Jaguar Fever

Chapter 5

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.