Feral (19 page)

“Of old age. I was at her bedside when she passed.”

Touched by its loyalty, she smiled at the little stone, then gazed out the window. “I don’t know what to do with myself before it turns light.”

“Sleep, and I will wake you.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“You will function better if you are well rested before Lareina arrives.”

“Then I’ll try.” She got ready for bed, anxious for morning to come.

 

 

 

At dawn, Jenny drove to the rescue with the
sapiya
on the passenger seat. The little stone had awakened her, as promised, and now it was silent in its box.

She parked in her usual spot and walked the rest of the way toward the empty enclosures, carrying the
sapiya
. The lid was open on the box, and the tie clips and coins glittered beneath a pale mauve sky.

Shrubs grew alongside the dirt path, and when Jenny came to a profusion of tall plants, she stopped and plucked a large green leaf, recalling that the
sapiya
required fresh dew. She cupped the leaf and dripped the dew onto the stone. The water was immediately absorbed into its surface. Later she would give it blood, using meat from her refrigerator, as animal blood was the other sustenance it needed.

“Is Lareina already there?” she asked.

“No. She will appear after we arrive. You will see her manifest before your eyes.”

Jenny continued walking. Soon the enclosure would come into view. “Will she appear as a woman or a lion?”

“A woman.”

“I’m going to threaten to turn you against her if she doesn’t cooperate with me.”

“You can do whatever you feel is necessary.”

She reached the empty enclosure and set the box on the ground. A bird flew overhead and the rush of wings made her flinch. Nonetheless she said to the
sapiya
, “I’m ready anytime you are.” Even if her heart was pounding, even if her nerves were jumping.

She watched the enclosure and waited.

Lareina appeared. She had thick dark hair, seductive features, and a filmy dress clinging to her hourglass figure.

She gasped at her surroundings, spun around, and saw Jenny. She gasped again. Then she got downright indignant.

“What manner of devilry is this?” she asked in a Spanish-laced accent. “And why do you favor Taika?”

“I’m her descendant, and I want information about the spell she cast on you.”

“What type of enchantress are you that you seek what you should already know?”

Jenny went for the threat. “I’m the type who can turn my magic against you.”

Lareina took a cautionary step back. “What do you want to know about the spell?”

Rather than jump right into breaking it, Jenny replied, “First tell me about yourself and why you wanted to become a lion shifter.”

“I was born in Mexico in the nineteenth century. I was a peasant girl with a regal name. When I was twenty, I was taken captive by a Mayan god. He mocked me, calling me queen of the slaves. I despised him.”

Not much of a queen status, but it explained why her name was relevant. “Go on.”

“I served him for five years, then he traded me to an Incan god, and I became his slave. He was no better than the Mayan. Then I caught the attention of a Sky Dweller who noticed me from afar. We forged a forbidden attraction. Our lust was strong. But we couldn’t be together.”

Jenny recalled what Noah had said about Sky Dwellers being lion shapeshifters who couldn’t have sex with humans because their bodies were poisonous to each other.

“Soon the Incan god grew tired of me and sent me back to earth. The Sky Dweller couldn’t forget me, and he began sneaking visits to my home. It was torturous because we desperately longed to mate. Anxious for a solution, I looked for a sorcerer who could turn me into what he was, or something similar, at least. That’s what led me to Taika. She was an American living in Mexico City, and she had a powerful reputation.”

“What happened to your relationship with the Sky Dweller?”

“He was banned from the sky because of our deception, but we are still together and very much in love.”

It all sounded so nice, except this was the woman who’d ripped Noah to shreds. “You attacked a man outside of a cantina and turned him into what you are. His name is Noah, and
he
is the man I love.”

Lareina cocked her head. “Taika told me that he never shifted completely.”

“She checked on him?”

“Not in person. She looked into one of her crystals and saw him. Is he still half-cat?”

“Yes, and I want to know how I can break the spell to make him mortal again.”

