We kept a slow but steady pace of ten miles per hour as we trudged east through the jungle following the Amazon River. We had a lead indicating that the missing couple were holed not far Santarem City. We would follow the river until we reached Santarem then go south until we found the small village they were supposed to be hiding in.
For ease of travel and to keep the wild life from becoming overly worried about our presence; we decided to keep to our human forms but were communicating through our pride mind link. To keep ourselves occupied we decided to play twenty questions. I was enjoying getting to know the members of my team. I was surprised by how easily we conversed and how much we had in common. The only down side to the game was I was trying to learn about two people while they both concentrated on me.
Of my two team mates Johan, is the younger than myself and Mora by more than three hundred years. Johan was just over two hundred years old and was the last to be born and raised in the Brazilian pride before my mate. He’s tall with broad shoulders and short black hair. He’s got a great smile and from what I’ve learned so far he seems to be pretty easy going with a quick wit and quirky sense of humor. I haven’t seen his cat form yet but he indicated he was a rather large cheetah with a rare mutated spot pattern. I’m not really sure what that means but Mora seemed to enjoy making fun of him for it. She poked him several times then said cheerily
“Well they call him a ‘King cheetah’ because he has long black stripes down his back. But if you ask me they got it wrong. I’ve seen them and I definitely think he looks more like a ‘queen cheetah’. You can decide for yourself when you see him shift.
Anyhow, you asked me. Well, I’m a jaguar with a pretty normal spot pattern. I’m large for a female probably two hundred pounds and close to six foot long. Like all jags, I am great at swimming and climbing but my best asset is my bite. I have over two thousand pounds of pressure; by far my bite is the strongest of all felines. I am twice as strong as even a male lion.
Okay so… did you always believe that you would find your mate?”
I looked at Mora smiled softly. I shook my head letting her know that I too at times doubted that I would find my mate. Mora made a sad face as she watched me shake my head. Then her face reflected and emotion that I easily recognized as fear. Fear was in her face, her eyes and even in her unspoken words. Even though Mora was my age for some reason I felt like she was so much older. Maybe it was from her pain and fear or maybe just the hard years of traveling from place to place. From what I’ve learned so was born in Canada but only lived there until she was two.
Mora's parents were killed in an attack and Mora was forced to go live with a distant aunt in Africa. When she came of age she chose to travel from Bastet pride to Bastet pride in search of her mate. She relocated to the Brazilian Pride in the last ten years. Before me, she had been newest member of the pride. Mora said she’s been searching her entire life for her mate. Unfortunately like most Bastet she’s still waiting.
“So, it’s been a long time and I understand Bastet like to keep company with others. Do you have anyone in our pride that you share more time with?”
I asked knowing it was a double edged question. What I really wanted to know is if Mora had a lover stashed away at home. My question got an immediate reaction. I noticed her face turned bright red and her eyes darted towards Johan.
“No one in particular” she said through our mind link then darted her eyes towards Johan again.
I was observant and right away I could see that she and Johan must have a thing. It made sense since Jeremy and Chase said they like keep couples together where ever possible. It was part of the reason Jeremy said he hated that both of us were leading separate teams. According to him being lovers automatically makes you better fighters together. Some crap about knowing what the other will do and all that. Jeremy hadn’t mentioned to me that Mora and Johan were together but both of them acted so strange every time I asked anything about their love life it was the only thing that made sense. I saw their eyes connect then they both looked in different directions.
“I saw that!” I shouted out loud.
I’m not sure why but something in Mora’s face told me I couldn’t have been more wrong. I looked between them a second time and realized that Johan’s face was bright red and now had splotches all over it. They stood starting at each other for a few seconds, and then he dropped to his knees and started laughing loudly.
“What? Come on? What is so funny?” I pleaded
“You have history, don’t make this hard on the new girl!” I continued beseeching them with my eyes, body language and my words.
Johan continued to laugh and I could tell that Mora was becoming more uncomfortable by the second. I looked back and forth between them several more times before it dawned on me. Oh my goodness I thought, Mora and Jeremy must have been lovers. I swallowed hard and took a deep breath and was just about to ask when Johan said between laughs
“Oh Laura… You think that Mora and I have been together…that is just too funny. For gods sakes didn’t you pay attention to any of the off colored comments Mora's made all morning? She’s been taking jabs at my sexual preferences since the second we left this morning. I am the resident fag honey. I’m the only Bastet in our pride that hopes to never find a mate. Then I’d be trapped with some female and I much prefer the company of my human males.”
