In Like a Lion (21 page)

She studied the desert landscape, adjusting to her new instincts and thought processes. After a moment, she released a relieved sigh, the gust from her enormous lungs almost uprooting some nearby scrub.

She scooped Jake up and carried him over the terrain carefully, avoiding bushes and rocks that might harbor snakes. Though hard scales covered most of her body, she had no idea if a snake could pierce the armor plating. She smiled inwardly at the picture she must make—a dragon cradling a lion.

Her moment of levity evaporated almost as soon as it’d come.

Jake was frighteningly motionless. Hopefully, that meant nightmares no longer tormented him, but his unresponsiveness iced her veins.

The buzz of a helicopter reverberated against the hill. She froze. With her light-colored scales a creature her size would stand out like a flare against the desert pavement. She could shift, but being naked wasn’t her number one choice either.

Could she change directly into lion form? She swallowed the surge of fear caused by the idea. She had no other choice.

Inhaling deeply, she thought of the power and agility of the lioness.

Flash
. Her cold blood quickly warmed and she embraced the power of the lioness.

Sighing with relief, she wrapped herself around Jake, hoping to break up their outline on the rocks. She prayed the people in the helicopter hadn’t seen the flash of her change.

Maybe next time, if she changed one part at a time she could eliminate the light effect?

The helicopter whipped a cloud of dust from a nearby trail. Heart thrumming with fear, Anjali pressed her muzzle into Jake’s side to keep from sneezing and closed her eyes against the grit.

Would they see them?

The moment seemed to last forever. Anjali hardly dared move. Jake shifted slightly. His movement elicited both relief and dread.
Don’t move, Jake. Don’t move,
she urged, hoping he heard her through his illness.

The chopper roared overhead. Fear drove her heart into her throat. The need to pant was hard to resist. She clenched her teeth. Her muscles burned. After so long in dragon form, she couldn’t hold this body much longer.

The
whack, whack, whack
of the vehicle’s rotors slicing the air thundered louder. She resisted the impulse to check the position of the chopper.

The noise rumbled through her. If she’d been in human form, she would have been tempted to cover her ears. To the more sensitive organs of the lioness, the sound was torture.

At last, the machine growled away.

Anjali let the change back to human form come. She lay naked on the ground for several minutes, and then reached for her clothes, yanking them on with a grimace as her now much keener sense of smell encountered her own sweat.

She groaned, eyeing the setting sun. Hot, hungry, thirsty, and now smelly. Death was beginning to seem attractive.

Something screamed in the distance, and she started. A rabbit dying, her heightened senses identified.
Just kidding, God. I don’t want to die.

Anjali sank down next to Jake’s limp body and rummaged through the contents of her purse. They’d taken enough water and had one can of fruit cocktail left. If worse came to worse, she could always try hunting.

She glanced down at Jake, then away, not wanting to think that hunger might not be the worst thing she would have to face—that she might be hiking out alone.

As the sky darkened, Anjali heard the sound of footsteps coming in their direction. She’d been kneeling, checking Jake’s vitals, and popped to her feet. From the crunch of pebbles and loose particles, a number of people marched up the slope just beyond her view.

Pulse kicking up, she pivoted in the direction of the noise and tried to scent the air.
Shit, the wind was going the wrong way.

Maybe they were just campers?
Right
. Not with her luck.

Whoever they were, she couldn’t risk them seeing Jake. The darkness shielded him to some extent, but he was far too visible to her eyes. Grabbing whatever brush she could, she covered Jake’s body, finishing just as a dark shape came into view.

The man brought a flashlight, an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, and from the three shadows moving up behind him, an armed entourage. They had a lean, hungry aspect, the kind she’d only seen on the news in photos of criminals.

She swallowed. So much for random campers. But just because they were loaded didn’t mean they were searching for her. Maybe she could bluff her way out of this.

“Oh, thank goodness!” she said, intercepting them before they could come any closer to where Jake lay unconscious. “I’ve been wandering for hours.”

