Jungle Blaze Read online

  “Taylor...” Angelica leaned over to pat his arm. “Take a breath. You have all day before your report to the FAA—you can manage.” She managed to somehow convey that she was confiding in him, while at the same time pitching her voice to make sure it carried.

  The hostess did a classic double-take and her artificial smile seemed to be screwed on tighter. “Can I get you anything else, sir?” she asked, all sweetness and light.

  “No,” Taylor said with just as much saccharine. “I have everything I need.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, and moved on to the next passenger.

  “Club soda?” Angelica asked the woman’s retreating figure.

  It was almost impossible not to laugh at how quickly the woman’s back stiffened, or how quickly that club soda appeared.

  The rest of the flight was thankfully unremarkable, though it took him a good five minutes to untie his legs from the seat. He stretched and heard a distinctive popping sound that really shouldn’t have been there.

  “Yeah.” He looked down at Angelica, whose face reflected equal parts horror and concern. “I’m changing tickets for the trip back. Any airline but that one. Or we drive.”

  If Dulles was a warren to get through, the airport in Minneapolis was under construction. This was a perpetual state with this particular airport. Apparently they started on one end, worked to the other, and started over again. If he ever flew in and there weren’t plastic tarps surrounded by workmen somewhere, he’d think he was in the wrong place.

  They made two wrong turns before getting to the car rental counter. The girl behind the desk didn’t look old enough to drive, much less work there. She checked her records, tsking through a mouth filled with braces, and frowned, her eyes becoming lost under her shaggy black hair cut to hide her from the world, which seemed at odds with the multiple face piercings designed to draw attention.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but we’re out of mid-sized cars at the moment. I can get you a sub-compact...” She looked up at him, took in his shoulders and height and said, “Well, maybe not. I do have a pickup truck I can substitute for no extra charge; it’s quite nice, and brand new.”

  Taylor snorted. “That’s going to make us blend in with the natives.” He shot a look at Angelica, who was snickering, and agreed to the change.

  Gathering their bags, they found the rental truck and tossed the luggage in the back. It was a warm, clear day—Minnesota summer at its best. They headed out to his rural roots, stopping for a decent lunch. It was a relief to sit in a seat meant for someone his size.

  “Do your exercises,” he reminded her as he drove.

  “I can’t!” Angelica protested, shoving her hair off her sweaty forehead. “They don’t work. I keep telling you that.”

  “It’s how—”

  “Maybe it’s how you learned to control it, how everyone learns to control it. I get that, but it isn’t working for me. Maybe I’m just too stupid to figure out how to be a shifter, but it’s not working!” They drove for a while in silence. “This isn’t the way to cure me!” she muttered finally. He could see her out of the corner of his eye, staring at her hands clasped in her lap as though they would change at any minute.

  “It’s not a disease,” Taylor said after a moment.

  “Then why are you treating it like one? Taylor, I’m a doctor, I know about physical therapy, I know about exercise. These are not working for me. I’m sorry if I don’t ‘get it’, but I don’t.”

  “That’s what we’re here for!” Taylor snapped. He even sounded petty to himself. “Like I said before, I only know what it’s like for me. I don’t have the tools or training to look into your DNA. Maybe someone back home will know. I don’t know. They’ve been doing this for hundreds of years. Maybe they can determine what’s wrong. What with the way it was forced on you... I don’t think there’s ever been an artificial shifter before.” He let that trail off. It was old ground they’d covered extensively before they’d left on this journey.

  “Artificial? Excuse me?”

  He winced. This too was becoming a sore spot between them. “Well... man-made, then. All the training for this was created for natural shifters.”

  They drove in silence for a while. Taylor fumed. The fact was, she was artificially created as a shifter, she did have the ability forced on her from someone cutting her DNA to match another’s, and the sooner she accepted that the sooner she would be able to use the techniques to control her shifts.

  Only, she stubbornly refused to listen.

  “You sure you didn’t just drag me here to meet your folks?” she asked after a moment. He looked away from the road long enough to see the hesitant smile on her face. He had to give her credit for this, for making the effort to meet him halfway.

  He smiled back. Okay, so truce then. “Well, not just for that.” He looked at her for a moment and took a guess. “Is that what you’re worried about? Meeting my family?”

  “Well—” She shrugged, but the tension didn’t leave her shoulders. “It’s about equal, really.” She held up fingers. “On one hand, there’s changing into a lion unexpectedly and painfully.” She held up the other hand. “And then there’s meeting your parents.” She balanced them, the second hand suddenly heavier.

  “Well, of course they’ll love you,” he assured her then hesitated, his natural honesty leading him to tell the rest. “Eventually.”

  “Uh... eventually?”

  “Look, the... we don’t often bring in non-changers. It’s awkward and it can be dangerous. The fact that you’re a lion and not a tiger will be... unexpected. I had no idea there was a variety of changers. I’ve never met any outside of my family group.” He waved that off. “But non-changers aren’t all that uncommon, really. If we stuck to our own, we’d be inbred.” He held up a hand. “Don’t say it.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything at all,” she said sweetly, batting her eyelashes at him dramatically.

