Burning Wild (41 page)

The leopard, fully formed, stepped forward, thrusting its face into hers, its breath hot on her skin, one huge paw on her shoulder, claws digging into her. The huge cat snarled, scenting the other male. He rasped his tongue over Emma’s face and rubbed along her body with his cheeks and his scent glands to warn the other male off. She pulled back to look him in the eye, her green eyes glittering, his golden gaze furious. They stared at each other until she buried her fingers into the lush fur coat and pushed him away from her.

“Go away, Jake. I’m really upset with you right now.” Her voice sounded odd, far away. She clutched the fur tighter, but her fingers slipped. The ground tilted. She slid down the wheel of the car and found herself staring up at the leopard’s fur-lined belly. Her lashes fluttered, her lids too heavy to keep up.

The leopard nuzzled her as she closed her eyes and gave in to the drug.

16

EMMA woke slowly, her mouth dry, jackhammers drilling through her temples. She burrowed into the warmth surrounding her before she realized Jake was rocking her in the large chair he’d brought to her room a year earlier when Andraya was born. He liked to sit in the chair and rock Kyle, feeding him his bottle while she fed Andraya.

“I don’t like you very much,” she murmured, keeping her eyes closed. The room was dark, the house silent. His chest was bare beneath her cheek.

“I know you don’t,” he answered softly. “Go back to sleep. The doctor said you’d have a headache and would probably feel like a truck ran you over.”

Mostly she felt exhausted. It shocked her a little that he’d brought in a doctor and she hadn’t even roused from the drug enough to know. “You should have been thinking about me, Jake, not yourself. That was a terrifying experience. That man would have raped me. Maybe all of them.”

He nuzzled the top of her head. “I wasn’t thinking like a man, Emma. That’s no excuse, but it is the truth.”

“My mother was leopard, Jake. There was no difference between her and her leopard, and there shouldn’t be with you either. You use your leopard as an excuse.”

He smiled at the little bite in her voice and briefly buried his face in her hair again. “You should have told me about your mother.”

“Why? How? It isn’t exactly normal. You didn’t tell me.” Emma passed a hand over her face. Her arm still felt like lead.

“You weren’t afraid or even shocked when I shifted.”

“I lived with you for two years, Jake. Did you think I wouldn’t see the claw marks on the floors and walls, especially in your office? Did you think I wouldn’t know what you were doing the nights you went running and came back with your clothes shredded? Or the time your mother—the enemy,” she corrected herself, “came and you left fresh marks on the floor in the nursery and punctured your own palms? I lived with my mother for nineteen years. It’s not like I couldn’t read the signs or smell the cat. If you didn’t want to tell me, I wasn’t going to bring it up.”

“And your family had been hunted. You didn’t entirely trust me—or anyone else,” Jake prompted, knowing it was the truth.

She shrugged and lifted her head up, for the first time opening her eyes. His eyes were still a cat’s eyes, glowing red in the dark. “You have to admit, it was a big coincidence, my mother being a leopard, our family hunted and eventually killed, and then you bringing me here. Drake. Joshua. Conner. Aside from my mother, I’d never met a single leopard until I met you. I had to know what you wanted.”

At least she hadn’t run from him. She’d had the courage to stay, giving him a chance to prove himself even though she had to know there was a possibility he had ulterior motives. “And Trent and the enemy told you, no doubt.” His voice held a note of bitterness. He knew they wouldn’t resist planting seeds of doubt in her mind.

“They told me what they wanted me to believe. And I know what they wanted, that was made very clear. Me. A cub from me. They think I might be a shifter, or at least be able to produce one for them. They think one will give them an advantage in the oil fields, but I doubt if all shifters can scent oil in the ground or they’d be doing it already. They want me to believe that’s the only thing you want from me as well, that and to prevent them from having me.” She looked at him. “I thought it strange that they didn’t even realize what a sense of entitlement they have, believing they have the right to buy people, that somehow they are superior to the rest of us.”

