Val called her boss to let him know the new development and to get a feeling for whether they could employ Rowdy right away.
“What the hell do you mean you want to employ a human civilian just because he knows about wolf shifters?” Sylvan paused, then said, “Wait, he knows about us too? I want this under control now. If the woman and the homicide detective have to be eliminated, so be it. Sometimes it has to be done, or we end up having a domino effect. Hell.”
“Yes, sir.” Val knew if a newly turned shifter couldn’t get themselves under control, they would have to be eliminated. But she wanted to get Izzie in hand and at least give her the opportunity to prove she could control her shifter half. Val also wanted to give Rowdy the chance to work with the jaguar policing force officially before he was turned or eliminated for knowing about them.
“What the hell was the human homicide detective doing there when the woman shifted?” Sylvan asked.
Val explained that she’d had to stop him from alerting Benny he was after him, reminding Sylvan he already knew about wolf shifters, but also now about them.
“So it’s his own damn fault he was there investigating the situation when it wasn’t in his jurisdiction.”
“Can we give him a job?”
“What? Hell no.”
“In the office? Until someone turns him and he gets his shifting under control?”
“He investigates murders. He doesn’t commit them.”
“Right, well, maybe Martin can hire him. Rowdy has extensive training. He would be a great asset,” she said as she and Howard walked into the cabin to see Rowdy pacing across the living room floor.
“Maybe he could, but not at my branch. And try not to call me about anybody else getting turned on your assignment, will you?”
“I don’t plan to. But if it happens, you’ll be the first to know.” Val ended the call.
“That went over well, I imagine,” Howard said.
“Yeah. One too many humans turned for his liking, with another wanting to be turned.”
Rowdy was so aggravated he’d nearly been bitten by a newly turned jaguar that Val didn’t want to tell him her boss wasn’t about to let him work for her branch.
“If I’d had a tranquilizer gun, I could have knocked Izzie out before any of this happened.” Jillian ran her hands through her hair, looking distraught that everything had gone so wrong and she hadn’t been able to stop any of it, but it wasn’t her fault.
Val had already disappeared down the hall.
“No problem. We’ll find her and bring her back.” Though Howard didn’t know how they’d be able to convince Izzie to return with them. He might have to resort to knocking her out with a swipe of his paw. But if he hit her too hard, he could kill her.
Val had stripped out of her clothes in his bedroom and loped out of there wearing her jaguar coat.
Howard eyed a scowling Rowdy. “You wanted to be one of us.”
“Yeah. As a wolf. I didn’t even know you guys existed.” Rowdy was glowering at him, looking totally pissed off, as if it was Howard’s fault for what had nearly happened.
“Hey, you play with shifters, you have to take the consequences. Besides, you’ll have your enhanced senses if you are turned. In the meantime, while we’re gone, don’t get bitten or cause Jillian any trouble, or I’ll return and kill you myself.”
“I’m one of the good guys, remember?” Rowdy’s brows were raised.
“If you’re turned or shift and you bite or otherwise injure Jillian, you’ll be considered a rogue and you’ll be on my terminal list. Just a warning. You’d deal with me next. You don’t want to have to, believe me.”
“Hell, give me a little credit, won’t you? I haven’t been bitten. But if I had, as I understand it, I still have control over the beast. Right?” Rowdy looked a little worried that he’d need to be locked up for his own good and everybody else’s.
“The shifter doesn’t take control, but we never know when a perfectly good human who is turned will react in a negative way.” Howard began stripping out of his clothes and said to Jillian, “Shoot him if Izzie returns, bites him, and he shifts and even growls at you.”
Jillian smiled at Howard, and he suspected she’d reassure Rowdy after Howard left that she had no intention of doing anything of the sort. She was sweeter than he was.
When Howard gave her a growly look that said he was serious, she nodded as if in agreement. Then he finished stripping off his clothes and shifted.
Val headed outside, and Howard raced after her. At least it had stopped raining.
