She stared through the netting at Connor, his face so peaceful in sleep and almost angelic. The way he had kissed her at the falls hadn’t been the least bit angelic. She knew then that he had been fighting his own demons regarding seeing more of her.
She sighed. He was a master of mixed messages, but she was ready to take their relationship further.
Looking for the lantern and thinking it should be turned off since everyone was asleep, she glanced around the hut. But it wasn’t lit. She frowned. Why was the hut so well lit when… it wasn’t. Really. The night was still dark. So why could she see so well? Another hallucination?
She groaned, lay back down, and closed her eyes.
She couldn’t stop having the unbelievable dreams that had haunted her throughout the night. She thought maybe she’d been affected by the strange foods she had been eating, like the white meat of the tail of a crocodile—better that she ate him than he ate her—that tasted like a combination of chicken and white fish. Or the tapir she had eaten that tasted somewhat like beef. Or the plantain that tasted like a cross between potato chips and a banana.
Maybe her strange dreams were a residue from the fevers she’d had. Or something about the atmosphere of the jungle itself—the earthy wet smells and the constant animal noises that penetrated her dreams.
Maybe she wasn’t even awake.
She closed her eyes and drifted off again. Thunder boomed overhead and the rains began again. Streaks of lightning flashed way above the tree canopy, a distant light flickering like an on-off switch that was broken.
But when the dream took hold again, the sensations were so real that she couldn’t wake herself from it, no matter how much she tried. So she quit trying and gave in to it.
One minute, she was struggling to get out of her buttoned shirt and panties, and the next, she was prowling the floor as a jaguar. Her cat claws were retracted, her paws silent as she padded along the wooden boards. Her body felt more muscled, stronger, heavier.
She yawned, curling a long pink tongue out of her mouth, and licked her lips, her mouth huge compared to her human mouth. And teeth. She ran her tongue over her pointed canines. Wicked.
And unreal.
Her stomach rumbled, which was part of what had disturbed her sleep. She was ravenous. But restless, too. She didn’t feel… right. She had to move, test her muscles, experience walking as a jaguar. To sense her surroundings in a new form. To see and hear and taste and smell.
She wanted to run free among the rest of the jungle inhabitants, just as feral and at home with the environment. To stalk and swim. To enjoy the sensation of being at the top of the food chain.
Yet some part of her resisted. She wasn’t a jaguar. She was just experiencing a very vivid dream.
She poked her nose at the screen door, opening it, and then moved onto the porch, staring for a moment at a sleeping Maya. Then she pushed through the second screen door on the covered porch and did what a jaguar might do—skipped the steps and leaped for the ground. She half expected to run into Connor’s two jaguar pets roaming around at the base of the hut. Maybe she would find them as she explored the jungle. She would like that. The three of them running and swimming together while they served as her jaguar tour guides. They would know the best eating spots, the best climbing trees, the most interesting places to explore.
At a walk, she investigated the jungle, going farther and farther from the hut, deeper and deeper into the tangled mesh of vines and tree roots. She felt strange exploring on four paws instead of walking upright on two feet. Being closer to the ground, her eye level gave her a much lower perspective. She couldn’t get used to breathing in all the smells that were so much more pronounced—the sweet scent of flowers, the earthy smell of wet ground, the fish in the nearby river. She wasn’t bothered by bugs and heard all kinds of sounds that she hadn’t heard before. And she was seeing at night, although it didn’t look like night to her exactly.
With all the moving she had done growing up and in the military, she had never felt at home. Now she felt at home in the Amazon when before she’d felt like an outsider, strictly a visitor.
She kept moving, hunger propelling her forward, making her search for something to eat. Then she found a river and waded in. She kept her chin up and listened as she swept the muddy river bottom with her large paws, listening to the fish swimming about. She spied one and dove in to get it. She seized it in her powerful jaws and pulled the struggling fish out of the water, then carried it to shore. This was so much easier than the one time she had gone fishing with a bunch of Army guys and managed to pull up everything—from old fishing lines and sinkers to a grungy sneaker—but never a fish.
Not even giving a thought to how she should prepare the fish, she ate it, no cooking, just raw. And loved it.
Shouldn’t she have been worried about not cooking it first? That was why she knew it was a dream. She would never have eaten raw fish.
Her appetite appeased, she continued to explore, sending a spider monkey screaming for cover. She would not eat a monkey, although she knew the natives did and so did jaguars. That had to mean she really wasn’t a big feral cat. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have any qualms about it. Right?
A blue-and-red macaw poked its head out of a hole in a tree, saw her, and instantly disappeared back into the tree. She wouldn’t have eaten him, either.
She took deep breaths, smelling smells all over the place, on trees and on the ground, littering leaves and vines and mud. She swam across a number of water obstacles, not afraid of anything, ready to take on a caiman or an anaconda if it dared to bother her. She had never felt so alive in her life. Fiercely independent. Attuned to nature, one with it.
But she was getting tired again. Time to return to bed, end the dream, and sleep. But when she turned around and saw the rushing river before her, she wasn’t sure how she could get back to the hut. How long had she traveled? How far? In what direction exactly? How many waterways had she crossed? Where was she now?