  “You’re really not all that good at that innocent thing, you know that, right?”

  Angelica stuck her tongue out at him. It was a good thing he was driving; he could pretend not to notice. “Yeah, I admit that I’m nervous about the whole meet the parents thing. The other I can deal with if I have to. At least I haven’t changed in public.”

  “Not yet,” Taylor reminded her ominously. “But it’s close enough that it could happen.”

  “That’s a cheery thought.”

  “You did get outside more than once,” he reminded her, “and had to change back once I caught you. That was very much in public. It’s just a good thing the complex doesn’t have security cameras or there would be animal control prowling the streets.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded slowly. “I don’t really want to change back and find I’m naked in a cage in a zoo.”

  “You need to check your posture,” he reprimanded her. “Stand and sit straight.”

  “‘Be as human as I can in thought and carriage’,” she said, repeating the words he’d been drilling into her since she’d become a lion the first time.

  “I know, I know, but it’s important. At least till we get someplace safe.”

  “So why did we stop to eat if I’m such a risk?”

  “Because I was hungry,” he snapped, finishing the last of the roast beef sandwich he’d had nestled in his lap, untouched for the past five miles. “And you’ll note we didn’t eat in the restaurant.” Angelica winced. “Besides, it’s a long drive yet. We’ve got a couple hours on the road.”

  “I think I might take a nap for a while if you don’t mind.”

  “That’s fine.” Taylor nodded and wadded up the wrapping the sandwich had been in and threw it back into the bag. “You can do your exercises later. Considering it’s a pickup, it’s actually kind of comfortable. If you can wait until we pull off, you can rearrange yourself to your heart’s content.”

  Not many miles further on they came to a coffee shop. Taylor bought a large coffee for the road, then shifted the suitcases out of
the cab and stashed them in the bed of the truck. There was a small area behind the seats. It was meant for passengers, judging from the padded seats and seatbelts, but when someone Taylor’s size drove, he had to have his seat all but touching that one. He’d joked that it was reminiscent of the plane trip in and shuddered at the memory.

  Angelica found a teddy bear for sale at the register and picked it up for a makeshift pillow. “At least we haven’t run into werebears yet,” she said under her breath and he reached over and rapped the shelf twice with his knuckles. Back in the cab she reclined her seat all the way and curled up to nap.

  The tires sang on the highway in a way that only new rubber does. The truck was new, the chassis was tight, and driving was a pleasure. Taylor put in ear buds and cranked the ZZ Top collection on his phone as they headed down the highway.

  He’d been watching the road, his ears blocked by ‘Sharp Dressed Man’, and didn’t notice the napping lioness beside him for quite a few miles. He nearly drove off the road when the tail came and slapped him in the middle of his forehead.

  “So much for not changing in public,” he mused, staring at her shredded clothing. Change hurt. Change meant breaking bones, organs shuffled and compressed. Change while being dressed meant strangulation and restriction. It was actually moderately dangerous, depending on what one was wearing at the time.

  She’d slept through all of it.

  What was worse was the realization that he needed to wake the lioness.

  In a very, very confined space.

  Chapter 4

  She woke and knew instantly she’d shifted. Her yellow eyes glanced at the large man in the small space beside her. She growled, not at him but at the fact she’d gone and done it. Now she was hungry.

  Focus.

  She closed her eyes and let herself shift back, trying to ignore the pain and hoping her claws hadn’t wrecked the rental.

  Taylor had new clothes in his hand. A simple slip-on dress that she’d packed in her carry-on. Lucky he’d tossed it at her before they left. She put it on and stared out the window as Taylor sighed and shifted the truck back into drive.

  It was better just to stay awake. Awake, she could straighten her back and think of being a person. No, more than think about it. She needed to focus on being a person. This was the first exercise. The problem was, trying to not think about something was like that old joke where you tell a child to NOT think of a purple gorilla. Once the idea is planted, it’s all the child can think of. So here Angelica was to not think of being a lioness.

  Only, once triggered, the change was always just on the edge of happening.

  Fighting it was a moment by moment battle. One that was both taxing and draining.

  This is how he learned. This is how they all learned, apparently. Why can I not get this? What is it that I’m missing?

  It was more than frustrating; it was dangerous. It was also true that she had been outside as the lioness and that she had been lucky not to have been spotted. He’d been right to point out that the apartment complex could easily have had security cameras. Or what if someone had been outside at the time? People walked dogs. Or came home from work. Or one of a multitude of reasons that would have them driving around in the middle of the night. She’d been damn lucky, and it was time she realized that.

  I know I’m getting snappish. I just... I wish we could talk about something else for a change. He used to say, “I love you”, and now it’s, “Do your exercises.” Is there a possibility that he resents me being able to shift, too? It’s not like I’m trying to take away his uniqueness. But I didn’t exactly volunteer for this!

  Then there was the other battle. The one she tried to avoid mentioning to Taylor. The one where she woke in the middle of the night, every night, lying in the darkness listening to Taylor breathing, seeing Melinda in her mind’s eye as the woman’s body jerked and fell under the rain of bullets from Angelica’s gun.

