The moisture from the ground was rising into the steamy atmosphere like primordial mist as it always did in late morning, forming clouds that filled the sky high above the canopy. Thunder booming in the distance warned of an impending storm.
Water from a nearby tributary had overflowed its banks, and the water on the path came to halfway up the man’s calves. He sloshed along, the mud sucking at his black boots and gripping them as he struggled to pull one foot out and then the other, his progress slow. He looked warily about, a bearded man with hard, black eyes and the smell of blood on his person. He had killed or injured people and drawn blood; his clothes reeked of it.
Maya could tell from the way he moved that he wasn’t injured, so she knew it wasn’t his blood. Besides, the blood smelled like it had come from at least three different people.
He kept looking around like an owl, his head twisting back and forth, searching for the jaguar god, she suspected. But she was the goddess of the equation. Connor would take out the man in front of him.
This man wasn’t even keeping the guy in front of him in view, although he could hear the men talking up ahead. She suspected that made him feel confident he wasn’t getting too far behind.
Suddenly, he tripped over a tree root in the muck and fell to his hands and knees in the muddy water, cursing out loud. That’s when she saw the tattoos on his bare shoulder, identifying him as one of the members of a southern drug cartel.
Well, one less now.
She leaped from the tree closest to the path and pounced on him. Pushing his whole body into the water and mud, she kept him buried. He fought to get out from under the weight of her jaguar form, trying to get air. She remained in place, jostling her position a little to keep him under. Until he ceased to struggle. She waited a moment to be sure he was dead. Nothing. Not a flutter of activity.
He was finished.
With her teeth, she grabbed his belt of bullets and dragged his body out of the water. She hoped she could get him to the river—where he would add to the cycle of life by feeding the piranhas once they smelled the blood on his clothes mixing with the river water—without being caught doing it. All his weaponry would eventually fall to the muddy river bottom, with no one knowing anything about it. And none of it would be used against another living soul. He would never torture or kill another human being.
She just had to make sure no one spied her dragging him to the river.
That’s what she was thinking when she caught sight of a native boy, maybe twelve or thirteen, scrawny, with wide, dark eyes and carrying a bow and arrows, tipped most likely with the poison of one of the deadly poisonous frogs that lived in Amazonia.
He was out hunting, and now he had seen her out hunting, too.
***
Connor heard the splash on the path behind him, followed by cursing, although what was happening was out of his view because of the dense foliage and the way the path twisted and turned through the trees. The man in front of him hadn’t heard the splash, or he might have called out to see what had happened to his comrade who had been following him. Like the other man, he was slowing his already slow-as-a-snail pace as he slogged through the muddy water.
Connor twisted his head to the side, thinking he heard the faint sound of Spanish music. But then he realized the man he was stalking was wearing small earbuds, the cord attached to each hanging down into a pocket as he listened to music. Dumb move. In the jungle, a man needed all the senses. Sure, it was noisy and the jungle sounds never seemed to quit, so a man might think that nothing would change to alert him that something was wrong anyway.
But a flight of macaws took off, and the observant person would have heard them take wing, looked up, and realized why. A jaguar had been spotted.
Or the splash in the water might have been noted, and if the man had been all that concerned, he would have gone back to find a female jaguar hauling his friend off to be dinner for a bunch of hungry piranha. Just where this man was bound to end up.
The tattoos on the man’s arms indicated that he was part of a gang, and he was armed as if ready to fight in a war, not just take a woman hostage. A shrunken head dangled from a chain at his left pocket, and smears of blood mottled his shirtsleeves.
The man had serious issues. But before long, he wouldn’t have them anymore.
He began singing the Spanish words to the song and nodding his head to the beat while trudging through the water at a slower pace. His eyes were on his boots when Connor took him out.
The man would never know what hit him as he went from walking along with a tune in his head to being buried in water with a 250-pound cat pressing his body into the mud. He choked on the water and mud, writhing to get free, but he would never be able to budge the jaguar.
Connor was too heavy, too muscled, too powerful, too determined—a jaguar god. He shook his head at the notion, which was bound to get them into trouble if the villagers shared what they thought they had seen with the rest of the world. Yet he hated to give up his and Maya’s jaguar retreat in the Amazon.
He left the dead man floating in the muddy water, eager to stalk the next man before the last three reached Kat. This one would stay put until Maya could return for him and dispose of him in the same manner as the first. Even though he and Maya could use their powerful bite to eliminate the threat at once, it was better if they could terminate the men in a way that didn’t make the local populace believe that jaguars were responsible for the men’s deaths.
What would happen then? Possibly hunters would descend on the area and attempt to destroy the jaguars that had a taste for human blood. Even if the jaguars didn’t eat the men, they would most likely be considered man-eaters. He and Maya, and now Kat, couldn’t afford that kind of trouble.
He hadn’t moved very far when he heard muffled shots ring out from the direction of the hut.
Kathleen.
His blood on fire, Connor bolted in her direction.
