Connor smiled a little at Kat.
Maya immediately began sharing the tale with way too much enthusiasm. “We were swimming in a Texas lake when a snapping turtle grabbed my big toe. Scared the shit out of me and hurt like the devil. As soon as I started screaming, Connor shot out of that lake like water demons were after him, leaving me behind, I might add.”
Her brows elevated, Kat glanced back at Connor, who shrugged.
“I didn’t know what was getting her. I figured it was every man for himself, although we were only eight years old at the time. If I’d been a jaguar when it happened, I would have made mincemeat of him.” His voice commanding, he said to Maya, “Tell her the rest of the story.”
Maya cast him a slip of a smile. “He did make mincemeat of the turtle. Well, turtle soup. He returned as a jaguar that night, once the park was closed and no one was about, so he could hunt the turtle that could have taken my toe off.”
“So he ended up being gallant after all,” Kat said, backing Connor up, which he thoroughly appreciated, until Maya spoke again.
“Right,” Maya said in a sarcastic way. “He hunted the turtle because he didn’t want to swim in the lake as a human with the turtle hunting him the next time.”
Kat laughed.
Connor loved the way she laughed, loved that she didn’t seem to mind that at least once in his life he hadn’t been perfectly heroic.
Maya said, “Then there was the time—”
“Enough, Maya, or I’ll tell about all your foibles.”
Maya laughed. But Kat looked back at him, grinning, and he was sure she was dying to know what else he had done.
They trudged through the jungle for hours, taking breaks to sip water because of the heat and humidity, and even Maya looked done in. She finally stopped in front of Kat, turned, and said, “As much as I wanted to keep going until we reached the city, I can’t make it.”
Kat looked worried that Maya might be ill but at the same time relieved that they could stop.
Connor had wanted to spend the night with Kat in a room of their own more than anything in the world, but he couldn’t push the women any further. Maya was right about stopping for a while. “We’ll make camp here and set up the hammocks in this tree.”
Maya dropped her backpack on the ground as Connor ditched his and Kat’s and began to set up a hammock off the ground. Before long, they were lounging in the hammocks, covered in netting, their backpacks secured in the tree.
“Do you think the natives are still following us?” Kat asked, fanning herself with a broad leaf, although it was cooler now than it had been earlier in the day.
“Yes,” Connor said.
“And the jaguar?”
“Yes,” Connor said in the affirmative again.
“He’s going to have a hard time following us in the city, wearing a jaguar skin,” Kat said, shifting in her hammock.
“Unless he’s got provisions somewhere outside the city, I agree.”
“He has to be a shifter, doesn’t he?” Kat asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure he is.” Connor knew at this point that the jaguar couldn’t be anything other than a shifter or he wouldn’t be following them.
“Then if he is and he’s been following us as a jaguar all this time, he must have a place outside the city where he can sneak in and shift and dress. Maybe we should try to meet up with him, talk to him, see if he… well, just find out what he wants,” Kat said.
“No.” If the man was Wade Patterson, he had lured Kat to the Amazon under false pretenses. He had to know that Connor and his sister were shifters, but he thought they were a mated pair, not siblings, so he hadn’t approached them.
“Sleep, you two,” Maya grumbled. “How’s a girl going to get her beauty rest?”
Connor grunted under his breath. He knew Maya wanted to meet the man. But she had to know the reservations he harbored.
Much later that night, he heard gunshots deep in the jungle and instantly realized two things—he had fallen soundly asleep, and Kat wasn’t in her hammock.
Chapter 20
As soon as the gun blasts reverberated in a muffled way through the rain forest, Kat scrambled into a tree, her heart leaping with her jump as she secured a perch on a branch higher up.
She was a jaguar again, although until the shots had been fired, she hadn’t realized she had shifted or that she’d been running through the jungle all alone. She groaned. Connor’s words came back to haunt her. They would keep their human sensibilities while in human form, and that meant, damn it, she would still sleepwalk when she was overwrought or exhausted beyond measure.
