Savage Hunger

Chapter 19

After finding the scent of the male jaguar on a tree that had a great view of the river where Connor, Kat, and Maya had swum, but not locating the jaguar now, Connor left his pack and his clothes in the jungle near a stream. He shifted and climbed onto a fallen tree in his stocky jaguar form to search for their meal. A giant river otter jerked his head around to see the jaguar, then quickly slipped under the water with his belly exposed, sweeping his tail and legs until he dove under a stack of downed tree trunks in the water and disappeared. Not that Connor had any interest in eating the otter.

Then Connor spied a pirarucu, the air-breathing, carnivorous catfish, one of the most ancient prehistoric fish from two hundred million years ago, that would eat fish, small animals, and birds. It was the largest freshwater fish in the world.

This one Connor estimated to be a couple of hundred pounds and about six feet long, although he had heard of one that had been caught weighing nearly 675 pounds and measuring ten feet in length. From his tree-trunk perch and with his spotted tail slashing the air, Connor watched the catfish swimming through the brown water. He was ready for dinner.

He leaped into the water and pounced on the pirarucu, which swiftly continued downstream and slipped out of Connor’s grasp. Connor waded after the catfish, ears perked, whiskers and tail twitching, muscles bunching as he readied himself for another try. He leaped again, his claws raking down the carnivore’s tough scaled skin, which was capable of protecting it from caiman, freshwater dolphins, and other predatory fish. But not jaguars. The scales of the catfish were sandpaper rough, so much so that the natives used the three-and-a-half-inch scales as sandpaper and a scraping tool.

The catfish slid away from Connor’s grasp again, turned, and headed upstream this time. The water Connor was wading in was jaguar-shoulder deep. He jumped straight out of the water again and leaped for the fish, his head submerging when he landed on his prey so he could get a grip with his teeth. The pirarucu wriggled free again, its tail waving in the water like a giant paddle and propelling it forward.

Connor stalked the Jurassic-era catfish again, wading through the water, eyeing the movement of the fish, and calculating his best timing for an ambush. He jumped straight out of the water, landed on his prey’s back, grabbing its head this time, and held it under the water.

The catfish struggled, and the fish’s tail slapped the water once, twice, and then it grew still. Connor released his hold on the fish, ready to grab it again, but the pirarucu was no longer moving. Now for the difficult part—getting it back to the campfire.

He would drag it back nearer the campfire so he could make sure the women were okay, and then he would return for his backpack and clothes, and shift.

When Kat asked if Maya had had a lot of male friends, Maya grinned, and Kat was relieved that she hadn’t taken offense.

“Not enough boyfriends for me,” Maya said. “But you see, I really have a terrible time getting close to men. I’m like Connor, worried I might become attached to someone and then have to turn the person. What if it didn’t work out? So I meet men far from home, stay with them for a few hours, and leave them. They prefer it that way anyway. No strings attached. No whining woman who wants to get married and have babies.”

Kat didn’t think of herself as a whining woman, but she did want to get married and have a couple of children someday. “But you do, don’t you, Maya? You want to have babies.”

Maya looked into the fire. “Yeah, I do.”

“So, what have you done to locate others like yourselves?”

Maya shook her head. “We’ve searched some out here and in Mexico and Belize, but we haven’t found any who are shifters. Just regular jaguars.”

“What about social networking sites?”

Her expression a little surprised, eyes wider than normal, brows raised, Maya glanced at her. “Like…?”

“You know, Facebook, Myspace, other networking sites.”

“Hmm,” Maya said, calculation in her golden eyes. “We have our garden nursery on a website, and we’re on Facebook, but we use it strictly for business.”

“Do you ever talk about your hobbies? Take pictures of the wildlife in the Amazon? Share pictures of yourselves as jaguars? You could show you support their cause. Have a blog about them. Provide subtle hints about being shifters. Something maybe only another shifter would recognize.” Not that Kat would know how to find a secret society of jaguars, but surely Maya and Connor would know how to do it. “Heck, you can scare up just about anything on Twitter.”

“Connor would say no, that it’s too risky.” But Maya looked hopeful that Kat would be in her corner on this.

Kat smiled. “I have a website and blog that I share pictures and stories on. But there’s no real focus to it. Maybe when we reach your home, we can come up with something that even Connor wouldn’t mind.”

“What wouldn’t Connor mind now?” he asked, stalking into their makeshift camp for lunch with nothing to show for his hunting expedition, his hair wet, his shirt open, and water droplets cascading down his well-toned hot body, his voice as dark as his expression.

“Did you locate him?” Maya asked, not even mentioning the lack of food for the meal.

Kat frowned. Him? She thought he was scaring up their food.

“I was fishing,” he said, not looking Kat’s way, his clothes sticking to his damp skin.

“Yeah, and I know damn well you went in search of the jaguar also. So did you find any sign of him?”

“Yeah, Maya. He’d been watching us from one of the trees close to the river when we were swimming. But he moved off, probably as soon as we came into shore.” He glanced at Kat. “So what wouldn’t Connor mind?”

