Terry Spear - [Shifter 02] (4 page)

David winced as she applied more pressure to
his wound.

“Here I thought we were nearly old friends, me watching your back in the Amazon…” Wade reminded her.

“Just my back,” she said.

He cast a wicked smile over the backseat that
said otherwise.

“So what’s going on in Belize, and how do you know my cousins?” she asked.

Wade turned onto another road. “The reason I know your cousins is that we belong to the Service.”

She considered David’s jagged wound and was relieved to see his healing genetics were beginning to take hold. The bleeding had nearly stopped. “You mean you work for one of the branches of the military, like Candy said?”

“Not exactly. We’ve done a number of extractions over the years, but we’re not part of the government.”

“Extractions of what?”

“People. Shifters like ourselves who get into trouble. City cats who aren’t prepared to face the dangers in the jungle. The Service is more like our own special government, a body that was started years ago to police jaguar shifters and attempt to protect our jaguar cousins who don’t shape-shift. We’re in service to the organization, so cryptically we’re in the Service.”

“Jaguar police force,” she said. No wonder Wade had been so good at tracking Kat and her brother when they were in the rainforest—he was a first-class act.

Then what about Wade was true? Maya frowned. “You aren’t a respectable businessman in Pensacola, Florida—a computer programmer during the day and a game-design hobbyist at night?”

He shook his head.

“Your cover?”

“I would have told Kat eventually, but not in an email. We were supposed to hook up.”

“But you really do live in Pensacola?”

“Yes.”

“You had pictures of yourself on Facebook, Twitter, and a number of other networking sites. That’s how I recognized you. So that was all you.”

“Yeah.”

She asked David, “What do you do for a living? Are you with this agency, too?”

“Yeah. But it’s not called the Agency.”

“Four main branches exist,” Wade explained. “The Enforcers, who police shifters, ensuring everyone abides by some rules. The Guardians, who protect our people, secrets, and real jaguars. The Avengers, who take out the trash. They go after the hard-core criminals that we have no hope of rehabilitating. Then there’s the Special Forces unit that David and I belong to. Your cousins, also. I saw them on a mission in South America. Another extraction.”

“How come Connor and I never knew about any
of this?”

“Your parents—”

“Mother,” Maya corrected. Except for donating the sperm, her father hadn’t taken part in their lives.

“Your mother, then, must have kept you isolated from our kind and stuck to the old ways. My father was like that, too. Not until David and I began raising hell on our own did we learn about the Service.”

“What about your mom?”

He shook his head. “She died when my brother and I were sixteen. A man involved in the exotic-animals markets trade killed her. She’d fought him tooth and claw, attempting to free herself. We guessed he thought she wasn’t worth the battle and terminated her.”

“I’m so sorry, Wade.”

“Yeah, well, Dad was in his own world then. Without his heavy hand, David and I cut loose. We got into trouble and learned all about the Service. We were lucky that one of the Enforcers thought we
were salvageable.”

She shook her head. “I can’t imagine you did anything that bad.”

“Don’t tell her all the stuff we did, and I won’t, either,” David said.

She smiled, intending to learn what she could later. “So you guys are…?”

“Part of a Special Forces unit called the Golden Claw JAG Elite Force. We do a little of everything.”

She thought the organization sounded like an admirable cause and important for their kind.

“It sounded too dangerous for me to join. But… we weren’t given much of a choice.” David was smiling when he said it.

She shook her head and wondered how often Wade and his brother had faced danger on their jobs. And off their jobs. She and her brother had certainly encountered trouble from time to time while visiting the rainforest over the years.

“What about the man who murdered your mother? Did they ever catch him?”

“No.” Wade glanced out the window, and she suspected that wasn’t the end of it.

“Are you searching for him?”

Wade’s gaze swung around to meet hers. His eyes were dark and feral—a hunter’s eyes. “Yeah.”

She swallowed hard. No wonder Wade was in the business he was in. “Every time you look for a hunter, do you suspect it might be the man who murdered
your mother?”

“Yeah. But he might have given up hunting after that. We’re still looking for him.”

She bit her lip. “But if she was killed as a jaguar, she would have turned into a human. Wouldn’t he have reported it?”

“You’d think so.”

Realization dawning, she gaped at him. “You think he knows? About our kind?”

“Yeah, like he’s one of us.”

