Savage Hunger

Chapter 16

The waiting was killing her as Kat watched from the lookout post. Every movement—a butterfly settling on a leaf nearby, a monkey scrambling through a tree, a lizard raising its nose in the air—caught her attention, though she attempted to remain rigidly focused on the path that led to the hut.

She heard the men slogging through muddy water, figured they must be on a path she hadn’t walked before, and listened to see if she could hear any sound that would indicate Connor or Maya was near. That was why every little thing in the trees distracted her. She kept thinking she might see either of them appear as a jaguar, watching her from a tree branch and protecting her, as she was ready to protect them, just as if they were members of her special Army team.

She couldn’t make out how many men there were, other than the one who had been talking and Manuel. She still couldn’t believe Manuel had planned to hand her over to men who would ransom her, or worse. But she was American, a woman, and had been all alone. He had asked her a million questions while they hiked through the jungle, and she had thought that in his smiling, friendly way, he had just been interested in her Florida roots. But it hadn’t been that at all. He had been trying to learn just how valuable she might be.

How well connected.

She had money, sure. Or she wouldn’t be down here in the first place. But she certainly hadn’t said anything to him about her finances or that she knew how to use a gun. Or that she had been in the military.

But she didn’t have anyone back home who would pay her ransom. She was the only one who could pay it!

“Where’s Miguel?” the leader of the group suddenly asked. “And José?”

Kat’s heart hitched to hear them speaking again. They were way too close to her location.

“Waiting for us to do all their dirty work, Carlos,” said the other man, who she hadn’t heard speak before. He was gruff and annoyed, but he was sticking close to Manuel and the leader. “I told you before, this is how they always act on a job. They wait for us to take all the risks. You wait and see. We’ll get the man and woman all bound up, and then here they’ll be, as if they’d been with us all along.”

Kat strained to see any sign of the men. Had Maya and Connor eliminated the other two? She wanted to pace, wanted to shift—no, she didn’t want to do that. As a jaguar, she wasn’t sure what she could really do. She knew how to shoot a weapon. Knew how to pursue an enemy with deadly intent. Knew how to wound a man to ensure she could take him prisoner. She just wasn’t sure if she could face an enemy if she was in her jaguar form.

Carlos snorted. “The two of them are easy to replace.” He sounded like a cold-blooded killer, which she was certain he was.

The problem was that there were three men. If she shot one, the others would shoot a barrage of bullets in her direction, and she wasn’t sure she could manage to shoot anyone else if she was under fire. Actually, she was sure she couldn’t. If Maya and Connor were too far away, she would be on her own. Even so, she didn’t want them running as jaguars into a gun battle. They wouldn’t survive, either.

She had to play it cool, keep her head, and not fire any shots unless it became absolutely necessary.

More thunder rumbled overhead. Glints of lightning flashed through the intermittent spots in the canopy where light filtered through. It was nearly afternoon and very dark with the black clouds hovering overhead. Soon, the rain would fall.

Then the men appeared in her sights. Three of them, Manuel being the shortest of the three—wiry, lean, and much meaner looking than she remembered him. He had put on a facade of sweet South American charm with her, had cleaned up and was shaven and quite handsome in fact. But now he looked hard, his face covered in a mottled dark beard, his dark brown eyes narrowed, his clothes soggy and dirty and… she stared hard. Bloodstained?

Had he been injured? Or had he injured someone else? How could she have been so naive?

Because he had charmed her into believing he was who he said he was, a native from the area who knew passable English and who guided tourists into the rain forest for an interesting and informative visit. Only in his case, he had never planned to guide her back out.

When he had taken her on her trip, he had worn the minimum of weaponry—a machete for chopping at the vegetation to clear their path, a gun in case of venomous snakes, a knife for survival. But now belts of ammo crisscrossed his chest as if he was a wild bandito from the Old West, while double pistols sat at his hips and a rifle rested on his shoulder. His face was streaked in mud, his long hair matted and grungy. His eyes were the scariest, though. They showed no remorse, no pity, no heart.

The others looked just like him, dressed in light-colored clothes that were filthy, their faces bearded, their dark skin speckled with mud. They smelled of sweat and blood and…

She wrinkled her nose. Marijuana, she thought.

They suddenly stopped and all smiled in a menacing way as they looked at the hut high above on stilts. Then Carlos motioned toward the hut, signaling to Manuel to take the stairs and the other man to go underneath the hut. Carlos stayed in place, rifle ready.

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.”

