"Turn around slowly," came a calm, melodious voice behind Ixchel's back. Her attacker must have been hiding in the shrubbery, waiting until her receptionist drove away before moving in on his quarry.
I'm like a lame antelope separated from the herd, Ixchel thought, peering through the trees that encircled the office on three sides in hopes of finding a new dwelling nearby. Nope, her practice was just as isolated now as it had been when she'd started renting the space six months before. There was nowhere to run and no one to come to her aid if she screamed.
"Ma'am?" At least he was a polite mugger, although the knife did press a little harder into her flesh when Ixchel failed to instantly obey his command.
The pain, more than the word, brought her back to reality. Focus, Ixchel. This was why she preferred working with animals rather than humans—cats and dogs were so much simpler to understand than the one species that had learned so well how to lie.
Taking her own advice to heart, Ixchel kept her hands where her attacker could see them and pivoted slowly in place. He's no more dangerous than a scared and wounded doberman, she promised herself. But clearly Ixchel hadn't mastered that hallmark feature of Homo sapiens sapiens, because she didn't believe her own deception. After all, if this mugger was allowing her to see his face, chances were good that she wasn't going to make it out of this altercation alive.
Let him be masked, let him be masked, let him be masked....
Her attacker wasn't masked, and he also didn't look at all the way Ixchel had thought he would. Everyone she'd met since moving to West Virginia was Caucasian, obviously descended from the Scots-Irish immigrants who had made these mountains home centuries ago. And the current residents out here in the boondocks all tended to dress like farmers, too, with Carhartt overalls giving way to tight jeans and ball caps in the summer.
But the person holding a knife—her knife, out of her kitchen in the apartment above the practice!—instead resembled an exotic gentleman. He wore a dark suit that flattered his form so well that it must have been tailored to fit, and the seams on his trousers were pressed into knife-edge creases. In fact, Ixchel was pretty sure that the mugger was wearing dress shoes as well, likely Italian loafers that cost more than she made in a year.
The clothes were a surprise, but it was the man's face that took Ixchel's breath away. Eyes so dark they were nearly black were half-hidden by straight, raven-hued hair. The combination was unbearably handsome...and also far too familiar for comfort.
Not that the veterinarian had met this particular mugger before. But all of the guys her brothers ran with in their youthful gangs had sported similar features and similar brown skin. Plus, Ixchel saw a feminine version of the same facial structure every time she looked in a mirror. So even though her neighbors would have thought her mugger was Hispanic, Ixchel knew that he was indio, a Mexican Indian like herself.
The realization terrified Ixchel more than the knife had done. Because her brothers would have grown out of their youthful gangs since she'd seen them last. And even though those teenage ventures had seemed horrifying enough at the time, the criminal world her brothers must now be embroiled in could only be a hundred times worse. Antonio, in particular, would probably have become a mob linchpin by now if his teenage leanings were any indication of that brother's eventual adult career choice.
And if my siblings' current unlawful element is showing up on my doorstep, all of my attempts to cut off ties have failed. Which meant that Ixchel was in for much worse this evening than simply being robbed outside the door of her own practice.
Despite her best intentions to stand her ground, the vet sank onto the concrete step at her feet. This couldn't be happening. She'd tried so hard to leave that world behind!
And then a large male hand was pushing her head down between her knees. For a moment, Ixchel struggled. But then she realized that her attacker was simply promoting blood flow to her brain to prevent fainting, and she relaxed into his arms. Please don't let this get back to my brothers, she thought, imagining how her favorite sibling—Miguel—would tease her for nearly passing out in the face of an attack. What she wouldn't give to have her middle brother here to protect her now....
Then the man's other hand came around to rub away the tension that created hard ridges along the sides of her neck. Ixchel had begun to shiver in the chilly evening air, but the mugger's touch warmed her skin and seemed to clear her mind even better than sinking her head between her knees had. And, in the end, some combination of adrenaline and extra oxygen to her brain finally allowed the vet to think straight.
