by A. C. Arthur
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Glossary of Terms
Shadow Shifter Tribes
Topètenia—The jaguars
Croesteriia—The cheetahs
Acordado—The awakening, the Shadow Shifter’s first shift
Amizade—Annex to the Elder’s Grounds used as a fellow-ship hall
The Assembly—Three elders from each tribe that make up the governing council of shifters in the Gungi
Companheiro—Mate
Companheiro calor—The scent shared between mates
Curandero—The medicinal and spiritual healer of the tribes
Elders—Senior members of the tribes
Ètica—The Shadow Shifter Code of Ethics
Joining—The union of mated shifters
Pessoal—The secondary building of the Elders’ Grounds that houses the personal rooms of each Elder
Rogue—A Shadow Shifter who has turned from the tribes, refusing to follow the Ètica, in an effort to become their own distinct species
Santa Casa—The main building of the Elders’ Grounds that is the holy house of the Elders
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Glossary of Terms
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Teaser
Also by A.C. Arthur
Praise for TEMPTATION RISING
About the Author
Copyright
Chapter 1
The Gungi rain forest
Brazil
Rage was like a nightcap to Sabar, violence the prelude to a blissful dream. This feeling he was now experiencing, this loss of control and defeat, was unfamiliar and not at all pleasing. His dick hurt it was so hard. His incisors elongated painfully, pricking into his lip and drawing blood. To say he was angry was a bold understatement.
The East Coast Faction Leader was still alive, and so was his bitch of a mate. They’d both escaped the fate he’d planned for them. As for Rome Reynolds, he still wanted the shifter dead—and his mate … well, since she’d chosen so unwisely she might as well die, too. Sabar wanted all those fake leaders dead so the shifters would have no choice but to look to him for guidance—stupid animals that they were.
And dammit, it was hot like an inferno in this place. The air was thick and stifling, the sounds of nightlife in the Gungi rain forest raking against every one of his human nerves. Sabar wanted to be out of this godforsaken place as soon as he possibly could. He wanted to get back to his business in the States. But there was business here in the forest, too. Old business that he’d never forgotten.
He was a busy shifter with plans the shadows would never imagine he could dream. He was resourceful and tenacious, determined to have what he most desired, by any means necessary. That’s what tonight was about, showing the shadows who was in control. Always the most powerful, controlling everything no matter where it was.
Stepping into the small hut with its trampled-mud floors and damp stale aroma, he looked every bit the ruler he claimed to be. On his feet were shit-kicking steel-toed boots. Black jeans clad his muscled legs, while a black T-shirt covered his tattooed chest and Ray-Bans cloaked his eyes. His hair, which grew faster than the average human’s, was now thick tresses, pulled back by a black band. He came to a stop and looked directly to the corner where she was tied and gagged.
His mouth watered, heart rate picking up instantly at the sight of her. She was not only powerful but damn pretty as well. She wore the thin suede dress that was the usual attire for female shadows living in the forest. Her sun-kissed skin glowed in the firelit corner of the hut. On her feet were leather boots, rising just past her ankles. These weren’t a normal fashion must-have for female shifters, but this wasn’t just any female shifter. Long strands of dark hair hung past her shoulders. Her ankles and wrists were bound, a gag stuffed into her mouth. Whether she heard or scented his approach, Sabar didn’t know, but she turned, looking up at him with glittering amber-colored eyes.
The outrage rolling off her in thick rivulets poured into Sabar, rubbing against his already dark nature, coaxing his insides into a state of perpetual arousal.
“Beautiful curandero,” he said in a voice thick with lust, his dick aching with the same. “You are finally mine.”
She made an attempt to get up, to charge at him, he supposed, but her bindings held her in the corner. His blood pumped quickly at the display of violence in her, the strength he scented pulsing through her veins. She was a strong one, this designated curandero as the tribes referred to her, a healer to their kind. Wise for her young age and courageous in her endeavors. He wanted her, to touch, to taste, to feast upon, and to show the shifters his ultimate power over them.
Not that she was his mate. No, those thoughts had died the night Roman came in and took Kalina away from him. He’d decided that Kalina would be his mate. Unlike the shadows, who believed the Ètica preordained who their mate would be, Sabar made his own decisions. He’d watched Kalina fight his men and choose the shadow over him. She had defiled herself by sleeping with another, by committing herself to the shadow and his kind. For that, the bitch would die with the rest of them. Sabar refused to think any other way about the situation.
But this one, this spirited little shifter, could be his, too. She could join the other playthings he’d acquired to do his bidding, to quench his every desire. Oh, yes, he thought, feeling the length of his arousal pressing painfully against his jeans, she could provide so much pleasure as well as the medicinal knowledge he required.
“Aren’t you a tempting little morsel,” he said, bending down so he could get a closer look at her. “And powerful, I hear.”