  If she hadn’t shot, Taylor would be dead. Melinda had already put one bullet in his shoulder. If she had been any better of a shot, she would have put it where changing wouldn’t have helped. Angelica had been in the position of being forced to choose between what had been hardwired into the very fabric of her own personal belief system, and the man she loved. Maybe she was naïve. She’d certainly been accused of it before. But it had seemed, and still did seem, wrong to take life from another human being despite who they were or what they did.

  Now it haunted her dreams. It haunted her waking hours, too. It was an image that would be burned in her mind forever. Someone’s ability to become a better person, to make a positive impact on the world, had been stripped from them.

  And you also took away her ability to do evil—which is exactly what she had been doing. You did the right thing. You did the only thing you could. How many people had she already killed in her experiments? How many more people would need to die before it would have been okay to kill her?

  She was a doctor; killing was an anathema, a slap to everything she believed in. And so the debate still raged.

  Maybe the hardest thing to confront was her own conviction that, in order to save his life, she would do it all over again. That was what kept her awake, what stuck in her mind like a burr she couldn’t dislodge.

  And she couldn’t even talk about it.

  She’d come to him about it once, trying to make him understand her own mixed feelings and the problems she was having, and all he did was remind her that she’d done what she’d had to; she’d killed to save him. The idea that she’d killed he hadn’t seemed to understand. He had absolutely no idea how much of a hole that single act had burned into her soul.

  “Do your exercises,” he reminded her as the scenery passed by in a blur.

  FUCK my exercises.

  Angelica held her arm up in front of her, as if she were concentrating on it, and instead found herself staring at the scenery as though the answers would be written on the thick pine forest just beyond her window. She longed for the chats, the talks that passed the time on long trips, the comradery of laughter and the intimacy of sharing the sights. Not that they’d been carefree when they’d left the jungle in South America together, but there had never been this terrible silence between them. And the trip she’d taken with him before leaving for Africa had been... well, they’d only had a rushed weekend on the coast, at a little resort so, long travel time hadn’t happened. But even there, everything had been... well, fresh and new. They’d spent ages in finding out the little details, favorite colors and movies, and whether he liked Thai food better than Mexican.

  Now, when they had all this time on the road, the only thing they seemed to talk about involved lions. Or tigers.

  She picked up her stuffed bear and tacked on the ‘oh my’ just to be facetious.

  She traded one arm for the other while he tapped the steering wheel and half sang under his breath about a Mexican Blackbird.

  When was the last time we talked about anything else? Really talked?

  She let the bear drop into her lap.

  When was the last time we played?

  Even the sex had become an opportunity for a fucking lesson. Angelica snorted. Right now, she wouldn’t mind a “fucking” lesson. The last time he’d taken her he had her worked up, her juices flowed, her heart sang, and she was squirming in the most delicious way. And just as he parted her sex with his and began to enter her, he told her to keep her humanity in mind.

  It was a glass of ice water on her passion. Just at the moment he entered her, she lost all desire to be touched because it was just ANOTHER FUCKING LESSON.

  Angelica put her arm down and looked at him. The earphones were still firmly in place and he was lost between ZZ Top and the road. Angelica stared at the teddy bear, thinking that he was fast becoming the better conversationalist. And was cozier for snuggling up to in bed.

  Be fair. You bitch about him not considering your feelings, but what about his?

  He looked like he was interested
in the music, in the road trip, but there was a crease in his forehead that hadn’t been there before Randall had called, and it hadn’t left since.

  He’s worried about his people.

  It was a small distinction, but shouldn’t that be ‘our’ people? If not because she was a shifter, too, then just because they were a couple and because his family would... might... be hers someday? Or was it all none of her business because...

  She didn’t want to finish the thought. Right now, everything felt too much like it was falling apart. Sadly, the bear held no answers for her, nor could he do anything to change anything. She tucked him under her arm and watched the trees whip past the window.

  “Taking a break?”

  Angelica smiled and reminded herself for the thousandth time that he was just trying to help her. “Yeah.” She nodded, not really looking at him.

  “Well, that’s okay,” he said, pulling out the ear buds. “I know you don’t like them, but they’re important exercises, you know?”

  “Yes. I understand.” She took a steadying breath. “So, do you think your folks are...”

  She didn’t know how to put the thoughts into words. Not without offending him. Lately all she’d done was offend him.

  “I mean, do you think they’ll run? Move, I mean?” She glanced over at him, tilting her head to see his eyes, which narrowed a little as he thought.

  “‘Run’ is probably the right way to put it, but don’t say that word around my father unless you’re talking about a horse. These people don’t run from anything.” He tried to smile, but instead he just looked sad. “I hope so, I really do. But they’ve been there a long time.”

  “You know that none of this is your fault, right? That being found out, that’s not because of you.”

  He acknowledged the comment with a slight nod, but didn’t reply.

  “Taylor?”

  “I shifted in front of her,” he said without looking at her. His concentration on the road was fierce, and certainly didn’t merit the attention. It was a bright, sunny afternoon, the road was straight, and they had only seen a half-dozen cars in the last hour. “I was so sure that I could... that she wouldn’t...”