The Den of Shadows Quartet (42 page)

Turquoise knew not to panic. These creatures were bigger than most dogs, but they were still animals; she knew better than to run from them.

Instead, she made her voice smooth and calm as she spoke to the female, whose lead the larger jaguar seemed waiting to follow.

“Milady I didn’t mean to invade your courtyard.”
One should always address a large, potentially dangerous animal with respect
. She smiled, recalling her father’s words on the subject. Of course, he had been speaking about a
stray dog at the time — dangerous, but not a jaguar. Her father’s mishmash of wisdom and advice formed most of the only good memories she still had.

As she spoke, she edged toward the doorway, careful neither to run nor to turn her back on the jaguar. “I didn’t realize this area belonged to anyone but Jaguar, and if you wish, I will certainly leave.”

She found her way blocked by the larger jaguar, and had to circle around to avoid him. He stretched in the shade directly in front of the doorway and closed his eyes to return to the nap she had probably interrupted.

“How like a cat,” she murmured. “Well, milady, I don’t suppose you’re going to ask him to move, are you?” The words got no response, but her attempt to edge past the male jaguar did: he drew back his lips, just near enough to a snarl to make her back off.

She could try the other door, but she hesitated to walk into the west wing without knowing what was going on. She would give it another hour or so. With luck, the jaguar would move from the south wing doorway. If not, she would have to try her luck in the vampire’s corridor.

To pass time, Turquoise ended up sitting in a patch of sunlight near the pool, working on her story to Jaguar for when he found her here, trying to do nothing that would aggravate the two felines.

The smaller jaguar was the more inquisitive. She joined Turquoise in the sunlight, and shortly proceeded to give her new human companion a cat-bath. Turquoise endured the sandpaper tongue on her back and shoulders, hoping it was a good sign.

Despite her size and capacity for ferocity, the jaguar
acted much like any cat: independent, assertive, but at the moment playful. She nuzzled Turquoise in the side until the human stroked a hand down the jaguar’s beautiful fur, and then sprawled ungracefully on the ground to chew on a blade of iris.

The larger jaguar had not moved. Turquoise gave up on hoping, and reluctantly approached the west door. She hesitated as she saw the male lift his head. She was near the doorway when it yawned, showing a threatening expanse of teeth, and stood.

The female shouldered her in the backs of the knees and she nearly ended up on the ground again, but she just barely managed to keep her balance.

“Milady I’m sorry if I’m being rude, but —”

The male jaguar pounced.

With no time to prepare, Turquoise hit the ground on her back; though uninjured by the fall, she braced herself for the feel of the jaguar’s teeth snapping her neck.

She peeled open her eyes after a moment to find a very large cat standing over her, its front paws perched on her shoulders.

She might have blinked; she wasn’t sure. Either way it was suddenly Jaguar who was pushing himself to his feet, and offering her a hand to pull her up.

Mutely she stared at the hand for long seconds.

Within the sunlit boundaries of the courtyard, Jaguar looked as much at home as he had in the exotic confines of Midnight’s interior. The sunlight caused his dark hair to come alive with highlights of warm chestnut; his dark skin took on a rich bronze tone.

Recovering quickly, Turquoise stood without his help. “Jaguar —”

All he said was, “Audra, I don’t believe I invited you here.” His tone was light, almost playful, and she distrusted it instantly.

“You —”

Before she could form the sentence, Jaguar collapsed to his knees next to the other cat, which nuzzled at his shoulder companionably “Allow me to introduce Shayla, the most beautiful creature living in this building.” He paused, tracing the rosettes on Shayla’s fur. “Though I doubt Shayla would ever protest being called ‘milady’”

Turquoise’s head was still spinning, and the only answer she could form was, “It’s what my father used to call our tabby cat when he needed her to do something.”

“Shayla is naturally distrustful of most people,” Jaguar explained. “And since every enemy I have, she has as well, there is ample reason for her to be wary You’re lucky she took to you so quickly.”

“If she hadn’t?”

