His cry of terror echoed through her mind, replacing hunger and confusion with a focus she might not otherwise have found.She saw him reaching for the cat, trying to aid her. Not wanting to risk his life, she broke the telepathic connection between them and dissolved. Her body turned to vapor, streaming up and around the cat to reshape into that of a male jaguar with a broad, heavy head and a larger, stockier body the color of the darker shadows. Droplets of blood fell like mist, spattering the leaves and roots as she took the form of a rare black jaguar. She snarled a challenge and leapt. The two cats crashed heavily together, rolling across roots and boughs, the sounds of battle disturbing the night. Many cats used strangulation to kill, but the jaguar, with its exceptionally powerful jaw, would bite directly through the skull between the temporal bones, killing prey instantly. Jaguars were extraordinarily strong, with compact, muscular bodies and broad heads. Stealthy and ne
The jaguar roared, drawing Storm’s attention back to the danger closest to her. She forced a careless smile. "You have the taste of my blood in your mouth. And I have the taste of yours. You have information I seek. You tried to kill me and I owe you no quarter." The cat remained motionless, not a muscle moving, eyes focused intently on her. The jaguar people were as elusive and secretive as the great cats, and like their animal part-or because of it they preferred the dense rainforest near streams and riverbanks. They were rarely encountered and, most likely, were stealthy enough and too familiar with the rain forest to ever be seen unless they wished it. The men, like the animal, were heavily built and enormously strong. They had tremendous night vision and excellent hearing. They were good tree climbers and strong swimmers. Little was known of their society, although she knew they had bad tempers when aroused. Before she probed deep into the brain of the jaguar, the hunter took a
Kon opened his memories to Storm and flooded her with as much information as possible. For many years he'd worked to restore the dwindling strength of his species. Too many of their women had left, seeking companionship and love with human males rather than the careless abandonment of their own males. He'd influenced the others to follow the way of the Storm’s kind and mate for life, to provide a home and a family, a reason for women to stay with them. At first, many had gone along with his ideas and had begun to give up their solitary way of life, but recently, they had become divided in their thinking, as a slow, subtle change occurred. Packs of men had begun committing terrible crimes against women. A "new order" of jaguars had begun searching for women of their kind and raping them in an effort to have pureblood children. Kon hadn't known of the horrors, other than unconfirmed rumors, for the first few years, but now more and more men had joined the bands of marauding rebels. H
Storm woke up with a sense of dread churning in the pit of her stomach. She had just had a horrible dream, and the memory of it lingered like a dark cloud over her mind.As she lay in bed, trying to shake off the remnants of the dream, she felt a wave of panic wash over her. Her chest tightened, making it hard to breathe, and she struggled to control the rising panic that threatened to overwhelm her.The dream had been vivid and unsettling, filled with images that made no sense to her. She tried to piece together the fragments of the dream, to understand its meaning, but it felt like trying to grasp at smoke. Vampires, demons and what-nots. What was all that? What was the dream trying to convey to her?Her emotions were in turmoil, like a storm raging inside her. Fear, confusion, and a sense of foreboding mingled together, creating a tangled web of emotions that she couldn't untangle. She still remembered the words that she had exchanged with the jaguar man, Kon. For some reason, it w
Desperately, Storm tried to think of what to do to get rid of the malevolent presence. It was not giving up yet. She said another prayer.She didn’t think she could hold onto the wall for long-she could actually feel its strength withering. Could the presence feel it too?Should she try to confront the presence head-on, or should she flee from the room and seek safety elsewhere? But before she could make a decision, she felt the presence begin to dissipate both from her mind and her room, like smoke fading into the night.Relief flooded through her, washing away the fear and uncertainty that had gripped her moments before. But even as the presence faded away, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched, that something sinister was lurking just beyond the edges of her perception.For the past few days now, she had felt it, this sense of being observed, of being watched by unseen eyes. It had started out as a nagging feeling in the back of her mind, but it had grown stron
Storm inhaled deeply, and then again, and then again, until it felt as if she was competing with someone in an inhaling duel, until she laughed at herself, at her internal jokes. The air here was so clean. Cleaner than the one in her house. Free from maliciousness.Immediately she had left her house, she had pinged one of the servants whose contact had been left with her incase of emergencies, if she couldn’t prepare food for herself. Yes, her house had come with special food ingredients in the cupboards. She would have loved to try out something, but her mind had been singed with the dream and her findings. She had been too destabilized to cook. And so, she had called for food, and had waited on the veranda until it came. The food had been nice, the servant girl had been human, but Storm knew that she could cook better. After all, she didn’t work in Jess’ restaurant for nothing. After the meal, she had gone to the garden that had made her house the sweetest in the clan, had taken a
Storm didn’t recognize the presence of Avery right beside her. She didn’t even greet, or make an inclination that someone now sat beside her on the bench. She looked ahead, wishing for the first time to be anywhere but here, because of the presence of the woman whom she had seen frolicking with Kaden from her window, the woman that hated her as a result of that. “You weren’t taught to greet your elders?” Storm ignored Avery again. Rather she made do with the tapping of her foot on the soft grass beneath her feet. “I suggest you answer me, human. Unless you want yourself beneath six feet.” So, Kaden hadn’t told Avery then that she was not completely human? Storm wondered, a bit amused at the total annihilation of the woman from her case. Was it that Kaden didn’t trust the woman beside her not to make a fuss? Storm almost chuckled but for the fact that she didn't want her hair being marred by the woman. She could bet her ass off that it would be the first place the woman would t
At Tensel’s Place:“This is a serious matter. I know some of us here would be relieved that Levon has taken his sight away from our compound, from our people, from our women and children most especially, but his plan is still the same-colonize the world. We can’t allow that, because surely if we refuse to find the girl that had gotten his attention, then we are doomed too.” Tensel started, looking into the faces of the entire ancients in his compound. The women were there too, even with the human guards who were already skilled in knowledge about matters like this. “We need to find the girl, whoever she is. We need to stop Levon from wrecking terror in this world. This world might not be the best place considering the amount of corruption and decay I’ve seen in it since birth centuries ago, but it doesn’t deserve to be ruled by a wretched demon.” The men nodded.“That’s true.” Gray, the healer intoned. “Tensel is right. We have to the find the girl. Elina and Elizabeth were the one