[Project Nemesis] Jungle Fever

Other titles from Celeste Anwar:

Carnal Appetite

Carnal Knowledge

Carnal Thirst

Born of Night

The Color of Twilight

Her Every Desire

Resurrection

Pleasures of the Flesh

Beauty Ravished

Indecent Proposition

Project Nemesis: Wolfen Domination

Project Nemesis 2: Jungle Fever

Cajun Heat

Voyeur

Revenge Sex

Pinned and Punished

Chapter One

            The trio of great
cats had watched and followed the outsider amongst the soldiers all week.  The
woman didn’t belong there, and it hadn’t taken them long to figure out the
company had brought her in to capture the loose cats on the island.  Obviously,
they hadn’t apprised her of the full situation, or she wouldn’t have been
attempting to catch her quarry by traditional means.

            Armando Santiago
paced the clearing.  He and his cousin, Rafael Santiago, and their friend, Remy
Guillaume, had escaped the facility together, working in unison to free as many
of the shape-shifting cats as they could along the way.  The distraction of so
many escaping had worked to their advantage, but they’d all been trapped on the
island together, and the facility had increased their manpower to the extent
that none of the shifters had any hope of escaping their island prison.  At
least, not yet.

            They had no
intention of allowing themselves to be caught again so easily—especially not by
a woman such as this—no matter how beautiful and enticing she might be. 
Armando shielded his thoughts from the others as he’d watched her and grown
increasingly attracted to her sure and swift movements, her command over the
men under her care, not to mention the lure of her fit and agile body and
thick, curly hair.  Her scent had drawn them all to her, for it had been a long
time since any of them had seen a woman.  The seasons seemed to blend into one
in the jungle—a hot, balmy one that eluded their abilities to distinguish the
passing of time.

            Armando didn’t
know how long it had been since he’d been free to roam as a man and not the
prisoner of experimentation.

            Rafael mind-spoke
to his cousin. 
What ails you, Armando?  You’ve paced all morning and
haven’t said a word of your thoughts.

            Armando looked to
him and Remy.  They’d set off most of the traps meant to catch them and the
others, but they’d seen the woman and her men working for days digging pits and
going deep into the jungle to collect fronds and vines to disguise their work. 
The valley had been transformed and then covered, as if nothing had ever been
disturbed.  The work the group had done was quite spectacular, considering what
they worked with, but the scent of their fear hung heavy in the air.  No
supernatural being could overlook the human pheromones so cloying in the area. 
It was why nothing had worked before.

           
They’re
working on something big
, he responded. 
And I want to know why they’ve
gone to greater scale rather than different tactics.  The woman isn’t an
idiot.  She can tell there’s something wrong.  I don’t like it.  They’re up to
something, but I’m damned if I can figure it out.

            Remy, who
possessed the form of a cougar, and not a leopard as they, snorted and smacked
his lips, giving a great yawn. 
She should have given up by now.

            Rafael laughed
mentally. 
She doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman that gives up easily.

            Armando could
tell his cousin, Rafael, was just as interested in the woman as he.  Hell, had
the situation been different, they probably would have all killed themselves
fighting over who was going to have her first.  But she was the enemy here, and
such thoughts didn’t bear weight.

           
All the more
reason to keep close watch on her
, Armando responded.  His thick, black fur
twitched on the back of his neck, and his tail moved with agitation.

            The other cats
agreed, and moved with stealth to surround the soldiers.  They would wait to
see what plan the company men would hatch this time.

****

            The unceasing
sound of insects and frogs filled the humid air with a cacophony of white noise
that could drive a sane man mad.

            Luckily for
Yvonne Jackson, she was no man, and she’d been in the jungle many times before
and knew how to ignore the irritating noises.  Never before under these
circumstances, however.

            With the IRS
breathing down her neck for her bastard ex-husband’s taxes, which he’d saddled
her
with and gotten away Scott-free from any responsibility, she hadn’t had much
choice on whether to be here or not.  Every time she thought about Tyrell, she
wished she could track
him
down and cut off his balls.  It was enough to
make her hate men forever.

            Yvonne sighed.  She
didn’t have much choice but to be here, leading a team of men against predators
unseen before by man.  Genetically altered by man.  Freaks of nature never
intended to roam the earth.  The implications of what could happen if they bred
with natural cats made her shudder.  She’d watched enough movies and read
enough books about mankind fucking with nature to know even if she wasn’t
getting paid enough to wipe out her debts—she didn’t want anything like that to
happen.

            The impulse to
shudder in revulsion was quickly quashed as she focused on the task at hand,
checking their setups of traps and pits.