Jaguar’s black eyes were unreadable as he turned from Shayla to meet Turquoise’s gaze. “You wouldn’t be standing here now.” He looked away, and when he continued his voice was once again light. “Shayla is an excellent judge of character. Since she deems you worthy I’ll allow you to be here.”

“Thank you, milady” Turquoise said with mock formality addressing Shayla, who did not look up from meticulously cleaning her right forepaw.

Shayla seemed to sense that the atmosphere had mellowed; she chose that moment to pounce, which engaged Jaguar in a round of kittenish play.

Turquoise could not keep herself from laughing. She was watching a vampire
romp
.

Shayla was the one who disengaged first, when Jaguar managed to roll her nearly into the irises. She walked off with her ears perked, her posture saying, “I meant to do that,” as she retreated to the trees.

Jaguar remained lounging on the ground. He propped himself up on his elbows to look at Turquoise. “I’ve been told that I spend too much time in jaguar form, and it affects my behavior. Do you think it might be true?”

“Definitely” He had given her leave to speak as she wished with him, and she sought to explore how far the limits on that freedom stretched. “How long have you known Shayla?”

Jaguar sighed. “I’ve known her family since her great-grandfather was a kitten. Shayla was injured by a hunter a few years ago; she lost one eye and nearly lost the other, and she still walks with a slight limp where the bone was set too late. She never would have survived in the jungle, so I brought her here.” Jaguar glanced toward Shayla, and Turquoise followed his gaze; in response to the attention, Shayla yawned widely.

“A lot of the older cultures in Central and South America thought jaguars were gods, or messengers of the gods,” Jaguar noted absently.

The comment prompted Turquoise to ask, “Your homeland?”

His expression cooled slightly but he answered, “My mother’s.” His voice was carefully neutral as he added, “My father was Spanish.”

He turned away abruptly, and Turquoise berated herself for asking the question. She would never have asked any other vampire, as they tended to respond violently when questioned about their origins. For a moment, she had almost forgotten what Jaguar was.

Now would be a good time to back off and let him simmer alone. Vampiric tempers could be volatile, and when set off they could be deadly.

“Jaguar —”

He had assembled his walls again. “It’s almost noon, Audra. I’ll speak to you later.”

She nodded, and watched in mute fascination as he returned to jaguar form and loped back into the grove of trees.

You can stay here as long as you like
, he offered belatedly. His voice slid through her mind, unwelcome and threateningly open, almost an apology about his abrupt brush-off.

Turquoise had to fight her instant impulse to throw up walls and keep him out of her mind. While most hunter groups taught how to guard one’s mind at least partially against vampires, that was not a skill most humans had, and doing so while Jaguar was already in her mind could only make him suspicious.

As it was, she sensed him pulling back mentally. When he spoke again, his mental voice was fainter, and carried none of the flavor of Jaguar’s mind.
Relax, Audra. Enjoy the sunlight
.

She could not tell whether he was sincere or sarcastic.

Shayla tilted her head, curious, as Turquoise sighed
heavily and sat on one of the stones. Turquoise regarded the puzzled jaguar tiredly.

“Do you understand him any better than I do?” she found herself asking. Shayla reacted to the words by nuzzling at Turquoise’s side.

Why bother to understand Jaguar? The most obvious answer was so she could predict him. An unpredictable opponent is far more dangerous than one whose moves can be guessed ahead of time, and Jaguar would figure prominently in any move Turquoise and Ravyn made against Jeshickah. But nagging at her was the thought that she wanted to understand Jaguar simply because he confused her, and she was not used to being confused.

She was human. She was mortal. She recognized the fact that she was not all knowing. However, in the two years she had spent hunting vampires, she had never met a creature she so completely failed to grasp.

Nathaniel had painted Jaguar as a dangerous, cold foe; she had wanted to plant a knife in the creature upon hearing the mercenary’s words. Yet Nathaniel’s arrogant Master of Midnight had turned out to seem sincere and open, and she found herself wondering about the contrasts in his character. One moment he was coldly dismissing Lord Daryl, and the next he was affectionately wrestling Shayla. Turquoise did not understand him, and for that reason above any other she did not trust him.

