He turned away, noting both Tiger and Lion were now watching. Spectators rather than competitors.
Melina persisted. Purring and crouching.
He rebuffed her yet again, annoyed by her continued overtures. Only his conscience over inadvertently encouraging her as they traveled made him hesitate to embarrass her further in front of an audience.
As if incensed by his continued rejection, or subconsciously aware of the threat Rebekka posed, Melina became more aggressive. She rubbed, marked him with the scent of her heat.
In a heartbeat Aryck reacted, his patience and restraint at an end. He snarled and pinned her underneath him, not the rough play before big cats mate, but the warning of an enforcer.
Sharp teeth slid through fur and skin and he tasted blood. A low, rumbled growl deep in his throat promised an attack that would leave her scarred in both forms if she persisted in trying to entice him into covering her.
Melina became completely submissive, acknowledging her acceptance of his will, and in an instant she was forgotten, her behavior triggering images of Rebekka doing the same, her hair caught up in his fists, her thighs splayed and her body joined to his.
Need flashed through Aryck, human lust and Jaguar possessiveness, a scorching heat commanding him back into the building.
He took his human form and dressed. The man impatient for dawn, telling himself he cared only about getting Rebekka to the cubs, the Jaguar intent on reaching lands the Lion outcast at her side couldn’t enter.
Thirteen
ARYCK steadied Rebekka as her foot caught on an exposed root. Exhaustion clung to her, and this time he didn’t fight the urge to keep his hand wrapped around her arm.
Her opposite shoulder sagged under the weight of the blanket now serving as a satchel. It was laden with what she claimed to need save for one ingredient, a root he was unfamiliar with.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, not attempting to pull away from him as she had the other times, her jerky movement accompanied by an elusive hint of sexual interest rather than distaste at being touched by a Were.
Though Levi and his brother had left them miles earlier, peeling away to go to the pride’s summer gathering place, his scent still clung to Rebekka. It mixed in with that of woman, of sweat and dirt and the plants Rebekka carried.
Aryck’s lips lifted in a silent snarl at smelling the outcast, at remembering Levi embracing Rebekka and making her renew her promise to send Canino when she was ready to go back to Oakland. Not for the first time he wondered if Levi had been made outcast by the ancestors because of her, if she was Levi’s downfall as well as Cyrin’s and Canino’s.
Their smell was nearly pure cat and neither of them had changed into human form. It made him think the ancestors had been merciful, allowing them to retain their beast form.
They could live their lives in Were lands, could even take mates and breed there as long as they didn’t go feral. And if they were willing to risk it, they could enter the bone cave in a Petitioner’s Rite and perhaps regain their human forms with an ancestor’s intercession.
Aryck took his hand from Rebekka’s arm as he considered the possibility she might carry a witch-charm that worked on male Weres, making those around her feel protective.
As they’d traveled directly through Wolf territory rather than staying to the border routes where there was some neutrality, he’d felt watched. Yet no one had emerged from hiding to challenge or attack.
Then again, it could be word had spread of what happened to the cubs, and the Wolves had decided to let a human pass through their lands without openly acknowledging it. They might be waiting on the outcome, concerned there were similar weapons buried among the ruins on their lands.
Aryck glanced at Rebekka, seeing fatigue on her face. They’d traveled with little rest and been forced to push hard to make up time when the plants she needed required detour or delay.
More than once he’d seen her touch the journal in her pocket, rubbing over it as she worried her bottom lip. Her concern for the cubs was easy to read, though he didn’t need to see it in her expression; her actions told him as much.
Despite the pace he set she hadn’t uttered a sound of complaint or protest. Each time he’d thought she would falter and demand they slow down or stop, she’d draw from a well of internal strength and find additional stamina.
Mile by mile his resistance to the Jaguar’s claim weakened, though he hadn’t fully accepted it and didn’t intend to. Nor would he allow himself to act on the desire continuing to simmer in his bloodstream.
In jaguar form Melina ranged ahead, moving farther away and faster in the relative safety of Lion territory. Canino prowled at Rebekka’s other side, streaks of tree-shadow merging with the stripes on his orange coat.
Each time he brushed against Rebekka, whether the act was unintentional or by design, the Jaguar made its presence known to Aryck. Suddenly waking like a separate entity to growl in protest.
Resisting the Jaguar set a battle for dominance into motion. After the first one, Aryck acquiesced, maneuvering Rebekka away from Canino while telling himself the sooner he got her to camp, the better.
A day to heal, perhaps another to rest and get her strength back, and then she would be gone from their lands, her safety entrusted to Levi. With her absence he would no longer have to fear the unraveling of his earthly souls into two separate entities.
Another mile passed. Twice Aryck reached out to keep Rebekka upright.
Each time it was more difficult to end the physical contact. The Jaguar grew edgy. Or he did. Aryck couldn’t discern where the emotion came from, only that thoughts of stopping so Rebekka could rest warred with the need to get to the cubs.
Close to the border of Jaguar lands he reached mentally for his father. The alpha’s relief swept into Aryck. Hurry. Three of them are close to death. The other two are not far behind. Nahuatl holds their souls to this world.
Koren didn’t ask if the healer accompanied them. To do so would be to doubt Nahuatl’s vision from the ancestors.
Aryck updated his father with a stream of images. Starting at the place where he and Melina had encountered the first of the hyenas. Ending with their current location.
Show me the root she seeks.
“Stop for a moment,” Aryck said, his hand on Rebekka’s arm halting her as he spoke. “Let me see the picture of the root you need.”
She pulled the journal from her pocket and opened it. He bent lower, and though he couldn’t read the words describing where the plant came from, they were locked in his memory from having detoured numerous times only to meet with failure.
It grows near springs where the water tastes of iron, he said, eyes traveling slowly over the drawing as he made himself look at every detail, from the shape of the leaves all the way down to the root.
Come directly to camp. I’ll describe this plant to Phaedra, then Nahuatl and the elders if she doesn’t recognize it.
What happens with the human encampment?
Quiet. There was the briefest hesitation, marking Koren’s distrust and suspicion. Tracks from one of the heavily armored vehicles went into Wolf territory near where it borders Bear.
You think the Wolves are dealing with the humans?
It was a distasteful idea to Aryck. But in the histories the elders passed down through their stories, there were tales of Wolves being rewarded for attacking other Were groups for the benefit of humans.
Aryck could follow his father’s line of thought, his suspicion that perhaps the Wolves wanted to expand their territory. Guns could be found in the rubble and salvaged. But without ammunition, they were useless, and ammunition was difficult to acquire. It required a trip into the human world and could wipe out a pack’s store of recovered coins and gems.