers are in the midst of mating—” She couldn’t believe she wasn’t blushing from head to toe talking about it. “And then one of them happens to change into a human…well, it could cause an injury.”
“I think I see your point. If you were human and I wasn’t, my teeth and claws would tear through your delicate skin.”
“And if you were to turn human and I was still a panther, your—” She didn’t know if she could finish that sentence, but understanding dawned on Jonah’s face and he ended up doing it for her.
“My…manhood would be much larger as a human and could tear up your insides.”
“There’s some kind of magic at work here.”
Jonah raised one dark eyebrow. “Why does that seem to surprise you?”
“I suppose is doesn’t – or shouldn’t. You’re the first of your kind, or at least the first male of our kind, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there are other forces at work.”
He hitched the carcass to a better position on his shoulder. “And what about the fact that we can hear each other’s thoughts? You said you and your sisters have never been able to do that.”
“We haven’t. You and I, on the other hand, are a mated pair. It could be so that we can better protect each other.”
“I can see how it would work to our advantage.”
They were almost to the cabin and they continued on in silence. Cadence looked forward to a hearty venison stew, her mouth already watering at the thought of it. They’d both expended a lot of energy today with the hunt and…other things.
Jonah was ready. He’d learned quickly for someone not born a shape-shifter. It amazed her how easily he’d adapted to his new “state of being,” as he referred to it, how strong he was, and how much stamina he had.
There were times when he’d been completely exhausted, but was still able to change and hold forms successfully. She’d pushed him hard, but they didn’t have a lot of time, and he needed to be able to control it in order to mix with the rest of the civilized world. He hadn’t disappointed her – in fact, to his credit, she’d never seen anything like it.
Suddenly the skin on the back of her neck began to tingle, her senses picking up dark emotions. Obviously they weren’t Jonah’s, so where were they coming from? She halted, the intensity of those emotions making her dizzy.
Jonah turned his head toward her, and then stopped, immediately dropping the doe to the ground. He tensed, his sharp gaze scanning the area before coming back to rest on her. “What’s wrong?”
“Someone’s here,” she whispered. “And they’re not friendly.”
Before Jonah could make a reply, two men stepped out from behind a grouping of large cypress trees, rifles in their hands. “Now, you just hold it right there.”
Twenty Four
THE STRANGERS WERE dressed entirely in black. Long, black dusters swirling around their ankles, black hats, black gloves, and black boots with shiny silver spurs that jingled ominously with each step they took. They both carried a pair of pistols holstered on either side of their hips. But it was the rifles they held in their hands that were aimed at Jonah and Cadence, that worried her. Were they gunslingers?
Neither man was as tall as Jonah, but they were imposing, just the same. The man on the left had dark, short-cropped hair, at least what she could see of it from under his hat. He had dark eyes and several days’ growth of stubble on his face. His gaze was hard, showing no mercy.
The other man looked much younger, maybe in his early twenties, and had shoulder-length blond hair. His eyes were blue, but they expressed no more mercy than his partner’s did.
Jonah stepped closer to Cadence, one hand clasping her arm.
“I said don’t move, neither one of you.” It was the dark-haired, mean-looking one who’d first spoken.
Actually, he’d said, ‘Hold it right there,’ but Cadence wasn’t about to argue.
Jonah’s eyes flashed with menace. “What do you want?” His own cold, hard tone matched Mr. Mean’s.
“We want you dead,” the blond one said.
An icy shiver went up Cadence’s spine. “Why?” Jonah’s hand flexed, his fingers tightening around her arm.
Mr. Mean’s lip curled up evilly. “What, you think nobody else knew about your kind, or that there were more like you out there?”
What? More like her? Her stomach bottomed out. “What do you mean?”
The blond one snorted derisively. “We know what you are, shape-shifter.”
Jonah growled. “Who are you?”
“Now, don’t go getting all animal on us, mister,” Mr. Mean said. “We know about you, too. We’ve been watching you all week.” His dark eyes shifted to Cadence. “Both of you.”
Mr. Blond sneered. “Yeah, we seen everything, if you know what I mean.” He stared lewdly at Cadence, as though he could see through her clothes.
Jonah stiffened, growling low in his throat.
Mr. Mean spit on the ground in front of him. “Pretty much turned my stomach, if you asked me.”
Cadence ignored the insult, trying not to think about just how much these men had witnessed. “And why have you been watching us?”
“We belong to the Fraternitatis Lucis,” Mr. Mean said. “It’s our job to rid the world of abominations like you, who pose a threat to the rest of us normal people.”
Cadence would beg to differ about how normal these two were.
“Brotherhood of Light,” Jonah said. “It’s Latin. I’m surprised you two river rats even know how to pronounce it.”
Cadence angled a quizzical glance at Jonah. Latin? Jonah knew Latin?