“You can’t.”

Jenny didn’t believe her, but before she could look to the
sapiya
for the truth, Lareina added, “The spell Taika used had a stipulation: I had to turn one human male into a shifter. I had a month to accomplish the task or else I would revert back to being human. But none of the men I attacked survived, and I was running out of time. I kept searching for the right prey, combing all of Mexico. I chose Noah because I heard that his people possessed a special medicine.”

The tiger medicine, Jenny thought.

Lareina continued, “When he survived, the spell was fully enacted. My immortality became infallible and so did his.”

Jenny finally glanced down at the
sapiya
. “Please tell me she’s lying.”

The stone responded, “She speaks the truth.”

Jenny’s stomach sank, and Lareina walked over to the edge of the containment and peered down at the ground to see where the voice came from.

“Is that the magic you used to cage me?” she asked.

“Yes,” Jenny said. For all the good it did.

“Make it release me.”

“Not yet,” the
sapiya
said.

Jenny didn’t see why it mattered. What was the point of all this? The
sapiya
’s presence wasn’t making sense anymore and neither was Lareina’s. Jenny’s dream of making Noah mortal had just shattered into a zillion useless pieces.

Lareina made a puzzled expression. “I don’t understand.”

Me neither, Jenny thought.

The other woman expounded. “Why are you fretting over an old spell? Why don’t you create a new one and make yourself into a shapeshifter? Then you can be immortal, too.”

Jenny’s heart skipped. “Is that possible?” she asked the
sapiya
. Did she have sorcery powers that she wasn’t aware of? “Can I do that?”

“No,” it responded.

“Can I hire someone else to create a new spell?”

“No,” it said again. “Your blood tie to Taika would interfere. But Noah can turn you.”

Oh my God
. “How?”

“He would have to shift into a full lion.”

“Is he even capable of that after all these years?”

“It’s still inside him. He just has to let it out.”

“Then what? He would have to attack me?” She warded off a chill. “Lareina nearly killed him.” Then there was the matter of the men she
had
killed. “Can you guarantee that I would survive?”

“No, but it isn’t necessary for the exchange to be as brutal as what Lareina had done to him.”

Jenny started. “What are you saying? That Noah could maul me in a gentler way and it could still work?”

“Only a minimal amount of blood has to be shed, so basically a few scratches would do. But he would have to resist the blind need to go further.”

Lareina piped in from the sidelines. “And that wouldn’t be easy. The need to be brutal would overpower him and so would the hunger for sex. They are side effects from the spell and Taika cautioned me beforehand about them. At the time I was certain that I would be able to control those urges. But once I was under the spell, I failed to fight it.”

Jenny asked, “What happened after the spell was complete? How did you feel then?”

“The need to be brutal disappeared, and I felt remorse for killing those men and for hurting Noah so badly. I don’t regret my decision to spend eternity with my Sky Dweller, but if I could undo the damages I caused, I would.”

Jenny’s heart went tight. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with Noah, but there were frightening factors to consider.

“May I be released now?” Lareina asked. “Or do you have more questions?”

“You can go.” As far as Jenny was concerned, there was no reason to keep her any longer.

Apparently the
sapiya
agreed. The women exchanged a quiet glance, then,
poof
, Lareina disappeared.

Jenny frowned at the vacant enclosure. Then she returned to the house and gave the
sapiya
blood from a steak. She didn’t fix herself anything. She couldn’t eat. All she could do was obsess about Noah.

“Do you think he would be able to resist the urge to be vicious?” she asked.

“Do you truly believe that he loves you?” came the reply.

“Yes. But he keeps saying that he doesn’t.”

“He does love you. He just hasn’t admitted it to himself yet.”

Did that mean he
could
resist? That he would be gentle with her? “You think it would turn out all right, don’t you?”

“I cannot predict the outcome. All I know is that he loves you.”