The knife. If her attacker had one hand on top of her head and the other one on her neck, then his weapon must be lying unattended somewhere nearby. Which meant this was her best chance to get away with skin and dignity intact.
Strangely, Ixchel's muscles didn't want to budge. Well, perhaps they would be willing to move...but only to lie all the way down on the concrete walkway and beg for the massage to work its way down her back. On the other hand, when asked to spring to her feet and flee, her legs pretended weakness at the mere thought.
Get a grip, Ixchel told her legs. There's a time and a place for runaway hormones, and this is neither!
But before she could even twitch, both large male hands had left her skin and the knife was once again present in Ixchel's peripheral vision.
Which is when she noticed the other salient feature of her attacker's appearance, the one her veterinary training should have picked up on right off the bat. There was a steady stream of blood flowing out of the wound high on the man's left arm. And, if she wasn't much mistaken, blood loss was making her mugger's face grow increasingly pale beneath his dark skin.
***
"You're bleeding!" the woman exclaimed, bringing Finn's mind back to the purpose of this knife-point introduction.
The shifter had meant to get his wound stitched and then to leave the area as quickly as possible, moving on before any potential pursuers could uncover his trail. But something about the curve just above the woman's hip had caught his eye and held it. And then she'd sunken down to the ground in shock, and Finn had felt so shitty that he had to soothe her tremors.
In feline form, the shifter would have licked the woman's fur until it lay smooth and clean along her spine. But in human shape he had to settle for simply rubbing her neck, the muscles of which miraculously relaxed beneath his ministrations.
Every hint of tension that he'd teased away was back in spades now, though, as the woman peered at the blood dripping down and pooling along the inside of his elbow. So Finn decided to attempt a more human method of breaking the ice. "What's your name?" he asked.
"You want to know my name?" the woman retorted. "That's your response when I notice that you're suffering from a gunshot wound that's probably torn through your bicep and might have nicked your humerus? Is the bullet still in there?"
All valid questions, but the woman was becoming more agitated with every word, so Finn declined to answer. He'd thought his quarry was a vet rather than a human doctor, but she seemed awfully familiar with the results of gun play...and also particularly agitated about its aftereffects.
Not that he blamed her. Finn wasn't very fond of the results of being shot either. Not when blood loss was beginning to make his head swim.
But what really fueled the shifter's annoyance was the way the woman's eyes remained trained upon his knife rather than looking up into his face. It was as if she thought Finn was a predator just waiting for the perfect opportunity to disembowel his prey. As if she didn't see him as a person at all, but instead as a wild animal that required slow movements and quick wit if she wanted to escape.
Well, okay, so her analysis is technically true. But just because I'm a predator doesn't mean I like to be treated as one.
And she didn't appear this terrified when I menaced her in feline form this morning. Surely a veterinarian trained to operate with razor-sharp scalpels should be aware that a jaguar's teeth and claws are far more dan
gerous than this dull kitchen utensil. The were-jaguar's thoughts drifted off track for a moment as he added, She really does need to take better care of her cooking knives.
Shaking his head once to bring his thoughts back on track, Finn decided he shouldn't have bothered holding this woman up at knife point. From what he'd seen of her behavior thus far, the vet might have stitched up his wound even if he hadn't resorted to threats. And she definitely wouldn't look so wan and pale if Finn had used words first instead of slipping up into her apartment in search of a weapon to intimidate his quarry into obedience.
Lacking the ability to go back in time and remedy the past, though, Finn vowed to do what he could to ease the woman's angst and to make the remainder of their introduction a little more enjoyable for all concerned. So, slipping his purloined knife between the belt and fabric at his waist, the shifter reached out one hand toward his companion.
"Look, let's start over," he said. "I'm Finn. And you are?" As he spoke, Finn allowed both eyes to slowly drift closed for a fraction of a second, cat-speak for I'm relaxed and you should be too. No one's going to hurt you.
