by A. C. Arthur
“I … I cannot … help … it,” she hissed.
“It cannot!” He pounded into her mercilessly. “Never … again!”
Ary spread her legs even farther, anchoring herself then meeting him thrust for thrust with a push of her own hips. The mere thought that she was enjoying his roughness, taking his punishment as some sort of reward, was driving Nick mad.
“Say it! Say it will not happen again!” he insisted, needing to know that this would soon be over. This blinding lust that had his spine stiffening, on the brink of shifting from its intensity, would end soon and the world as he knew it would resume. Nick had to have that reassurance, had to know that this one instance would not be repeated because there simply were no other options.
“No!”
Shocked and equally pissed off at her disobedience, Nick pulled his dick almost completely out of her.
“Please…,” she whimpered, a quick change from the assertiveness he’d just heard in her voice. “Don’t stop.”
Knowing that was impossible, Nick leaned over her, pushing two fingers softly against her anus. He’d wanted her there, had seen the virginal entrance and craved like never before. But he hadn’t dared, hadn’t wanted to hurt her with the intensity of his desire for anal play. Clenching his teeth, Nick closed his eyes. “I won’t stop. This time,” he said through a throat clogged with some emotion he didn’t want to claim, then proceeded to push his fingers farther inside her tight rear entrance. His dick slid back into her pussy like a welcomed guest and she moaned.
Nick kept his hips perfectly still, his thickness pulsating inside her. She squirmed against him and he moved his fingers gingerly around the rim of her rear, loving the simultaneous feeling of pleasure.
Her head thrashed wildly, her hair swinging in the air. He wished he could see her breasts, feel their weight in his hands. But this wasn’t about that type of pleasure. It was about slaking an immediate need. One they both obviously shared. Once this was done, however, it would be it. This would not happen again, regardless of what she said. It could not happen again.
And it hadn’t. After he returned Ary to her home that night, things had changed. And Nick wasn’t just thinking of the ultimatum given to him by his father and Ary’s father, but the things that he’d seen when he’d returned to the riverbank. From that moment on Nick had never been the same. And as he’d left the Gungi early the next morning, he swore he’d never feel the same for another female again.
Chapter 5
“You think she good? She is weak, não?” Jose asked, trying to speak what little English he knew clearly.
“Are you a curandero?”
Jose shook his head so hard, long, oily strands of black hair scraped his forehead. “Não.”
“Are you a shaman?
“Não.”
“Then shut the hell up!” Sabar roared, pushing Jose out of the way and moving to the table where he pulled out a chair.
“Sit down,” he said to the curandero, whose curvaceous body called to him even as her zombie-like state pissed him the hell off.
She did not move.
Jose had carried her into this room from where she’d slept and propped her against the wall. When Sabar spoke, he expected those around him automatically to move to do his bidding. She did not.
“I said sit!” he said louder.
Her head lolled forward, all that long hair draping around her, covering her face. After yesterday’s trek through this god-awful jungle, Sabar had wisely chosen his long reaper-style boots with the reinforced steel toe and ankle straps. His black cargo pants and T-shirt fit perfectly, giving him the soldier look he was aiming for. He didn’t want any trouble from the natives but wouldn’t hesitate to kill whoever was looking for some in the meanwhile. There was a clunking sound from the boots as he walked closer to the curandero.
Clasping a handful of her hair, he pushed her head back. Her eyes rolled in her head, but she didn’t look at him.
“Fuck! How much did you give her?” he yelled at Jose.
“Franco poured. I just hold her,” the man said, his eyes wild with fear. Clearly he wasn’t about to take the blame for his partner.
“Then find out how much Franco gave her. She can’t help me if she’s too drugged to think straight.”
Sabar dragged Ary over to the table and sat her in the chair himself. Her limbs were completely limp, her arms hanging down at her sides, her head falling forward again. Cursing, he pushed the chair up to the table so that he didn’t have to hold her upright; the table would do the trick. Her hair fell onto the dirty surface, and he could see nothing else of her face.
Jose had left the room, no doubt scrambling outside to where Franco stood watch over Sabar’s Hummer and to make sure nobody came near the dwelling unannounced. Seconds later both shifters entered the room, Franco looking a little less afraid than Jose.
“How much did you fucking give her?” Sabar roared the minute he looked up. “She’s a goddamn zombie! How’s that going to help me?”
Franco shrugged with a casualness that didn’t quite meet his eyes. He looked from the curandero’s head lying on the table to Sabar, who looked like he was surely about to shift and break their necks.
“I gave her what you gave to me. But she spit most of it out” was his defense.
“True. It run all down her face,” Jose put in but clapped his mouth shut when Sabar spun around to glare at him.
“She’s not moving at all. That’s not what’s supposed to happen,” Sabar spat.
Jose and Franco shrugged because they had no clue about drugs or the herbs Sabar had lifted from the forest to dissolve in the mixture the curandero was given. But this, he swore again looking at her, was definitely not the desired effect.
Actually, he had no idea what the effect of the damiana mixture was, and that was the real reason he’d given it to her. If the information he’d paid for was true, it was in essence his golden egg. The plant that was generally found in the Amazon rain forest could add astronomical value to the product he was already moving on the streets in the United States. So he needed this to work. Problem was, she—the curandero who was presently passed out—was the only one who could make it work.
