Kat snapped her mouth shut. Intellectually, she had known that. Connor was right. She just hadn’t wrapped her mind around the fact that she wasn’t exactly normal any longer.
“I need to speak with them to let Manuel know I’m all right and that I’m returning to the States with you. He’ll go away.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows what their agenda truly is.” Connor got his rifle and handed it to Maya. “Take the lookout post. I’ll stay with Kat.” He looked down at Kat as Maya hurried out of the hut. “You can’t speak with them. We don’t know who they really are or what they’re up to.”
She was glad that he took protecting her from any eventuality seriously, but she still couldn’t believe that they would have to kill anyone to stay alive themselves. Then she instantly tossed that reasoning out. If these men were anything like Gonzales’s men, she knew just what they were capable of.
Would Maya and Connor shift to take care of the menace? Or use Connor’s rifle?
Killing as jaguars seemed barbaric, but she shuddered, realizing the jungle was a beast-eat-beast world. Definitely survival of the fittest.
She’d had firsthand experience with that already—one year ago, in this very jungle.
Chapter 15
His senses on high alert, sniffing the air and listening for any movement, Connor walked with Kat onto the screened porch. He had a bad feeling about the men looking for Kat and didn’t like where this seemed to be headed.
Then to his astonishment, Maya roared. What the hell? She was supposed to be watching from the lookout post with the rifle aimed and ready.
He knew her unexpected behavior meant that the men they had heard talking in the jungle were dangerous. Maya must have overheard more of their conversation and changed tactics.
“Kat, can you shift?” he asked quietly.
She would be safer as a jaguar, he thought. She could climb high into a tree and stay hidden in the canopy while he and Maya took care of the men.
She shook her head, her expression schooled.
“Stay here, then.”
“I can shoot. You know I was in the Army. I had rifle and handgun training. I even qualified as a sharpshooter. I can shoot.”
He knew she must be able to, though he had not seen her actually kill anyone.
“I don’t want them to know where you are or even be able to get close to you.” His heart was pounding furiously, and he realized he didn’t want her anywhere near the men. He could see losing her in a shower of bullets. Yes, he and his sister healed more quickly than humans and could survive injuries a human might not be able to. Although if they bled out too fast, their healing genetics wouldn’t have time to take care of the wounds. But what if that part of the genetic change hadn’t taken effect for Kat? What if she wasn’t exactly like them?
“I can’t shift,” she said, her voice urgent, hushed.
He wasn’t sure if she meant she truly couldn’t or she wouldn’t, although he suspected she didn’t have the ability to shift at will like he and his sister could. Hopefully, with time, she would.
“Come on.” He took her to a vine-covered tree trunk that looked as though it was part of the vegetation, a naturally occurring fallen trunk high up in the canopy that butted up against their primitively made lookout post.
It was a heavily concealed spot high in the trees that easily hid the viewer from sight, perfect for observing unwelcome visitors while staying camouflaged from view. He stood with her there now, not wanting to leave her but having no other choice. He didn’t want her to see what he might have to do to the men, and he had to hurry and join Maya before she got herself into a dangerous bind.
He would judge the men while listening to their conversation and learning what they had in mind. If they turned out to be a danger to Kat or his sister or himself, he would take care of them.
Maya was already stalking the men, listening and waiting for him to join her. That’s what her roaring was all about. He hoped she wouldn’t act until he was there to watch her back.
“Maya’s out there,” he warned Kat, as if getting permission from her to take his leave.
Kat looked determined to see this through and scooped up the rifle lying where Maya had left it on the wooden floor of the small lookout platform. Maya’s clothes were sitting in a pile in one corner where she had shifted.
“Go,” Kat urgently whispered. “I’ll be all right. I’ve done this before. Protect Maya.”
Her raw concern for Maya touched him. If he’d had any doubts before about Kat’s loyalty to him and Maya, he now knew Kat was truly one of them. Part of their little jaguar-shifter team.
He cupped her face quickly, kissed her, and hugged her, wanting to hold her forever and protect her from the evils of the world. Beyond a doubt, he knew she would be his. He might have a time convincing her they were meant to be together, but he would do whatever it took.
Then he released her. He was out of his clothes in no time, feeling Kat’s eyes on him the whole time, and then he shifted into his jaguar coat. After giving her one last lingering look, feeling torn by needing to keep both Maya and his sister safe and not being able to be in two places at once, he leaped onto the tree branch above Kat. She gazed up at him and gave him a slight nod, telling him she would be okay.
No matter how much he wanted to believe it would be so, he had his doubts. Anything could go wrong in the rain forest. All he had to do was think back to that day a year ago when Kat had nearly died.
He leaped to another branch and then another, the adrenaline speeding through his blood, propelling him to seek out Maya and the men and determine what they intended to do next.
He didn’t want to kill them if he didn’t have to. But if he needed to kill to save Maya or Kat’s life, or even his own, he would have no qualms about doing it.
Maya had been following the men, who were still a distance from the hut. They were walking along one of the paths that Maya and Connor had made, so the trek wasn’t all that difficult for them. She counted five men, all dark haired and bearded, unwashed and armed to the teeth.
“I still don’t know why the hell you left her behind in the jungle, Manuel,” one of the men said in Spanish.
Manuel. The man Kat said had been her guide.
“I told you. I was trying to lead Juan’s men away from her. If he’d found her, he would have ransomed her. You wouldn’t have been able to turn her over to Gonzales, who would have been most generous with all of us. I was doing what I thought you wanted.”
“Then later you couldn’t find her, damn you. By now she’s sure to be dead. If we can find her body, we can give it to Gonzales to prove she’s dead, but he won’t like it. He had plans for the woman.”
“I didn’t think it would take me that long to get away from Juan’s men. I was afraid they suspected I worked for you and Gonzales. When I returned for her—”
“Yeah, what? Two days later?”
“I couldn’t get back. But one of the local villagers swore he saw a man carrying her to the falls in the area. Kathleen had to be the woman, from the description the boy gave of her.”
Hell, Maya thought to herself. She had been guarding the falls in her cat form while Connor was helping Kat to wash, but she had never seen anyone watching them. When had it happened?
“The same villager who said that a jaguar god lived near there? That the god had found a new mate?” The hefty man shook his head.
A shiver stole up Maya’s spine. These men thought that a jaguar god existed? Had the natives actually seen Maya or Connor shape-shift? This was so not good. She and her brother could hold their own against these men, but Kat could be in real danger.