Dark Possession (6 page)

“That’s admirable, Riordan, it really is.” She could be sincere as well. “But I’m not certain you’re right about me being meant for your brother. If he did put this mark on me,” she struggled not to blush, remembering the heat of his mouth and her body’s reaction to it, “then he did it without my consent. I don’t know why in your society you would think that was okay, but in mine, it’s wrong.”

“You’re no longer living in your society,” he said without a trace of remorse. “Our rules are rules of survival. We only have one chance of survival after centuries of living as honorably as possible. That chance lies in finding our lifemates. Without our women, our species cannot exist and our men must either commit suicide or become vampire. There is no other choice for us.”

MaryAnn sighed. Without grief and despair eating at her, she should have been able to think much more clearly, but now confusion reigned above all else. Were her own emotions to blame, or was it Manolito? And if it was Manolito, how could he survive in the rain forest without knowing what was happening to him?

“How do I reach out to him? I’ve never even tried anything like that before.”

Riordan and Juliette exchanged a long, puzzled look. They’d never had to explain what seemed to come naturally to them.

“Picture him in your mind. Use details, down to the smallest thing you remember about him, including scent and emotion,” Riordan advised.

Great. She remembered feeling he was the most sensuous man she’d ever conjured up in her life. Heat swept through her body. Had his mouth really traveled down her throat to the swell of her breast? Had his teeth sunk into her skin to draw her life’s blood out of her into him? The thought should have been repulsive to her. Any sane woman would have found it repulsive. She closed her eyes and thought of him.

His shoulders were broad, his arms powerful. His waist and hips were slender, his chest muscular. Muscles rippled beneath his skin like a great predatory cat’s when he moved. And he moved in absolute silence. His face…MaryAnn took a breath. His features were exquisite. He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Dark, mysterious eyes, shiny black hair accenting the strong angles and planes of his face, a straight masculine nose and high cheekbones that any model would envy, his jaw strong, with just a dusting of a shadow over it. But it was his mouth she hadn’t been able to stop staring at. Sensual, with a hint of danger. Just enough to drive a woman wild.

She reached toward him and to her astonishment felt her mind expand, as if it had only been waiting, as if the path was already familiar. She felt him, just for a moment, touching her, reaching for her, but then…Her eyes widened in terror and her hands shot out defensively. A huge, fierce cat leapt between them with murderous intent. The teeth exploded out of the muzzle, driving for Manolito’s throat. She screamed and thrust her body in front of his, feeling the hot breath fan her face.
Jaguar.

3

M
anolito spun around, still on his knees, his hands going up instinctively to catch the large, heavy cat as it sprang for his head. The force and power of the jaguar was tremendous, driving him down and onto his back. Was this real, or was this an illusion like the shadowy vampires must have been?

His fingers sank into thick fur. Claws raked his belly, tearing through skin and muscle. Hot, fetid breath exploded in his face, and wicked teeth scraped along his arm as he used sheer strength to keep the beast from getting to his throat and skull. For one moment, as he lay beneath the cat, keeping its massive head from his, he felt someone—
her
—his lifemate—move in his brain.

Her cry of terror echoed through his mind, replacing hunger and confusion with a focus he might not otherwise have found. He saw her reaching for the cat, trying to aid him. Not wanting to risk her life, he broke the telepathic connection between them and dissolved. His body turned to vapor, streaming up and around the cat to reshape into that of a male jaguar with a broad, heavy head and a larger, stockier body the color of the darker shadows. Droplets of blood fell like mist, spattering the leaves and roots as he took the form of a rare black jaguar. He snarled a challenge and leapt. The two cats crashed heavily together, rolling across roots and boughs, the sounds of battle disturbing the night.

Many cats used strangulation to kill, but the jaguar, with its exceptionally powerful jaw, would bite directly through the skull between the temporal bones, killing prey instantly. As the Amazon had been their home for so many years, the De La Cruz brothers had come into regular contact with the cats.