“Well, what have we here?” The lead man, dark-haired with a sweat-stained baseball cap, shined his light over her. She jerked her head away from the piercing light and shielded her eyes with her arm. As they came closer, she could see the men were probably in their thirties and relatively fit.

Her gaze swept over them, noting the jeans and faded T-shirts they wore. They weren’t dressed like the men Kincaid had sent after them earlier. There was none of the pseudo-military feel to their clothes or body posture.

“My car broke down on an interior road and I thought I’d hike out to I-15, but it got dark. Do you have a phone I could borrow?”

“Don’t you have a sweet little accent?” The dark-haired man ambled her way. “Where you from, darlin’?”

He was covered in a sweetish chemical odor she’d never smelled before and she resisted the urge to wave her hand in front of her to clear the air.

His friends closed in around her.

A trickle of nerves zinged down her spine, but she smiled, praying her misgivings were unfounded. “Bombay.”

“Maybe we can help you.” The man in the center, tall with the build of a former football player, came toward her, then lunged forward and grabbed her by the braid, yanking her head back. “But we’re already doing a favor for our friend, Anders.”

Anjali caught herself before she could flinch, but the man must have seen something in her face.

He smiled. “You know him? That’s luck, isn’t it, boys?” He glanced over his shoulders. “Besides, it’s lonely out here.”

“And boring, keeping an eye out for the cops.”

The man holding her turned toward the guy who’d spoken. “Shut it, Smith.”

The cops?
Shit. Shit. Shit.
All of a sudden her brain unscrambled the pieces. The smell. The heavy weaponry. These men weren’t camping.

They were guarding a meth lab.

She almost groaned. Trust Anders to have friends in low places.

The man tugged her braid again, using it to reel her toward him.

Pain-induced tears flooded her eyes. “Leave me alone.”

“Oh, don’t you want our help?” One of the men shook his belt, drawing attention to his package. The men laughed, crowding around, their faces nightmarish beneath the beam of the flashlight.

Hands groped her body. Anjali struggled. The lioness growled inside, awakened by her fear and anger, and Anjali understood again how difficult it had been for Jake to keep the beast contained.

She wrestled to keep her human form. She wasn’t sure she could control her lion side in the heat of a battle, and if she changed in front of these men, she would
have
to kill them.

The big man slid a hand inside her shirt and pawed her breast, bruising her, his face distorted with lust and excitement. Disgust and helpless rage washed over her. She bit back a roar, stepped forward, and jerked her knee into his groin.

Her enhanced speed and strength ensured a direct hit. He groaned and folded, sprawling unconscious on the ground. She winced a little at touching that part of his body with any part of hers as she wrenched her way out of the circle, and took off, hoping to lead them away from Jake.

“Not so fast, bitch!”

She could hear the men pounding after her and sprinted into the darkness, her heart pummeling her chest wall. Their shouts faded as she outdistanced them, but she slowed and stopped, bending over to get a second wind, then inhaled hard and turned back. Even if she led them away, they could still tell Kincaid their position. She couldn’t just lose them—she had to put them out of commission.

The three men skidded to a halt when they saw her and exchanged befuddled glances, no doubt surprised to see her heading toward them.

She held up her hands. “Listen. All I want is to use your phone. You really don’t want to do this.”

They laughed. The dark-haired man tapped his friends on their chests, his features tight with angry purpose. “Grab her.”

They attacked as one.

She dodged to the side. Their surprise and her extra agility meant they never even came close. They separated, flanking her.

Her gaze flashed over the men and she swallowed her nerves. She was a chimera now. She could take four men. Probably.

Though she didn’t feel much like joking, she wagged a finger at them, hoping to spur them into action. “Now, boys, don’t make me angry. You won’t like me when I’m angry.” Nothing like a classic.

The ringleader jumped at her, his fingers burrowing into her flesh. He jerked her close, snarling in her face. She bared giant fangs and returned the favor. She couldn’t help it.