            Heading a team of
heavy footed, dumb-fuck soldiers, and all in the search of a pack of cats. Most
of the big cats didn’t move together in groups.  They were solitary creatures,
independent, always relying on themselves.  It was definitely weird that a
group of them had ´decided´ to bunch together.  Why had they formed a pack?  It
didn´t make sense, but nothing about this whole assignment did anyway.

            The great cats, set
free by internal saboteurs, were proving harder to catch than she’d originally
predicted.  She’d tried tracking them, to no avail.  It was as if they’d known
she was on their trail and had deliberately led her in circles.  She’d tried
live bait, dead bait, pits, trip wires—she’d wracked her brain for every
technique, and each time, she came up empty.  She’d begun to feel like there
were no cats on the miserably hot island, except for the outstanding evidence
that they were there.

            They were smart. 
Too damned smart.

            She didn’t know
how they kept avoiding capture, but they had.  It seemed to her she was always
two steps behind.

            She had one more
trick up her sleeve—a pheromone the project leaders assured her would be irresistible
to the animals.  It was her last chance to prove she could do the job.  Her
last chance to get out of IRS hell.  Everything was riding on this.

            Her stomach
churned, tied up in knots.  A greedy mosquito sucked on the exposed flesh of
her neck.  She smacked it, cursing the tiny hellion and the itchy mark it had
left on her neck.

            The afternoon
rains had died down and the sun had come out full force, the solar heat turning
the standing water to choking, body draining humidity.  She could feel the hair
around her face kink up in the humidity.

            She should’ve
chopped it all off before coming out to the jungle.  The temptation to trim it
down with her knife to alleviate some of the heat trapped beneath it still
existed.  She kept it up and off her neck as best as she could.

            Yvonne wiped her
brow and smoothed her curly hair back from her forehead, scanning the dense
foliage.  She waited on word that the East side was set up and ready to go. 
The plan was to channel the beasts down this sloping valley she perched above,
hidden within the embrace of some thick, cloying brush.  They’d worked on the
pits for two days, lowering cages inside, setting rope lures for backup.  Delving
deep in the jungle for fronds and leaves to cover their tracks.  Everything was
as ready as they could make it.  Her men were hidden on the ridge above, ready
to tranquilize anything that moved.  Maybe they could keep their cool when the
shit hit the fan.

            A male voice came
through the communication unit on her shoulder.  “We’ve got the cages set East
side.  Everything’s in place.  We’re ready for you.”

            A bird cackled
from the impenetrable leafy canopy above, mocking her, laughing at their
efforts.  Another answered the call, the swift rush of wings fluttering
overhead sounding suddenly eerie amidst the chirruping insects in the jungle.

            Yvonne stood,
adjusting the heavy gear weighing her down.  She hit the comm. button to
contact all the men.  “Get ready.  Setting the lure.  Out.”

            She shifted her
weight, being careful as she moved down the hillside to release the pheromone
into the valley for maximum effect.  They wouldn’t know how far the scent would
travel, or how long it would take the beasts to be attracted to it.  That was
the hard part—waiting.

            It always was the
hardest, but she’d learned to be patient over the years.

            The humidity
seeped into her bones, making her sticky with sweat.  Her damp hair plastered
against her scalp and neck.  Tiny droplets tickled between her breasts and the
small of her back.  She swiped her forearm across her forehead and withdrew the
vial of pheromones she’d been entrusted with from a pocket over her breast.

            The clear,
innocuous liquid scared the shit out of her.

            She only had the
project leader’s word that it would do the job, and she wasn’t so sure she
wanted to see what these genetically altered beasts looked like—not with as
intelligent and crafty as they were.

            It took every
ounce of nerve in her gut to keep her from pulling out of this.  She focused on
ridding herself of her monetary problems, the task at hand, anything but what
might go wrong if this plan failed and the men fanned out in the jungle
couldn’t keep their heads straight and get this shit done.  Everyone was on
edge from spending night after night in the jungle.  She didn’t blame them—it
wasn’t the kind of place anyone would want to go to for a camping trip.

            Once she reached
the spongy valley floor, she opened the vial and sniffed the contents.  The
liquid smelled musky and strong as hell.  She gagged at the smell and went to
work pouring a minute amount out at each pit site, carefully weaving through
the brush and traps to keep from setting anything off.  The wind would catch
the scent soon.  She had no idea how long they’d have to wait to see if the
pheromone really worked like they said it would.

            The wind picked
up, carrying the scent into the thick wood.  Yvonne scurried back into her
previous position, making sure she was hidden as carefully as before beside her
men.  One of them nodded, hefting his tranq. gun as he looked down at the
valley.

            Her equipment
seemed to have gained twenty pounds, making her back and shoulders ache.  Sweat
had built up beneath her jacket, drenching her and making the shirt beneath
stick uncomfortably to her skin.

            Miserable as she
was, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of tense excitement.  Her pulse felt
faster, her heart beating hard.  She was getting close now.