That sent a chill racing up her spine. “Why would he have hunted her?”

“We don’t know. Speculation? To give her to someone who wanted a female jaguar shifter.”

“Slave trade—only not in humans.”

“That’s what we believe, but we haven’t been able to uncover such a market. So we really don’t know. Unless he’s just human, was scared out of his wits to see her shift, and took off. What could he say? ‘I killed a jaguar that turned into a human?’ And all he has left to show for it is a murdered woman. So yeah, we’re still looking.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said again. “What about Belize? What’s going on there exactly?”

“A team of hunters has gone down to Belize to capture a jaguar, and they’re staying at another resort only a few miles from yours.”

Maya stared at Wade, then slumped against the car seat. “You hadn’t told me that. I’ve got to get word to Connor and Kat as soon as I can. They’ll have been running in the jungle as jaguars from the time they arrived.”

“We have another problem.” David leaned back against the car seat, looking wiped out.

Wade looked at Maya as if she was the source of it. “What’s the problem?” Wade asked.

“The human, Thompson, looks to be real trouble,” David said.

Thompson. Oh, him.
Maya had nearly forgotten about the zoo man who had questioned her about the jaguar on her web page. She pulled Wade’s shirt away from the gash on David’s head and was not happy to see that the bleeding hadn’t completely stopped.

“The one who helped Maya out of the dance club,” David said, explaining to Wade who he meant. “He was asking her about the jaguar on her website.”

“What jaguar?” Wade asked, frowning.

She clenched and unclenched her teeth. “I told him the jaguar was Photoshopped, but he believes the cat in the photo was stolen from his zoo in Portland, Oregon. I put the picture up only a couple of days after the jaguar was taken.”

Wade glanced back at Maya. “I take it the jaguar was you.”

She smiled at him.

“He didn’t believe the jaguar was Photoshopped,” David added. “
And
she told him
she
was the jaguar and was from a family of jaguar shifters.”

“Yeah, like any human would believe me,” she said, giving David her fiercest look.

Wade wished that Maya’s sweet body was pressed up against him in the backseat, instead of his brother. Not that he wanted the head laceration to go with it.

His whole outlook on Maya had changed the moment he learned she was single and Connor’s sister, not his wife. Dancing with her at the club had stirred a male response Wade couldn’t deny. It wasn’t just lust, either. They had a history, even if it hadn’t been up close and personal. Now it was. And he wanted more of it. His jealousy over Lion Mane dancing with Maya confirmed his own feeling that he felt something deeper for her.

He’d never acted like that about a woman. He hadn’t felt possessive toward the shifter woman he’d intended to marry five years ago. She’d still wanted to see others when he finally sought to make a commitment or end the dating game. That had been the end of their relationship.

Now he was fascinated with a shifter who wanted the same thing, he realized grimly. Having his head examined seemed like a good idea. But he had never backed down from a challenge, and right now, Maya was one woman he wanted to get to know much better.

Wildcat.
Yeah, that’s exactly what she was. He smiled back at her, recalling the way she had stared at his naked chest—intrigued, forgetting why he had removed his shirt in the first place. Hell, he was ready to dance with her again and feel her pressed against his body, kissing her sweet mouth and showing her just how much he wanted to get to know her better, every silky, mouthwatering inch of her.

***

When they arrived home, Maya was helping David out of the car as her cousins pulled behind them in the parking lot. Where had David been that he’d heard so much of what she’d said to Thompson? Probably dancing nearby. Jaguar hearing could really be a nuisance sometimes when a shifter was listening in. Her brother was testament to that.

David looked pale and was a little unsteady on his feet, though he was trying to show how tough he was. She was attempting to hold him up, but his weight was too much for her.

Wade quickly took charge of his brother, giving them both an out. “Can you get the door for us, Maya?”

She gave David the shirt to hold to his forehead, then opened the front door. As she walked inside, she turned on the lights for them. “Put him on the couch if you would. In the first bedroom on the right, if he prefers a bed.”

“The sofa’s fine,” David said.

Wade’s gaze caught Maya’s. She couldn’t read his expression. Concern his brother’s injury might garner too much of her sympathy maybe? He looked a little unsettled.

“Did you want Wade to sew you up?” she asked David.

David shook his head, then winced and moaned a little. She stroked his arm, and Wade said, “Boy, have you pulled the wool over her eyes.”