And unlike all of the other humans whom Finn had struggled so hard to communicate with ever since discovering his humanity for the first time more than a decade before, this woman seemed to understand what he was really trying to say. Because she accepted his hand within her own firm but gentle grip and responded, "I'm Ixchel."
Chapter 5
"Michelle?" the man asked, and Ixchel had put effort into not rolling her eyes. Was it crazy that a criminal had stepped out of the shrubbery to accost her and yet the issue that bugged her the most was this common mispronunciation of her name?
Yep, definitely crazy. But Ixchel still heard herself respond with words so familiar that they would have been threadbare and holey had they been a favorite pair of jeans. "No, Ixchel, without an M. It's the name of..."
"...a Mayan jaguar goddess," the man finished for her.
"Well, I was going to say a Mexican deity," Ixchel replied, her head tilting to one side as she sized her companion up more fully. Perhaps he wasn't a common thug after all. The vet could honestly state that she'd never before met a man who recognized the provenance of her unusual name.
"But what you said works too," the vet continued. She couldn't help being intrigued by the person in front of her, even if their introduction had been less than seemly. Perhaps a knife was what it took to break the ice she felt solidifying around her tongue every time she met someone new?
Despite knowing it wasn't wise to taunt erratic humans, the vet couldn't resist engaging her attacker further. "What kind of mugger are you exactly?" she asked. "One with a degree in comparative mythology?"
"What kind of parents name their daughter after a jaguar goddess?" the man shot back. He clearly wasn't willing to offer any additional identifying information, and Ixchel's lips firmed back up into a frown. Note to self, she thought grimly. This is not a first date with an intriguing romantic candidate. No, Ixchel was currently attempting to escape from a man who had held her at knife point mere moments earlier, so she shouldn't be surprised if the mugger in question didn't want to spill his secrets into her ear at the first sign of interest.
Which is really a good thing, the vet reminded herself. After all, the less I know, the fewer reasons Finn has to silence me after he's gone. And she shivered as the thought brought her back to reality. Hopefully the semblance of civility that seemed to cloak her attacker would hold firm and allow her to extricate herself from this encounter with skin and bone intact.
Not that any of her brothers' thug-like acquaintances would leave a loose end like Ixchel untied. But, despite the man's apparent ethnicity and his penchant for introducing himself with weapons rather than words, nothing else about the mugger seemed to link him to Ixchel's past. Instead, he appeared to be doing his best at the moment to downplay her initial intimidation. After putting his knife away, the man's shoulders had immediately slouched down as if to counteract his height, and his body was now angled to the side, offering Ixchel an avenue of escape rather than menacing her head-on.
So perhaps the man was simply a stranger seeking a qualified medical practitioner willing to stitch him up without calling the cops. Maybe he wasn't a compatriot of her brothers out to seek revenge after all. Ixchel had been warned about this former scenario at veterinary school, and even though her practice's rural location made the danger less of an issue, criminals could be found everywhere. Apparently.
They come in all shapes and sizes too, the vet thought, allowing appreciative eyes to linger on the mugger's lean body a little longer now that her heart wasn't trying to pound its way out of her chest. None of her brothers' acquaintances had ever struck her as particularly enticing and Ixchel had thought she'd sidestepped the self-flagellating penchant of falling for bad boys...or for their adult-male counterparts. Yet another newly discovered character flaw to work my way out of. And how depressing was that?
Only, Finn didn't really fit the bad-boy mold. Not when he backpedaled so prettily after taking in the expressions flitting across Ixchel's face. "I'm sorry," he said simply. "That was rude of me. I think it's a very pretty name. Now, what do I have to do in order to be invited in?"
"Are you going to rape me, murder me, and leave my body by the side of the road?" Ixchel found herself answering, her sharp tongue reappearing as her terror levels decreased.
