Nalini Singh: Visions of Heat

Something rustled to her right and she hunched closer over her bag, but when nothing happened, she allowed herself to relax. Strangely enough, though this was an unfamiliar place and situation, she was far more comfortable here than she would've been in a city. The rare times that she'd visited cities, she'd come away feeling bruised on the mental plane— as if she'd been under constant attack. Those experiences had always made her home seem more haven than prison.

She turned her head to scan the area again and felt every muscle in her body lock tight. Feral eyes looked calmly into hers. If she'd been human, she might've fainted. As it was, containing her reaction took every ounce of her control. "You're very quiet," she said, blindingly aware of the lethal danger scant inches away. "I guess it's one of the benefits of being a leopard."

A low, deep growl.

"I don't understand." What had she said to provoke that aggressive reaction?

Suddenly, the leopard loped off and she was left alone again. "Wait!" But he was gone. Logic stated she should get up and start walking. Sooner or later, she'd run into another member of DarkRiver. Leaving her pack on the ground, she stood and took a couple of steps in the same direction as the cat, hoping to see a path.

A hand closed around her neck and a hard male body pressed against her back, a line of living fire. She went completely motionless. He might be human now, but she knew with every ounce of her being that this was the same predator who'd growled at her a second before. The hand around her neck wasn't the least bit painful, but she felt the power in it, understood that he could crush her windpipe without effort.

"I am not a leopard," he said into her ear, and the sound was so rough she wondered if he'd come back fully from the animal.

"Oh." Her mistake was no surprise—she knew less than nothing about the reality of changelings. Her world had never been one where they intruded. "I apologize for offending you."

"Aren't you curious what I am?"

"Yes." She was also curious about his human face. "Can I turn around?"

His soft chuckle vibrated along her body and demanded her complete attention. "It's not that dark, Red—I didn't have any clothes with me."

It took a few moments for her brain to work through that statement. The second she did, she became hyperconscious of the sheer heat of the body aligned so closely to her own. The part of her that craved new experiences wanted to turn, but she knew that would be sheer foolishness. This man was hardly likely to indulge her intellectual curiosity about his body. He'd almost bitten off her head for daring to call him the wrong species.

"Please let go."

"No."

The flat no took her by surprise. Nobody said no to her, not like that. They always tried to couch it in more polite terms. That treatment may have kept her cooperative and rational, but it had also left her no tools with which to deal with the hard reality of a world where people didn't follow the accepted rules of behavior. "Why?"

"Why not?"

She raised her own hand to the one he had around her neck and tugged. No movement. The message was clear. He wasn't going to hurt her, but neither was he going to budge. "If you're not a leopard," she said, deciding to attempt a civilized conversation, "then what are you? You're in DarkRiver territory and according to my information, it's a leopard pack."

"It is." His thumb stroked absently over her skin. She cut off the physical reaction before it began. If her body felt, then soon her mind would want to experience emotion and that was unacceptable.

"You're not with DarkRiver?" Had she been fooled into trusting the wrong cat?

"I didn't say that."

"Why are you refusing to tell me anything?"

"For all I know, you're a spy or an assassin."

The logic of his statement couldn't be refuted. "I only want to speak to Sascha and leave. The Council would mete out severe punishment if they knew."

"So you say."

She became aware that he smelled of the earth and the forest, of a kind of animal energy that was alien to her. Alien, but not unpleasant. If she'd felt things like that, she might even have admitted that she ... appreciated the scent of him. "Jaguar," she said almost before the thought fired through her neurons. "Panthera onca.”

His hand stroked her neck. "Very good."

"I read a book approximately two months ago about different cat species." At the time she'd thought it a strange choice, but had been compelled to finish it nonetheless. "You can't blame me for not knowing immediately. Leopards and jaguars have very similar markings."

"I can blame you for whatever I like."

She was starting to feel like cornered prey. "Let me go."

"No."

Almost at the point where she was considering doing something psychic, no matter that she'd never been trained in offensive maneuvers, she heard the whisper of a vehicle. "Sascha?"

"Maybe."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. If you so much as breathe wrong, I'll kill you."

She believed him. "Maybe you should release me now and change back to your jaguar form."

"Why?"

"You're naked."

"They'll have brought me clothes. If not, who cares?"

"Oh." Her eyes went to the trees in front of her. Another male stepped out. He was dressed ordinarily enough in blue jeans and a white T-shirt, but his face bore some savagely primitive markings—as if he'd been mauled by some great beast and come out the winner. Now she was trapped between two predators, both primed to kill.

Then a slender female form moved out from behind the new male. Cardinal eyes met hers. "Hello."

"Sascha Duncan." She would've moved, but the jaguar continued to hold her by the throat. "Can you make him let go?"

The other woman tilted her head to the side. "Nobody can make Vaughn do anything he doesn't want, but I can ask. Vaughn?" Lifting a hand, she threw a pair of jeans in their direction.

A muscular arm shot out from beside Faith's head. The jaguar named Vaughn caught the material at the same instant that he released her. She knew better than to move.

"My name is Faith NightStar," she said, able to hear Vaughn pulling on the jeans.

Sascha tried to step closer, but the male with her used his back to keep her in place. His eyes never stopped tracking Faith.

"Why are you here?" Sascha asked.

"I need to speak to you."

"So speak." This time, it was the marked male who responded. Faith knew he had to be the DarkRiver alpha, the man Sascha Duncan had emotionally partnered with. Faith couldn't imagine how—there was nothing human in the eyes looking back at her.

"And be careful what you say," Vaughn whispered in her ear, his arm coming in front and around her shoulders to pull her against him.

This time, she struggled. "I can't process that much touch." It was a blunt statement. "You should let go unless you want me to have a seizure." Touch set off her senses and she couldn't handle the overload. It was something the M-Psy had warned her about repeatedly. After seeing images of other F-Psy going through the same thing, she had no desire to do so herself.

"Vaughn, she can hardly attack me with both you and Lucas here." Sascha Duncan looked at the man who was threatening Faith on a level she'd never before experienced, and had no idea how to deal with. "I'll let you know if she makes any moves on the psychic plane."

Vaughn's arm slid away after a slight hesitation. But she could still feel him at her back. The urge to turn around and see his face was so powerful it shook the foundations of her confidence in her ability to survive the outside world. Already, it was influencing her, making her act in ways that she couldn't afford to, not if she were to remain sane.

"What did you want to talk to me about?"