“All this time, it was a game to me, the enemies, pitting themselves against me,” Jake admitted. “I thought they were after an unknown oil field or natural gas reserve. I knew they wanted a shifter of their own to control, but even though I was certain you had the bloodline, it didn’t occur to me you were what they were after all along. The real estate offer was to throw me, make me look in other directions, and I fell for it.”

“Then you did know about me?” Her voice held a hint of wariness.

“Not until recently, until you began to . . . blossom. The female development is difficult to pinpoint. No one knows what brings out their leopard, or their first heat.”

“I’m not a shifter. I have the blood and can feel things, smell things, but I don’t have a leopard.” She sounded regretful.

“Maybe it just hasn’t come out yet,” he said, brushing his mouth over the top of her head. Jake smoothed back her silky hair with gentle fingers.

“The thing is, Jake, you’re nothing like them, no matter what you think of yourself. I’ve lived with you too long for you to hide that from me. You aren’t anything at all like those people.” Her eyes locked with his. “Whatever you think about the blood running in your veins, believe me, I have firsthand knowledge, and you’re nothing like them.”

“I used you as bait,” he said, hating himself.

“We needed to see what they were after, to protect our family—the children. I go into things with my eyes open, Jake.”

His heart contracted. “Well, close them now. Go back to sleep, honey. We can talk in the morning.”

Emma snuggled deeper into his arms, surprised how safe she felt. She let herself drift, aware of his strength, his even breathing, the gentle motion of the rocking chair. When next she woke, they were on her bed, the covers over them, his body wrapped tightly around hers. She could feel the pads of his fingers stroking along her ribs, gently, back and forth.

“Jake?” She said his name in inquiry. It seemed so much easier to face him in the dark. “Thanks for rescuing me.”

He kissed her bare shoulder. “You did a pretty good job of rescuing yourself.”

“They told me that my father is Trent’s nephew and that he took a great deal of money from Trent to bring back a female shifter. He lured my mother back to the States. They said he planned to sell her to Trent, that he’d already taken their money.”

“He married her and kept her safe.”

“But I think they were telling the truth, Jake,” she said, her heart beating too fast. “I think he was bringing her back with the intention of handing her over to them, but changed his mind. What does that say about him? That he would consider selling a woman to his uncle?”

“Honey, you can’t let them taint your memories of your parents. You said they loved each other. That they loved you. Whatever mistakes your father made as a young man, growing up in that family with the kind of upbringing he would have had, he overcame it. Trent was worse than the enemies. I know he was. Your father must have been punished in the same way I was for not being what they wanted.”

She was silent for a long time. “Jake? When I woke up, you looked very scary. What were you thinking about?”

He groaned and rolled over. “Why do you have to ask me questions like that when I don’t want to tell you the answer?”

Emma smiled in the darkness. His body wasn’t in its normal hard-as-a-rock state. He was upset; she could feel that his introspection distressed him. “Just tell me.”

“I always look my worst in front of you.” His voice sounded strained. “I don’t think I can really afford to look any worse than I already do. Let it go this time.”

She rolled over to look at him. She had excellent night vision and he looked strained, ravaged. She pressed her fingertips to his face, tracing the lines there. “Tell me anyway. So far I haven’t run from you.”

He caught her fingers and kissed them, holding them to his mouth. “But you should have, Emma. You were right, you know, about last night. I thought a lot about what you said. I
was
thinking only of me. Of my cat’s rage and the scent of another man on your skin. I didn’t hold you, or comfort you, or even check to see if they had hurt you. I didn’t give you a chance to talk to me. I don’t understand how you can even look at me.”

“You have a fast learning curve, Jake. How can you expect to know how to react to something when you’ve never been shown the right way? Not everything is instinct.”

“My cat’s reaction is instinctive.”

She smiled at him. “You are your cat. Your cat is protective, and so are you. He’s strong. So are you. Whatever is inside of you is inside your cat. You aren’t separate, Jake. You’re one and the same.”

He was silent for a long time, his teeth scraping back and forth on the tips of her fingers. “What you’re really saying is that my leopard is a convenience for me to blame all my worst traits on.”

“Possibly. I know what my mother was like. Yes, she had a temper and she could be jealous and possessive, but she didn’t let it rule her. Your leopard is still you. If you aren’t separate, you have to accept that part of you.”

