Loose tendrils of dark, damp hair framed her small face. The bridge of her nose was sprinkled with freckles, her cheeks rosy—maybe from heat and exertion in the jungle, or maybe from a little too much sun. Her wet clothes clung to every curve just up to her breastbone, but the very top part of her shirt and her hat were still dry.
He hoped she had drinking water in her backpack and wasn’t dehydrated. That was all they would need. A sick woman on their hands, far from any medical facility.
He took another deep breath of her tantalizing woman’s fragrance, unable to comprehend why the woman smelled so much like Kat, and wondered what to do with her.
She was miles from the nearest human resort. And miles in dense jungle made for a very long, difficult trip for anyone who was unaccustomed to the heat and humidity.
He couldn’t nudge her toward the tourist lodge in the middle of the Amazon rain forest while trying to keep the staff at the resort from seeing him and his sister in jaguar form. Seeing jaguars prodding a human into the camp would surely give the tourists and staff heart attacks. Not to mention that he didn’t think this woman could easily be herded mile after mile to safety by a couple of jaguars.
His sister also studied the woman for a moment, then looked to him to decide what to do next. As jaguars, he and his sister had no natural predators in the jungle, save man and the anaconda. And even then he had tackled an anaconda and won.
The woman would have plenty to worry about, though.
Neither he nor Maya could run through the jungle as humans, not without clothes to protect them from the mosquitoes, scorpions, snakes, ticks, and chiggers, to name a few of the problems with exposing human flesh to the elements in Amazonia. But he needed to reassure the woman that the two of them weren’t going to eat her. Neither he nor Maya could shift in front of her to speak with her, though.
He grunted. They would have to herd her to their own hut deep in the jungle where they kept provisions and clothes when they came here to shift and run like the predators they were.
Night would fall soon. Jaguars normally slept in the trees during the day and hunted at dawn and dusk. The woman probably would be horrified to see what he drummed up for dinner and how they ate it raw.
But how was he going to get her back out of the tree? He had to get her down, then nudge her along to their hut, which was about two miles away in the opposite direction from the Amazon lodge for tourists.
Once at the hut, he and his sister could shift out of view in the jungle and return to speak with the woman. A couple of days of rigorous hiking would get her to the tourist lodging.
He jumped down from the tree branch, landing beside his sister, and nudged her away from the tree. She limped away from it, which must have been why she had been roaring before. He glanced at her hind leg, encouraged her to sit, and saw two thorns sticking into her paw. He glanced up at the woman, who was watching their actions with intrigue.
Not wanting her to think they had human thought processes but unable to do anything else, he poked at his sister’s foot with his nose, hoping he wouldn’t touch a thorn accidentally, make her growl in pain, and scare the woman any more than she already was. Hoping, too, that the woman would come down from the tree to pull out the thorns. He couldn’t get them with his teeth, or if he managed to get one, he would more than likely chomp it off and make it too difficult to pull out later. And Maya couldn’t walk on the thorns for any distance without suffering pain.
They both glanced at the woman, Maya lying on her side, looking as docile as she could, and Connor sitting beside his sister, most likely appearing perfectly lethal.
All the while, the woman continued to watch them as she sat in the tree and didn’t appear to have any plans to come down soon. Which meant?
Connor was going to have to do something drastic to change her mind.
Chapter 2
If she didn’t know any better, Kathleen would have sworn the male cat wanted her to pull the thorn out of the female cat’s paw. And then?
They would eat her. As soon as she pulled on the thorn, the pain would cause the female to growl, swing her head around, and bite Kathleen. The male, thinking that Kathleen was injuring his mate, would finish her off.
So she sat in the tree.
And they sat on the ground. No one moved.
Then it began to pour. The rain came down lightly at first, but then more heavily, dripping off smooth leaves with most of the drops never reaching the forest floor. Kathleen was already soaking wet after stepping on ground that wasn’t solid and sinking into water nearly up to her collarbone, which had almost given her a stroke. All she could imagine was that a crocodile would come to investigate what delightful edible creature had dropped in to see it. After struggling to get back on relatively dry land without meeting up with a croc or two, she had thanked her guardian angel for watching over her again.
The air was muggy and as wet as she was. She figured she would never dry, just mold instead.
Feeling dizzy from the heat and realizing she hadn’t drunk any water in some time, she tried to get her pack off her back to reach a bottle of water. But a twisted branch behind her caught on the bag, and she couldn’t free it. She leaned forward to get it loose and immediately realized her mistake. She was too far forward with nothing to grasp on to, and she lost her balance. With her heart in her throat and unable to stop her fall, she plummeted from the tree to the spongy ground some fifteen feet below, landing hard on one knee. Pain shot through it. She didn’t think she had broken anything, but she had hurt it for sure.
The jarring impact sent a shard of pain rippling through the old bullet wound in her thigh, adding insult to injury.
Now on her side, she stifled a groan and fought against cradling her knee, whimpering, cursing, or doing anything that would alert the cats that she was down-and-out for the moment. She briefly thought about how the jaguars would think she was like a wounded creature, falling from the tree and perfect for a predinner snack.
Despite not wanting to look in their direction, fearing they might approach to take a lick and a bite, she did glance at them. The female was still lying on her side. But the male was standing, watching Kathleen. She swore he took a deep breath as if he was concerned about her, surprised maybe, but then he headed toward her. That couldn’t be a good sign.
She scrambled to a sitting position, groaning as the pain shot through her leg to her kneecap and short-circuited her plan to make for the tree again. This time she did cradle her injured knee, cursing herself for her folly.
As if he knew she might try to take refuge in the tree, the male jaguar loped toward her, no longer moving cautiously. When he reached her, he opened his mouth and gave her a way-too-close-up view of his saber-tooth wicked canines, which looked remarkably white and polished for a wild beast. She gaped at them but couldn’t even get a scream out.
Then he licked her cheek.
His huge, wet tongue was like rough sandpaper against her skin. She knew it. He was tasting her before he ate her.
But then he pushed under her arm with his nose as if he was trying to get her to stand. She couldn’t stand, damn it. If she could, she would have climbed back in the tree as fast as she was able.
When she wouldn’t cooperate, he went around the back side of her and bit into her backpack. In a strangled cry, she yelled, “No!”