Lando shifted, then pulled his clothes from the pouch he’d dropped earlier. He dressed, scooped her up in his arms then crouched on the rainforest floor. Overhead, thunder boomed and the skies opened up, drenching him in seconds. He pressed his face to her neck and shook.
Selena had been missing for three days. There’d been no sign or scent of her that they could pick up on. He barely slept and when he did, it was in the forest in his cat form, well aware it would protect him and if the winds shifted, bringing her scent, it would wake and follow.
He pulled the phone from the pouch around his neck and called Femi.
“News?” his friend asked, voice tired and stressed.
“I have her. Tell her friends she’s alive. Right now, I have to get her to shelter and we’ll be down as soon as she’s able to travel.”
He ended the call and shoved the phone in his pants. With ease, he rose and jogged off down a path most wouldn’t be able to pick out during daylight, much less during a storm. How the hell she’d gotten all the way over here, he didn’t know. He could faintly scent another man’s touch on her and it infuriated both him and the cat.
Within twenty minutes, he jogged into view of a large home, open and sprawling. He carried her up to the door and let himself in.
His parents appeared on the balcony overlooking the foyer.
“What is this?” His mother gestured toward him as she spoke.
“This is my mate, not a what but a who. The one who was kidnapped. I must check her injuries and see how hurt she is. Don’t worry, we won’t stay long.” Dismissing them, he carried her down the hall to a guest room and set her down. Moments later, several thick towels were placed next to him. He dried himself, leaving a towel over his shoulders and stripped her of the soaking clothes. Then he rubbed her down.
“Lando, I’m coming in,” his father said.
He drew the heavy blankets up over her, hating how she shivered. It wasn’t cold out, even the rain had been warm. But she lay there trembling as if they were in the Arctic Circle.
“I know you don’t think we understand about you and this woman. But she’s an outsider, not one of us. How is she going to survive here?”
He didn’t respond, as he wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t one of them. Checking her skin, he shook his head and turned to ask for some tea when his mother walked in with it, placing it at the beside.
“Healing herbs,” she said, running a critical look over the woman lying there. “It will heal the bruising on her face as well.”
He’d seen it and had looked away. The audacity of someone to putting their hands on her, made him want to kill. His claws extended.
His mother captured his wrist. “She is here and alive. Sheathe your claws.”
Lando removed the towel from his shoulders and toweled off his hair once more. Balling it up and dropping it to the floor, he reached over and slid her hand free of the blankets, needing to have contact with her.
His father gasped but he didn’t look away from the woman still unresponsive. “Angela, look.”
“By the gods. This woman, she’s—she’s a consort.”
Lando turned away from her for a moment to find his parents both behind him, staring at his back. “What are you two doing?”
They looked at each other.
“There is much to do, I will start the preparations,” his mother stated seconds before she kissed him on the forehead and left.
“Pai, what is going on?”
“This woman—”
“Her name is Selena,” he interrupted. His beast had been soothed upon finding her, although it still wanted blood. Right now, all he wanted to do was crawl in beside her. Lando stood and yawned. It had been a long three days.
“She’s your consort.”
He narrowed his eyes at his old man. “Watch how you speak of her.”
“Son, you don’t understand. Consorts only come along, once every hundreds of years.”
Lando rubbed the back of his neck. “What are you talking about?”
His father brought over a chair. “This is going to take a while. I am guessing you won’t be leaving her side.”
“You guessed correct.” Lando slid her over and sat next to her, gathering her closer to him, and tucking her back in fully. At least her tremors had stopped but she still slept. “Consort?”
“We have mates, you know this. They make us whole.”
He nodded, waiting.
“A consort is all that and more. So much more. Your strength is enhanced, your connection that much deeper, that much stronger. You will be able to communicate with all shifters, not just family. Across species.”
“You know this how?”
“We’ve had a few consorts but they are rare, to be treasured. If human, she will have the ability to shift should she need to protect herself. Or if she wishes.”
“How is it that now she’s a consort but before you wanted me with another?”
“Because I’d not seen your glyph before.”
“What about it?”
“It moves.”
“I know, she asked me about it. I didn’t know what to say.”
“They only move for a consort. Mine doesn’t move and never will. Your mother isn’t a consort, she’s a mate. Your woman, your consort, is already stronger than most.”
Lando wanted to curl around her and share heat. Bury his face in her neck and just hold her. “So what does that mean?”
“It means you are the ruler of the Astapa. We will have a ceremony to celebrate and welcome her to us.”
“She’s not even sure she wants to stay here. She came down to visit. She’s due back in Miami at the end of the week.”
“No,” his father barked. “She is to stay here.”
“I’m not going to force her to remain, Pai. I won’t be that way.” At least not now. We’re going to have to be a team. “I want to sleep.”
His father got up and walked out, closing the door behind him.
Lando curled around her, sharing as much heat with her as he could. Soon, their heartbeats had fallen into the same rhythm and he drifted off to sleep.
He woke when she did and moved along the bedding but not trying to get out of his embrace. “Are you okay?” he murmured in her ear.