His eyes widened, but he didn’t let her go. “What the fuck?”

He punched her, knocking her head back on her neck. Pain watered her eyes, but it didn’t hurt as much it probably should have. She lowered her chin and smiled. “Ouch.”

Now she was just pissed off.

“You really want to die, don’t you?” She wheeled and slammed her elbow back and up, into his temple. He crumpled. She rubbed her elbow. The man had a skull like concrete.

She could thank a self-defense course at the Y for that move. Her gaze found the third man. Something in her face made him swallow. She wondered if her eyes were reflecting the starlight.

“It’s you who’s going to die, bitch.” The fourth man pointed his rifle at her. The other man seemed to recover himself and brought up his gun.

A heady cocktail of fear and exhilaration snapped through her. She laughed.

“What are you laughing at, bitch?” The man’s face bulged with antipathy, shrinking his eyes to tiny beads.

“Don’t you know any other words?” She snatched the rifle away from him, tapping him as gently as she could with the butt.

He caved, hitting the ground with his over-large chin, and sending up a puff of dust. She let momentum carry her in a circle, striking the last man. He dropped like a stone, leaving her the only one standing.

She stepped over him and rummaged through their packs, finding and destroying each man’s phone and taking the supplies she needed. Jamming them into one of the packs, she slung the strap over her shoulder and turned to their rifles, her hand rubbing the back of her neck. She couldn’t leave the weapons, but she knew nothing about guns and had no desire to lug them around the desert.

She buried them nearby, touching them as little as she could. When they were hidden, she brushed the ugly feel of the weapons off her hands, took a couple steps away from the men, then stopped short. Hands on her hips, she turned in a slow circle. She’d gotten turned around during the fight and wasn’t sure which direction would take her back to Jake.

Goddamnit. She was lost.

Chapter 26

Jake woke shivering. Some time during the night, he’d turned human in his sleep. He sat up. No moon illuminated the landscape, only millions of stars. A breeze brushed over him, evaporating the remains of the sweat on his body and making the night feel even colder.

He scanned to the left and the right seeking Anjali. When he didn’t see her, an electric bolt of fear ran through him, jolting his heart into a pace rivaling a drum roll. Maybe she’d just stepped away for a moment?
Right. In the desert. Alone. In the dark.
“Anjali?”

No answer.

Panic shot through him. He stood. The desert tilted and spun. He tried to take a step and stumbled to his knees. Stones jabbed his bare flesh, but the pain barely registered past the raging beat of his heart.

He tried to stand once more and fell, slicing his palms. Damn, he was weak.

The metallic scent of blood cleared his head. At this rate he was going to run into another rattlesnake.
Stop fumbling around like a wounded bear, Finn. If Kincaid’s men had been here, they would have shot you in your sleep.
Besides, none of the pain that had nearly crippled him when he’d left her in LA had returned. That probably meant she wasn’t far.

Reining in his worry, he studied the desert for some clue of what had happened. His gaze landed on Anjali’s huge purse. The water bottle and a can sat next to it.

You’re awake.
A lioness sauntered out of the shadows of a slope. Her mental voice was rich with relief and happiness. She dropped a backpack on the ground.

He ignored the tendril of warmth unfurling in his chest at her welcome. “Where have you been?”

She stopped short. Despite the lack of expression on a big cat’s face, he easily read her hurt, but anger rode him too hard for him to soften.

“You barely know this terrain. Or what you’re capable of and you go traipsing off like this was some sort of botanical garden?”

Anjali plopped down on the dirt and began washing her face with a paw. The move was surprisingly dainty and elegant from something so big.
I—

“And you left me unconscious? I wouldn’t leave a dog like that.”
God, he sounded like an ass
. But she’d scared him so much he found he couldn’t stop.

She glared at him with eyes glowing green with reflected starlight. The wind ruffled the fur around her face, carrying her scent away from him. She gleamed marble-white, a statue, beautiful and untouchable.

