by Eve Langlais
“Who are you and what do you want?” Kendrick boldly asked.
The golden eyes perusing him didn’t even blink, and the stranger did not reply. Did he even speak English?
“I think we’ve found the Jaguar clan,” Joel muttered in a low voice.
“Duh,” Kendrick replied, his eyes never leaving those of the warrior before him. But it wasn’t the single cat standing benignly with his hands at his side that had his wolf’s hackles up. It was the sense of others. Despite the possible danger before him, his eyes moved to peer at the shadows surrounding them, the not so empty dark spaces around the ruins where he could sense others. Felt eyes on him. Not menacing, but not welcoming either.
Ruth, not saying a word – for once – stepped closer to him. Kendrick didn’t tuck her under his arm like he wanted, not when he might need both hands free to fight.
From around opposite sides of the building, Liam, Peter, and Fernando came jogging into sight and skidded to a halt. “I see you found our visitor.”
“More like he found us,” Kendrick muttered, not at all pleased at having gotten caught off guard.
“There are others in the woods,” Peter added.
“I thought you were watching,” he snapped.
“We were,” Liam replied. “One minute nothing, the next minute our camp was surrounded.”
Definitely ghosts like their name suggested, especially when out of nowhere the rest of the jaguar clan dropped, a cadre of warriors painted to match the jungle, and more silent than the any predator should be. Having warned his team beforehand, and with strict orders from the council, no one attacked, turned furry, or offered violence. Without a word exchanged, they placed their hands palms open and out to their sides in a gesture of peace. When no one spoke, Kendrick said, “What happened to meeting up at the X on the map?”
A shrug lifted the shoulders of the stranger who’d first confronted him, and in perfect English laced with an accent, he said, “You were taking too long.”
So language wouldn’t prove a barrier. One small blessing. “We had an unexpected passenger.”
“Invited, you mean,” the jaguar tribe member replied with an enigmatic smile.
Kendrick didn’t like or trust the remark or expression. He tried to shove down his misgivings and stick to the mission. “We’ve come for the girls as arranged.”
“The girls are already spoken for.” The tallest of the warriors stepped forward, a beast of a man with long, flowing hair, and striking, mismatched eyes.
“What do you mean spoken for? I was told to retrieve them.”
“Plans have changed. You’re too late. They stay.”
“No one told me of this.” Then again, Kendrick hadn’t spoken to anyone in days as the thick canopy made their signal intermittent at best.
“Not my problem.”
“You can’t mean to keep them. They’re human.”
“If you say so.” A hint of mockery curled the cat’s lips, his mismatched gaze amused at something. “I see you’ve brought us a present. My mate will be overjoyed. She’s spoken of her sibling.”
“You have news of my sister?” Ruth ignored the safety Joel and Kendrick offered, and stepped forward to confront the large man.
Kendrick would have yanked her back, but a headshake of the first speaker stayed his hand. But only for now. Somehow, he didn’t get the impression the warriors meant him harm, a good thing too, considering they were vastly outnumbered – and I’m no good to Ruth dead.
The guy with the freaky eyes smiled at Ruth. “I do have news. Good news, I’m sure. She is alive and well. Very well. But anxious to see you.”
“Are you the one who sent me the note?”
“All your questions will be answered in due time. Please come with us.”
Like hell. Kendrick surged forward to snag Ruth, but a wall of bodies came between them. He pushed at them, snarling. “Get out of my way. Ruth. Get your sweet ass back over here.”
His woman, however, didn’t reply, and too many hands held him back.
“The female is our concern now, wolf. Thank you for escorting her. You may refresh yourselves and spend the night. But you leave in the morning. We have missives you will take with you to reassure the parents and authorities that the women are quite content with their new husbands and lives.”
“Excuse me? Not happening. We’re not leaving without seeing them for ourselves,” Peter said.
“Kendrick, they’re taking Ruth,” Joel muttered.
“I see that,” he snarled, craning to catch a glimpse of her, but the tall felines stood in his way. “Bring her back.”
“She is going to see her sister. It is why she came along with you, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Then, fear not, she is getting what she asked for.”
Holy shit did Kendrick want to wipe the smirk off the dude’s face. “I don’t think she meant to do so as a captive.”
“Not a captive, but an honored guest. A bride in waiting. She’ll be in high demand among our kind.”
The claim made his blood run cold. “Over my dead freakn’ body. Bring her back now, cat, or else.”
“Or else what? You are outnumbered and outclassed, dog. You have no power here.”
“Says you. I’m not just going to sit quietly while you kidnap Ruth.”
“Why? What is the human to you?” The speaker sounded genuinely curious.
“The human is my mate.”
“Our mate,” Joel growled.
“And yet bears no mark.” The big guy shook his head. “A foolish mistake to bring your unclaimed mate when visiting our lands, a deficit which makes her available. Although, she’s not likely to stay that way for long.”
“You can’t have her. She belongs to us.”
“She belongs to whomever claims her,” the cat corrected.
“She’s not a virgin,” Joel blurted. Kendrick almost slapped him until he remembered the legends.
A mocking grin graced the big guy’s lips. “Neither was her sister, which I must admit made for a much easier claiming.”