“Sore. Are they okay?”
“Your friends are fine. Worried about you, of course. We will head over to see them today.”
“Do you know who took me and why?” She lay facing away from him.
Lando drew her even tighter against him. “Not yet. I have Jeremy out checking. He’ll find how and let me know.”
“Then what?”
He kissed her ear. “Then I kill them.”
“I’m ready to go home.” Her words were low and soft.
“I know and we’ll get you there. I shouldn’t have left you, Selena and I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for doing your job, Lando. Who know what would have happened if you hadn’t been there. You could be dead now.”
More likely the kidnappers would be. He turned her in his embrace, so he could stare into her eyes. He cupped her face and smiled as he took in the vertical pupils. Her cat was protecting her. He held out hope all would work out. “Not likely.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have things to do here yet.” He pushed his cock against her, grateful for the heating of her gaze.
“Is that so?” A sparkle returned to her brown eyes.
“Definitely.”
Since she was naked already, he just cupped her core and allowed two fingers to drift between the lips. She squirmed and he captured her lower lip in his teeth, tugging slightly while he plunged his fingers inside her, cream coating them, making it slick. He held them deep inside her. “You can say no.”
Selena bared her teeth and hissed at him.
He hid his grin. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
She gripped his wrist and held him there. “Keep it there unless you have something else to put there.”
“Oh, I do,” he promised. His dick strained against his pants. “What do you want?”
“This.” She shifted making his fingers move within her. “God yes. That.”
“Tell me.” He stilled.
She snapped her teeth at him but he didn’t move, merely held her gaze, waiting. He wanted the words.
“I want you inside me. I want your fingers in my pussy, playing with me until I can’t take anymore. Then I want you to put me on my hands and knees and fuck me.” She wrapped a hand around the nape of his neck. Her gaze darkening. “I want you to mark me. Claim me. Make me yours, like you say I am.”
He nearly came right then. Hearing such raw words from her sent fire through his cock. “Yes.”
She released him with a graze of nails along his skin, sharper than he’d expected. It revved up his cat. He wanted to flip her now but no, he was going to give her all of what she wanted.
He pushed a third finger inside her and she moaned aloud, spreading her legs wider. She kneaded her own breast, tugging on the nipple and panting. He claimed her mouth, pumping his fingers within her as she writhed beneath him. Taking as much time as he could manage to give, he closed his eyes as she came hard around him.
Withdrawing his fingers, he licked two of them clean and put the third up to her lips. “Taste,” he ordered.
She parted her lips and drew in the digit, sucking it free of her cream. Selena twined her tongue around his finger and he felt it in his cock. He had his mouth there the moment he pulled his finger from the heat. Her eyes had gone completely feline and his body hummed. He kissed her breathless then pulled his lips from hers. “This isn’t enough,” he said. He turned her over and lifted her so her ass was in the air. Shedding his pants, he got behind her, still playing with her pussy, teasing it.
She whimpered and moved against him, begging without words.
He could see her cravings in his mind. The bond between them grew stronger…he could feel it. Yet, he still didn’t know enough about her. Grasping his cock, he pushed into her.
Selena bucked back, taking him deeper. The muscles working him like she fisted him. She dropped her head and cried out as he powered deep into her.
This wasn’t making love, his beast was roaring as it tried desperately to get to its mate, this was him claiming her. His canines dropped, claws slid out of his fingers and pricked into her flesh. She trembled all the while continuing to work his dick.
He bent over her back and bit between her neck and shoulder blade as he came within her. In his periphery, he watched her shred the sheets with talons of her own. It made him harder and he stiffened with a grunt.
Drained, he pressed kisses along her spine and paused when he saw a glyph moving along her skin. When he pulled back, it moved up to where he’d bit her and created a mark unlike any he’d seen. A swirling design that reminded him of a galaxy.
He covered her with his body, remaining inside her.
“You bit me,” she said.
“I marked you.”
“There’s a difference?”
Lando rolled to the side, bringing her with him then covering them with the blankets. “Yes.”
“I doubt that.” She readjusted, turning to face him. Selena grasped his cock in her hand and began stroking him.
When she stuck her tongue at him flashing that tongue piercing, he didn’t think to discuss it any further, especially when she slid down his body and replaced her hand with her mouth.
Selena stared at the massive cat coming at her. It padded closer on large feet. She held out her hand, trying not to scream and run the other way.
The feline didn’t stop until her hand touched him.
You’re the one who I wasn’t sure if I actually saw or not in the rainforest, aren’t you? The one who saved me from the other cat.
Leopard.
She jerked back from the plush coat beneath her palm. “Who said that?”
It butted her with that broad head. I did. It was a leopard. I am jaguar.
Touching him gave her a thrill and she didn’t want to take her hand away. Instead, she sank the other in the side of his neck. “Next you’ll be telling me you’re Lando.”
No comment this time, just an unwavering stare.
“Holy shit.”