Giving Wade a smile, she said, “Next time someone cracks you in the skull with a bottle, I’ll take care of you.”

“Maybe we should have dumped you at a hospital tonight, and you could have had a pretty nurse look after you,” Wade said to David.

Maya laughed. So Wade
was
worried that she was paying too much attention to his brother.

“I’ll get some bandages and a wet cloth to wash off the blood. We probably don’t have bandages that are very big,” Maya said and headed for the bathroom.

“Anything will do.” David leaned back against the couch cushions.

She returned and caught Wade shaking his head at his brother, while David grinned up at him. When they saw her, they both instantly looked red faced.

Wade stalked across the living room and peered out the picture window. “Your cousins must be checking the grounds for any unwanted visitors. I’m sure if anyone thought of bothering you tonight, they won’t now.”

“Not with four bodyguards.” Maya set the wet cloth, a towel, and bandages on the coffee table.

She took Wade’s bloodied shirt from David and set it nearby. “Sorry about your shirt, Wade. I especially liked it.”

Her gaze shifted to his abs. She would offer him one of Connor’s shirts, but her brother definitely wouldn’t approve. Besides, she liked looking at Wade’s hard muscles when he wasn’t watching her.

She was starting to wipe away the blood off David’s forehead when he closed his eyes and clenched his teeth. “Can you get some pain medicine from my kitchen, Wade? It’s the first one on the right,” Maya asked as she finished washing the blood off David’s cheek. “And a glass of water.”

Wade returned with water and the medicine.

After David had taken it, she began applying bandages.

Wade grinned and David frowned as he looked at the box. “Kids’ bandages? Sea turtles? Porcupines? Butterflies?”

“Store was all out of the regular kind. I’d give you a choice, but I’m afraid I’ve got to use too many of them, so you’re going to get an assortment.”

Wade chuckled. “Looks like a new fashion statement.”

David cast his brother an annoyed look.

She placed the bandages horizontally over the long gash.

David closed his eyes, looking tired and like the painkiller hadn’t kicked in yet.

The front door opened, and her cousins each carried a bag into the house.

“Hell, I forgot our bags are at the hotel room,” David said. “You’ve got to go back into Houston to get them and check out of the room.”

“Tomorrow,” Wade said. “Before we go to the airport, we’ll drop by the hotel and get our stuff. No sense in making a four-hour round-trip back to Houston.”

Everett let out a bark of laughter when he saw David and his bandage collage. Maya frowned at him. “Just think if it had been you.”

Huntley was grinning. “Remind me not to get injured when I’m visiting your place, Maya. Either that or I’ll have to remember to bring my own first-aid kit.”

Maya kissed the uninjured side of David’s forehead, making everyone quit smiling as if she’d put them in their place. “At least he’s man enough not to let it bother him.”

David offered them all a smug smile. But Wade was grinning the biggest, arms folded across his chest.

Everett headed for the kitchen. “Got anything to drink?”

“Who’s taking first watch?” Huntley asked.

Maya felt like she had joined the Service on a mission, watching for the bad guys, but instead of being in the jungle when it happened, she was at home—the first time she’d had to worry about such a thing out here.

“Jaguars?” she asked.

“What else?” Wade responded. “I’ll take first watch in about half an hour.”

His brother looked torn between wanting to help patrol the area with the other male cats and wanting to stay inside with Maya. But Wade knew that with the way David’s head had to be splitting and the bandages arranged diagonally over his brow, shifting was out of the question.

Before Wade could shift and take first watch, Maya said, “As for the sleeping arrangements tonight, without Connor and Kat’s permission, I can’t allow anyone to stay in their bed. We don’t have a spare bedroom. But Connor and I both have separate offices. I also have a queen-sized bed if a couple of you want to share it. I can take the couch.”

“No worries, Maya,” Everett said. “My brother and I will sleep as jaguars on your living room floor.”

“Works for me,” Wade said. “I’ll do the same.”

Wade knew his brother hated that he couldn’t be just one of the guys. “I don’t think the bandages will stick to fur,” David said.

The guys chuckled.

She smiled. “No. You should leave them on until at least tomorrow. You can sleep in my bed if you want.”

David smiled so broadly that Wade was ready to sock him. The thought of sleeping in her bed conjured up all kinds of notions. All he could think of was being in the bed with Maya and finishing the moves they’d started on the dance floor. Shifters could have consensual sex with one another and not be mated for life, so it would be just another way to see if they were compatible and if the relationship could blossom into something more serious.