Peering through the branches of the tree, watching for any movement, she listened, her ears twitching back and forth like antennae, attempting to figure out where the gunshots had come from and how close they had been. No one would be foolish enough to travel through the rain forest in the dead of night so she assumed someone had set up a camp somewhere and something had slithered into it—maybe a poisonous snake, an anaconda, or a wild boar.
Her pounding heart began to slow, and she took a deep sniff. Unwashed bodies, sweat, wood smoke from a campfire, and the scent of recently fired gunpowder lingered in the humid air.
But which direction were the smells coming from?
She let out her breath. If the gunshots had awakened Connor and Maya, they would be frantic about her. Should she roar to get their attention? She would no doubt scare whoever had been firing a weapon, but she was sure they were too far away to venture into the woods in the dark to search her out. They would never reach her in time before she could vacate the tree, and if they ran into her, she would be a deadly adversary, since they wouldn’t be able to see her.
She opened her jaws to roar and alert Connor and Maya where she was, then hesitated. What if the jaguar-shifter who had been following them found her instead?
Not a good idea.
Hoping Connor and Maya wouldn’t be too worried about her and that she could make her way back to their campsite all on her own, she leaped from the tree and landed on the ground. She poked her nose at the earth, attempting to find the scent trail she’d left with her footsteps. She caught the scent, smiled in her jaguar way, thrilled that she was getting the hang of this, and headed back the way she’d come.
Until something big pushed aside the thick foliage nearby. And she froze.
***
His heartbeat quickening, Connor saw Kat’s shirt hanging half off her hammock, her bra clinging to one branch, her jeans on another, shoes on the ground, panties right next to them.
Cursing himself for not watching her better, he jerked off his clothes and shifted. As a cat, his sister was right behind him. They both sniffed the ground and lifted their heads, taking a good whiff of the earthy smells of the jungle and Kat’s sweet jaguar scent. They searched for any signs as to which way she’d taken off. Hell, how long had she been gone before the gunfire had awakened them?
He prayed she wasn’t the cause of the gunshots having been fired.
He and Maya split up, searching for any signs of Kat and trying to locate the scent of her footfalls. After what seemed like nearly a quarter of an hour, he discovered Kat had raked a tree with her nails. He grunted for Maya to join him. She loped through the thick vegetation and smelled the tree. They both looked up, hoping Kat would be reclining on the branch, maybe asleep. No such luck.
Hurried, they began to sniff the ground again, moving in every direction away from the tree to pick up her trail.
Another quarter hour had passed when Maya grunted to get Connor’s attention. He raced to see what she’d discovered. Pug marks of Kat’s front paws were imprinted in the muddy earth. The fresh impressions indicated she had come this way recently.
But now he was catching the odor of men, of a campfire, of the shots recently fired.
He swung his head around as another smell assaulted him. A male jaguar’s urine sprayed on a tree.
Connor’s blood ran cold as he continued to fo
llow Kat’s trail, glad that the male jaguar must have passed this way before Kat had. He didn’t appear to be tracking her… yet.
And then more gunshots rang out.
Damn! Connor ran in the direction of the gunfire, ready to kill any bastard who might be shooting at his mate.
That’s when Kat roared from a different direction. They couldn’t have been shooting at her. Maybe at the other jag.
His heart beating as fast as possible, he turned. She was close by, and he roared to let her know he was on his way, just before he bounded to intercept her.
Maya had to be running parallel to him through the foliage nearby, although he couldn’t see her.
Another cat raced through the jungle toward them, and Connor was sure it had to be Kat.
Eyes wide and looking grateful, Kat broke through the foliage that had hidden her. Relief washed through him as soon as he saw her, a vision in rosette-covered fur. The two quickly bonded, rubbing their bodies against each other with affection and as a sign of belonging. Maya joined them, caressing her cheek against Kat’s in greeting, their tails twitching, before they headed back to camp.