And now it was Ixchel's turn to peruse her companion's facial features with interest. Was that regret she saw in his eyes, or just annoyance that his prey was standing up for herself?
"None of the above," Finn answered after a short pause. And he seemed so mortified by the very implication that the vet finally allowed herself to relax.
"Alright, then," she agreed. Her mind was telling her to run in the other direction as fast as she could, but the man was wounded and in need of medical attention. "I guess I'll invite you in and examine that oozing arm."
***
"You're lucky this was made by a .38 instead of a .22 or you'd be in real trouble," the vet said. "As it is, it looks like the bullet passed right through."
Ixchel viciously stabbed at Finn's open wound with a metallic torture implement as she spoke...or at least that's what it seemed like to him. Even with the aid of a local anesthetic, it was all the shifter could do not to flinch every time she moved her fingers closer to his arm. Not at all how I thought it would feel to be touched by such a beautiful woman....
"So, do you want to tell me about it?" Finn said at last, after getting his breath back from a particularly vigorous prod.
"Tell you about what?" The vet was still poking around inside his slightly numbed wound, despite the fact that she'd clearly decided there was no bullet embedded in his flesh. At this point, Finn had to conclude his companion just wanted to make him pay for his crimes...or that she was taking out misplaced aggressions on his tender skin.
"Do you want to tell me about your traumatic childhood experience with gunshot wounds?" he elaborated. Actually, Finn would have much preferred to tell the vet that he found her attractive, perhaps followed by that quaint human custom of asking the woman out on a date. But the shifter had a sinking suspicion that mentioning his companion's beauty would add even more lines to the angry frown wrinkling Ixchel's otherwise lovely countenance.
And he definitely didn't want to talk about anything that would make the veterinarian's impatient fingers yet more twitchy.
Okay, sure, so delving into Ixchel's traumatic childhood was likely to increase his pain quotient significantly in the short term. But perhaps if the vet got whatever she was stewing over off her chest, she might allow her patient to leave the veterinary practice with both arms still attached.
Unfortunately, his companion apparently wasn't in a chatty mood. "Do you want to talk about why you're running from the law?" she countered grimly, moving on from forceps to a wickedly curved needle.
Finn quickly looked away before the vet was able to jab this ne
w tool into his numbed flesh. Am I running from the law? He hoped not.
Or maybe he hoped so. Because if Mirabelle hadn't called the cops, that meant the burglar had walked into a trap that evening after all. Which in turn meant that Finn would have to do more than simply shred the fake identification documents he was currently carrying in his pocket in order to relocate and come up with a new life as he'd originally planned. And as he'd done dozens of times before.
"Look," Finn said, keeping his voice light and ignoring the worries threatening to overcome his thoughts. "Maybe we should talk about something more pleasant. Like pets. Do you have any?"
Finally. For the first time since he'd hopped up to sit on her examining table, the vet looked Finn straight in the eye rather than avoiding his gaze at all cost. "No pets," she answered now with a hint of a smile, and the shifter grinned back, basking in the glow of his companion's sudden favor like a cat in a sunbeam. Finn didn't usually have trouble beguiling the ladies, but there was nothing like holding up an attractive woman at knife point to make her less-than-receptive to his charms....
"But you're a vet," Finn responded, not particularly interested in pets but wanting to extend the life of the smile that currently touched Ixchel's lips. "Presumably, you prefer furred, finned, and feathered friends to those of us who walk on two legs. Present company excluded, of course."
"Ha!" The vet's snort was quiet but got her point across. Present company was apparently not excluded.
"So," Finn said, ignoring the interjection. "Why no pets?"
And now honest emotion filled the veterinarian's eyes. "Why no pets?" she shot back. "Spoken like a typical, flaky human being who would pick up a puppy off the side of the road, then get rid of it a month later when the poor animal stops being cute and has trouble learning not to pee in the house."
Jaguar at the Portal Page 3