Reaching out a hand, he pushed back thick patches of matted dark hair. She didn’t move a muscle, and he smelled not fear but rage emanating from her delectable body. Her cheek was bruised and swollen, her legs pulled up close to her chest with her arms wrapped around them. Her body trembled with anger and the need to lash out at him or anyone who came near. When her eyes glared at him, sending a rush of heat through his body, Sabar wanted nothing at that moment but to hear her voice, so he pulled out the ugly rag that had been stuffed into her mouth.
“Say something!” he yelled.
But there was silence. She didn’t speak, only licked her dry lips and kept glaring at him.
“We can do this the hard way or the easy way. I’m not one for giving a lot of choices, so you’d better take advantage while you can.”
“Go to hell,” she said in a raspy tone and squared her shoulders.
So she had spunk. Well, he like
d when they fought him. It made the taking much more exhilarating.
“Stand her up,” he said to the two shifters standing guard at the door. They were rogue jaguars with heavy builds who spoke few, if any, words but took orders like they’d sworn allegiance to only him. Just the kind of shifters Sabar liked to employ.
They came to the female, lifting her without any kindness until she stood, her back against the wall. She let her head fall forward so that her long hair draped her face. Sabar stepped closer, grasped her chin roughly, and pushed her head back. Eyes a strange reddish brown combination stared back at him hauntingly. Pert lips were drawn into a tight line. Her hair gave her a wild untamed look, but he knew that was a lie. She was tame, and she was one of the most intelligent shifters in this forest. That’s why he wanted her. She would serve his purpose well.
“Clean her up and get her ready to travel,” he said, still staring into her hypnotic eyes.
His gaze was still held by hers when those pert lips moved and she spat in his face. A muscle ticked in his jaw, and for a few seconds he saw nothing but rage. With the back of his hand, he wiped the moisture from his cheek. Then he stepped closer to her, taking her bound hands and moving them to the hard bulge of his arousal. She balled up her fists to resist but he uncurled her fingers, pushing them until they almost broke and she gasped in pain. Sabar rubbed her opened hands over his length, loving the warmth spreading through him at her touch.
“You’ll learn quickly to be nicer to me.” Leaning forward, he licked the cheek that wasn’t bruised and moved back to whisper into her ear. “That’s the only way you’ll stay alive. I’ve slit throats of shifters and drunk their blood for breakfast. Don’t think I won’t do the same with you.”
She tried to pull her hands away, but Sabar simply laughed. Taking a step back, he pushed her until her back slammed against the wall. He didn’t want her like this, all dirty and acting like a mute. When he fucked her, which he decided he would definitely do once she was cleaned up, he wanted her completely coherent and participating—whether by force or by choice, he didn’t actually care.
“Nobody touches her again. I don’t want any more marks on her,” he ordered, then turned away. “And get her out of this filthy-ass place. Then burn it to the ground. It stinks like rotten shadows in here.”
The shifters nodded, one reaching for her while the other moved alongside Sabar. “I want to be out of here in a couple of days. Get her to the lab, now!”
“Yes sir.” The other shifter nodded.
Sabar stepped out into the night air, inhaling deeply. He’d been born here, in the Gungi rain forest, and here the lowly shifter that had been abused and disregarded had died. He hated everything about this place now, from the thick cover of trees just a few feet away to the range of different animal sounds that tickled his ears. He didn’t like the smell, the rain, the forest, the animals and evidence of their living off the land. He hated it all and wanted to get back to the civility of the States as soon as he possibly could. He had what he’d come here for—the curandero whose talent for mixing medicines would help grow his drug empire to proportions that would make him the richest shifter in all the world.
Chapter 2
It was dark, but at least it was clean. The last hut reeked of filth, body odor, and other, less appealing things. When they’d stuffed that gag into her mouth Ary wanted to vomit, and when she’d seen him she’d wanted to kill.
Sabar Tavares, adopted son of Elder Julio and Maria Sabien Tavares, kidnapped when he was ten by Boden, a sadistic shifter who used his strength to rape and kill humans in nearby villages. As a result, the Topètenia shifter—who should have walked in his parents’ footsteps, striving to maintain peace and equality among their kind—was instead a poster child for what the humans called Stockholm syndrome, repeating his abductor’s crimes over and over.
And this time she was his target.
Ary had heard of him before; she’d seen him in the village through the years before he left for good sixteen years ago. After that she’d only heard about what he was doing, and even that was just whispers. Nobody wanted to be caught talking of the shadow who’d gone rogue.
Now he was back, and he was holding her captive. Why, Ary had no idea, but she knew it couldn’t be anything good.