Mr. Mean repositioned his rifle, taking aim at Jonah’s chest, his eyes narrowing. “You just watch your mouth, scum, or I’ll shoot a hole right through the middle of you.”
Wasn’t that what they planned to do anyway? It was then Cadence noticed the tattoo on the inside of Mr. Mean’s wrist. It was a pyramid with an open eye in the middle. She looked over at Mr. Blond and sure enough, he had one, too.
There was something else about all this – these men and this Fraternitatis Lucis – something more meaningful, but Cadence couldn’t get a clear grasp of what it was. “How long has the Fraternitatis Lucis been around?”
Mr. Mean curled his lip again. She was beginning to doubt whether he was capable of any other expression. “Longer than you’ve been alive, dearie. Our brethren have been hunting down and exterminating your kind for centuries.”
The way he kept saying, ‘your kind,’ implied there were others out there that were like her, yet not decedents of her gypsy ancestor. She decided to give up the pretense of hiding what she was. “There are others, besides me?” She made sure not to mention her sisters. So far they’d given no indication that they were aware of them.
Mr. Blond laughed, but the humor failed to reach his eyes. “You’d be surprised.”
Her gaze was drawn to the tattoo on Mr. Blond’s wrist again. There was something about it that jarred her memory. It was the eye inside the pyramid. Yes, that was it.
All at once she felt dizzy and nauseated, her chest constricting as scenes of the past filtered through her mind. She remembered her father telling them that just before Syrianna had died, she kept whispering the same word over and over: eye.
Cadence choked. “My mother. Your people killed her, didn’t they?”
Mr. Mean
negligently shrugged a shoulder. “She was an abomination, just like you and had to be eliminated.”
Cadence shook with rage. The desire to kill these men rose up like a geyser preparing to erupt. Jonah must have felt it. He leaned in closer and lightly tugged her arm. Her fury was palpable, like a living thing, growing and writhing inside her. She didn’t have to look at herself to know her eyes were feral and glittering, especially when the two strangers tensed. Mr. Blond actually backed up a step.
She was going to kill them. Most likely she would die with them. She was fast, but not fast enough to dodge one of their bullets. With their rifles trained on her and Jonah, by the time she shifted and lunged, they would each get a shot off. It didn’t matter.
Jonah whispered near Cadence’s ear. “Don’t do it.” He knew what she was planning to do and he sure as hell was not going to allow her to endanger herself. There would be another time to hunt these two down and seek revenge.
As he’d stood there listening, running several ideas for escape through his mind, Jonah had felt a strange energy flow into his body. He wasn’t sure what it could mean, but the power gradually built in pressure, growing stronger and stronger.
He knew Cadence was about to shift into her panther form by the tensing of the muscles in her arm, her rapid breathing, and an almost undetectable jolt zapping through her body. She was going to spring at the two men. The instant before she acted, he envisioned her room back at her father’s house, wishing they were there and that she was safe from harm.
In an instant, the air whooshed around them, followed by a blinding flash of light. The sound of twin rifle shots echoed in his ears and he felt a burning pain in his shoulder. The next thing Jonah knew, they were standing in the middle of her bedroom.
What the hell?
The abrupt change in location was disorienting and it took him a moment to get his bearings. He looked over at Cadence. She bent over at the waist, breathing hard, resting her hands on her knees.
He quickly checked his shoulder where blood oozed from the wound. The bullet had only nicked him, but damn, it hurt like hell and needed tending. He’d worry about that later. He wanted to know how he’d been able to flash them here from the forest with just a thought, but there was no time to contemplate it right now. His first priority was to see to Cadence. She could have taken one of those bullets. The possibility of it terrified him.
He went to her, grasping her arms, pulling her upright. His hands moved to her face, tilting it up. Her eyes were bright and glittering. “Cadence.” She didn’t respond to the sound of his voice and she was trembling as though she was in shock. A tremor of fear ran through him. “Are you hurt?” His heart pounding, he ran his hands up and down her arms, then over the rest of her body to check for wounds.
She twisted away from him. “Take me back!”
He’d found no sign of blood on her and was enormously relieved she hadn’t been shot as he’d feared.
Jonah realized, then, that she wasn’t in shock, but held in the grip of intense rage. He could understand her need to spill their blood. They may not be the ones who’d actually killed her mother, but they belonged to the same brotherhood that was responsible. And now they were out to murder Cadence. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to be aware of her sisters, but it was only a matter of time before they found out about them.
Those men had to be eliminated. Cadence and her family would never be safe, otherwise.
He had to go back there.
Somehow, he’d managed to transport them here by gathering that energy he’d felt and imagining this room. He did it once. He could do it again, only in reverse.
“They killed her.” She growled. “They killed my mother! I want to tear them to shreds until there’s nothing left!”
“I know, sweetheart.” He grasped her arms and as gently as he could, guided her backward to the bed. When the backs of her legs hit the edge, she was forced to sit with a plop. He waited a moment until her breathing slowed and her trembling gradually faded away. She blinked several times before her eyes cleared and she focused on him.