She had forgotten what she and Maya had been talking about until she saw Maya glance her way with a worried expression that said, “The ball’s in your court—you deal with him.”

Leaving Kat and his sister alone in the jungle near the river, even to go fishing, was difficult enough. But Connor had had to search for the jaguar to learn what he could about him. At least now, Connor had picked up the other jaguar’s scent and would know him if he ran across the cat if he was in human form later.

But now Kat and his sister were up to something he assumed was related to Maya’s idea of trying to secure a mate for herself with Kat’s help. And that could get both women into a lot of trouble.

Back stiff and not looking in the least bit intimidated, Kat lifted her chin. “We thought we might do a little social networking to see if we could locate another cat-shifter.”

He shook his head and motioned to the jungle. “I left dinner back there because I wanted to be close enough that if you had any trouble, I could be here quickly. I’ll go cut it up and bring it to the fire.”

“What did you get?” Maya asked, following him as Kat hurried to join them.

“Pirarucu,” he said, then added for Kat’s benefit in the event she had never heard of it, “one mother of a catfish.”

“Good, I’m starving,” Kat said. “I could eat the whole thing.”

“How big this time?” Maya asked, grinning. She knew as well as he did that Kat wouldn’t be able to eat even a tiny fraction of it.

But they would cook it and leave it for the natives who were following them. Maybe even the jaguar, if he cared to eat the remains, although Connor wasn’t feeling magnanimous about giving him a free meal.

“Wow,” Kat said when she saw the giant fish lying in the dappled shade of the trees. “That’s a catfish?”

“Leftover from prehistoric times,” Maya said. “I think that’s the biggest one you’ve ever hunted, Connor.”

Kat looked at the fish with such awe that Connor smiled. Then she looked up at him with such disbelief that his smile broadened.

“Wow,” she said. “How could you have managed such a huge fish? Why even in your jaguar form, it was bigger than you.”

“It wasn’t easy,” Connor admitted, not knowing why, when he normally wouldn’t have acknowledged to a woman—any woman—that he had struggled to handle any task. “But in the end, my teeth are much bigger.”

“And we’re persistent,” Maya said, “if we want to eat.”

“I fished when I had turned into a jaguar that one time, but I didn’t go after anything this huge. The fish I pulled out was… little. I don’t think I would have tried to hunt something half as big as this,” Kat said, still sounding astounded.

“No need to. You were hungry, caught what you needed, and that was that,” Maya said. “So, do we all carry him back to the campfire or carve him up here?”

“Let’s carry him to the campfire. We can skin him there,” Kat said. “I was hungry but if I could freeze the rest of him, this would have kept me in meat the rest of the year. What will we do with what we can’t eat?”

Connor took the most weight as they all three carried the catfish to the campfire, where they set about skinning him. “The natives who are following us will have a feast.” Then he looked up at Kat. “About the networking sites for meeting those of our kind… we have to be careful that no one ever learns what we are. I heard you mention Facebook and Twitter. Any open forum like that could mean real trouble for us.”

“Couldn’t we disguise it enough? I don’t mean to say that we would have a jaguar lover’s dating site or anything.”

He couldn’t help smiling at that. Maya chuckled.

For the first time, he felt real relief. Kat was accepting them as family, ready to help Maya find a mate. Although that could be a dangerous venture, he appreciated that she wanted to assist his sister. And of course, Maya was beaming with enthusiasm. But he was still against doing anything like that on the Internet.

Wondering about the jaguar following them and if he had some connection to Kat, Connor asked, “Do you have any correspondence from that Wade Patterson?”

“Several emails.” Kat let out her breath. “Why do you ask?”

“He comes here to the Amazon on trips. Contacted you because you were writing about jaguars and interested in locating me, a man who has a pet jaguar.”

“You don’t think he’s a shifter, do you? The jaguar following us?”

Connor stabbed at another chunk of fish. “An American had corresponded with a woman who was interested in jaguars, lured her into the Amazon, and intended to show her the jaguar cats and get her in touch with me? How? The jaguars don’t make regular appearances for anyone’s sake. And I don’t recall ever having smelled another male shifter in the area.”

Kat let out her breath. “I don’t think he’s a bad guy.”

“What if this Wade Patterson was planning on selling you off as a hostage? Taking advantage of you himself? What if he is a shifter and thought since you’re so fascinated with jaguars, he would turn you himself?”

But then why not meet her in Florida first? Get to know her better, then turn her there?

Unsettled, Connor fisted his hand around the knife as he continued to carve up the fish.

“What if this Wade Patterson is the one following us now? Angry that he had missed his opportunity, that another shifter was claiming you instead? And here I was one of the same jaguars that Wade had enticed you to come to the jungle to see.”

Now that would be ironic and would serve Wade right for luring her here in the first place with dishonorable intentions.

“I don’t know,” Kat said, looking thoughtful and frowning as she stared into the fire.