Chapter 16
The waiting was killing her as Kat watched from the lookout post. Every movement—a butterfly settling on a leaf nearby, a monkey scrambling through a tree, a lizard raising its nose in the air—caught her attention, though she attempted to remain rigidly focused on the path that led to the hut.
She heard the men slogging through muddy water, figured they must be on a path she hadn’t walked before, and listened to see if she could hear any sound that would indicate Connor or Maya was near. That was why every little thing in the trees distracted her. She kept thinking she might see either of them appear as a jaguar, watching her from a tree branch and protecting her, as she was ready to protect them, just as if they were members of her special Army team.
She couldn’t make out how many men there were, other than the one who had been talking and Manuel. She still couldn’t believe Manuel had planned to hand her over to men who would ransom her, or worse. But she was American, a woman, and had been all alone. He had asked her a million questions while they hiked through the jungle, and she had thought that in his smiling, friendly way, he had just been interested in her Florida roots. But it hadn’t been that at all. He had been trying to learn just how valuable she might be.
How well connected.
She had money, sure. Or she wouldn’t be down here in the first place. But she certainly hadn’t said anything to him about her finances or that she knew how to use a gun. Or that she had been in the military.
But she didn’t have anyone back home who would pay her ransom. She was the only one who could pay it!
“Where’s Miguel?” the leader of the group suddenly asked. “And José?”
Kat’s heart hitched to hear them speaking again. They were way too close to her location.
“Waiting for us to do all their dirty work, Carlos,” said the other man, who she hadn’t heard speak before. He was gruff and annoyed, but he was sticking close to Manuel and the leader. “I told you before, this is how they always act on a job. They wait for us to take all the risks. You wait and se
e. We’ll get the man and woman all bound up, and then here they’ll be, as if they’d been with us all along.”
Kat strained to see any sign of the men. Had Maya and Connor eliminated the other two? She wanted to pace, wanted to shift—no, she didn’t want to do that. As a jaguar, she wasn’t sure what she could really do. She knew how to shoot a weapon. Knew how to pursue an enemy with deadly intent. Knew how to wound a man to ensure she could take him prisoner. She just wasn’t sure if she could face an enemy if she was in her jaguar form.
Carlos snorted. “The two of them are easy to replace.” He sounded like a cold-blooded killer, which she was certain he was.
The problem was that there were three men. If she shot one, the others would shoot a barrage of bullets in her direction, and she wasn’t sure she could manage to shoot anyone else if she was under fire. Actually, she was sure she couldn’t. If Maya and Connor were too far away, she would be on her own. Even so, she didn’t want them running as jaguars into a gun battle. They wouldn’t survive, either.
She had to play it cool, keep her head, and not fire any shots unless it became absolutely necessary.
More thunder rumbled overhead. Glints of lightning flashed through the intermittent spots in the canopy where light filtered through. It was nearly afternoon and very dark with the black clouds hovering overhead. Soon, the rain would fall.
Then the men appeared in her sights. Three of them, Manuel being the shortest of the three—wiry, lean, and much meaner looking than she remembered him. He had put on a facade of sweet South American charm with her, had cleaned up and was shaven and quite handsome in fact. But now he looked hard, his face covered in a mottled dark beard, his dark brown eyes narrowed, his clothes soggy and dirty and… she stared hard. Bloodstained?
Had he been injured? Or had he injured someone else? How could she have been so naive?
Because he had charmed her into believing he was who he said he was, a native from the area who knew passable English and who guided tourists into the rain forest for an interesting and informative visit. Only in his case, he had never planned to guide her back out.
When he had taken her on her trip, he had worn the minimum of weaponry—a machete for chopping at the vegetation to clear their path, a gun in case of venomous snakes, a knife for survival. But now belts of ammo crisscrossed his chest as if he was a wild bandito from the Old West, while double pistols sat at his hips and a rifle rested on his shoulder. His face was streaked in mud, his long hair matted and grungy. His eyes were the scariest, though. They showed no remorse, no pity, no heart.
The others looked just like him, dressed in light-colored clothes that were filthy, their faces bearded, their dark skin speckled with mud. They smelled of sweat and blood and…
She wrinkled her nose. Marijuana, she thought.
They suddenly stopped and all smiled in a menacing way as they looked at the hut high above on stilts. Then Carlos motioned toward the hut, signaling to Manuel to take the stairs and the other man to go underneath the hut. Carlos stayed in place, rifle ready.
The two men quickly moved forward. Manuel didn’t hesitate to take the steps. Did he think that the jaguar god couldn’t be too scary if he lived in a hut? Probably.
He would soon find the tree bridge to the lookout post, and then she would be forced to use the gun. She hoped to God she wouldn’t end up in a firefight she couldn’t win, and that Maya and Connor would remain safe.
“No one up here,” Manuel said but twirled one of Kat’s lace bras on his grungy finger. “But the woman’s been here.”
Carlos gave a dark laugh. “Then we wait for them to come back. Gonzales will pay us well.”
Her heart tripped over hearing his name. Gonzales? The devil himself. Instantly, her thoughts returned to the firefight at his encampment some distance from here. The killings, the shootings, the smell of blood.
