Savage Hunger (11 page)

“Enough, Maya.”

“Then you found her again. I can smell the way your pheromones are pumped up whenever you’re around her. I see it in your eyes, the way you look at her, and the way you’ve cared for her. Even the way you don’t care for her connections with other men. You can’t deny the strong attraction you have for her.”

Kat closed her gaping mouth, her heart pounding furiously. She had felt his kindness and how caring he had been. He had never shown her any gruffness at all when she was ill. She couldn’t believe that he had been so concerned about her when she had been wounded that he hadn’t wanted to stay here any longer last year. So she couldn’t understand why he was reacting like he was now, wanting her to leave and never visit Maya.

Connor didn’t say anything. Too shocked that Maya could read him so well? Stunned that she would figure him so wrong? What was Connor’s response? Kat was dying to know.

“She can’t stay with us. That’s my final word,” he growled.

And in that instant, Kat thought that he was just like the jaguars he had raised. Just like a human who looked like his dog, except in this case he was a blond jaguar with a growly side to him, and amber eyes and a muscular body that suited the big cat as well. Yeah, if pet owners looked like their pets, he certainly did. So did Maya. Like one big, happy jaguar family.

What was bothering Connor so much about her visiting with Maya further? Kat didn’t plan to start any kind of a relationship with him, despite how much she admired him for all that he had done for her. Or that she loved the way he cared about his sister. That he’d hunt for them and clean and… well, if she was looking to settle down, she wouldn’t have looked any further.

But as far as going to their home, she just planned to visit with Maya.

Maya didn’t say a word. Kat didn’t want to get between the two, but she hoped Maya would stand up to her brother. No one had any right to tell her who she could and couldn’t visit with. That tugged deep at the heart of Kat’s own dark past.

“Maya, damn it, you know I’m right,” Connor said finally.

Kat could envision him pacing across the jungle, waiting for Maya to capitulate. And Maya standing her ground, undaunted. But then she finally spoke.

“I think…” Maya said slowly with a hint of a smile in her voice, “it might be too late.”

Chapter 8

In the thick of the jungle, all of the animal noises ceased to exist as Connor stared incredulously at Maya, his worst fear realized. But he had never seen any bite marks. And he had looked.

“You didn’t turn her,” he said shortly, his anger sifting to the surface.

“It’s too late,” she said quietly. “Too late, Connor, and she has to stay with us now.” This time she sounded almost contrite.

But knowing how much his sister would want this, he thought she was probably damned pleased with herself.

“Hell, Maya.” He paced in front of her, then turned and scowled at her. “I haven’t smelled a change in her. She doesn’t act any differently.”

Maya gave a little one-shoulder shrug, but the expression on her face and the light tone of her voice said she wasn’t as sure as she was trying to sound.

“Where did you bite her?” he growled, hoping that if Maya had tried to turn Kat, she hadn’t been successful.

“I didn’t bite her.”

He stared at her hard. He knew he hadn’t seen any bite marks. But if she hadn’t bitten Kat…

Maya swallowed reflexively and folded her arms, her chin going up in a defensive way. “I scratched her.”

His mouth gaped for a split second
. Scratches
. He had seen a pale line of scratch marks on Kat’s leg when he had tried to wash her back the one time. He had thought she had gotten them from the wicked thorns of a jungle plant. But still, scratching Kat couldn’t have turned her, could it?

“I can’t believe this.” He stalked back toward the hut, intending to examine Kat, question her, see if anything was different about her. He had been trying to keep his distance from her. From her feminine allure. From the scent of her. From wanting to know anything more than necessary about her. But no more. He had to learn the truth—and fast.

Maya ran after him. “We can’t let her go, Connor. She has to be your mate. I want her for my sister.”

It finally sank in.
Maya
wanted
family.
Connor felt miserable then. She hadn’t done it just so he could have a mate and then she would find one. She wanted more of a family. Always had. But it didn’t change the trouble that could arise from Maya’s impulsiveness.

“What if she’s changed and she doesn’t want to have anything more to do with us?” he growled over his shoulder.

Maya looked dejected. He hated to be the one to give her the news, but what if Kat had been changed and she hated them for it? They had no idea what would happen next. She could be so depressed about it. She might even be suicidal!

And what if she didn’t want him for a mate? What if they didn’t suit each other at all?

“We have to keep her,” Maya pleaded. “We have to make sure that she’ll be all right. She can’t be on her own.”

Oh, yeah, he knew that. He could just see them having to build a wild-cat pen for her and keep her padlocked in it every time she shifted. Keeping her secured in a room in the house every time she came back to her human self. They had no idea what they were in for. Or how she would react to it. They wouldn’t be able to let her out of their sight.

He still had high hopes that she hadn’t been turned. He truly didn’t think scratch marks would do it. He thought back to Kat’s fever. What if Maya had brought the sickness on when she clawed Kat?

He let out his breath hard. He knew Maya hadn’t meant anything bad by it, knew she had really liked Kat from the beginning. And cats didn’t just like anyone. He had to admit he was already thinking of Kat as family. She didn’t have any of her own. But if she had been turned, she didn’t have a choice. She would be part of their family, like it or not. He couldn’t let her loose on the unsuspecting population.

“What are you going to do, Connor?” Maya asked, her voice ragged with worry.

“Discover the truth.” What else could he do?

They had been about a half mile away from the hut to ensure privacy while they talked, although a few hundred feet would have been good enough, as noisy as the jungle was and as thick as the vegetation was. Now he rushed back on the narrow muddy trail that led to their place to check on Kat.

“When did you scratch her?” he asked, thinking that if it had been days ago, she would have changed by now, but if it was more recent, maybe not.