Trust. That was a word she had long ago learned to avoid. The only thing anyone could trust was that everyone else would look out for himself first.

Shayla was trying for Turquoise’s attention again; the jaguar was as bad as a kitten wanting a playmate — a very large, deadly kitten, but just as spoiled and restless.

Barely noon, and Turquoise had little she could do for hours. Ravyn had looked exhausted; she would sleep for a while yet. The courtyard, while beautiful, had proved far less interesting than when it had been forbidden. And fortunately, the vampires would mostly be asleep at this time.

She stretched out next to Shayla. The sun felt wonderful on her bare arms. She was pale, having spent most of the past two years following the nocturnal schedule of the creatures she hunted; she could not remember the last time she had simply lazed an afternoon away in the sunlight.

That was exactly what she decided to do. She had not slept much, and combined with the loss of blood, she was tired. She dozed, and then wrestled with Shayla for a bit, then dozed again.

“
F
IRST LESSON: TITLE
,” he said calmly as Catherine struggled for breath past the pale hand wrapped around her throat. “You will address me as Lord Daryl
.”

“Get your hands off me,” she hissed in return, her voice made hoarse by the difficulty of drawing breath. Lord Daryl backhanded her nonchalantly, and sparks danced in her vision
.

“Say it,” he ordered, one hand still wrapped around her throat and holding her against the wall
.

Instead, she tried to kick him; with reflexes faster than a striking snake he caught her ankle and pulled her off her feet. Her back slammed against the ground hard enough to knock the already scant breath from her lungs, and she choked around a gasp of pain as her head snapped against the polished wooden floor. The world swam; she could not have stood if she had tried
.

“Well, Catherine?” he prompted
.

“My lord,” she growled in response, “you can go to hell
.”

She started to push herself back to her feet and he kicked her down again, the tip of one steel-toed boot glancing off the side of her ribs hard enough that breathing became instant agony and
she wondered if anything was broken. Another couple of those love-taps would probably kill her. But why should he care? He had already killed her family
.

The thought gave her the energy to try to stand again despite the ache in her ribs and head, but the attempt was rewarded by another blow
.

“Lord Daryl,” she whispered, still on the floor, unable to get the breath to speak louder. “You happy now?”

He nodded, those fair, sculpted features betraying nothing past a cool mask of derision. “Almost
.”

She woke struggling for breath, aching from phantom injuries long healed. That first beating, the first night she had woken in Lord Daryl’s manor, had been minor compared to what she had later endured, but it had been the first and that made it the most terrifying in her memory.

A modern American teenager in a white-collar, preppy town, Catherine Minate had never been hit in her life until Lord Daryl had entered the picture. The remembered terror and pain of that first encounter left her with the taste of fear on her tongue, bitter, metallic, and hot.

Shayla had curled up beside her, and the mixture of the mid afternoon sun, the jaguar’s own heat, and the nightmares had left Turquoise uncomfortably sweltering. Carefully, she moved back into the shaded grove where Jaguar had retreated.

His animal form remained still, curled up on the soft moss, as his voice flitted in her mind.
You okay, Audra?

She nodded, realized he could not see her, and then formed the thought clearly in her mind:
Fine. Just bad
memories
. She doubted Jaguar would be surprised to learn that a slave had a few bad memories, especially a slave who came with such a brutal history written on her skin in scars.

Jaguar startled her by standing and loping toward her. She smiled as he brushed along her side, a soothing but amusingly feline expression of comfort. Again she had a brief touch of his mind, wordless this time, but offering sympathy nonetheless.

He stretched out again next to her, and Shayla lay down at her other side, as if Turquoise was a frightened kitten to be guarded.

Maybe she was. Either way sleeping with a protecting jaguar on each side successfully chased the memories away from her dreams. She could see why the old cultures had worshipped these creatures: beautiful and proud, they also radiated savage, protective strength.

S
HE FELL ASLEEP
resting against the beautiful, soft fur of a jaguar; she woke in a very different situation. Sometime while they had both slept, Jaguar had returned to human form. Now he lay on his back, so that Turquoise woke to find herself snuggled against his side, one of his arms casually draped around her waist.