“Oh, I had no idea.” I said to Johan then turned to face Mora again. She was looking at me in a way that made me think Johan being gay wasn’t the reason her face was still bright red. I coughed then said through the mind link
“How long where the two of you in a relationship?”
Mora’s eyes darted to mine then to Johan who was still on the ground. I could see that she was trying to gage my reaction and just how much of a problem this new information was going to be for me. Then to my surprise she lowered herself to the ground in a sitting position then coughed quietly and said
“I was never Jeremy’s lover.”
The moment she said the words out loud Johan pulled himself into a sitting position as well and completely stopped laughing. I would almost bet they were having a private conversation through the mind link. I watched as Mora bunched her hands into her lap then continued.
“A couple of hundred years ago I became obsessed and filled with doubt that I would ever find my mate. I wanted so badly to share my life with someone. I told you I left home and started moving from pride to pride in search of my happily ever after. Well, as you know, I am still searching but um…”
She paused for a second and said
“Well, I stayed with this pride because well um...” I watched as her and Johan continued their private conversation. Johan looked at me then reached out and pulled Mora’s hand into his before she continued
“Okay here goes. Laura, I know better now but when I moved here I thought our Leo…. Um Jeremy could be a possible alternative. Once I had it on my mind I sort of became obsessed. Well... I mean...that is to say”
Mora started to shake and I watched Johan scoot closer to her and pull her gently into a small embrace. She wiped her face with the back of her hand then said in a voice clearly filled with sorrow
“I basically made a fool of myself for the past two years. I didn’t want to see that Jeremy wasn’t interested in me so I just threw myself at him over and over again. I was ruthless in my pursuit of him. I made sure no other females came within five hundred feet of him. Everyone in the pride but Jeremy knew that I staked my claim on him. I was playing a dangerous and deranged game and I forced the entire pride to play with me.
The only one that didn’t know what game I was playing was Jeremy he was oblivious then and I think he still is. The truth is I joined the pride thinking that with time he would realize I was perfect for him. I acted like such a fool and the entire pride was making fun of me. Then, when he blood bonded with queen Renalda something inside of me just snapped.
I lost it for a while and tried to take my own life. I was so confused and so hurt. I hated thinking that I was going to be alone and lonely for the rest of my life. I already knew I was an outsider and figured that once Jeremy became blood bonded there was no longer a chance for me.
Worse, without him as my mate I thought the other members of the pride were going to chase me out. Once his new mate found out what I did she would demand I was kicked out. Even if she didn’t figure it out I know Chase did some research and learned that Jeremy wasn’t the first person I became obsessed with. I was positive once Jeremy heard he would ask me to leave. That was basically a death sentence. I knew I couldn't make it on my own in the wild and I had no friends and nowhere else to go… um well nowhere to run or hide.
See, this wasn’t the first time I became fixated on a potential mate. I’d done it more than a dozen times before at almost every pride I lived in. See, before I was blessed with your blood I think my cat and I might have had a mental illness or something. Some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder or some crap. See, I used to be really weird and possessive. All I needed was a male to treat me kind and I latched on.”
I watched Mora take a deep breath. Her eyes momentarily pulled themselves from the ground and found mine. After a few seconds she dropped them again and before saying
“I mean… Oh hell… I hope this isn’t going to make you hate me. Look, things just changed on their own. I was trying to kill myself when Johan found me. If not for him I wouldn’t be here today. He pulled me aside and told me the truth about himself. We found friendship in our common problem. Then when Jeremy came home for just a few seconds I considered starting all over again.
I thought that perhaps I would push myself to pursue him again as a possible match. In the past it wouldn’t have bothered me that he found his true mate. I would have just wanted my slice of happiness but this time, my friendship with Johan stopped me. I just knew it wasn’t right. Heck, I wasn’t really even attracted to Jeremy. It was just that my cat liked his strength and that he also treated me with respect.