He looked into her luminous eyes, placing his palm on her cheek. “I love you,” he said softly. “I’ll be right back.” And then he vanished.
Not wanting to materialize in the same spot they’d just escaped from, Jonah flashed to an area nearby. It wouldn’t do him any good to appear right in front of the two men, offering himself up for target practice.
As soon as he recovered from the instant change in scenery, he realized the men were no longer there. Not that he’d expected them to be, but a man could only hope. Using his heightened senses, he scanned the area for any sign of their presence. He’d been tracking since he’d been old enough to walk and now that experience, combined with his new abilities as a shape-shifter, made it a simple matter to pick up their trail.
They hadn’t gone far, lumbering clumsily through the forest like a couple of oversized elephants. They’d left in their wake broken twigs, bent leaves, and footprints that Jonah found easy to follow. Either they were extremely stupid, or their arrogance lent them a false sense of security.
Before long, he picked up the sound of angry voices.
“You should have killed them immediately, Colby, but no, instead you had to stop and chat with them like we were at a picnic outing.”
Jonah recognized the whining voice as belonging to the younger of the two.
There was a low growl of anger. “Shut up you little whelp, before I knock you senseless. It’s not like you didn’t have a gun in your hand. You could have done it just as easily, but you were too busy eyeballing the girl’s tits.” It was the older man – Colby, the young one had called him, the sneer in his tone unmistakable.
A cloud of red descended over Jonah’s vision, his fury building to lethal levels. The younger one had been looking at Cadence in a way that made him want to pluck out the little shit’s eyes. Oh, but he’d do more than that. Remaining out of sight, Jonah followed them, silent as a specter.
“We need to get back and report what happened, and tell them there’s a new breed of shape-shifter,” Colby said.
Not that Jonah would allow them to get that far.
“They’re not going to be too happy when they find out we let ‘em get away.”
Colby went on the defensive. “Well, we didn’t know they could vanish into thin air, now, did we?”
The younger one stopped. “I have to take a piss.”
Jonah waited patiently, knowing his moment of opportunity had just shown itself.
“Okay, but hurry it up,” grumbled Colby. “I don’t want to be stuck in these woods after dark.” He looked around warily. “No telling what’s out here.”
He had no idea. Jonah grinned evilly with anticipation.
He was enjoying this hunt. It had been different when he’d chased down the doe. That had been for food. These men posed a real threat to the life of the woman he loved and her family. The fact that they were after him as well didn’t bother Jonah so much. He could fend for himself – and live with the consequences.
Cadence and even sweet, gentle Jaelene, and without a doubt, Kara, would have no trouble turning these two into kibble. But Jonah had already seen first hand what the stigma of having thought she’d killed a man had done to Cadence. He didn’t want her or her sisters to have to live with that for the rest of their lives. Not if he could help it.
Jonah noiselessly approached the young man from behind. Quick as lightning, he placed his arm around the man’s neck and with his other hand, cupped the man’s mouth to prevent him from yelling out. A firm grip on the jawbone and a quick, powerful twist resulted in the inevitable crunch of the man’s neck snapping. Jonah quietly laid him on the ground, and then turned his attention to the other man.
Colby called out in the direction his partner had gone. “Johnson, you about done, boy?” When there was no answer, he stiffened and reached for his rifle, jumping up from the fallen tree he’d been sitting on. “Johnson
?”
Jonah launched himself at him. Before Colby was able to take aim and fire, Jonah tackled him to the ground, using his good shoulder, knocking the rifle from Colby’s hands. Jonah could have changed into the panther, ending it quickly, but he wanted to fight as a man.
They rolled, locked together in a life and death struggle, each of them straining for the dominant position. Fists flew and elbows slammed. His injured shoulder throbbed, but he ignored it. Whoever ended up on the bottom would be at a serious disadvantage. That’s why Jonah decided to change tactics by breaking away, jackknifing to his feet.
Colby quickly followed suit, swinging his meaty fist at Jonah’s nose. Jonah ducked just in time to avoid it, coming up to plant his own fist in Colby’s side. Colby grunted, staggering back, but he was quick to recover. He was an inch or two shorter than Jonah, but he was solidly built. Johnson had been a younger man, less experienced, making it much easier for Jonah to subdue him and take him out.
Colby, however, moved like a seasoned fighter, throwing pugilist-style punches. It would take more skill to defeat him.
Jonah had that in spades.
They circled each other, panting, their arms out, knees bent in readiness.
Colby snarled. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t,” Jonah taunted. “Too bad you won’t live to regret it.”
Colby glanced at the blood seeping through Jonah’s shirt. “Looks like I already got a head start.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, Shirley, it’s just a scratch.” That earned a scowl from Colby. Jonah stepped in then, planting him a facer, splitting his lip.
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