"We want the statue," her captor ground out. "Or we want the thief. One or the other. Preferably both."
The four short sentences were practically a novel coming from this close-mouthed but thoroughly terrifying man, and Ixchel shivered before trying her hand once again at misdirection. "You mean the man whom Dr. Mirabelle was here asking about this morning? I told the professor already. I haven't seen anyone...."
Her words were cut off as the thug with the rose grasped the vet's throat and slammed her entire body back against the door. He hadn't bothered to drop the flower before attacking, and Ixchel's eyes teared up as rose petals scratched against sensitive tissue. It's only irritation of my retinas making me cry, the vet told herself. Not the pain and terror of having all air blocked before it could make its way into her lungs.
Since she couldn't speak with his hand around her neck, the vet assumed her attacker would let her go eventually. But she was starting to see dark spots in front of her eyes and the thug showed no signs of easing his stance, so her hands rose up to claw at his hard flesh.
She was suffocating.
"Please," Ixchel mouthed, not even able to whisper without the ability to take a breath.
At a nod from the boss, the rose-carrier finally allowed her body to slide out of his grasp, and the vet clutched at the door knob to keep herself upright as she gasped in huge gulps of air. "I'm sorry. Okay. I'll tell you," Ixchel said, the words garbled as she forced them out as fast as she could in an effort to keep the thugs at bay. "He came by last night with a gunshot wound right up here on his arm."
Beginning to wave toward her left shoulder, the vet halted mid-motion as the lead thug's eyes narrowed. Doesn't he know that if I had a weapon, I wouldn't be standing here right now? the vet wondered, but she still let her hand drop back to her side without completing the gesture.
"And?" the head thug prompted.
"And I stitched him up," Ixchel rushed on. "He let me lock myself in the practice afterwards, and then he left. I swear I don't know where he is now, and I didn't see a statue."
It only took a fraction of a second for the rose-carrier to grasp her neck again, using two hands this time around for better leverage against her flesh. But Ixchel was sick of protecting innocents if it meant she wasn't going to make it out of this altercation alive. So, between the time the rose-carrying thug moved and the time all air was trapped once again in her lungs, the vet screamed as loud and long as she was able.
I hope Betty Lou has the good sense to dial 911, she thought. And then the world went black.
Chapter 11
Finn's feet took him onto the edge of the veterinary practice's lawn at the same moment that Ixchel's body dropped to the ground beside three very muscle-bound men. So that's Mirabelle's security company, the shifter thought grimly. Then: Please don't let her be dead.
"Jerkwad," the dark-haired thug said to the man who'd recently loosened his grip from around the vet's neck. "She won't do us any good unconscious." The boss didn't seem all that torn up about his underling's actions, though, and he proceeded to nudge Ixchel none-too-gently with the toe of one boot.
The fallen woman groaned and shifted slightly, but didn't open her eyes. Not dead. Finn almost dropped to the ground in mimicry of the vet's reclining posture from sheer relief.
But, although literally out of the woods, the shifter was far from out of the metaphorical woods. The trouble was that Finn hadn't spent much time learning to fight as a human. And he also possessed no weapons capable of counteracting the ones laxly hidden beneath the thugs' suits. So the question became—should Finn change into jaguar form and risk revealing himself to the public, or should he slink off into the trees and hope Ixchel found her way out of this precarious situation on her own?
In the past, Finn's cat nature had usually prompted him to save his own skin in similar situations. But the shifter had a sinking suspicion that these thugs were out looking for him. Which meant that Ixchel was merely a stepping stone on their path to world domination, and thus was Finn's responsibility to protect.
Plus, the vet had been kind to him even after he menaced her nearly into a faint last night. And, for some unknown reason, she hadn't ratted him out to Mirabelle this morning either. Added to which, the breakfast kibbles had been much appreciated....
So, for once, Finn chose valor over skin-saving and called to the thugs as he walked briskly toward them. "Hey! Are you looking for me?"