“Your mate is dying and you wander off and leave him to the mercy of anyone who might come along.” He folded his arms. “Maybe we haven’t known each other very long, but you might show some loyalty to your lover.” He knew he was being unfair, but he’d never been able to rely on anyone and he needed to hear her answer.

I didn’t have a choice. But you had it right the first time. We’re mates, not lovers.

Jake stiffened, feeling as though she’d slapped him, then stuffed his hands in his pockets. “And the difference is?”

Love.

He hadn’t known he loved her until that moment, until her denial ripped a hole in his gut big enough to shove a fist through. He turned away and gazed off into the dark ocean of the desert, unwilling to broadcast the direct hit.

I’m sorry Jake. If I could love someone, it would be you. I accept that we’re mates. That biologically we’re meant for each other, but when you got bit— I can’t risk loving again. It hurts too much when they leave.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

You can’t promise that. No one can.
Her tone was implacable.

How could he argue with her? She’d lost her whole family.

And what could he say to convince her? Why should she risk more pain for him?

Fate had given her the short end of the stick, taking her family, mating her to a man who’d been imprisoned most of his life, a drifter, a thief, a killer. No matter what she said, there wasn’t much there to love.

The water bottle gleamed, and he snatched it from the ground and drained the contents.

A flash of light signaled her shift. By the time he’d blinked the spots from his vision, Anjali was dressed.

“How did you do that?”

“I had to change to find my way back here, and I practiced on the way. I figured if I could change without hurting my clothes, maybe I could get back in them the same way. I think it might be possible to stay between forms, as well, but I haven’t been able to master that yet.” Her voice was almost even, the rational scientist back in control. She unbraided her hair and began to re-braid it.

He wanted to kiss her, shake her, do something, anything, to get her to meet his gaze, but he continued to reel from the emotions their argument had stirred so he allowed her retreat.

“I saw a road with cars on it, not far over that hill.” Anjali jerked her head toward the slope she had come down only minutes earlier, before their conversation had upended his world.

He picked up her purse. Without the water and the cans, it wasn’t heavy now, and he handed it to her and took the backpack of supplies she’d pilfered from God knows where. “Let’s go.”

Anjali followed Jake’s rigid back to the top of the hill. The ribbon of road with its line of cars had been a welcome sight when she’d first seen it, but now she feared what it might bring.

Her stomach twisted. Jake didn’t deserve her anger. Even if everything she’d said was true, what had made her snap like that?

Damnit.
She’d been so pumped after handling those drug dealers on her own without even changing, then he’d yelled at her and hurt had taken over, making her lash out.

This mate thing was hard. From what she’d gathered, they couldn’t leave each other while they lived without feeling like a limb had been removed, but biology could only force attraction, not love.

And lions had more than one mate. She tried to imagine sharing Jake with another woman. A queasy feeling made her grind her teeth.  

She almost snorted at the direction of her thoughts. So what if lions had more than one mate?
If you don’t love him, Anjali, why do you care?
her inner self needled.

Because we have no choice but to live together,
she answered.
Love has nothing to do with it.

But a worm of anguish niggled beneath her skin at the thought of Jake with another woman, touching her, kissing her, making love.

Maybe this faceless other woman could give him what she couldn’t—the love he deserved.

Pain in her palms awoke her to the fact she’d fisted her hands and her nails were cutting the soft skin.

“What’s wrong?” Jake asked.

She wiped her palms on her pants. “Nothing. Just tired.”

He scrutinized her, but he was upwind, and couldn’t smell her lie. Or her relief when he turned back and started down the other side.

Tears prickled the tender insides of her lids, followed by a rising tide of anger. How unfair was it that destiny had paired a man who needed love more than anyone she’d ever met, with a woman unable to give him what he needed?

But he hadn’t said a word about love. She’d been the one to bring it up. Why?

She closed her eyes, afraid of the answer.

“Hey.” Jake gestured ahead as they neared the road, and the mundane sight in the distance lifted her spirits.

A gas station.