“Wake up, dammit!” he yelled, smacking the side of her head.
What came next was a roar that shook the walls of the ratty old dwelling and sent Jose and Franco backing into the corner. The impact of Sabar’s slap pushed the curandero’s limp body off the chair, but instead of her falling to the floor there was a blur of motion as she shifted midair, landing on all fours, the big cat roaring and baring its lethal teeth.
As Jose and Franco cowered in the corner, Sabar stood level across the small room. His heart pounded, adrenaline soaring through his wicked veins.
“Such a pretty beast,” he said, admiring the perfect female jaguar that stood across from him. “Come to me.”
Her tan-colored coat was gorgeous. She was at least five feet long with eye-popping black rosettes in a picture-perfect pattern and hypnotic golden eyes. Poachers would die for the opportunity to be this close to such a magnificent specimen.
With all its beauty, the cat lunged, toppling the table and knocking Sabar to the floor in a matter of seconds. He rolled quickly to the side before it could hold him to that spot on the floor, knowing instinctively that this would mean instant death. Inside his own cat roared, threatening to rip free at any moment. It took everything in Sabar to hold back, to push his instinctive nature to the side. It wasn’t a battle he wanted; it was more power.
The cat swiped a huge paw into the air, growling its discontent once more. Coming up on his knees, Sabar made a motion behind his back and heard the clicking of the rifle in Franco’s hand. Finally the stupid bastard had found some sense.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said, still staring into the cat’s golden eyes.
It roared again and pounced in the other direction, this time knocking Jose down and swiping its paws down the man’s back. Jose yo
wled in pain, then shifted, his own cat turning to take a bite out of the female in defense.
The fight was short-lived. Sabar figured it would be and signaled for Franco to hold his fire. She was even more beautiful in cat form, he thought, watching her hind legs balance her weight as she stood swiping at the male with vicious force. The male, who in human form was sloppy and stupid as hell, was even worse in cat form. His charging was weak, his combat skills almost nonexistent. So when the female took a bite out of the male’s left flank, it fell to the dirty floor with a sickening thud. The female, a trained huntress, went in for the kill, taking the male’s neck between her strong jaws and clamping down until the cat could no longer move.
The howl that came from the female when it finally backed off the dead carcass was deafening. Franco dropped the rifle to cover his ears, and Sabar winced inwardly as the sound pierced something deep inside him. Then the cat turned and lunged right through one of the cloth-covered windows.
* * *
“We’ll go in slow and quiet,” Rome said after they’d had breakfast and left the village about forty-five minutes behind them.
Lucas, a teenage Topètenia, was their designated guide. He walked in front of them, his bare feet cushioned by the soggy forest floor. The boy didn’t speak English, which was strange since he looked to be about fifteen. Most shadows knew both languages by now. Elder Marras, who had greeted them this morning, had not given much information about Lucas. All he’d said was that the boy could help with the search. Rome had readily agreed, since it had been years since any of them had traipsed around the forest. Lucas simply walked in front and expected them to follow, which they did.
“If he’s a true shaman, he’ll know we’re there, regardless,” Kalina said from beside Rome. This was her first trip to the forest, yet her appearance was that of an experienced Shadow Shifter.
“Elisa said his power is beyond anything they could explain. She said most of the Elders are even afraid of Yuri,” she continued.
Elisa was the shifter who’d been helping Kalina since the joining. Nick assumed she’d also been giving Kalina a crash course in Topètenia history—which normally would have been okay. But the more Kalina talked, the more irritated Rome looked.
It was only from years of knowing him that Nick recognized that look. Rome hated the fact that his mate was with them on this expedition. The last place he wanted Kalina was in danger. Hunting the Rogue who’d kidnapped a curandero was beyond dangerous.
Kalina most likely knew this, too, and that’s why she kept right on talking and walking beside Rome, no matter how angry he looked. She had a stubborn streak about her that sort of amused Nick. “He’ll sense our spirits approaching and prepare himself,” she told them finally.
“He’d be a fool to try to fight us,” X said stepping over a particularly large buttress root that snaked out at least seven feet across the forest floor from the tree it belonged to.
“No. We’d be fools to walk in there thinking we have some kind of control. He has a power we know nothing about,” Kalina insisted.
“He’s just an old man living in the forest,” Rome said with irritation.
“You cannot believe that” was Kalina’s response. “He’s well respected throughout the forest. Sheena said so last night, and the other Elders agree. Apparently Ary had a lot of respect for this Yuri and his work.”
“She would respect anything that had to do with healing,” Nick finally put in. “All she’s ever wanted to do is heal and help others. If he was teaching her that, she would have been forever indebted to him.”
“Enough so that she’d run away with him?”
The entire forest seemed to still at X’s question. Nobody moved; everyone stood perfectly still as rage rippled through Nick’s body in heavy waves. It was a feeling Nick was familiar with, as it seemed he’d been in a perpetual state of anger since he was nineteen. During that year he’d found and lost love and discovered his father was a liar and possibly a traitor to their species. Nick figured with all that he had a right to be as mad as he wanted, for as long as it took.