As one, the three men whirled to face the shifter, their broad shoulders putting Finn in mind of a pack of pit bulls he'd once stumbled across while skulking around a secluded acreage on jaguar feet. Then, as now, Finn was hoping to get away with an object that didn't rightfully belong to him. If only the shifter could manage to out-think these human pit bulls the way he'd done with their canine cousins....
"Let me guess," Finn continued, reaching into his pocket and watching as all three men's hands went for their guns. The shifter ignored the sudden firepower, though, simply pulling out the were-jaguar figurine. "I'll bet you're hunting for this?"
When their prey's hand came up full of stone rather than metal, his opponents relaxed and the head thug began to smirk. "Hand it over and maybe we'll go easy on you," the dark-haired man began, but Finn shook his head with false bravado.
"I can't come any closer while you're all pointing guns at me. Put down your weapons, then we'll talk."
Of course, even these Neanderthals wouldn't go for such simple subterfuge. Not when Finn could have whipped out firepower of his own as soon as they let down their guard.
Too bad I'm not carrying so much as Ixchel's dull dinner knife.
When his opponents failed to accede to his wishes, the shifter figured it was time to give them a little peace of mind. "Look," Finn said, unbuttoning and shrugging out of his coat in order to display his complete lack of gun harnesses. "Nothing up my sleeves," he promised, rolling up his cuffs.
When that demonstration was insufficient to wash the distrust off the other mens' faces, the shifter grumpily bent down and pushed up each trouser leg in succession. Finally, he turned a complete circle before his unappreciative audience.
"Nothing down here either," the shifter added. "As you can see, I'm entirely unarmed...except for this." He wagged the little stone were-jaguar in the air, noticing as he did so that Ixchel had regained consciousness and was looking in his direction.
The vet raised her eyebrows as if asking whether she should lend aid to the proceedings, but Finn shook his head very subtly from side to side. The entire point of this half-assed rescue attempt was rescue, and it wouldn't do him any good if Ixchel got herself killed in the process.
"Guns?" Finn prompted, and at a nod from the boss, all three men finally dropped their pistols to the earth. The shifter winced, expecting one to go off from the fall, but no shot rang out through the air.
He did hear the unmistakable sound of sirens very far off in the distance, though. Far enough away that the thugs couldn't pick out the sound...yet. Time to hurry this drama along to its inevitable conclusion.
Because claws were evidently the only way to get both Ixchel and himself out of this mess with their hides intact. Sure, each thug had dropped the pistol that he held in his hand, but Finn would have bet the men possessed at least one additional handgun apiece. Plus who knew how many knives and other means of mayhem scattered about their person. So Finn's only solution was the element of surprise...or rather, of shock.
Which meant getting rid of the figurine so the shifter didn't simply turn into a cuddly little pussycat after leaving his human body behind. Finn let his eyes drift down to Ixchel's again and he gave her what he hoped came through as a meaningful stare. Then, throwing the statue between the thugs' legs, he yelled, "Catch!"
***
Catch? That was Finn's brilliant solution to the dilemma of three armed goons waiting to wring her neck the rest of the way? To throw Ixchel the object that had gotten her mixed up in this mess in the first place?
&nb
sp; But, despite her terror and annoyance, the vet obeyed his command. Or tried to.
Initially, the little figurine appeared to be veering too far off to the right for Ixchel to snatch it out of the air from her reclining position. But, somehow...miraculously...it ended up smacking into the palm of her hand. "Thank God in heaven," she murmured under her breath, bringing the statue to her breast as she curled further away from danger.
"Well, fuck a duck!" the red-headed thug exclaimed, seemingly in reply, but the vet was too busy rolling away from her captors' legs and scrambling to her own feet to check out what had caused his exclamation. As she did so, she felt the rough prickle of grass on her bare skin...and a strange tingle in her fingers where they clutched the little stone statue.