Since she’d wanted so badly to mix with others of their kind, he was fairly sure she didn’t want anything long lasting with him. Not yet. Which meant he had to give her some space. That was something he was having a difficult time doing. Maybe when he returned
to Florida…

He shook his head. When he returned home, he’d be thinking of every moment he’d already spent with her. And want to come right back to her—mainly to ensure some other shifter didn’t think she was available.

What was wrong with him? She
was
available.

Everyone watched David to see his response. Would he take her up on her offer?

“You can sleep in my bed
alone
,” she clarified and quirked a brow as if inviting a response.

“I’ll take the couch.”

Wade breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t want to act all caveman and say David couldn’t, but he didn’t want his brother in her bed, smelling her scent on the sheets and leaving his own in her room.

For the three-and-a-half-hour flight from Houston to Belize City, Wade had every intention of making adjustments in the seating arrangements. “About the flight tomorrow… David and I have seats together in the middle of the plane. He can swap with you.”

She gave Wade a knowing smile. “What if David prefers sitting beside you?”

“What if David prefers that Wade switch seats with you, and you sit beside David?” David said, grinning at her.

“What if my seat is first class?” she asked.

“I’ll switch with you,” David said.

Maya smiled. “Ah, now there’s the truth of the matter.”

“If push comes to shove, Wade’s going to win this battle,” David said.

“So you’re going to be a gentleman and concede.”

“Exactly.”

“My seat isn’t first class.” She took Wade’s hand
and squeezed.

Both her cousins laughed.

She smiled at Wade but then asked about the Pattersons’
reason for being at the club. “So you were at the club to see someone involved in the jaguar smuggling?”

“Yeah, we were,” Wade said.

“How do you know where to go in Belize if you missed any intel you might have gotten at the club?”

“We had been at the club some hours before you arrived and were just looking for visual confirmation,” Wade said, glad he’d been able to take care of her when the situation got out of hand. “We know the location where the men have gone.”

“You said it was close to where we’re staying. Where exactly?”

“Four and a half miles from your cottages, due southwest,” Wade said.

She shook her head. “There’s so much uncharted territory that I still think we’ll be fine as long as we shift far from the treetop villas. Or even if we stick close to them. These men wouldn’t be after a jaguar frequenting a human-populated area, would they?”

“Most likely not,” Wade said. He thought again about Thompson, the man from the zoo, and wondered about the pictures on Maya’s site.

He pulled out his phone and searched for her website. He couldn’t believe she’d told the human she was a jaguar shifter and that her whole family were shifters, too. Not that he thought Thompson would believe her story—who would?—but still, Wade couldn’t fathom her saying that.

When he located the web page, he realized she was watching him. “Here, let me. You want to see me in my fur coat, right?” she said, flipping to the page he was looking for.

He studied her jaguar form—golden fur and white cheeks and breast—as she looked at him with that cat’s predatory gleam. He felt like he was seeing a flashback of her in the jungle when he looked at the picture of her crouched among the tropical plants—orchids, hibiscus, even a banana tree—in the high-ceilinged glass house with verdigris corners on its cathedral-style windows. In another photo that had him smiling, she was sleeping on a bench, looking like the photo session had worn her out.

Would others of his kind be affected in the same way if they saw her jaguar form and knew what she was? Hell, yeah. She was like a feral call to their past. But even so, they couldn’t tell that she was a shifter from just the photo.

Everett and Huntley crowded around to get a look.

Wade studied her feral gaze. “Hell, all he has to do is compare rosettes with a picture of his own jaguar, and he’ll know the truth.”

“That’s what I told him. I asked him if people normally steal dangerous animals from his zoo. I was surprised when he said only the wolves.”

Wade and her cousins raised their brows.

“Long story, Thompson told me. He hoped the same thing wasn’t going to happen to their big cats now.” Maya took a deep breath. “I saw something in Thompson’s expression. He looked really… sad. Like the animal really meant something to him. In that instant, I wanted to offer help in trying to locate the jaguar, which is crazy. I haven’t had any success until now in finding my own kind. I wouldn’t have a clue how to search for it.”

“We’ll get in touch with our sister, Tammy,” Huntley said. “She’s an Enforcer.”