“If it happened, would I have the urge to turn someone else, and would I have to fight the brutality that comes with it?”

“No. Your connection to Taika would stop you from experiencing those side effects.”

“How would the cats on my rescue react to me?”

“They would embrace the change. They accept shapeshifters as their own.”

She thought about Valiente and Sandy. “Then why are the mountain lions leery around Noah?”

“His scent is awkward to them because he hasn’t shifted all the way. They don’t understand what he is.”

But Jenny understood who and what he was, and although her “Beauty and the Beast” dream was gone, she was embarking on a new dream now.

She closed her eyes and envisioned herself as a shifter, a woman, a lion, moving between both worlds with the man she loved by her side.

She opened her eyes, wishing her grandfather was alive so she could talk to him about it. Would he support her dream? Would he embrace the idea of Jenny living forever and shifting into a cat?

Yes, she thought. He would. Grandpa would want her to follow her heart, to become what Noah was, as long as it was going to make her happy.

Grandpa knew what it was like to be alone, to lose almost everyone he’d loved. And if Jenny didn’t do this, she would grow old and alone. She couldn’t replace Noah. She would never love another man the way she loved him, and the only way to become his lifelong mate was for her to become a shifter.

While the
sapiya
finished soaking up the blood, Jenny called Noah and asked him to come over, praying he would listen to what she had to say.

Otherwise, what good was love if one of them was immortal and the other wasn’t?

N
oah couldn’t believe his ears. He sat across from Jenny at a picnic bench at Big Cat Canyon, where she’d asked him to meet her and where she’d just spouted off her tale.

“You can’t be serious,” he said. “I would never—do you hear me?—
never
deliberately do to you what was done to me.”

She argued her case. “The
sapiya
said that all it would take would be a few scratches. Just think of it as a gentle mauling.”

“That’s an oxymoron.”

“I love you, Noah. And the
sapiya
says you love me, too.”

“I’m sick of hearing about what that little stone told you. I’m not in love. I’m
fucking
not.”

“Listen to the denial in your voice. Just listen to yourself. You sound like a child who’s about to stomp his feet.”

She was mocking him? Accusing him of throwing a temper tantrum? Ballsy chick. He could turn into his half-cat state and scratch the crap out of her just to teach her a lesson. Let alone how badly he could maul her if he went full-blown, as he was supposedly capable of doing.

“Get up,” he said.

“What?”

“Get up and come with me.” He went over to her side of the bench and grabbed her arm. “Now.”

She tried to shrug away from him. “Stop it.”

“Why? Is my grip too tight? Am I hurting you? Imagine that.” He tugged a little harder. “I said come with me.”

He practically dragged her along.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“You’ll see.” He knew it wouldn’t take long for her to become aware of where he was taking her. She obviously knew where every path on her property led. Still, he kept a tight hold on her.

Once she became aware, she said, “We’re going to the mountain lions’ enclosures? Why?”

To make a much-needed impact, he thought.

As soon as they approached the area, Valiente growled, but Noah figured the lion would start acting up. In fact, he’d counted on it.

“If you’re trying to use them as a reason that I can’t become a shapeshifter and still run this place, you’re wrong,” she said. “They would accept me just fine. They’re leery of you because you haven’t shifted all the way. Your presence wouldn’t disturb them if your scent was more like theirs.”

“I’m not trying to use them for that reason. And you’re not telling me something that I don’t already know.”

“Then what’s your point?”

He grabbed her shoulders and turned her directly toward Valiente. “Look at him. Look at the mood he’s in.” The lion stalked back and forth, its body taunt. “Would you purposely let him maul you? Would you trust him to give you just a few scratches?”

She went mum.

“Answer the question,” he snapped.

“No, but he isn’t you.”

“That’s a stupid answer. I would be just as dangerous as he is. Maybe more so because of the hunger that would overcome me. If Lareina couldn’t keep herself in check, why would I be any different?”