This new location was an old building. She’d seen a little through the blindfold she’d managed to loosen by rubbing her head against the cab of the truck they transported her in. It was a dilapidated shack once used to mix the drugs that were eventually shipped out of the forest and sold. They were beyond the Gungi now, on the other side of the river and through thick brush that was good for hiding drug houses such as this one. The boards around her creaked, and slats were missing from the walls. But it was covered with a huge dark-colored tarp that kept the elements out—and whatever unlawfulness was going on inside in.
They’d dragged her through one large room, her legs slapping against table legs that wobbled and fell. The racket they’d created was deafening, but they were so far out that there was no one to hear. They could do whatever they wanted to do to her out here; she could scream until her lungs dried of air, but nobody would hear her. Nobody would come to her rescue.
Ary inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. Her chest hurt with the action because to capture her they’d had to fight her. She’d been trained in what the humans called self-defense using martial arts techniques. Coming from behind and grabbing her wasn’t exactly a good idea. When she’d finally fallen to the ground in hopes of rolling out of their reach, one grabbed her up, throwing her over his massive shoulder. The other had tied her ankles and hands, and when she’d screamed a string of obscenities at them they’d gagged her. She suspected the bruise to her face came when they dropped her to the floor and she’d landed painfully on her cheek. After Sabar’s directive, they’d moved her a little more carefully this time around.
This time only her hands were tied—she figured because they were tired of carrying her. Still, escape wasn’t going to be easy. The disgusting gag was thankfully gone, left on the floor in the first hut where Sabar had thrown it. And they’d taken the blindfold off, probably figuring she couldn’t see much. But her cat could see everything. If she could just get outside, she could figure out her exact location, shift, and go home. Or she could just shift.
The idea had come to her many times since they’d taken her. Shift into a jaguar, kill her assailants, and call it a day. Then what? The bodies would be found; autopsies would prove a vicious predator had taken their lives. Humans would be outraged and pour into the forest looking to shoot anything on four legs. It would be like leading a lamb to slaughter, and it was something she would never do to her people.
But she would escape. There was no way in hell Sabar Tavares would have the satisfaction of killing her. That’s what she assumed this was all about; after all, killing was what Sabar was best known for.
Closing her eyes to that thought, Ary let her head fall back against the rickety wall. She felt spears of loose wood sticking into her scalp but didn’t care. She needed to think, needed to figure out what to do.
Only when her eyes closed, the one thing Ary saw—the single person appearing in her mind—wasn’t Sabar or her other two captors. It was Nick. The only man to hold her and her heart captive and live to tell.
She didn’t want to think about him, didn’t want to remember the contours of his face, the shape of his eyes, the feel of his lips. All she wanted to do was forget. But that wasn’t going to happen. She’d figured that out years ago. What had happened that night between them wasn’t going to go away, especially since she’d never allowed another male to touch her intimately, ever. Dominick Delgado had been her first and only.
And it was times like these when that realization sent a piercing ache through her heart that rivaled only death itself.
Speaking of which, the dank stench of Rogues in the vicinity pierced her nostrils. She sat up straighter, ready to do whatever was necessary to stay ali
ve.
They came inside with loud, clumsy movements. Ary knew instantly they weren’t trained soldiers, probably just some outcasts Sabar had picked up when he arrived in the forest. One of them held a bowl and nodded to the other, who came closer to her.
The taller one—whose name she heard shouted by his companion—was Jose. He didn’t speak a lot of English, and he looked at her with hungry eyes. Even hungrier hands had groped her until she’d bitten him in defense. The other one—Franco—stank of liquor and moved with a lazy tangle of limbs. He preferred kicking to fondling her. She despised them both and could probably kill them without too much trouble. Once more, she axed that idea. If she didn’t act with caution, the repercussions to the tribe would be too deadly. Besides, there had already been reports of suspicious deaths in the forest, and Ary didn’t want to add to them.
It took monumental effort to calm the wild beating of her heart, but Ary was determined to handle this. Jose came closer, grabbing her by the hair and lifting her off the floor. She kicked out, catching him at the knees and thighs until he wised up and backed away, still holding her hair with his outstretched arm. Her hands were tied behind her back or she would have simply punched him.
“Mal-humorada bitch!” Jose yelled, spittle flying into her face as he jerked her hair hard.
Ary kicked again, catching him in the lower stomach. “I’ll show you a feisty bitch!” she yelled right back at him.
“Should have kept her ass gagged,” Franco said, moving closer with the bowl. “Hold her still so we can get this over with.”
“Ainda! Ainda!”
“You keep still!” was her retort, which was answered by another yank of her hair and a quick reversal of his limbs that had her midsection clasped between his legs and her head pulled back so that her neck was bared. If they were vampires, she would have been deathly afraid. As it stood she was wondering what would happen next.
She didn’t have to wonder for long.
Franco approached, standing over her with a sick grin on his dirty face. “Now, open up like a good little girl.”