She was lost in the jungle… again.
Chapter 11
Connor had become accustomed to Kat’s breathing, her soft sighs, and her moans when she was feverish. But he had been so tired after taking care of her for several days and hunting when he could that he had finally slept deeply for the first time since she had wandered into their lives.
And now he heard nothing. A sudden rush of panic raced through him. He sat up quickly in bed and stared at where she should have been, screened by the netting like a fairy princess tucked away, but he could see the bed was empty. He hurried to climb off the mattress and rushed onto the porch.
Maya was sleeping soundly in the hammock. He quickly woke her and asked, “Did you hear Kat leave?”
Had she left the hut to relieve herself? That’s all he could think of. She had never left the hut before on her own. But now that she was able to, she could very well have needed a private moment to herself.
Maya sat up on the hammock, eyes narrowed. “No. She’s not in bed?”
Connor shook his head and returned to Kat’s bed, pulled the netting aside, and saw her shirt and panties. He cursed under his breath.
“What’s wrong?” Maya asked, coming up behind him.
He lifted her shirt off the bed and showed it to Maya.
“She’s shifted,” Maya said, her voice nearly inaudible.
“Come on. We have to find her. Now.” He was certain they could track her, but the problem was what if someone or something dangerous found her first?
***
Kat could manage almost anything except being lost. The first time she had been lost in the Amazon jungle, at least she’d had her backpack, and she had figured Manuel would come back for her eventually if she didn’t find a way to the resort on her own. But this time, she wasn’t even human. What if hunters discovered her and thought she would make a nice fur coat or believed she might be interested in eating someone’s livestock? Not that she had seen anyone’s livestock in the jungle.
&n
bsp; Not that this was real, either. She was experiencing the worst nightmare ever. Everything was so real that she could still taste the raw fish she had eaten.
If she was a jaguar, why couldn’t she figure out where she had come from? Wouldn’t she be able to follow her trail back? She was one dumb big cat.
She had crossed several waterways, but she hadn’t marked a trail like a cat would do—as far as she knew from what she had read—by urinating or scratching trees. She stood still, lifting her nose to sniff the smells, hoping she might catch a whiff of Connor or Maya’s smell. But how could she? She was probably miles from the hut.
Not knowing what else to do, she meant to yell—call out to them, hoping maybe she could wake them and they would find her. She opened her mouth and… roared. In a jaguar’s way. A deep, rough coughing sound, over and over and over again.
And scared the shit out of herself. That was her? Making that unbelievably wickedly loud and annoyed sound?
She stared at her big feet, her claws still retracted, knowing she couldn’t really be a jaguar. Not really.
She just couldn’t wake from an incredibly real nightmare. She roared again, like a jaguar looking to mate, but she wasn’t. Totally frustrated, she needed help to wake from the dream.
Something like this had happened to her before. Sleep paralysis was what it was called, where she was half-conscious and half-asleep, desperately trying to wake up all the way.
If she hadn’t been dreaming she was a jaguar, she would have been trying to shout to wake herself from the dream. And Connor would have heard her and come to reassure her that she was just experiencing a nightmare. Only he didn’t come, and she didn’t wake.
She stared at the jungle, which seemed to have closed in on her. She felt alone and afraid—even though as a jaguar, she probably could hold her own in the jungle. But could she?
She let out another highly irritated roar.
***
The jungle was noisy whether it was day or night, but all of Connor’s senses were attuned to searching for any clues to where Kat had gone. He had smelled her a couple of times, brushing up against trees, seen her paw pads imprinted in mud, the edges clear and crisp, meaning she had recently made them, but when he came to a river, he lost any sign of her.
Until he heard her roar. His heart leaped. At least he assumed she was the one calling out in the dark of night surrounded by lush jungle.
Maya ran up beside him and looked to the west.
That was where he had thought he heard Kat, too.
And then there was another roar, farther away. Deeper. Lower. A male.
Hell and damnation. If a male jaguar tried to mate with her, she would be scarred for life. Not that she wouldn’t already most likely have some issues. But what if the male was a jaguar-shifter? That brought a whole load of new problems into existence. He, whoever he was, couldn’t have her.
The female that had to be Kat roared again. He and Maya called to her in their jaguar tongue. Then silence. Had they frightened her? What if she thought the jaguars would try to hurt her? Or maybe that one would try to mate with her? She was probably confused by the sound of the roars coming from all directions.
He wouldn’t consider having sex with her unless they both were in their human forms and Kat was agreeable. For now, all he could do was worry about the other male in the vicinity. This was Connor’s territory, although he hadn’t been marking the area regularly while caring for a sick Kat.
He took off running in the direction where he thought she was. She was miles away, though, and he hoped she would stay put. Or head in their direction. Away from the other cat. But what if she was worried that he and his sister were the ones to avoid?
She didn’t make a sound again, although he and his sister roared a couple more times, trying to pinpoint her location and praying she hadn’t run away from them.
The other male roared again, looking to hook up with the female. He probably assumed Maya and Connor were a pair and that he was encroaching on their territory. But the desire to have an unattached female would be too much to disregard.
