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 other’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.”
“We have to move the dead men,” Maya warned.
Rotting bodies in the jungle would soon provide a feast for scavengers. “Yeah, we do. We have to get Kat home, too,” Connor said.
Maya spoke up again. “The hunters know about us. One saw me take the first man and dump him in the river.”
Connor let out his breath. “That’s why the hunters ended up here. But they didn’t try to kill you, Maya?”
“No. It was a young boy. He ran off, and I imagine he went to tell the elders and their shaman. And then they must have followed us back here.”
“We have to go,” Connor reiterated. “The men who came here after Kat most likely would have told others of their plan. And if the natives know what we are, it’s not safe for us here any longer.”
“They killed the men,” Maya said. “They killed them with poisoned darts. They aided us.”