Of course, the odd sensation likely came from shock at being thrust into such an explosive situation after years of avoiding scenarios any more dicey than visiting the grocery store by herself in broad daylight. Whether due to hysteria or not, though, the tingling was the last straw, and Ixchel was tempted to fling the statue (and the danger associated with it) as hard as she could in the direction of the overgrown shrubbery ringing her practice.
And yet, despite wanting nothing more than to see the last of the problematic statue, something made her instead slip the figurine into the pocket of her white lab coat. Then, at last, the vet turned her eyes back toward Finn.
Or, rather, toward the huge black cat that took up the space where Finn had stood only moments earlier. The same black cat whom Mr. Fuzzy had treed that morning.
It made no sense, but the broad muzzle and the hint of spots showing through the animal's dark fur pointed toward the beast being a jaguar. A black panther, actually—the melanistic form that she seemed to recall made up about six percent of the wild jaguar population.
A wild population that should be located in Central and South America, not here in the mountains of West Virginia.
Yet another fact that is entirely irrelevant to surviving whatever clusterfuck I've gotten myself into, Ixchel reminded herself. As the smallest human present, the vet would be the obvious prey of this surely scared and confused feline. So she needed to make her escape as quickly and quietly as possible. The thugs, Ixchel decided, could fend for themselves.
One of her attackers evidently thought that fending for himself would best be done with gun in hand, so he bent down toward his weapon...only to halt as the huge black cat growled a warning. A jaguar shouldn't understand the implications of a pistol, Ixchel found herself thinking. Although, maybe even animals now knew the scent of gunmetal, at least in this rural area that boasted hunters behind every other tree.
Still, when the jaguar turned his eyes toward Ixchel and speared her with a glance that looked absurdly familiar, the vet was forced to wonder where exactly her stray thief had gotten to. Sure, the vet had turned her back for several seconds. But her attention hadn't been off the area long enough for Finn to sprint to the tree line. And she definitely hadn't been sidetracked long enough for a jaguar to have dropped out of the blue sky to replace him.
As Sherlock Holmes would say, once you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
And yet, what part of the were-jaguar explanation suddenly kicking around in Ixchel's mind could conceivably avoid the definition of impossible?
If Finn had been in human form, the vet suspected he would have cleared his throat at that moment to remind her of the three muscle-bound thugs standing between them. As it was, his gaze had to do the job of communication for him, the widening of the feline's eyes doing an admirable job of forcing Ixchel to get back into the game.
It wasn't as if the vet had precisely forgotten her attackers, of course. But the shock of seeing a jaguar in her backyard had driven the men momentarily out of her mind. Surely Finn could understand her confusion.
Still, if Ixchel was thinking semi-rationally once again, then that meant her opponents' consternation was likely to be equally fleeting. Soon, the men would realize that one feline—no matter how huge—couldn't attack all three of them at the same time. And then they'd recall their guns, the number of which probably trumped one gigantic cat.
At which point the tables would turn and Ixchel...and the jaguar...would once again be at the thugs' mercy.
So the vet gathered her courage and made possibly the stupidest decision of her short life. She sidestepped the red-headed thug, walked over to the jaguar, and wrapped one arm around his neck as if in restraint.
The most terrifying part of the endeavor was that she didn't even have to bend down to reach the beast's skin.
Then, meeting the gaze of the head thug, Ixchel finally spoke. Hoping her voice didn't make her sound as terrified as she felt, she advised her attackers: "If I were you, I'd run."
Chapter 12
The weight of Ixchel's arm around his neck sent shivers down the jaguar's spine. He'd never been touched like this, neither in cat nor in human form. Never been held possessively, as if the holder wanted nothing more than to cling to his strength in order to prop herself up.
As if she were touching him by her own free will. As if she wanted to be closer to his skin.