They had traveled at least a couple of miles when Connor stopped to smell the air again and caught a whiff of jaguar claw marks dug into the trunk of a tree.
He stopped and sniffed and looked up.
The jaguar was lying on a branch, watching him and not making a move to leave her safe perch. Maya ran up behind him and looked up. The jaguar in the tree had to be Kat. She twitched her tail back and forth, her gaze shifting from him to his sister and then back again to him. She was so beautiful, her sage-green eyes studying him, her golden body covered in rosettes, that she made him smile.
He was relieved to see her within reach. But he didn’t know what to think. Was she upset? Confused? His jaguar smile faded.
She had to be both.
The male jaguar roared again, but he was leaving the area. He sounded frustrated that Connor had gotten to the female first. Good. Connor didn’t want to have to take time to fight the jaguar, and he didn’t want Kat to witness the battle if he had to commit to one. Jaguars rarely killed each other in the wild over territory—but they would fight if necessary to prove territorial rights.
Although he briefly wondered if the other was a shifter or just a regular cat. He could deal with a shifter more forcefully, knowing they both could heal. A regular jaguar? He wouldn’t want to injure one, yet the fighting could get rough and Connor had no intention of letting a real one get near either his sister or Kat.
He eyed Kat with concern. What if she shifted all of a sudden, and he also had to shift to carry her back to the hut? Running naked as humans through the jungle was too dangerous. Just walking through the forest, they risked poisonous snake bites—some highly deadly.
Before anything of the sort could happen, they had to get her back to the hut.
But once more, she was in a tree, and Connor was trying to figure out a way to get her down.
***
Kat watched the two jaguars looking up at her from below the tree branch where she had taken refuge. They were the two who had taken care of her until Connor came to get her in the jungle the first time she had met him. The two that Connor and Maya had raised from cubs. And they were in her dream. Just as real as she felt she was right now.
The other one she had heard roaring? Another, only he would have been a wild jaguar, not raised by humans.
The male beneath the branch she sat on jumped easily high into the tree, landing on her branch and shaking it a bit. Panic shot through her. What if he planned to bite her? She was in their territory now… an intruder. They wouldn’t know she was Kat, the human they had befriended days ago.
Or what if he wanted her? As a mate. That sent a frisson of alarm winging through her.
He nuzzled her face with his big head, his whiskers bumping hers. How sensitive her whiskers were. His whiskers moved forward, inquisitive, exploring, testing her response.
Hers moved backward, defensive, avoiding him.
He seemed to smile, at least it appeared that way to her. How did she know what a jaguar smile looked like? She could smell something in the air surrounding him that showed he was intrigued with her. And how could she tell this?
Her whiskers felt the shift in air currents. Even if she couldn’t see him moving his head closer, she would have felt the change. Again, he nuzzled her slightly.
This couldn’t be happening. He’d better not be interested in her as mate potential and try anything. Thankfully, she was backed up against the trunk of the tree.
He nudged at her face this time, as if he was trying to get her to jump from the tree. She wasn’t going to. What if she did, and as soon as she was on the ground, he tried to mate her? Sure, since she had been roaring, he had to think she was hot for some kitty-cat loving.
The other, the female, was his sister. She was watching and looking hopeful, worried maybe.
He pushed at Kat again, harder this time. She growled low in her throat. She w
asn’t going to be pushed around.
He didn’t move back, though, remaining in her space and trying to intimidate her, she thought. The female down below grunted as if she was talking to Kat. Or maybe she was talking to the big guy, telling him to hurry up or back off. Kat thought the female was on the male’s side. But that made sense. They were brother and sister, close to one another. She was the stranger. The newcomer.
He was so much bigger than Kat. All it would take would be a little harder nudge, and he could push her off the tree branch. But what if she swiped at him first?
She was not going to be knocked off the branch so he could mate her.
She didn’t think he would believe she was going to shove him from the tree—not as small as she was and as large as he was, so when she gave a powerful swipe with her paw at his shoulder, he was actually caught off guard and fell to the forest floor, landing on all four paws with a thud.
Stunned, she stared at him in disbelief, having not realized her own strength or that she could best him. He stared up at her for only a split second, then leaped into the tree, shaking it again with his weight, which unsettled her. Before she could balance herself and prepare for his retaliation, he swiped at her with his forearm, this time knocking her out of the tree.
Like him, she landed on all four paws. And planned on running to get away from the male beast. But he jumped down next to her before she could bolt, and when she tried to race off, he leaped into the air and pounced on her, effectively pinning her down. She roared, telling him to get off her. He wouldn’t budge. But at least he was pinning her down across her back, not trying to mate with her.
The female cat came over and licked Kat’s nose in greeting or in consolation. Kat wasn’t sure which.
The female grunted at the male. He grunted back at her.
Then the female jaguar began to blur, and Kat thought the fever was returning. When the female cat turned into a naked Maya, Kat knew she was delirious. She wasn’t dreaming about being a jaguar—she was sick again. And then the dark jungle turned even darker, blackening to midnight.