Jaguars were extraordinarily strong, with compact, muscular bodies and broad heads. Stealthy and nearly invisible, they lived a solitary life in a shadowy world of dusk and dawn. With their incredible night vision, retractable lethal claws, piercing canines and well-muscled bodies built for ambush and stealth, they commanded the rain forest, yet they were leery of fighting one another. The heavy moisture was a perfect breeding ground for infection.

Manolito’s first thought was to kill in self-preservation. He was weak from hunger and already dripping precious blood. The wisest and safest course of action would be to end the battle quickly. Respect for the rain forest’s strongest predator made him hold back. He and his brothers had always lived in harmony with the creatures of the forest. He would not take this animal’s life if there was another choice.

He growled a warning, clearly telling the male to back off. Testing the air, he could find no female leaving scent that might give the cat added incentive to fight.

The jaguar circled Manolito’s powerful furred body, showing teeth and rumbling with challenge. Hoping to subdue the animal, Manolito leapt. The jaguar rushed to meet him, slashing with stiletto-like claws even as Manolito reached for the mind of the beast. The jungle erupted into an explosion of sound as the two cats came together.

Birds screamed and took to the air, high in the canopy above. Monkeys shrieked warnings and threw twigs and leaves down on the two jaguars as they rolled in the vegetation. Boughs broke beneath the heavy bodies, scattering debris into a thick cloud around them. Manolito pushed past the red rage in the cat’s mind and tried to find the spirit of the animal as he kept its lethal fangs from sinking into him.

Jaguars possessed extremely flexible spines that allowed them to turn and twist, move their legs in lateral sideswipes, even change direction in midair. And the ropes of muscles all over their bodies gave them tremendous strength. Manolito took another vicious rake on his side as he tried to focus on calming the cat.

He pushed harder, breaking through the wall of rage and found—
man.
This was no jaguar. This was one of the rare and solitary jaguar-men who still made their homes in the rain forest. The Carpathians and the jaguar people had always lived in harmony, avoiding one another, yet this one had deliberately attacked.

Manolito dissolved and took his human form, this time from the comparative safety of a distance away. Cats could cover amazing distances in a single leap, and the jaguar people had cunning and strength beyond normal. He stood, breathing hard, watching for any signs of aggression as the cat faced him, sides heaving, a snarl on its face.

“I know you are a man. You will die here if you continue. You cannot use my respect for the jaguar to defeat me. Why have you broken our unspoken treaty?” He deliberately pitched his voice soft, calming, a mesmerizing tone of notes to aid in soothing the cat’s temper.

The jaguar bared teeth, but held his ground, the eyes never leaving Manolito’s face, as if he was just waiting for one moment of weakness that would give him an advantage. And Manolito was weak. He held the pain of his wounds at bay and ignored the raging hunger nearly consuming him. The scent of blood was heavy in the air. Both jaguars had been torn, and droplets showered bright spots of crimson over the leaves. Deliberately the jaguar licked at the blood drops, to remind Manolito that he had scored.

Manolito exploded into action, ice-cold fury washing over him at the insulting taunt. He leapt on the animal’s back, knees digging tightly into the banded muscle, legs nearly crushing the animal as he locked his ankles under the belly. One arm snaked around the thick neck in a half nelson to drag the head up. He sank his teeth deep into the jugular and drank. The animal tensed with resistance, but the man inside the cat form forced stillness, realizing Manolito could—and would—rip out his throat.

The hot blood pumped into his starving body, soaking into tissue and cells, and rejuvenating muscles. For a moment he was flooded with euphoria, the adrenaline-laced blood too rich and addictive when he’d been so long without and so very closing to turning.

So good. Do not stop. Feel the rush. Do not stop. There is nothing like it in the world. Join us, brother. Be with us. Take it all. Every drop.

Manolito heard several voices whispering the temptation. The buzzing in his head grew louder until it was almost painful.
It is forbidden to take a life.

A cat only. Nothing to one such as you. He attacked you. Why should you give him his life when he would have killed you?

The enticement was strong. Hot, rich blood. And he was starving. The cat had attacked him first. It would still kill him, given the chance, even now, when he had spared its life.