“You can’t just take her. We’re already in the grips of the mating fever. We’ll die without her.”
“But the question is, would you die for her?”
No hesitation, and emerging in one voice as if synchronized beforehand, he and Joel said, “Yes.”
Which was how they eventually found themselves in front of an old dude, straight out of a jungle movie, replete with a feathered headdress, smoking pipe, and dreadlocks.
If I ever get out of this alive, I am sticking to adventures in my own backyard, Kendrick silently swore. Because some shit was too freaky, even for him.
But he came to that conclusion later, much later, after a fight, several concussions, and a strange moment wondering if he’d smoked something better than Gerry Carson’s weed in the ninth grade.
Chapter 12
Ruth heard mention of her sister by the gorgeous tanned man, and not thinking – yeah, her blondeness overcame her common sense – she stepped into danger. Whisked away from her group – and the safety Joel and Kendrick imparted – she instantly regretted it as bodies, naked but for strips of leather holding minimal scraps of fabric around the hips, herded Ruth much like a dog, not quite touching her, but nonetheless getting her moving in a direction of their choosing.
Disconcerting to say the least, especially given they towered over her, and despite their lack of weaponry, exuded a dangerous air that made her fear not only herself, but also the men she left behind.
What have I done?
On the one hand, she wanted to find her sister and discover what the guy meant when he called Carlie his mate, but on the other hand, hearing Kendrick’s annoyed rumble and yell for her to get her ass back made her gnaw her lip in indecision.
She would have liked to reassure him, but when she stopped walking, a nudge in the back, along with a growl more animal than human – despite the origin – got her feet moving again.
/> Dread mixed with fear formed a ball in her stomach. The further she got from the men she’d come to trust – a trust she should have believed in instead of throwing her insecurities in their faces – the more she questioned the decisions she’d made that brought her to this point. What seemed like a brilliant plan of action a lifetime ago in her apartment now seemed monumentally stupid. What was I thinking?
Sure, her intentions were good. Hop on a plane. March for days through a deadly jungle. Find her sister, come home. Naivety, meet stupidity.
The jungle proved harsher than expected. The walk and conditions grueling. She didn’t plan on falling for two guys – or more accurately, sleeping with them. And now, to top it off, she’d encountered a strange tribe now taking her God knew where.
I went from a drama and adventure free life to unbelievable peril. It seemed she was determined to continually make bad choices.
They didn’t walk for long, thank goodness, but long enough that Ruth had already pictured countless rescues by Kendrick and Joel – swinging in shirtless from a vine, guns blazing, commando style. But she also had time to imagine less pleasant things like the countless ways they died. Her own demise. She’d even imagined her own blurb in the paper – Young botanist dies in jungle, a victim of her own stupidity.
Surely, she’d not come this far, experienced so much, though, to have it all end now. She needed to believe everything would turn out right in the end. So she stuck to her favorite fantasy as she walked in silence, the one involving a rescue and subsequent thank you to the heroes – funny how that scenario where she thanked them both on her knees didn’t seem wrong despite her earlier freak out. The optimism didn’t last. She’d partly written her own eulogy when she stumbled. Something in the air prickling her senses.
A lithe figure dropped from a tree ahead of her party, landing with knees bent in a crouch. Blonde hair whipped back from a familiar face.
Ruth gaped at the lean features she knew as well as her own. “Carlie?”
“Ruth!” The woman who looked like her sister, and yet didn’t, flung her arms around Ruth. Despite her appearance, Ruth would recognize that hug anywhere, and she sobbed as she clutched her sibling, shedding tears of relief.
“OhmyGodIthoughtyouweredead,” she babbled, the words running together as she clutched Carlie in a death grip.
“Not dead. Far from it. What on earth possessed you to come after me, though?” her sister chided, releasing Ruth to hold her at arm’s length.
Sniffling, Ruth took stock of her sister. A vastly changed sister. “What happened to you? You look different.”
“What do you mean?” Carlie asked with a nervous laugh.
“Well for starters, your hair.” Both of them sported wildly wavy blonde locks since birth, Carlie’s even more so than Ruth’s, or had. Carlie’s hair now hung in a sleek wave halfway down her back, the gold of it somehow darker than before, while her eyes – they still shone blue, and yet, something glinted in their depths.
“Do you like it?” Carlie swung her hair in a silken wave.
“I do, but how did you get it to go straight?”
“Nothing. Weird, huh? I guess the jungle didn’t like my curls.” Carlie made a face. “But who cares, you still haven’t told me why you’re out here. It’s dangerous.”
“No kidding. As to why? Hello? Looking at her.” A crushing hug had Ruth tearing up again.
“Crazy fool. I am glad to see you, though, even if you’re nuts.”
“I had to come,” Ruth said through her sniffles. “No one knew where you were or what happened. And the local police wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that. With everything that happened, I didn’t have a chance to send you a proper message and tell you everything was fine.”
“Fine? Fine? How is everything fine? You disappeared without a trace. You and those other girls. We didn’t know if you were dead, or a sex slave, or some kind of sacrifice to King Kong.” Ruth might have lost control a bit there, but after the anxiety she’d suffered, she couldn’t help it given Carlie’s almost blasé attitude.