Maya didn’t say anything, and he glanced over his shoulder at her. “Maya?”

“Before she got the fever.” Tears flooded her eyes.

“Hell, Maya.” He didn’t say anything more than that. He could tell his sister felt doubly responsible for Kat, and now he realized why Maya had felt so morbidly worried Kat might die. Not only might she have turned her, but she might have killed her in the process. He wanted to reassure Maya that everything would be all right. That life would go on as it had before, but it wouldn’t. And they both knew it.

“She cares about the jaguars. It’ll be all right,” his sister said, sounding as though she was trying to reassure herself as much as she was him.

“Observing one and being one are not the same, Maya.”

They grew quiet as they drew closer to the hut. He could see Kat peering out one of the windows, looking in the direction they were coming from. Had she heard their conversation?

With all the jungle noises drowning out their voices, she couldn’t have, unless she had been turned.

***

Maya was afraid Connor would scare Kat to death as he charged up the creaky steps to the hut. As soon as Kat had seen them approaching through a speck of clearing in the jungle, she had quickly moved away from the window.

Maya didn’t know if the scent of her brother on his bedsheets had cloaked Kat in the feline scent or not, but Maya was certain she had smelled the scent on Kat. No matter what, Maya had hoped to put enough doubt in Connor’s mind to keep Kat around long enough for Maya to figure out a foolproof way to turn her.

“Time to go to the falls,” Connor said abruptly to Kat as Maya entered the hut. He was headed for Kat like a
Panthera
onca
ready to lunge at its prey. Jaguars were much more a stalk-and-ambush rather than a chase-and-take-down predator, and right now he was stalking Kat as she backed up against his bed.

She eyed him warily, wide-eyed and not entirely sure she liked his aggressive stance, Maya thought. She smiled. Kat was perfect. She wasn’t trying to escape him, but she wasn’t fighting him, either. Which was probably a good sign. Like she was accepting him as her mate. At least Maya could hope so.

“Can you walk?” he asked. But he didn’t give her a chance to answer. He drew so close that he was pressed against her, smelling her, trying to determine if Kat had feline genes now or not.

Kat’s breathing accelerated, and Maya tried to see if Kat was attempting to take in his scent, too, and analyze it. But she couldn’t tell, not as tall and broad-shouldered as Connor was and the way he was blocking Maya’s view.

“I’ll carry you,” he said without waiting for Kat to answer.

“I’m sure—” she began, but he swept her off her bare feet and whirled around, doing this his way, stifling her objection.

He looked like an alpha jaguar that had selected his mate and was letting her know just how much he was in charge. And Maya loved it. She wasn’t sure Kat did, but she hoped Kat would love him in time.

“How do you feel?” Connor asked Kat as he carefully carried her down the stairs.

“As much as I hate to admit it, weak.”

He let out his breath.

Did he think that if Kat was still too weak from her bout with the fever, she couldn’t be a jaguar-shifter?

Maya sighed. Maybe Kat hadn’t been turned. Maya would have to bite Kat the next time with a small nip to see if that worked.

Chapter 9

The idea of cleaning up was all Kat should have cared about as Connor carried her out of the hut. She had really looked forward to washing in the waterfall ever since Maya had brought it up again. But the conversation that Maya and Connor had had in the jungle kept running through Kat’s thoughts, and she couldn’t quit trying to figure out what they meant by “them.”

“She cares about the jaguars,”
Maya had said, but she sounded concerned.

“Observing one and being one are not the same,”
Connor had responded angrily.

His response didn’t make any sense at all. Being one, as in being a jaguar? On the one hand, that’s what he had to have meant if he was responding to Maya’s comment. On the other hand, he couldn’t be saying that, so he must have been talking about something entirely different, and Kat had missed some of the conversation. And then they were talking about mates. Mates? If they had been Australian, she could have understood. But they were Texans and a long way from Australia.

The weirdest part? Maya had said she had scratched Kat. When? And why? The jaguar had, sure. But Kat didn’t remember having any other scratches that a woman might have made. Unless her long nails had scratched Kat inadvertently, and that’s what she had been referring to.

“I’m postponing my visit to see Maya in Texas,” Kat said quietly to Connor as he carried her down the steps and made his way along a narrow path through the jungle, the vines and trees and shrubs encroaching on the human-made trail. Although she imagined the jaguars probably also ran along here.

Wearing a backpack, Maya led the way. Neither she nor Connor said a word.

But Kat figured if Connor was that unhappy that she was going to visit with them further, it was best not to bother. She was surprised, though, when he didn’t respond right away and tell her how good an idea that was. Was he having second thoughts about her not visiting? Maybe he thought Maya would be so upset with him that she would be hard to live with if he didn’t let Kat visit.

Kat had never had a brother or sister to grow up with, and she admired the way the two always worked together, teasing each other with a fondness Kat had never seen between siblings. She both admired and envied their relationship.

Connor sighed heavily and looked down at Kat, frowning, his voice deep and committed. “You already agreed to go with us. To stay with us. To visit a while.”

Kat stared at him in astonishment. He hadn’t wanted her there. All along it had been very clear that he hadn’t. Why the change of heart all of a sudden? Still, she felt something more was wrong, and, well, she didn’t know anything about this man and his sister
. Really
. And the way they had been acting, she decided it was time to forget the whole deal. Although she would have enjoyed seeing their home, nursery, and tropical greenhouse—and observing how the cats thrived there intrigued her.

“I’ll have to take a rain check. I need to apply for a job and figure out where I’m going to go from there. I can visit later,” Kat said evasively.