The relief he felt at Kat’s safe return was so pronounced that he could barely think straight. When they arrived back at the campsite, he again nuzzled Kat’s face, wanting to hold her tight and never let go. But they had to leave soon.
He grunted to Maya to let her know he was going on a hunt, and she bowed her head slightly to let him know she understood.
When Connor again took off into the jungle, Kat was afraid he was going after the men with the guns. But once she had shifted and dressed, and Maya had done the same as quickly as possible, Maya explained what her brother was up to as she gathered firewood.
“It’s still dark out and will be some hours before dawn, but Connor wants us to eat, then get on our way.”
“But what about the men?”
“They’re shooting at something else.”
Kat took a deep breath. “We’re leaving because I ran off as a jaguar.” Kat gathered kindling.
She still couldn’t get over having heard something in the brush near where she had been, but not seeing any sign of it. She didn’t care to admit how scared that had made her.
“Yes, in part. He’s afraid of losing you in the jungle. But in part, it’s because we can travel under the cover of darkness, and when we reach the city, it’ll be time to get a room. He doesn’t like it that men are firing guns out here. They could be from the drug cartel. Even biologists who study jaguars in the area often take an armed escort. It’s better if we go soon.” Maya lit the fire.
“You made a mistake in turning someone like me,” Kat said.
Maya looked up from the fire, the flames dancing off her irises. She barely breathed, then finally said, “What do you mean?”
Kat sat down before the fire. “I haven’t done so since I first joined the Army, but while I was at one of the officers’ summer training camps, I tried to climb into another woman’s bunk. Everyone was shook up because they called my name and tried to find out what was wrong, but I didn’t respond. I just kept trying to climb into the other bunk. Mine was on the bottom across from the one I was trying to crawl into. I was sleepwalking.”
Maya’s lips parted, but she didn’t say a word. Then she cleared her throat. “Sleepwalking?”
Kat nodded, staring at the fire, hating to have to tell anyone her secret. “I read about it once. Experts say that often family members have the same predisposition. But since I never knew my real family, I don’t have any clue. Most times, the condition doesn’t persist into adulthood. But I still experience problems with it from time to time.”
“You were sleepwalking?” Maya asked, sounding incredulous.
Kat squirmed to get more comfortable on the rough ground. “Yeah. At least I figure that’s what happened. I didn’t remember anything until I heard the gunshots fired, and I leaped into a tree to get away from the danger. That’s when I realized I had shifted and wasn’t back at the campsite. I had no idea how I had gotten there or where I was.”
“Wow,” Maya said, sounding more than worried.
Kat let out her breath hard. “I don’t do it all the time. Only when I’m extremely tired. I remember one of my foster mothers calling out for me to come in and see something. Except she wasn’t calling for me but my foster dad to see something on the television. I watched it without really seeing anything until the program was over, and then she put me back to bed.”
Maya just stared at her with wide eyes.
“Wow,” Maya said again.
“One time, I spent what seemed like an eternity trying to make a bed in another room. I was staying with another foster teen, and she and I didn’t get along at all. I barely remember struggling to make a bed on the floor of the unfurnished spare bedroom. I woke up to find myself in there the next morning, sleeping on all the bedding on the floor. That’s when I began to have a hazy recollection of it. Even this time, I kind of remember struggling to get out of my clothes before I shifted. Then the gunshots must have wakened me from my sleepwalking state.”
Maya chewed on her bottom lip. “I’m sorry, Kat. I didn’t mean to put you in any danger.”
Kat didn’t look at her. She didn’t resent Maya for turning her. She wasn’t sure why, but she really liked Maya. Maybe because she had never had a friend who would risk all to be there for her. Maya never put her down, never judged her. If anything, she seemed in awe of Kat.
Maya reached over and patted Kat’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
This time Kat looked over at her, heard the tears in her words, and saw the tears shimmering in her eyes. She knew then Maya was worried she might have put Kat in real danger, and she feared she would lose her new friend through her own folly.