“It’s worse than that. I’m married.” Carlie smiled brightly, but Ruth, worried for so long, didn’t care. She snapped at her sister’s flippant reply.
“Married? Married! To who? You were kidnapped from your damned bed, what, two weeks ago?”
“Has it been that long?”
“It has. Two weeks of Mom crying. Me freaking out. Everyone wondering. We’ve been worried sick about you, and you tell me you’re married. What the hell happened?”
Carlie winced. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m listening.” And tapping her foot. And crossing her arms. Somehow, this reunion wasn’t following any path Ruth expected.
“Well you see, Acat and Chaob, my, um, husbands, spotted me in the jungle and fell in love with me. Kind of.”
“So they kidnapped you?”
“Er. Um. It’s complicated.”
“I walked for ten days in the Goddamn jungle. I think I can handle an explanation.”
“Now, I don’t want you to freak out.”
“Been there. Done that.”
“My mates are special.”
“I’ll betcha they are. So special they can’t just ask a girl out on a date, but steal her and worry her family sick.”
“They had their reasons.”
“Good ones I hope.”
“In their minds they are. It’s because of their traditions, you see.”
“Whose tradition?” Ruth wanted to shake her sister at her slow and inadequate responses.
“The Moon Ghost Jaguars.”
Nothing like having confirmation of something she knew. “Aha. I was right. You were kidnapped by them.”
Carlie nodded her head. “Although, at first, I didn’t know. I’ve only really gotten answers to most of my questions recently. Suffice it to say, there’s a lot we don’t know about them.”
“You think?” Ruth couldn’t help the sarcastic retort.
“Yeah, and unless you’d like to discover more of it first hand, you should leave right now.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Leave now before you end up accidentally hitched to a pair of men. These guys escorting us are all part of the tribe and the part about them stealing women and making them their brides? Totally true. I’m a prime example. And if we don’t get you out of here—”
“Hold on a second and back up. What do you mean accidentally hitched to a pair of men? I am not getting hooked up with one man, let alone two. Well, not again at any rate.”
Carlie’s eyes went wide. “What did you do?”
“Long story. I’ll explain on our trip back, right after you tell me how come you’re not freaking out more that some dudes thought they were going to kidnap you and force you to stay married to them.”
“I’m not going back quite yet.”
Ruth dug her heels in and stopped walking. “What do you mean you’re not coming back? Of course you are.”
“Eventually. But first there’s some stuff I need to do here.”
“Stuff. What stuff? Hold on a second. You’re not actually taking this whole marriage thing seriously, are you?”
“No. Yes. Like I said, it’s complicated.”
“Carlie. You can’t stay here. You don’t belong here.”
“I disagree.” A tall warrior with one blue eye and one golden stepped forth. Dressed in only a small loincloth, he gave new meaning to the term ripped. But no matter how good-looking, he couldn’t hold a candle to Kendrick and Joel.
“Who is that?” Ruth asked.
With a glare to freeze even the most hot-blooded of creatures, Carlie planted her hands on her hips. “Ruth, meet my soon-to-be ex-husband, Acat. And this is my other pain in the ass, Chaob.”
“A pleasure to meet the sister of our mate. And soon to be a true sister of the tribe.” The tall guy tilted his head in her direction.
“Not happening, Acat,
” Carlie snarled.
“The choice is not yours to make, datura.”
“That’s what you think,” Carlie replied a tad too sweetly. “You will let my sister leave before your warriors start fighting over who gets to keep her.”
“Keep me?” Ruth squeaked.
“A challenge has already been issued.”
“By who?” Carlie demanded. “She just got here.”
“Why not ask your sister? It seems she was busy on her travels here.”
Carlie whirled on Ruth. “Who did you come with?”
“A bunch of guys. Why?”
“Did you notice anything strange about them?”
“Strange how? I don’t know what you mean. Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“She has already said too much,” growled the big dude with the mismatched eyes. “Chaob. You know what to do.”
Before Ruth could figure out what the hell was going on, her sister jumped in front of her and yelled, “Run, Ruth!”
Run where? Not that it mattered. A sprinkle of dust in the air, the fine particles caught by the beams of moonlight filtering through the treetops, dusted her sister’s skin and she slumped into the arms of her husband. Unable to hold her breath in time, Ruth joined her a moment later.
Chapter 13
Regaining consciousness on the ground wasn’t one of his most noble moments, especially when Joel recalled how he arrived there. The bloody jaguar tribe, not so much the mighty heroes he’d imagined them, took them on, and won dammit, mostly because one of the golden-eyed cats, through gritted teeth while strangling Joel in a neck hold said, “You idiot, you’re going to need your strength if you wish to win back your woman. Just lie still and let me knock you out.”
Give up? What madness was that? Since when did he and his best bud calculate odds? Although, noting only he and Kendrick remained standing against the warriors – warriors, he might add, who still outnumbered them three to one – Joel sighed and finally gave in. He wouldn’t do Ruth much good dead, and besides, if they wanted him unconscious and not dead then it meant perhaps things could still turn out all right.