Anna Keaton: Falke’s Renegade

Javier hissed at her, baring his teeth.

“We should call Kelan,” the taller woman said, her expression showing the first signs of worry.

“Axel should know about this too.”

“No,” the beauty said. “No, please, Beth.” She stood and took the other woman’s hand in hers.

“Please don’t tell them yet. You know Axel will freak. He’ll probably demand we drop him out in the woods somewhere...far from here.”

“But—”

“Please. He’s wounded and in no condition to protect himself.” She licked her lips and glanced at him. “I’ve never met another of our kind. Don’t let my brothers mess this up.”

Our kind? Brothers?

There were more of them?

His heart began to race along with his thoughts. Though he’d heard tales of others, mostly bedtime stories he’d learned as a child, Javier had found evidence of only one outside of the Monteros. How many were there in the world? He’d traveled to dozens of countries and four continents tracking Durchenko, but he’d never come face-to-face with another shifter.

Until now...

“He’s probably a rogue,” Beth whispered.

“Maybe, but shouldn’t we try to find out before we condemn him? Let me have a couple of days.

I’m begging you. Just a few days before we let Axel know.”

Beth licked her lips, showing her indecisiveness. “He could be dangerous.”

“Which is why he’s in the cage...for now.” The beauty dropped Beth’s hand and turned back toward him, gripping the chain links of the door. “You’re not dangerous, are you?”

“Oh sure, he’ll just admit he’s as harmless as a kitten, and you’ll believe it.”

The beauty ignored her companion’s sarcasm and continued to look him in the eye. “I’ll keep you safe. Keep your secret. We’ve done it for generations.”

Her pretty eyes pleaded her case, and Javier contemplated speaking to her. But he wasn’t ready to take that chance. Never had he revealed his cat to anyone outside of blood kin, save Isabela. This woman seemed sincere, and to meet and speak to one of his kind who wanted to protect not kill...

But her brothers were dangerous, at least to him. She’d admitted as much in her attempts to keep the other woman from exposing his presence. The beauty might be sympathetic toward his plight, but the males in the area were another matter. They would kill him. They could scent him as surely as he scented this one.

He would keep quiet and plan his escape. These women could not hover over him forever...and the pretty one wished to keep him a secret. With a little luck, his escape should prove to be simple.

He pulled back his lips and snarled.

“Fine.” She sighed. “You’re not helping, you know. But have it your way.”

“Your way. Your way. Your way,” the bird screeched, making Javier cringe.

The pretty one turned away and picked something up off a table near one of the doors. She opened a small latch at the base of the gate and shoved in a chunk of raw meat.

“There’s your dinner. I wouldn’t try shifting with the cast on. It’d hurt like hell and probably do more damage.”

With that, she and Beth shut the door firmly behind them.

“Like hell,” the bird repeated. “Like hell.”

Shut . Up . Javier had no idea if he could communicate with birds as he did humans while in his cat, but he tried.

“Like hell. Like hell.”

Apparently not.

He dragged himself the few inches to the water bowl just inside the gate and lapped up the cool, soothing liquid.

Three days and he’d make his escape. Sooner if he could manage it, cast or no cast. Shifting would still hurt, but at least his bones would be knitted enough to support his weight. He hoped.

Provided the tawny-haired shifter woman convinced Beth to not tell her brothers about him. If they knew there was an injured shifter in their midst, they’d kill him.

Survival of the fittest.

He glanced at his leg. The bird was right. He was in hell.

Heidi slipped a bowl of fresh water through the small door at the base of the gate then picked up a platter and sat in front of the cage. For the next several heartbeats, she stared at the big black cat who watched her with those beautiful amber eyes.

“You have two choices this morning, big guy.” She pulled the tinfoil cover off the platter. “I have an inch-thick T-bone steak cooked medium rare, six scrambled eggs and a half loaf of buttered toast.”

She looked up from the massive feast in front of her and grinned. “You can have this if you talk to me.

If not, you get another raw roast. I don’t feed the average cat a gourmet breakfast.”

He stared at her unblinking.

She set the platter of food next to her on the floor. “It’s going to get cold. And I won’t reheat it for you.”

She knew she wasn’t wrong about him. There was too much human intelligence behind those exotic eyes. Besides, Beth’s test on the blood sample proved it. Humans—and shifters like the Falke men-had forty-six chromosomes. A normal cougar, or jaguar, had only thirty-eight. This massive, gorgeous animal was a shape-shifter whether he admitted it or not.

If she’d had even an inkling of doubt, it had gone up in smoke last night when she got home. Kelan and Reidar had scented something strange on her and Beth, their mate, though in human form they seemed unsure of its origin. She and Beth had rushed to take showers before mealtime, but both men still acted strangely all through dinner. And her fathers had looked at her with questions in their eyes.

She’d played dumb and hadn’t offered any information. For now, they’d let her have her secrets, but that wouldn’t last long.

She had to make sure Beth steered clear of the jaguar, and Heidi would need to shower more often with stronger soaps and shampoos if she wanted to have any chance of avoiding detection for as long as possible. And she’d have to stay away from all her brothers while they were shifted. With their senses heightened in catamount form, not even bleach would be able to completely mask another shifter’s scent.

Sometimes Heidi hated the fact she still lived in her childhood home with her two fathers, two of her six brothers and now her sister-in-law.

She hated that she didn’t have her brothers’ gifts, their keen senses, their abilities to shift, their...almost everything. She’d been odd girl out in a family of incredible catamount shifters and the youngest of the seven. She’d give almost anything to be able to change form and run through the forest with the freedom they had.

Most of all, though, she longed for a mate of her own. One with whom she could have little shifter babies. There was only one way that could happen, and until yesterday she’d thought it a complete impossibility. Unlike her brothers, who could pair up to mate with a human woman, as a lone catamount female, she could only produce children with a full-blooded male shifter. Aside from her own flesh and blood, that left out the entire male population of Leavenworth and probably all of Washington, if not the United States. Male shifters weren’t exactly easy to come by.

This beauty before her wasn’t a cougar, but he was a feline shifter. The closest she’d ever come to a lone male of her kind. And that made him extraordinary...a find worth protecting. Worthy of getting to know better.

She wanted—needed—to hear his story. Where was he from? Were there others like him out there?

If so, did any of them need a mate?

“Why won’t you talk to me?”

“Talk to me. Squawk .”

The cat shifted his gaze from her to Paco and back. His ear flicked, and he shut his eyes.

“You can trust me, and Beth too. I swear it. I just want to get to know you.”