Her breathing grew even more ragged. This was truly a nightmare, and to her horror, she’d dragged Connor and Maya into it with her. That meant she had to quickly rectify the situation before Gonzales came after her himself.
“Wait, here’s a bridge into the trees.” Manuel deftly began to make his way up the bridge into the canopy. When he saw her with her weapon trained on him, he quickly raised his assault rifle and told her, “Put the weapon down now, señorita.”
He took a step forward, and she knew that if he got too close, he would force her to give up the rifle, and then she would be doomed. He began to move quickly toward her, seeing her hesitation and knowing she wouldn’t shoot him.
She hated to shoot him. She kept thinking of how cheerful and charming and helpful he had been.
But he wasn’t stopping, and she had to do it. She couldn’t afford to be taken as a hostage and put Maya and Connor at risk.
She fired a shot straight at his chest. The rifle recoiled hard against her shoulder blade, bruising it.
He jerked backward with the impact of the bullet, his red blood spreading across the front of his dirty, light-colored shirt. His eyes widened and his mouth gaped in surprise.
An explosion of bullets shot out of his gun, hitting the vegetation all around her.
She slammed hard against the vine railing to avoid the barrage of bullets. The vines gave way with the impact, just before she felt herself falling from the tree.
***
Maya had to warn Connor that a native had spotted her when she dragged the man to the river. She ran as fast as she could through the jungle, not taking the path, but close enough to it so that she could find Connor, knowing that he would be attempting to take out another of the men. When she saw the man floating dead on the flooded path, she knew Connor had eliminated him. But a shot rang out close to the hut, and that sent her blood racing. Kat. She could be in a world of trouble on her own against the three men who were left.
And then a volley of shots was fired, as if the rain forest had suddenly become a war zone.
Kat.
Connor had to be well on his way there. But still, he was only one jaguar against three heavily armed men, and the element of surprise could be lost.
Her heart in her throat, Maya shoved her way through the tangled vines and brush, sinking into mud and racing through ankle-deep water.
“Hell! Manuel?” the man who seemed to be in charge shouted.
“He’s here, dead,” the other man called out. “She must have shot him.”
Kat had shot Manuel? Maya’s estimation of her newfound sister went up another 100 percent. Kat might not have her shifting under control, but she was a valuable asset to them anyway.
“Where is she, damn it?” the man in charge asked.
“She fell from the tree, too. She’s around here somewhere.”
The news slammed into Maya. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears as she moved swiftly around trees, drawing closer to the men. Kat had fallen from the tree. Had she been hit? Several gunshots had been fired in the same general area. Was Kat even alive? She had to be.
Where was she? Where was Connor? Why wasn’t he killing the men before they found Kat? She would kill both of the bastards all by herself if they had hurt Kat.
***
Kat was unconscious but breathing, Connor found as he located her on the forest floor while he was in his jaguar form. He couldn’t tell if she had injured herself when she had fallen, but he smelled no blood on her, so she didn’t appear to have taken a bullet, and she didn’t look as though she had broken any bones. Hopefully, she had just knocked the wind out of herself when she fell.
The men were moving closer to her, spread out a little and poking at the thick vegetation with their rifles.
Then Connor saw Maya coming in for the kill. But before she could take out the leader, he slapped at his neck, stopped dead still, and crumpled to the ground. Connor went for the other man, but the guy repeated the other man’s bizarre actions. Connor stood next to the man, staring down at him.
A blow dart was lodged in the man’s neck, just like on the oth
er’s neck.
What if the native hunters tried to kill Maya and him, too? What if they went after Kat?
He saw no sign of the hunters, who were as elusive as jaguars moving around in the rain forest. No one did anything further. But he knew the hunters were watching, waiting.
Connor returned to Kat and again nudged her, trying to get her to wake. She groaned and he felt a modicum of relief in hearing her breathy response. He licked her cheek, and she wrinkled her brow.
He licked her again and she opened her eyes wide. “Oh, oh, the men,” she whispered, her voice worried.
He nudged her to sit up, and with reluctance, she did. And groaned again. With a great deal of moaning and hesitating, she finally rose to her feet. Maya was watching the woods in the direction the hunters must have been, protecting Connor and Kat if they needed it, while he tried to move Kat to the hut. Connor encouraged her to climb the steps, and once she made it inside, he and Maya joined her. Both quickly shifted and dressed.
“Are you all right, Kat?” Connor asked, making her sit down on his bed.
“Yes, I just… ache all over. I hit every tree limb I could find when I fell. But the men. What happened to them?” Her voice was nearly inaudible.
“The two that were left? They’re dead. The natives used them for poison-dart practice.” He took her hand and crouched in front of her, looking up into her sage-green eyes. “Are you sure you’re all right? You took quite a fall, and you were unconscious.” And she appeared pale and distraught.
“Bruised and I hurt all over. But I really am fine,” she tried to reassure him. “Nothing like when I hurt my knee. Just a little sore.”