Connor didn’t know what to think. Did the locals feel responsible for telling Manuel about the jaguar god and had come to help him and Maya and Kat if they needed it? They had seen them on occasion, the hunter-gatherers living off the land. But they were almost as mysterious as the jaguars.

Connor looped a curl dangling against Kat’s cheek and tucked it behind her ear. Maya was right that they needed to get rid of the bodies quickly. “I’ll take care of the men. You stay here with Kat.”

Maya looked as though she wanted to object, like she wanted to help him dispose of the bodies, but then she observed Kat’s pale face and nodded. “I’ll stay with Kat, but don’t take long or we’ll both be roaming the jungle to look for you.”

He gave her a stern look. “You stay here. I don’t want to have to try to rescue you both later.” Then he gave Kat a warm embrace and kissed her forehead. “Keep my sister here.”

She smiled up at him, but her eyes were still a bit glazed over, and her smile had only a fraction of the brilliance it usually had. He hated to leave her, to leave either of them behind. But this business had to be taken care of.

Connor left the hut and crossed the bridge to the lookout post, meaning to shift there before he took care of the men. He looked down at the leader’s body, but it was gone. He stared at the location, but no matter how hard he looked, he just didn’t see the body. Where the hell was it? He knew scavengers would come for it, but not this quickly.

Maybe from this vantage point, he was off in his calculations as to where the body rested. He climbed down the steps and began searching for the man and his companion. Neither were there, nor was Manuel. But they had died. He knew they were dead.

He looked up at the forest. The hunters had to have hauled them off. He smelled other men, seven or eight of them. They had moved as silently as he and Maya did.

Connor returned to the hut, and both his sister and Kat stared at him in surprise. Their expressions quickly turned to alarm.

“The hunters removed the bodies. I’ve got to see to the other one I left on the path. I’ll be back soon,” he said quickly, wanting them to know what had happened before he left.

He returned to the lookout post, stripped off his clothes, and shifted into his jaguar form. He leaped from one tree to another, then jumped to the ground and moved swiftly through the jungle to locate the last of the dead men. When he reached the area where he had left the man floating on the water-covered path, he found that man’s body had also been removed. He sniffed the air. Several men had been here.

Connor tracked the hunters’ scents until he reached the river. Hidden in the foliage, he watched the hunters depositing the bodies in the river and chanting over them, condemning them for attempting to kill the jaguar god and his mates. They made it sound like Connor had a royal concubine.

He smiled at the notion. He imagined Maya and Kat wouldn’t.

For now, the natives appeared to be on their side. Maybe they had been angry that one of them had told Manuel about seeing the jaguar god and his woman, and that Manuel had promptly led his thugs to take Connor and the women hostage.

But no matter what, he and Kat and his sister needed to leave. For now. Life was getting too complicated for safety’s sake. Although they would return. This was their second home, and the jungle drew them back as if it were a homing device genetically engineered into their blood.

He wished they could travel as jaguars, but that wouldn’t be a viable option since they needed to get out of the country in their human forms. As jaguars, they wouldn’t have clothes, money, or passports once they reached the States. He loped back toward the hut, and when he arrived, he found Kat sleeping in his bed. He was grateful she hadn’t been wounded or, worse, killed.

After shifting, he took Maya aside. “Are you sure she’s all right?”

“Yes. The fall did her in. She’s also upset about killing Manuel, but she’ll be fine, Connor.”

“Yeah, but can she travel like we need to do to get out of here?”

“She can. What about the men?” Maya asked, changing the subject.

“The hunters took them to the river and dumped them, and now the dead men are feeding the piranhas and a caiman or two. The hunters seem to be on our side for now, thinking I’m the local jaguar god.”

“Jaguar god.” Maya snorted. “If you’re a jaguar god, we’re jaguar goddesses.”

He chuckled. “They believe you’re part of my harem.”

She laughed at that but quickly turned to make sure she hadn’t disturbed Kat’s sleep. She whispered, “I’ll have to pick up my own cache of jaguar men.”

He was glad he knew Maya better than that. He could just imagine her clawing or biting a bunch of Texans and turning them. But she wasn’t that kind of woman.

That night, he had meant to sleep on the porch and make Maya stay in her own bed so that he would be their first line of defense if anyone had a notion to attack. When his sister wouldn’t cooperate, he cuddled with Kat in his bed so that Maya would remain in the hut with them, sleeping on her own cot.

He wanted to keep his “harem” close, in case they had any more trouble.