“I don’t know how I’d feel if I’d been in your jaguar skin, Maya, as to whether I’d ever turn someone to have another sister or to try to ensure my brother had a mate. I’ve never had a sibling, never thought I’d ever experience such a thing. I’ve done enough stupid things in my life, so I don’t mean to judge you. Regrets would eat at me forever, and the best any of us can do is forge forward, learn from our mistakes, and make the most of them.”
Maya nodded, but she didn’t seem any more appeased.
“I don’t know what’s ahead for me, Maya. All we can do is take it one step at a time.” Grand words, Kat thought, when deep inside she was scared to death of traveling on a plane. She was sure she would never make it to their destination before she shifted. A jaguar on a plane would definitely not be conducive to a safe and pleasant flight.
But she was not going to stew about the changes in her life because she was stuck with them, one way or another.
They heard movement in the brush, and both turned to see Connor with breakfast. Relieved to see him, she peered at the offering clenched between his teeth. Another caiman. She couldn’t wait to get back to civilization and eat something normal like a juicy slab of steak or a lemon-pepper-seasoned piece of baked chicken, a lettuce salad with tomatoes and olives and lots of blue cheese dressing, a baked potato with butter and sour cream and chives, and of course something chocolate to finish off the meal. Nothing exotic.
Her stomach rumbled.
She didn’t say anything about the sleepwalking, but she knew Maya would mention it before long. The issue was too important not to discuss.
Connor cooked the meal as Maya and Kat packed up their belongings.
After eating, they hiked along a dirt road headed toward civilization.
From what Connor had said before they had stopped for the night, the trek to the city would take hours still, but she couldn’t wait to get a room. She wanted to clean up and sleep in a bed, make love to Connor, and never get up.
Maya interrupted Kat’s thoughts of a soft bed and a hard-bodied Connor as she said, “Kat was sleepwalking.” She spoke matter-of-factly, not spitefully, nor did she sound worried.
Kat closed her eyes briefly and wai
ted for Connor to say something as he trudged down the road behind her. She took a deep breath of the humid air. At least at this time of morning, it was still cooler and the air was easier to breathe.
“Sleepwalking as a jaguar,” Connor finally said.
From the neutral tone of his voice, Kat couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Although she thought a smidgen of dark humor accompanied his words. She was certain he’d never thought a jaguar could sleepwalk. They probably didn’t. But a jaguar-shifter?
Maya finally answered in the affirmative.
Kat thought she heard Connor swear softly under his breath. Yep, if they hadn’t thought she was trouble before, they’d know she really was now. But he didn’t say anything further, and they kept hiking at a steady pace through the outlying area approaching the city. Houses sprung up here and there. A few people sitting on porches stopped their conversations to observe the three Americans trudging along the road.
They must have made a bedraggled, unusual sight.
In the distance, Kat could see the picturesque, snow-capped Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta peaks. They discovered a quaint bed-and-breakfast near Tayrona National Park, which featured jungle and white sand beaches and blue waters on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Cabanas with thatched roofs were built up a slope around huge boulders and surrounded by tropical plants that made Kat feel as though she was still in the jungle. She loved it.
They walked into the lobby where the owner greeted them with a wide smile and dark brown eyes that studied them, but if he was judging them by their appearance, he didn’t let on. “Everyone calls me Garcia. Welcome, welcome! Americans?” he said in a thick Spanish accent.
“Yes,” Connor said. “We’d like two cabanas near each other if you have any available.”
Kat knew from past experience that if you were a tourist, you paid more. But they couldn’t mask what they were so they were prepared. Having a bed to sleep in was worth just about any price for now.
Garcia must have wondered about them arriving on foot, carrying backpacks with all their belongings and no suitcases. And grungy like they had made a thousand-mile hike through the Amazon rain forest, through mud, rain, wind, and sun.