They both immediately smelled the woman’s scent and began searching for her. He hoped she hadn’t run into any trouble while she was racing through the rain forest. She wouldn’t know the ins and outs of being a jaguar yet. She could instinctively leap into trees, love to swim, be able to leap long distances, and roar like they did. But other abilities—fishing as a jaguar, hunting, fighting—would take some practice, skill, and training. She most likely wouldn’t realize what scents belonged to what. Some, she would know. Like the fragrance of orchids or the smell of the rain, the woodsy scent. But animals? Distinguishing between shifters’ scents? Even recognizing a jaguar’s pattern to distinguish him from another jaguar? Those were things she would have to learn.
As a new shifter, she was being bombarded by sounds. He imagined it would be like turning the volume up on a hearing aid, and all the sounds would be confusing.
Her sense of sight would experience overload. Every little thing that moved—water drops dripping off a leaf, a leaf stirring, a mosquito buzzing overhead—would capture her attention. It could be frustrating and overwhelming.
Shifters born with the ability and growing up with their enhanced senses would learn about them gradually, taking baby steps at a time.
He hoped she didn’t go for a swim and encounter a crocodile. Just as Rowdy kept thinking with his human brain, he suspected Izzie would for some time too, until she got used to being in her jaguar form. If she saw a crocodile, instead of tackling it, she’d probably swim for her life, attempting to get away from it. She probably wouldn’t even know that crocs were on the jaguars’ menu.
They’d been searching for Izzie for about an hour when the sun began to set. Hell. Not that they couldn’t still see, smell, or hear her, but he could imagine how she’d feel when the dark descended. Any place a person wasn’t familiar with could be even scarier at night.
Where the hell did she think she was going? As far away from them as she could go, most likely.
He suspected she wouldn’t return to their resort for anything. And he wondered again how they were going to convince her to come with them when they found her without getting into a big fight.
Then he heard voices. Just great. Probably a tour group returning to the resort, or a group going out to see what they could of nocturnal creatures. He hoped the woman would stay clear of the humans and not think to seek their help. He had no idea what her frame of mind was, except for being panicked. She didn’t seem to have any real destination in mind, and she was moving deeper into the rain forest.
He kept Val in sight because they were still wearing hunter’s spray, and he didn’t want to lose her in the rain forest where he couldn’t track her down. He lost the woman’s scent and then picked it up again. The group of humans—if they weren’t shifters in human form—were getting closer. No one was screaming that they’d spotted a jaguar, no excited talk, so he suspected Izzie had moved out of their path already. But Val and he were headed straight for the people. He didn’t want to veer off from the woman’s trail and have to track it down later. He didn’t want to sit in a tree for a time either, as they’d had to do earlier.
He thought Val was going to veer off the scent trail, but she continued on the same path, headed straight for the humans. He smiled at her tenacity.
But they had a mission.
Then he saw five men and two women on the narrow trail, all of them flashing flashlights at something on a tree. Val dashed off the path and around several trees, but she made the move before he could follow her lead, and one of the people saw him.
“A jaguar!”
Howard was gone in a flash, disappearing into the foliage, the dark shadows consuming him.
“Did anyone capture a shot of the jaguar?” a woman asked.
“No, she was too fast.”
Howard wanted to correct the man who had called him a she. He soon caught up to Val, but she was circling the area, having lost the woman’s scent. He smelled a river nearby, but they still would have smelled the woman’s scent as she made her way to the river.
Val began to look up at the trees right in this area, and he did the same. That’s when they both saw Izzie at the same time, sitting on a limb and watching them. She was more of a reddish-brown color than a golden and tan like he and Val. She was smaller than Val too.
Howard shifted, hoping he wasn’t making a mistake. Or that the tour group would run into them here. Or that his nudity would offend the woman. Jaguars were used to shifting in front of other shifters, so nudity was something that didn’t bother them.