Thinking of Ary missing only exacerbated the emotion.
“She did not run away with the shaman,” he said finally through clenched teeth.
X clapped him on his back. “Just trying to break this sour-ass mood we’re all in. We’re going to find her and she’s going to be all right,” he told Nick seriously.
“Not funny,” Nick snapped. A quick glance at the others said they didn’t agree, since they all seemed to be smiling.
Turning his back to all of them, Nick took the lead, using quick strides to get to the edge of the Gungi as soon as possible.
Another hour later when the group stood at a small embankment, Nick’s shoulders bunched. His head lifted to the air as a breeze blew. Inside his cat howled, his gaze roaming all around.
“Rogues,” Rome said. “I picked it up, too.”
“From that direction,” X said, pointing south from where they stood.
“Only he will know the way to go. The one that is a part of two,” said a small gravelly voice.
The group turned to the voice, all of them silent. A man who couldn’t have been more than five feet tall and a hundred pounds stood on a moss-covered hill.
“You will know where she is.” With an arm that looked no wider than one of the thick vines stretching from one tree to another, the man pointed at Nick.
Not that the man asked, because he certainly didn’t. Still, Nick felt like the pointing thing sort of singled him out. He took a step forward. “Yuri?”
“It is you she seeks.” His voice was like a whisper, yet it echoed over other forest sounds as if it had some sort of power.
“Where is she?” Rome asked from behind Nick.
Yuri did not look away from Nick. “She has been calling to you for a long time. Now you will need to reach out to her. Call her and she will answer.”
“Is this guy serious?” was X’s whispered question.
Yuri’s skin looked like old leather, hanging off his bones as if it were ready to touch the ground at any moment. From a distance Nick could see the bone that went through his lower lip, adding to the wispy sound of his voice and signifying his high spiritual status among the forest tribes. His hair was long and thin, hanging like pieces of thread from his scalp. He wore a thatch of material around his waist and what might have been some sort of vest to cover part of his torso. His arm was still extended toward Nick.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Nick said with a shrug, making his way up to where Yuri stood.
It was Lucas who stopped the procession.
“Você deve oferecer-lhe um presente.”
Nick sighed. This was taking too much time. He just wanted to question the guy, find out what he knew about Ary’s disappearance then move on to finding her. With a curse he rubbed a hand down the back of his head.
“I have to give him something for him to help us,” Nick said, translating Lucas’s statement.
“You’re an attorney. You should know you don’t get something for nothing,” X joked again.
“Here.” Kalina removed a gold necklace from her neck. “Give him this. He can sell it to one of the humans for cash or food or something.”
With a shrug, Nick took the necklace from her. “Thanks. I’ll replace it as soon as we get home.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she told him.
Lucas took the necklace Nick held out to him and led them up the path toward the rise where the shaman stood expectantly. Nick was right behind him; X, Rome, and Kalina followed closely. He was tense all over, ready and waiting to find Ary so he could … could what? He’d spent most of the night—after the vivid dream of his last time with her—thinking of what would happen after this.
Ary was the one woman who’d made him feel something, the only woman to ever accomplish that feat. And she’d done so unassumingly. Would he be able to walk away from her a second time?
Lucas dro
pped to one knee, his head bowed low enough to touch the other knee. His arm was extended, the gold chain dangling on his fingers. Yuri moved slowly, as if his bones refused to go any faster. He stood in front of Lucas, tilting his head back and whispering something to someone they couldn’t see. Then he inhaled deeply and took the necklace from Lucas’s hand. A touch to Lucas’s shoulder from the shaman signaled him to stand. He did so with an arm extended toward Nick.
Nick stepped forward, but before he could speak the shaman came to him, put his flat palm on his forehead, and began to mumble again. It wasn’t Portuguese he spoke. Nick knew the language of the Gungi well. This language was different. He had no idea what the man had said.
“Come” was the English directive he gave to Nick.
He followed without hesitation, hoping this didn’t take long. Every minute Ary was missing was like a thousand needles being driven into his temple.
“Sit,” he said when they’d come to what looked like a hole in the side of a huge boulder.
For Nick, Rome, and X, it wasn’t easy getting their bodies through the small space. Especially X, who of the three of them had the bulkiest build due to his obsession with the gym. Once inside, the opening grew wide enough for them to step onto a mud-packed floor and stand at least partially upright. A pitted fire was already burning in the center of the floor while all types of roots and ritual tools hung around the space on nails drummed into the walls.
“All sit,” Yuri indicated to them when they stood staring around the fire pit.
Lucas motioned for them all to sit in a circle around the pit, then sat behind Rome, his head bowed in allegiance to the Faction Leader.
When Yuri returned to them again, he had a handful of some type of plants. As he crossed his thin legs and sat in front of the fire, he dropped the plants in the fire. Seconds later a thick smoke rose in thin rivulets, polluting the air around them.
“Hmmmm, sage,” Kalina said inhaling deeply. “He’s burning sage.”
Behind Rome, Lucas tapped him on the shoulder. “É para a limpeza de energia.”