What looked like to be a mixture of gold and diamond dust the cat shifted into a man. Not just any man but Lando Vargas. When the gold and diamonds disappeared, he stood above her, somehow fully dressed all in black including the trench coat she’d gotten used to seeing him in. She never saw him dress and made note to ask him about it. It added a swath of danger to him. Not like he needed anymore.
“Come walk with me.”
She got to her feet and placed her hand in his. As they walked, he explained to her about being a consort, the ceremony upcoming, and how he vowed to avenge what happened to her.
Selena stayed quiet until he mentioned she would be able to shift. “Wait, wait. I’m human. I’m not a shifter.”
“Hold your arm in the sun.”
She did, leaning forward from the rock they were seated on, as they overlooked a rushing waterfall.
Lando captured her wrist and turned her arm back and forth. “Do you see?”
She stared and finally, there it was. Moving with her skin, the faint image of rosettes. “Wow,” she said. “It’s not something that’s going to happen as I’m walking down the aisle of a 747 while we’re flying over the ocean, is it? Because I think that would be frightening for the passengers.”
His expression hardened for a moment.
She paused and tilted her head at him. “I’m sorry, Lando. I’m not giving up my life to live here while you save people.”
“And you want me to come to Miami with you? I can’t live there, not in that city.”
“I didn’t ask you to live with me there, Lando.” Her voice wobbled a bit while her heart broke.
“What about us?”
It would be so easy for her to end it and push him away but she mulled over the things he’d told her. What she had experienced and what she wanted for her future. “I have to be at work in a day, I’m flying to Greece. Lando, I love my job.”
“And me?”
Selena reached up and brushed some hair back from his face. “I know you think I’m running from you and perhaps maybe I am in a way. But I know our future is entwined with one another. I proudly carry the title of consort but I have to be given the opportunity to make a decision. I won’t have it made for me.”
She could read it in his face. He wanted to argue but didn’t.
In fact, he didn’t say a word, just watched her with that intense gaze.
“I’m not the kind of woman who wants to sit at home and do nothing but I’m an airline attendant. I can’t work where there’s no airport.” She stepped closer and dragged her fingers down the lapels of his trench. “I’m not a diamond girl but I do love sapphires.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Sapphires?”
“I figure you have some way of making one into a ring for me. If you do, I will gladly wear it. Hell, I’ll even take your last name but I at least have to talk to my parents about his. And my brother.”
“So, this isn’t the end?”
Her heart hadn’t ever felt so light, the love Selena felt for him surpassed anything she’d known in this life. “No, not at all. I’m proud to be known as the Jaguar’s Consort. Kinda makes me yours.”
Lando cradled her face in his hands and kissed her. “You are mine.”
“And I will be so, always.”
Two months later
Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean…
Selena made her way silently down the darkened aisle making sure all the passengers were fine. Sure, they had the buttons they could push but she liked to do this. One, it got her out of her seat to stretch her legs and two, she truly just loved her job.
They’d departed New Zealand earlier in the day and were headed for Chile. From there, she was jumping onto a plane that was heading for Brazil. Once there, she had a reunion she’d been waiting impatiently for.
She paused as she came upon a man walking his baby up and down the aisle. She smiled at him. “Can I get you anything, sir?”
He shook his head. “Just trying to keep her quiet.”
“Very good.” Selena continued. Down one side and up the other, she returned to first class. With a smile to another attendant, she slipped behind the curtain and fixed herself a drink. The light glinted off the blue ring on her left finger.
I still don’t know how the hell he managed to do this from a sapphire. Nothing else but it’s perfect. I didn’t believe you could do a faceted band from a sapphire but he pulled it off.
Exhausted but happy when she departed in Brazil, she hurried through the rest of her work and left the airport. She was officially on vacation now. There was going to be no more serving other people up in the air and cleaning up after them for a while.
She groaned, grateful for the time off. While it as true, she loved her job, she was more than ready for this break. On the whole, she had great people on flights but there were those few that tested her patience in more ways than one.
Waiting out front was a town car and she climbed in the back. It drove her to another airport, a smaller one this time. During the trip, she made use of her time to send texts to her friends letting them know she’d arrived safely and was on her way to meet Lando. She climbed the narrow steps to the puddle jumper and settled back for the final flight.
Two hours later, after they’d landed and she watched them lower the steps, she barely held her excitement.
Waiting out by a dirty jeep was the man she’d come to see.
His dark hair moved in the slight breeze as he stood there, one hand on the hood the other shoved into his pocket. The black trench coat did not hide the power in his jean-clad legs or take her mind off what she knew to lay beneath those clothes.
Within her chest, a calm settled over her that she’d been missing while apart from him. She’d gotten accustomed to the ache while she worked but to have it soothed, words couldn’t explain the feeling. He’d explained it was her cat wanting his.
Selena waved at him.
Her other half. Her lover.
Lando Vargas.
He stood at the bottom of the steps by the time she maneuvered down the stairs.
Selena jumped into his embrace and moaned into the passionate kiss he planted on her. His hands roved beneath her uniform and she squirmed to get closer. Needing his touch on her skin. It had been far too long.
Lando broke the breathless kiss. “Welcome home, cônjuge.”
And yes, she was home.
The End