“I’m Howard…and this is my partner, Val. We’re with a shifter policing force.” Not that Val was truly his partner, but he didn’t need to get into the details right now. “We’re after Benny because he turned his human wife, and when she had trouble dealing with shifting, he murdered her. We’re going to take him down as soon as we can. In the meantime, we want you to come back with us.” He paused. “A brother and sister who just saved Val’s parents’ lives—after they were shot by one of Benny’s partners in the drug-dealing business—will take you to Houston. A family there will give you a home and teach you how to live as one of us.”
The woman was just staring at him, taking in his nudity, and she didn’t make a move from the branch. He thought about moving to his next plan of action—knock her out—but that would mean dragging her back to the resort. They’d come so far that he didn’t think carrying her through the rain forest as a naked human was a viable option.
Val shifted and he figured she’d want to talk to the woman, so he shifted back to his jaguar self and lay down among the ferns to make it seem as though he was completely at ease. Which he wasn’t. He didn’t want to leave Jillian and Rowdy alone for longer than necessary in the event Eric or his men showed up. And he wanted to get Izzie back to the resort before they ran into any more night tour groups out here.
Val said, “You can’t live out here, Izzie. You can’t go back to the States, not without our help. And you can’t return to your home. We need to learn more about you and your family. You can’t leave here without going with Matt and Katrina Sorenson. They have a chartered private plane that will take my injured parents home, and they’ll take you too. Not home, of course. You can’t be around humans for the time being. You’ll need to learn how to cope with all the changes. We can discuss all this civilly back at the cabin.”
The woman’s long tail twitched, her whiskers moving, sampling the air and scents and sounds, but she didn’t make a move to get down. Howard really didn’t blame her. This had to be a lot for her to take in all at once.
“You have to know you don’t really have a choice. We’ll do everything we can to make the transition the easiest for you.” Then Val shifted, as if she was done talking. Now she was leaving it up to the woman to decide what she wanted to do. Val suddenly shifted again and added, “Oh, and don’t ever bite a human. That can put you on a terminal list. I wouldn’t recommend you bite another shifter either, not unless you want to see how fast one of us can take you down. We can’t allow you to deal with this on your own. Either you come with us, or you don’t. It’s completely your choice. If you don’t, we won’t have any choice but to just eliminate you.” Then Val shifted again.
He was surprised Val had become the “bad cop” in the situation. Then again, maybe she felt she needed to with the woman since she wasn’t agreeing to the plan. They waited for a few minutes, but the way Val was eyeing the woman, he suspected she wasn’t going to wait much longer.
She shifted and turned to Howard. “Okay, so I’ll knock her out of the tree and you finish her off, or do you want to get in the tree and do the honors?”
He didn’t think Val was serious.
“Forget it. I’ll do both. Just pin her down after I knock her out of the tree, if I don’t kill her right off.” Val shifted and leaped into the tree.
Howard liked a woman of action. He readied himself to pounce if Izzie tried to leap from the tree and run any farther.
Izzie only hesitated a couple of seconds before she jumped to the ground and stayed put, eyeing Howard as if she was worried he might attack her. Val jumped down and shifted. “We’re not running after you any more tonight. Stay with us, or we terminate you. I’ll lead, and Howard will follow behind you. If you stray, your life is ended. Got it?” Then Val shifted again, then led the way, and just like she’d told her to do, Izzie followed her.
Howard was smiling at Val as he followed the woman. He hadn’t been sure Izzie would go along with Val’s command. The problem was that each person was different, with unique life experiences, values, judgments, and personality traits, so what might work with one wouldn’t with another.
He was glad they were finally headed back to the resort. Val would make one damn good partner, and that got him thinking about returning to the Enforcer branch to partner up with her or convincing her to work with him in the USF. He wasn’t sure if she’d like to work with a mixed shifter group, but he didn’t know if he could go back to his old job either. He liked the diversification and the group he was partnered with now.