Connor would find out all about the man as soon as they had the chance to read over her emails. Then he would look into the man’s background in Florida. But he had one other thought that had bothered him, too. “What if he’s one of Gonzales’s lackeys?”

She chewed on her bottom lip, then shook her head. “I don’t think so. Wouldn’t he have already relayed where we were to Gonzales? I don’t think we’d be hiking free out here if he worked for the drug lord.”

Connor had to agree with that and nodded stiffly.

After cooking and eating as much as they could of the catfish, Connor called out to the natives he was sure were hidden from their sight, motioned to the fish in a gesture of giving, and then situated his backpack over his shoulders and grabbed Kat’s, too.

“I can carry my own weight,” she said, “now that I’ve had a nice rest.” She looked determined as she reached out her hand to seize the strap of her bag.

He shook his head, not about to allow her to carry the pack. “We have a long hike ahead of us. Besides, we’re on our first date. Remember? I wouldn’t think of letting you carry your own backpack while we’re on a date.”

“In an environment like this, everyone has to carry their own weight. And really, I am better,” she said as Maya looked at her, appearing concerned Kat might not make it, either.

“We can set up camp along the way if we need to,” Maya said. “Hell, I might not be able to make it to the city before it gets dark. And I haven’t been recovering from being so sick. Appreciate Connor’s gallantry. He doesn’t often offer it.”

“Oh?” Kat said, sounding like either she didn’t think Connor could ever have been anything but gallant, or maybe she was fishing for a story.

Connor smiled a little at Kat.

Maya immediately began sharing the tale with way too much enthusiasm. “We were swimming in a Texas lake when a snapping turtle grabbed my big toe. Scared the shit out of me and hurt like the devil. As soon as I started screaming, Connor shot out of that lake like water demons were after him, leaving me behind, I might add.”

Her brows elevated, Kat glanced back at Connor, who shrugged.

“I didn’t know what was getting her. I figured it was every man for himself, although we were only eight years old at the time. If I’d been a jaguar when it happened, I would have made mincemeat of him.” His voice commanding, he said to Maya, “Tell her the rest of the story.”

Maya cast him a slip of a smile. “He did make mincemeat of the turtle. Well, turtle soup. He returned as a jaguar that night, once the park was closed and no one was about, so he could hunt the turtle that could have taken my toe off.”

“So he ended up being gallant after all,” Kat said, backing Connor up, which he thoroughly appreciated, until Maya spoke again.

“Right,” Maya said in a sarcastic way. “He hunted the turtle because he didn’t want to swim in the lake as a human with the turtle hunting him the next time.”

Kat laughed.

Connor loved the way she laughed, loved that she didn’t seem to mind that at least once in his life he hadn’t been perfectly heroic.

Maya said, “Then there was the time—”

“Enough, Maya, or I’ll tell about all your foibles.”

Maya laughed. But Kat looked back at him, grinning, and he was sure she was dying to know what else he had done.

They trudged through the jungle for hours, taking breaks to sip water because of the heat and humidity, and even Maya looked done in. She finally stopped in front of Kat, turned, and said, “As much as I wanted to keep going until we reached the city, I can’t make it.”

Kat looked worried that Maya might be ill but at the same time relieved that they could stop.

Connor had wanted to spend the night with Kat in a room of their own more than anything in the world, but he couldn’t push the women any further. Maya was right about stopping for a while. “We’ll make camp here and set up the hammocks in this tree.”

Maya dropped her backpack on the ground as Connor ditched his and Kat’s and began to set up a hammock off the ground. Before long, they were lounging in the hammocks, covered in netting, their backpacks secured in the tree.

“Do you think the natives are still following us?” Kat asked, fanning herself with a broad leaf, although it was cooler now than it had been earlier in the day.

“Yes,” Connor said.

“And the jaguar?”

“Yes,” Connor said in the affirmative again.

“He’s going to have a hard time following us in the city, wearing a jaguar skin,” Kat said, shifting in her hammock.

“Unless he’s got provisions somewhere outside the city, I agree.”

“He has to be a shifter, doesn’t he?” Kat asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure he is.” Connor knew at this point that the jaguar couldn’t be anything other than a shifter or he wouldn’t be following them.

“Then if he is and he’s been following us as a jaguar all this time, he must have a place outside the city where he can sneak in and shift and dress. Maybe we should try to meet up with him, talk to him, see if he… well, just find out what he wants,” Kat said.

“No.” If the man was Wade Patterson, he had lured Kat to the Amazon under false pretenses. He had to know that Connor and his sister were shifters, but he thought they were a mated pair, not siblings, so he hadn’t approached them.

“Sleep, you two,” Maya grumbled. “How’s a girl going to get her beauty rest?”

Connor grunted under his breath. He knew Maya wanted to meet the man. But she had to know the reservations he harbored.

Much later that night, he heard gunshots deep in the jungle and instantly realized two things—he had fallen soundly asleep, and Kat wasn’t in her hammock.