He twisted the car off onto an even narrower dirt road, slamming into a couple of branches and scratching the car. “They’ll try to follow us, but we’ll ditch the car for the time being and melt into the jungle.”
He and Maya could vanish into the thick foliage as jaguars, sure. Their black rosettes and golden pelts blended in with the shadows of the forest. But Kat? The only way she was melting was into a puddle of nerves, and that wasn’t going to help her hide at all.
Connor pulled the rental vehicle off the road and into the thick tropical vegetation. They all shoved at the doors to make enough of an opening to squeeze out of the car. “Go, Maya. Take Kat. I’ll get our bags and the rifle,” he said, his voice commanding, low, rushed.
“You can’t get them all,” Maya said, hurrying to the trunk.
He jerked the bags out, and Maya took hers and Kat grabbed her own. Then the three sprinted deeper into the jungle.
“What now?” Kat asked, wishing she was armed to the teeth.
Connor motioned to a great climbing tree covered in vines and broad leaves and bromeliads. They climbed high into the tree, secured their backpacks on different branches, and covered the bags with vegetation to ensure they couldn’t be seen from the ground.
Connor’s expression was dark as he furrowed his brow at Kat. He said to her, “I’m leaving the rifle with you for your protection. Maya and I will shift and scout around. Stay hidden in the foliage. Don’t make a move unless you absolutely have to.”
Kat didn’t like being left alone in the jungle with the enemy surrounding them. She didn’t like that Maya and Connor would face down armed men, either, but she knew that’s what they intended to do. She wanted to assist them, but her jaguar self wouldn’t be much help. Shooting an armed target who was out for blood was one thing. She had been trained to do that. Biting a man to death… she shuddered at the disagreeable image that brought to mind.
Kat took a deep breath to settle her nerves. She felt like bait, sitting in the tree with the rifle ready as Maya and Connor removed their clothes, tucked them into their bags, and shifted. Both gave her a last look in farewell before they leaped for the forest floor.
Then they melted like a couple of jaguar wraiths, slipping unseen into the jungle.
And Kat was alone again in the jungle.
No, not alone. She heard the men moving toward the rental car in the distance and hoped they wouldn’t shoot out its tires or disable it any other way. Even if Connor and Maya and Kat did get the upper hand with these men, how would they get to Bogotá if the men had disabled their rental car?
Chapter 24
As a jaguar and fully intending to take these men down, Connor skirted well around where the men were searching for them. He counted six men total, all armed to the teeth and all approaching the rental vehicle with caution. One of the heavier men said in Spanish, “No one here. They’ve scurried into the jungle like little mice. Shall we chase the little mice down?”
As if he had to ask the question.
Two of the men laughed, while two others were trying the door handles. Unlocked. No sense in locking the vehicle and having the men break the windows trying to get in. But they would find nothing inside the car.
After a minute, the two men shook their heads.
“Let’s play cat and mouse, then,” the big man said.
Smiling to himself, Connor was game. Only he would be the cat and they the mice.
“You stay,” the man said to one of his comrades. “Just in case they return before we locate them.”
The man nodded and leaned against the car, his rifle cradled diagonally across his chest. The others began to move, spreading out and quickly losing sight of each other in the dense jungle.
Maya moved closer to Connor and inclined her head toward the guard at the car. She had to wait, let him think he had nothing to worry about, and ensure the others were well away from the car before she took him down.
Connor nuzzled her, giving her the go-ahead. He would trail after the others, taking down as many as he could one at a time once they were far enough apart from each other. Because no one had mentioned Kat’s name, he thought either these men didn’t work for Gonzales, or if they did, they were clueless about her being out here. Either would be good news.
Kat heard the men all around her, joking noisily as though they thought that if they made enough racket, they could scare the tourists into panicking. Kat tightened her hands on the rifle. She wasn’t panicking. She was ready for them. One armed tourist.
The jungle vegetation was so thick that she couldn’t even see anyone yet. But she heard a couple of the men moving closer, their boots crunching on debris on the ground, their legs brushing foliage aside.
Then she swore she saw something move a little distance from the tree she was hiding in. Like a dark shadow of a cat, but only for a flash of a second. Had it been Connor? Or Maya? She thought the shadow was too big to have been Maya.
A thud sounded a little way off. She barely breathed, her gaze riveted to where the sound had occurred. Freckles of perspiration dotted her skin as she stared at the vegetation, trying to see any movement.
Again, she heard someone moving toward the tree. One of the brigands appeared beneath her. A camouflage cap was squashed on his head, the rest of him in camouflage, too. He could be one of Gonzales’s men.
She readied her rifle to shoot him, though she wouldn’t fire a shot unless it was absolutely imperative. He glanced up, looked around, but didn’t see her. He was looking in the direction of their backpacks, but she hoped he couldn’t spy them. Then he shouldered his rifle and grabbed a branch to begin hauling himself up.
Kat barely breathed. If only she had a silencer, she could shoot him before he got very far up the tree. But if she used the weapon without a silencer, the popping noise would alert everyone else to her location.
He still hadn’t seen her, she didn’t think. But something must have caught his attention and made him want to investigate further.
In the next instant, she felt a sudden overwhelming urge to remove her clothes. What the hell was wrong with her? Sure, if she stripped and the villain caught sight of her, he might be distracted momentarily, delaying his climb. But an exotic stripper she was not. And beyond holding his attention for a moment, what would she do after that?
She itched to tug her shirt over her head, the urge so great that she couldn’t stop herself. Then she realized what was wrong with her. The craving to shift was the problem.
She set the rifle in the crook of the tree before she panicked and tossed it aside where it would fall to the ground and possibly fire off a round. Despite not wanting to shift in the worst way, she had no control over the urge and began pulling her shirt over her head. The movement alone could spell her doom. She knew damn well that if she sat very still, he might not catch sight of her, but if she started tearing off her clothes, he was sure to see her.
No… no… no…
She couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t stop the shift from occurring.
His head turned in her direction, and his black eyes widened and his mouth gaped wide.
He muttered something under his breath as she yanked off her bra. He didn’t move any closer, just held on to the branch above him as he stood on another below that and stared at her in wonder. To her relief, he didn’t call out for anyone to join him. No, he wanted her all to himself.
She was sitting bare-breasted on a tree branch, struggling to pull off a boot, when she lost hold of it and dropped it to the ground. Shit.
The man chuckled and spoke dirty to her in Spanish. She figured he thought she believed she could buy her way out of this nightmare by offering him sex. Fat chance of that, she wanted to tell him. She would just as soon as shove him off the tree branch he was standing on, hoping to break his damn neck. Instead, she’d show him her big menacing jaguar teeth and end his rampant leering that way.