They heard the noisy tour group heading the same way they were. Val circled around the group, which meant they had to take a longer path when they didn’t need anything slowing them down. He suspected that as long as it had taken them to find Izzie, the Sorenson team would be at the cabin by now.
Then they heard something running toward them in the woods. A wild pig, with dangerous tusks. And Val was standing still, looking ready to pounce on the beast.
Howard shifted and said, “Get up in the tree.” He shifted back into his jaguar form.
Jillian leaped onto a branch first, and then Izzie joined her. Howard had been afraid the woman would run off, fearing for her life. He jumped into the tree with them and waited for the animal to pass. Then Howard and the others jumped down, and they began to run back to the resort.
It took them another half hour to finally reach the cabin, and he couldn’t have been happier to get Izzie inside.
He wasn’t surprised to see two more vehicles parked there. The Guardian twins must have arrived. Howard suspected the other vehicle belonged to Vaughn, and he figured Jillian’s mate wouldn’t be happy to learn about all that had gone on while she was here without her mate.
Howard chuffed at the door. Jillian answered it. “Good. You all made it back safely. Since it’s not raining, Vaughn and Matt are going to barbecue ribs, if you want to help them, Howard.”
He chuffed and headed to the bedroom to shift and dress. Val followed him into his bedroom, shifted, closed the door, and smiled at him. She grabbed her bra off the bed.
Howard shifted and pulled her into his arms before she could dress and gave her a warm embrace. If he was to remain completely professional, he wouldn’t have done that. But he already knew he wanted more with her. And she seemed to feel the same way. At least she didn’t pull away, leaning into his touch instead. Every time they got close, he smelled her pheromones and his own, saying they wanted each other.
“Hmm,” she purred. “Ending a mission like this is really nice.”
“Only with you.”
“Not with any of your other partners, eh?”
He smiled. “Not even close.”
“I never thought this mission could be such an adventure. At least we managed to bring Izzie here without having to kill anyone,” she said.
“I hadn’t expected you to be the bad cop in the situation.” He kissed her cheek.
“It depends on the situation. I thought you were afraid to scare her into compliance, and when your talk didn’t convince her to go with us, I figured it was my turn. Sweet and solicitous wasn’t working.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think of myself in that way.”
“Either you were trying to impress me, or you were worried about scaring her.”
“If I was trying to impress you, did I succeed?”
“Always.”
He chuckled. “I’ve never dealt with a situation like this. I wasn’t sure how to handle it. You did great. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an agent convince someone who didn’t want to comply to go along with the program that fast. We could have been out there a lot longer if you hadn’t stepped in and taken charge.”
“I think she’d finally figured out she didn’t have any other choice, and she wasn’t sure if I was serious about eliminating her. I hadn’t wanted to intimidate her like that. She’s dealing with enough right now, but it had to be done.” Val let out her breath and ran her hands over Howard’s chest. “I feel bad about Rowdy too.”
“Why? By hanging around our kind, he’s bound to get himself into trouble.”
“He didn’t know this was a shifter case when he started it. But it’s not about that. It’s about my boss not giving him a job.”
Howard shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. “I’ll check with Martin and see if he’s more agreeable about hiring him. Or maybe the Guardian branch would take him in.”
Val pressed a kiss against his mouth, and he began to kiss her, slowly at first, his body reacting to hers, soft and warm against his. Then she parted her lips for him, and he kissed her deeply. “Hmm, about the room arrangement… I’ll share my bed with you, if you don’t snore.”
“You’ve got a deal.” He kissed her again, damn glad she was letting him in, and though he planned to discuss this case further with Vaughn and the others, he couldn’t help thinking about being alone with Val tonight.
Reluctantly, they separated and began to dress.
Once they left the bedroom, Howard told Val, “I’ll help with the cooking. Just holler if Izzie gives you any trouble.”
“I’m sure we can handle it.” Val patted him on the chest and then went to join the ladies.
Howard glanced at them. “Rowdy, you coming?” Then they went out back to join Vaughn and Matt.