Maya frowned. “Isn’t it a Guardian’s duty to protect the jaguars?”

“It would be, except that an Enforcer also goes after the people who commit crimes against jaguars. Once she locates the cat, if she’s able to, a Guardian will see that the animal is returned to the zoo,” Huntley said.

“Good. I hope she can find the jaguar—and soon,” Maya said.

Wade hoped so, too. Maya didn’t need the trouble.

“I don’t understand why the cats acted so badly at the club,” Maya said, annoyed.

Wade saw the smile Huntley gave her. “You’re wild, Maya.”

She frowned.

“That’s how the city cats refer to your kind.”

“My kind? Sounds derogatory.”

“Actually, most admire your kind. Most of us in the Service have adapted to being both so we can take care of situations in either our wilder environment or the other. There’s something to be said about the advantages of being both kinds of cat. Most city cats think the jungle cats are hot. Wild cats are rarer. Not as many shifters visit the jungle. They wouldn’t have a clue how to survive there. That makes you a mystery. Once you met other shifters at the club, you’d have a multitude of offers.”

“Of marriage?” Maya asked, wide-eyed.

Wade shook his head, thinking how very sheltered she must have been living with Connor and not mingling with city jaguars.

“Some men would be eager to touch the predator in you,” Wade added. “Some won’t be sure what to expect when they meet your kind.”

Wade could see that the untamed side of her nature was infinitely curious, and that she had been dying to see the club for herself.

“I see. Kind of.”

Wade took in her heavenly, sexy smell. He sighed, wishing they could take this to the bedroom.

Everett shook his head and paced like a caged cat. As wired as he was, he would be the next one out the back door to go on a hunt. They should be hoping none of the shifters at the club would come to Maya’s place, but the expression on Everett’s face said he was looking for a fight just to prove to anyone else that no one would be bothering Maya further.

“I’m off to check the grounds.” Wade went to the guest bathroom, removed his clothes, then willed himself to become a big cat predator, his muscles stretching, his skin turning into a fur coat, his teeth growing to savage lengths. He stalked into the living room as a jaguar.

His coat was a distinctive golden color like other jaguars, but he had more white on his belly and under his chin than David did. His brother’s fur was much more tan. All the cat shifters were considering Wade’s jaguar appearance. They liked to get a visual so if they saw him again, even if they couldn’t catch a whiff of him, they’d know he was friend, not foe.

David looked wishful that he could go.

They loved prowling in their jaguar halves, stretching their legs, moving unconfined.

Wade was just as eager to prove to anyone who had a death wish that Maya was to be left alone. With a low growl, saying he was on his way, he ran to the door where Everett quickly opened it for him.

***

Moving along the garden path, Wade stretched his jaguar muscles, searching the dark and looking for signs of anything moving.

Though he was trying to concentrate on smells and sounds and subtle movement, he couldn’t help thinking about Maya.

He’d been so busy working missions for the Service that he hadn’t seriously looked for any female jaguar in eons. Not until he’d thought Kat was one. Both he and David had been burned in past relationships. Most of the time, neither of the brothers discussed their jobs with the women they hooked up with. Most women didn’t like their secretiveness. In the few instances when they had explained the work they did, the women had rejected both David and Wade.

Wade took another deep breath of the hot, muggy air.

Scanning the gardens from the planters of herbs to the trees and from the shrubs to the flowering plants, he smelled basil and mint and other herbs. He observed the watering hole featuring fountains and ponds, saw koi swimming around in one of the ponds, and smelled the fish in the hot, humid breeze. Whirligigs spun around as the leaves of trees fluttered. His roaming gaze stopped when he spied the greenhouse, its glass walls framed in sage-green wrought iron. It was an intriguing focal point beyond the trees in the south half of the nursery.

He paused at the glass door and peered in, searching for any sign of movement among the plants. He spotted a tub filled with Amazon water lilies and a tall banana plant, which he recognized from the website photos. He could envision Maya there now. Smiling, he shook his head.

Seeing movement to his left, he jerked his head around and saw the striped tail of a house-sized cat as it scurried away, disappearing under the low-hanging branches of a pine tree.

Wade took another deep breath, smelled the cat, and continued his walk, hoping the only kind of critter he’d find here tonight was of the small variety. He really didn’t want to believe that anyone from the club would give her trouble here.