Now everything was different. Kat didn’t know what she was in for, and he couldn’t let her go and deal with her changed state on her own. Living alone would be too dangerous for her. If anyone were to discover the truth about her, the danger would be too great for any of them.
As Kat’s tongue stroked Connor’s, he shifted his hands to her buttocks and cupped them, pulling her even harder against his body. He wanted sex with her, and she seemed to want the same of him. Now. But he couldn’t follow through. Not until she understood what she had become and could live with it and with knowing he meant to make her his own.
If another male jaguar-shifter happened upon them, Connor sure as hell wasn’t going to give him a chance to make Kat his.
He growled with feral desire and rampant need. He wanted her. Damn it. Forget about courtship or dating rituals.
The jungle was teeming with life—from the larger kind like his own to the miniscule forms no one could see with the naked eye.
Wild and untamed, like he felt.
But he pulled away from her before he gave in to his animal instincts. Even though she seemed more than willing, he couldn’t. Not yet.
“I’d better get you back to the hut,” he said, his voice husky and ragged with need.
“My clothes…” Kat said when he scooped her up into his arms, as if he was going to haul her back through the jungle naked.
His other head might have been thinking for him, but he did remember he needed to help her dress.
“I’ll help you with your clothes and carry you back to the hut. You need to get your strength back.” He hoped now that she had some of their cat genes, she would heal more quickly, but then again, they wouldn’t help unless she ate better to regain her strength.
She was still way too weak as he assisted her into her panties and then her bra. He should have thought to bring a towel. Both of them were soaking wet. And nothing dried easily in the muggy jungle.
She clung to him as he helped her into her pants, the rock floor slippery and her own weakness hampering their efforts. By the time they were done, she looked ready to collapse.
“You need to eat more,” he said, worried about her, as he lifted her into his arms.
“At least my appetite is coming back,” she said and sounded cheery, although tired.
Here he was, working on ravishing her beside the waterfall with no thought to her physical stamina. He shook his head at himself. He wanted her. And the way she had kissed him back, he knew she wanted him. But what would happen when she learned what he truly was? And what she had become?
He wondered if Kat had turned all the way. Could she shape-shift? If she could, would she do so at the worst of times, having no control over it? Because he and Maya had been born shifters, they could change at will. No moon dictated their shifting, like in werewolf lore. Their natural instinct to hunt during dawn and dusk normally made them want to shift at that time. Still, they usually only shifted when they were visiting the jungle or when they felt the urge while swimming at night at the small lake on their property.
He hadn’t a clue what would happen to Kat regarding her need to shift. Then another thought occurred to him. What if she couldn’t shape-shift at all? What if he planted his seed in her, and it didn’t take root? That as a nonshifter turned, she would be unable to conceive a shifter child?
That would be the end of his shifter line—and although it shouldn’t have mattered to him, deep down it did. He imagined that the primal animal in him wanted to leave his legacy behind.
But what if she had a human child who didn’t have the shifter genes? And that child learned Connor was a shifter? That his mother was, too?
Hell, Maya. They didn’t have a clue what might happen next.
Maya heard her brother and Kat coming out from behind the falls, so she shifted and rushed to dress. She hoped Connor had learned that Kat was one of them now, but as soon as he spied Maya, he shook his head, his expression ultra dark.
Normally, she knew just what her brother was telling her with his nonverbal communication, but this time she wasn’t sure.
She hurried to catch up to them as Connor carried Kat back to the hut.
“Do you feel better?” Maya asked, hopeful, but she could tell by the way Kat drooped in Connor’s arms that she was worn-out.
“Hmm,” Kat said, sounding dreamy and half asleep.
Maya sighed. Kat still wasn’t well enough. “Is she okay?” she asked her brother, hoping he would clue her in.
“She needs to eat more,” was all he would say.
Maya tried to get closer to Kat to see if she smelled like a feline, but all she could make out was Connor’s scent all over her, again, along with the fragrance of the shampoo and body wash. She would have to speak privately with Connor later.
When they finally reached the hut and climbed the steps, Connor tossed over his shoulder to Maya, “Fix her something to eat, will you, Maya, before she falls asleep?”
But the idea of a meal was already too late. As soon as he laid Kat down on the bed and Maya began to cook the tapir and plantains he had brought up earlier, Kat was sound asleep.
“Is she? One of us?” Maya whispered to Connor.
“Yeah, in part,” he growled. Mostly because he was so unsure whether Kat was fully turned or only partly. And what would either mean to all of them?
“How do you know?” she asked, her voice hushed as she cooked over the stove.
“She smells like a cat. But beyond that, we haven’t a clue, Maya.”
“Are you going to keep her?” she asked, hopeful.
“We have no choice. No matter what, even if she’s only partly turned…” He let his words trail off.
“You mean if she can’t shift?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. But we might not know that for some time. And what if in a year or two, all of a sudden she does?” He shook his head as he looked back at Kat’s sleeping form enclosed by the netting around the bed. “We couldn’t risk her being on her own.”
Good. If Kat wasn’t fully turned, sometime when Connor wasn’t around, Maya would nip Kat just enough to break the skin and finish the process. Hopefully.
“When should we leave?” Maya asked, ready to pack up now.
“She’s still not ready. And we have another problem.” He gave Maya a scathing look. “What if she shifts when we’re trying to get her home?”
“On the ferry,” Maya said softly. She could just imagine the passengers scrambling to jump overboard into the Amazon River, running away from the hungry jaguar to join the piranha.
“Even if we drove across the continent, it could be a problem if she shifted. We’d be in trouble if we were caught trying to take a jaguar into the United States because of the law against the interstate and foreign trade of exotic cats.”
“Oh,” Maya said, not having thought of that. “You think she won’t have any control over shifting?”
“I have no clue, Maya. None whatsoever. But I highly suspect that might be the case.”
“I’m sure she’ll be all right,” Maya said, hoping to God Kat would be, as she finished cooking their lunch. She glanced at the bed. “Should we wake her?”
Maya would do anything to get Kat ready to leave the jungle and return with them as soon as possible. Taking care of Kat at home would be easier, wouldn’t it?
Smelling the jungle and listening to the rain pattering all around her, Kat moved stealthily through the forest on four paws. Four big cat paws. Jaguar cat paws.