“You sound like Drake now.” He rolled onto his back, taking her hand with him. “There are so many animal traits not to like, Emma. I don’t like that possibility.”

“But there are so many to like,” she pointed out.

“I was lying here watching you sleep and planning to kill them—the enemies. I should have killed them a long time ago. Is that normal? Is that something people do? How they think? Is that me, or my leopard?”

“You and your leopard are one in the same. You’re more aggressive than the average man, but that just means you need to have stronger control. Of course you want to eliminate any threat to your family. Some people might think about killing someone, but they don’t actually do it. That’s one of those unacceptable things you don’t ever do if it’s possible to avoid it.”

“No one else is going to stop them. They’ll keep coming at us.” His hand slid over her hair. “I don’t honestly know what I’d do if something happened to you.”

“You’d take care of our children.” She propped herself up on her elbows and pushed back the dark fall of hair spilling across his forehead. “That’s what you’d do, Jake.”

His hand came up to the nape of her neck. She could feel his body trembling as he pulled her head down to his so he could find her mouth. His kiss tasted of tears. Of love. Of everything he couldn’t say aloud. He was tender, incredibly gentle.

“You’re so beautiful, Emma. And I don’t mean physically, although you’re that too. I don’t know where you came from, but it wasn’t anywhere here on this earth.”

She laid her head on his chest, listening to his heart. “I’ve got leopard blood running in my veins, Jake. Believe me, I have the same bad temper and jealous streak that you do.”

“I feel lost tonight,” he whispered, holding her to him there in the dark.

“It’s all right,” she said softly. “I’m here and I won’t let anything happen to you.” She closed her eyes and let herself relax against his body.

“Mommy?” Both turned their heads toward the door, where Kyle stood uncertainly. “I’m afraid.”

They both held out a hand simultaneously. “Come here, son,” Jake encouraged. Kyle climbed onto the bed and Jake tucked him between them. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’re safe.”

“Daddy?” Andraya took her brother’s place in the doorway. She’d either seen Kyle coming out of his room, or he’d awakened her to accompany him, which was more likely.

Jake uttered a soft groan and beckoned her, his smile widening when he looked at Emma. Andraya crawled over her father and, ignoring Kyle, wedged herself in the middle, wiggling until she found a comfortable position. Jake put his arm around all of them—his family—and lay back, his fingers tangling with Emma’s, remembering that it wasn’t that long ago that he was completely alone in his house. Now, they could barely fit in the bed.

“We’ll have to have another one to fill this space over here on my side,” Jake said, patting the only bare spot he could find.

Emma’s fingers tightened around his. “We’ll have to get a bigger bed.”

Jake fell asleep first and Emma watched him, sleeping like their children. He didn’t look younger, only more relaxed. Her heart ached for him. He was struggling to become the man she knew he wanted to be, but he fought it every step of the way, terrified of being vulnerable. She could have told him it was already too late, that he was already there, but she knew he had to come to that realization on his own—not just in a moment in the middle of the night when it was dark and he didn’t have to look her in the eye. He had to accept that he knew how to love all of them. Her. The children. Their life together.

She drifted off, dreaming of her mother and the way Emma had always wanted to run with her. She loved it when her mother would assume her animal form and she could lie next to her, fingers tangled in her fur, feeling the extraordinary pleasure of being so close to something wild and powerful. Her father wasn’t a shifter, and the odds were against her ever being like her mother. At least she had Jake and she could rub her face in his fur and get her fix that way.

Emma woke to the sound of laughter and several whispering voices. Conspiracy hung heavy in the air. She turned her head and saw them all lined up. The ones she loved. Jake, between Kyle and Andraya. He held a tray and they each carried a flower. She sat up. Jake grinned at her as the sheet slipped, revealing the curve of her breast, and she was forced to yank it up quickly. He set the tray down and handed her a shirt from her closet. It was a button-down, and she hastily put it on, doing up the buttons under his amused gaze.

“We made breakfast, Mommy,” Kyle announced.

Andraya nodded. “Breakfast,” she echoed.