Of course, Finn knew that Ixchel's bravery had simply been a front, a facade intended to drive away the threat of three armed men intent upon hunting them both down. He could see the pulse in his companion's neck beating far too rapidly, could hear her inhalation catching as the thugs rounded the bend and hopped into their car before screeching out of the lot only minutes ahead of the police squad's arrival.
The shifter also suspected that the woman wrapping her arm around his neck was seconds away from fainting. Assuming, of course, that temporary bouts of unconsciousness were her usual reaction to trauma and not simply what she did at the sight of him.
And yet, despite knowing that Ixchel's touch was as phony as it was fleeting, it was all Finn could do to force himself to shift away from feline form. And when he was once again standing two-legged, this time with Ixchel's arm draped around his neck as if they were preparing to slow dance, it was all he could do to step back out of the deliciously scented woman's personal space rather than dipping his head down to steal a kiss.
Because he'd stolen enough from this woman already.
"I should go," Finn said, looking at the ground so he wouldn't be tempted to meet Ixchel's eyes. For the first time in his life, he was thoroughly ashamed of his actions. Because he'd now forced this woman out of her comfort zone and into real or perceived danger three times in quick succession, and he had a feeling the saying "three strikes and you're out" was quite literally true in this case. Plus—and this time he verbalized his thinking for Ixchel's benefit—"The police will be here soon."
Now that she was no longer in peril, Finn expected his companion to take to her heels and run away from the beast that he had recently hidden beneath his skin. But, instead, the vet simply cocked her head to one side, her brown cheeks paling slightly as the faraway sirens neared enough to be discernible with simple human hearing.
"We should go," Ixchel corrected. "There's no way I'm letting you walk out of my life without an explanation." She paused, then continued, "And Mirabelle's men will be back soon, so I'm safer with you anyway."
The final sentence almost seemed like an afterthought, and Finn allowed the tiniest smile to grace his lips. Perhaps he hadn't thoroughly blown it after all. Was it possible that Ixchel felt the same attraction to Finn as he did to her?
As enticing as it was to consider that possibility, the shifter knew the idea would have to be tabled for later if he didn't want to have to explain himself to local law enforcement. And, given his past proclivities, he really, really didn't want his fingerprints to end up in any database.
So the shifter conceded, telling himself that he was bringing along a civilian for her own protection. No, Finn wasn't allowing Ixchel to insinuate herself into his adventure because he wanted a chance to explain away his actions and to see whether the
veterinarian could forgive him for his lapses in judgment. That wasn't the case at all.
"You're right," he said, rather than ducking down that mental rabbit hole. "I'll take you somewhere Dr. Mirabelle and his thugs can't find you. But we have to hurry...." The shifter reached out to grasp his companion's hand, but her feet appeared firmly planted in the earth as she abruptly frowned and shook her head.
"I forgot," Ixchel said, turning back toward the door of the practice. "I'll need my driver's license. And there's a cat I have to leave food out for. And...."
The sirens were getting closer by the second, but Finn took a moment to meet his companion's gaze head on at last. Ixchel's eyes were startlingly dark, the pupils nearly lost in the brown cornea despite the brightness of the day. And as the shifter peered more closely, he allowed himself to hope that the vet's fear truly had dissipated, that she was inserting herself into his quest through cat-like curiosity of her own.
Wishful thinking? Finn wasn't sure. But he did know that the wonder presently illuminating his companion's features was the most attractive expression he had ever seen.
So he spilled the rest of the beans.
"I was that tom cat," he said simply. Then, giving Ixchel's hand another tug, the shifter led her at a trot toward her car.
***
"...just three guns on the ground and no blood, so the police left eventually," Betty Lou was saying, the words carrying through to the burner cell phone that Finn had handed Ixchel moments earlier. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"Positive," the vet replied, even though the response was an out-and-out lie. She was having a hard time paying attention as her receptionist chattered on, actually. Instead, she watched Finn walk up to the car-rental counter, where he offered the clerk a smile so innocuous that it would soon be forgotten...but which Ixchel still found herself deeply resenting.
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