Then we heard about you and the changes your blood was having on our people and Johan brought me to have some of your blood. I was shocked at how quickly my body responded to the changes. Within hours my cat felt like a new animal. Her obsessive compulsive behavior disappeared and I suddenly became content with myself. Johan and I think I was sick because of my broken DNA.
Look, I’m sorry if I upset you and I should have told our Leo. He would never have made us a team if he knew the truth. I can hardly believe Chase didn’t tell him this morning. Johan was hoping that you wouldn’t notice anything and that we could all just be friends. Heck he even told you the truth about him being gay just to keep you off the trail and that’s a big deal. The two of us are now the only Bastet in the pride that knows the truth about him. Anyhow, if you decide you want me to leave the pride I will. I just um... Well I didn’t want to live a lie anymore.”
I heard Mora’s words and I saw her pain in her eyes and in the way her body shook. I didn’t hesitate; I knew how hard it was to live with the shame and pain of your past. I reached out and pulled her into my arms and told her the past was the past let’s leave it that way. It didn’t take more than a half hour before we all slipped back into easy conversation. The hours slipped by and before I knew it the sun had set. We would need to make camp and report in. I was so happy that I was going to hear Jeremy’s voice. My wolf yipped inside of me just thing about it. Not that I hadn’t enjoyed my time and conversation with Mora and Johan.
I realize as the day moved on that I would consider both of them my friends. We talked about our parents, siblings, friends and even our animals coloring and personalities. Eventually the conversation turned back to the problems Bastet as a species have been facing for the past thousand years. We mused about how many new babies might be born and how many new true mate couples might be found. Mora thanked me several more times for giving her my blood and helping her to repair her damaged DNA. Then to my surprise and amusement Johan blurted out
“Well, I drank your blood and it didn’t fix anything for me. I’m still gay and my cat still has a fucking coward’s stripe running down its back.”
Johan’s words stopped me in my tracks. I heard his pain and self-loathing with each syllable he spoke. I found my chest ache with his anguish. I had never considered that the Bastet culture treated sexual preference couples differently. Gay couples were a natural part of a pack. Often when a male of female wolf was gay it turned out that it was because the other half of their soul was found in a same sex partner. I was positive Johan was gay because his true mate was born a male as well. I took a deep breath and said to him
“Johan, it fixed nothing because nothing was broke. Being gay isn’t a disease. You are exactly who you are meant to be. I know you will find your mate and he’ll be perfect for you.”
Today was longer than most days. I was in a bad mood and found myself snapping at my team without just cause. I was just missing my mate and felt like each step I took into the jungle was another step towards my final resting place. I looked up at the sun and was ecstatic that it was getting ready to set. I was a good five hundred feet ahead of my team so I slowed down and looked back over my shoulder at Joe and Toby and shouted
“Sun will be setting soon. Let's make camp so I will be in a good position for the satellite calls from the rest of the teams.”
I watched the guys stop and start to set-up camp. They worked in perfect unison. Not a surprise since they were not only litter mates but identical twins. There red mop of hair flopped up and down as they finished setting up the tents. Once done Toby started a fire while Joe brought handfuls on larger wood. The moment the fire was burning bright Joe said
“Jeremy, Toby and I are going to hunt up some dinner. We should be back before you finish all the team calls.”
I looked up and smiled at him and give him my nod of approval. I watched as they both shifted into their identical cougar forms and loped off into the denser forest. I felt bad that I had been in such a bad mood throughout the day. The guys were two of my best trackers which is why I put them on my team. We had no real leads on Valery and Mike other than they headed upriver towards the mouth of the Amazon. Thankfully not long into the trek Toby recognized big cat tracks. Lioness had passed through here recently and we were banking on it being Valery.
If we were going to have any chance of finding the couple it would be because Val took a chance and shifted. Of the two Valery was the one we would need to be careful with. As a lioness she could be territorial and very defensive. No real match for me but I would hate to injure her during this process. Mike was a much smaller cat and posed no physical threat but of the two he would be the harder one to track down. As an ocelot he could virtually disappear into the wild. Ocelots were all over the Amazon we would have to get lucky picking his tracks out of so many possibilities.
I wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible. Something about Renalda's royal edict bothered me. If a blooded couple desired to stay blooded I wasn't sure Renalda had the right to force them apart. It would be different if they'd already found a true mate and wanted to separate but some of these pairs have been partners for hundreds of years.
Val and Mike for example blooded more than four hundred years ago. When they originally went to Renalda's camp to drink Laura's blood so they could try to have cubs together. What would Renalda do if Val was with child? Would she still force them to break their blood bond? Would they have to raise the children separately? How many years would need to pass before they could bond again?
How could Renalda ensure that they didn’t immediately just re-bond with each other? The more I thought of the implications the more my head started to hurt. I understood the premise behind Renalda's orders but I couldn't help but think she created a one size fits all law that was going to be the wrong size for a lot of couples. I know Val and Mike and they never do anything hap hazard. If they ran they are convinced their love is true. They are going to be prepared to put up a fight. Val chose Mike and her cat isn't going to give him up easily. Bastet law or not. I heard the satellite phone ring and rushed to answer, my voice was filled with anticipation when I said
“Hello?”
“Hi boss, we are hot on the trail of Tina and Rob. I had a visual on them just before sundown. Looked like Tina was ready to turn herself in but Rob pushed her to run like hell away from us.”
I listened to my Regent Chase as he gave me his full report. I reminded him to try and take them both into custody without a fight if possible. I even suggested since they were in such close proximity to try and reach Tina via the pride link and see if she wanted to sneak away from Rob tonight. Chase thought that idea had merit and we hung up. I no sooner clicked off the phone when it rang again. This time I kept the anxiety from leaking into my voice when I answered and said
“Hello”
“Hola bossman” said my current enforcer Quinton.
“I've been a lucky man today. I no sooner spotted Jill and Tony when they both ran back towards us and said they wanted to have the bond broken. Anyhow, I have them both with me at camp tonight. We will head straight to the Amazonian Pride in the morning so Queen Renalda can break their bond”
I told Quinton job well done and told him I would see him back at home. Since his mission was already a success I felt no need for him to report back again. I quickly hung up knowing the only team left to report in was Laura's. I sat bouncing the satellite phone in my hand waiting for it to ring. It was a god fifteen minutes later when the phone rang again. This time I knew it had to be Laura on the other end so when I answered the phone I allowed every bit of my missing her slip into my voice
“Hello”
“Hello Leo Jeremy” replied Johan
Hearing Johan's voice on the other end of the satellite phone sent my heart into panic.
“Johan, what's happened? Where is Laura?” I all but shouted into the phone
Before Johan could answer I saw her enter the camp. She was magnificent and at the same time almost translucent. When I looked up at her she smiled and said
“Hang up the phone Jeremy. I can only astral project across such a huge distance for a short period of time. I don't want to waste a minute of it on anything but our love.”
I tossed the satellite phone aside as Laura filled my arms. I'd heard that vampires and sometimes their beloved partners had the ability to project outside of their body. In fact, Renalda had done that in Africa when she was searching for her mate Micah. Theory and reality however were very different. For one thing I didn't think that when a vampire projected themselves that they would still feel like flesh and blood. I could not have been more wrong. Everything about Laura but her ethereal translucent appearance was exactly the same. The texture of her skin, the scent of her desire and the sound of her heart beating was all Laura.
I pressed my mouth to hers. Her lips parted and allowed my tongue entry into her mouth. I felt her pushing at my clothes and I immediately stripped. Our kissing became heated and before long our bodies entwined with each other. I was so wrapped up in making love to my mate that I missed the sounds of Toby and Joe coming back from the hunt until I heard one of them say
“What the hell?”
I looked up and found myself trying to hide Laura's nakedness. I knew that she would be upset since she tended to be very modest. I pulled my discarded clothes off the ground and tried to place them around her body but was confused when they passed right through her. Laura laughed and said
“Oh honey, this is funny as heck. You must look like you are making love to yourself. They can't hear or see me. Just you can.”
Then before I could say a thing back to my mate she disappeared. I looked over at my two pride mates with a huge smile on my face and said
“Boys have either of you heard of astral projecting?”
I watched them look at each other then back at me before they placed the half dozen arowana fish they caught down on the ground. Then both of them fell into a fit of laughter.