Although he felt the difference in his body, he felt sick again, as if his stomach was cramping, which didn’t make sense. Insects buzzed in his ears, loud and obnoxious, but when he wished them away, the noise didn’t abate. Around him the ground rolled, as if an earthquake had taken place deep beneath the soil. His gut rolled with it.

You need strength. The cat wounded you. You need blood to heal, and it is so good. Drink, brother. Drink it all.
The persuasive whispers continued.

Beneath him, the cat began to shake. The man prowling within the animal shouted something unintelligible, something human.

Human.
He could not kill while feeding.

Not human. A cat. Tear its throat out. Rejoice in the power. Feel it, brother, feel the absolute power of a life ebbing away beneath your hands. Be what you were always meant to be—what you are.

What was he? A killer? Yes. There was no doubt he had killed so many times he could no longer remember all the faces. Where was he? He looked around, and for a moment the rain forest was gone and he was surrounded by shadowy forms, the stretched and knotted fingers of the dead pointing accusingly. Branches clacked together like brittle white bones, sending a shiver down his spine.

He killed—yes. But not like this. It was wrong. Self-defense was one thing. And there was justice and honor in dispatching a fallen brother when he had given his soul over to evil, but murder while feeding was against everything he believed.
No.
Whatever,
whoever
, was trying to get him to kill was no friend.

It took discipline to take only what he needed to survive, only what he needed to push past the beast’s barriers and lay open the mind of the man hidden inside. He swept his tongue across the punctures to seal them and dissolved into vapor, only to reappear a distance away, taking a careful look into the shadows around him. Were those faces in the shadows, peering through the leaves and coming up out of the ground? Were vampires lurking? He shifted onto the balls of his feet, ready for anything. The jaguar roared, drawing his attention back to the danger closest to him.

Manolito forced a careless smile. “You have the taste of my blood in your mouth. And I have the taste of yours. You have information I seek. You tried to kill me and I owe you no quarter.”

The cat remained motionless, not a muscle moving, eyes focused intently on Manolito.

The jaguar people were as elusive and secretive as the great cats, and like their animal part—or because of it—they preferred the dense rain forest near streams and riverbanks. They were rarely encountered and, most likely, were stealthy enough and too familiar with the rain forest to ever be seen unless they wished it. The men, like the animal, were heavily built and enormously strong. They had tremendous night vision and excellent hearing. They were good tree climbers and strong swimmers. Little was known of their society, although Manolito knew they had bad tempers when aroused.

Before he probed deep into the brain of the jaguar, the hunter took another slow, careful look around him, scanning as he did so. The voices hadn’t completely abated, whispering in his ear, urging him to kill. The shadows his sight couldn’t quite penetrate seemed to hold a thousand secrets. Something slithered across the ground, just under the surface, displacing dirt as it moved. His mouth went dry.

The jaguar shifted, crouching a little lower, muscles bunching, drawing Manolito’s instant attention. Centuries of hunting in dangerous situations kept his face expressionless, his eyes flat and cold and his mouth a little cruel. “Dare to attack, cat-man, and I will have no mercy for you.” And he wouldn’t. Not with the vampires closing in around him. He would have no time for mercy, not if he wanted to live.

The blood Manolito had taken from the jaguar-man enabled him to follow the brain pattern, push past the last of the shields to extract information. Hatred, deep and violent, toward Carpathians. The need to find and destroy them. A sense of betrayal and righteous anger. Puzzled, Manolito probed deeper. The two species had never been great friends, but neither had they been enemies. They held different values, but had always managed to respect each other’s society.

There was a touch there in the memories. A dark stain. Something off. He examined it carefully. The spot was very dark in the center, but rings formed around it, lighter in color, stretching out to encompass the entire brain of the jaguar-man. The closer Manolito got to the spreading discoloration, the more agitated and disturbed the jaguar became.

The moment Manolito merged, as soft a touch as he used, he felt evil shift, become aware of him. Around him the shadows swelled and took form. Within the jaguar’s brain the blemish stirred as if disturbed. He backed off, not wanting to rouse the ire of the cat any further. The animal was shaking, fur wet and dark as its sides heaved. The man was beginning to lose the battle for control of the beast.