CHAPTER TWO
Shelly was in shock. One of the richest men in the world had just turned into a giant cat right in front of her. A…a leopard or jaguar…or something. It hadn’t been a trick. She’d touched his fur. She’d felt the muscles rippling under the skin of his shoulders and upper back. He’d been warm and soft and so very masculine under her fingertips.
And now, he was facing her again, turning from furred beast into…naked man. Very naked man. Right in front of her. Sweet Mother in Heaven.
“You’re…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t even know what she’d intended to say.
“Not completely human. As I said. Now do you believe me?”
His smile could have charmed angels down from heaven. His body made her mouth water. And his unabashed confidence—all while sporting a raging and very impressive erection—made her want to know more about this intriguing…not man, surely. What was he?
“Half-cat? How is that even possible?” She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until he laughed.
“Jaguar. Black jaguar, the rarest of our kind. Sacred in some circles. Revered among our brethren. I am the Alpha of our Clan.”
Nick stepped forward, bending to retrieve Mark’s pants along the way. He handed them to his boss and then took up an almost protective position at his side. His gaze gave away none of his thoughts. He was still Mr. Hard-Assed Bodyguard to her.
His eyes dared her to put a toe wrong. She didn’t like him, but she began to see the resemblance between him and his employer. Could Nick become a giant jungle cat too? Somehow—incredible as it seemed—she began to believe he could.
Both were built on the massive side. Muscled. Sleek. Tall and bronzed as only men who spent a lot of time in the sun with their shirts off were. Mark had laugh lines around his inviting dark eyes. Nick’s jaw clenched in hard, uncompromising lines as he stared at her with those ice blue eyes of his. His short hair was streaked with gold, kissed by the sun. Mark’s was black as night, with a slight wave. Both were handsome as sin—as were the rest of Mark’s people.
Nick stood guard as Mark bent to slip his pants on, not bothering with underwear. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to put away that impressive cock, but she was just as glad when it was hidden by the black fabric of his tuxedo pants. She could still see the bulge of it, of course, but he seemed just a little less threatening with it tucked behind the trappings of civility.
“Son of a bitch,” she breathed aloud, realizing why. “All your staff. All those hard bodies and handsome faces. They’re all like you, aren’t they?”
“See, Nick? She’s gorgeous and smart, too,” Mark said to his bodyguard, almost playfully. The intense look he turned on her made her knees go weak. “I surround myself with my Clan. They’re all fierce and loyal.”
“If you have all of them, what do you want from me?” The whispered words found their way past her mouth. She was frightened, but also intrigued, and the internal censor that should have filtered the words between her brain and her mouth seemed to be offline for the moment.
“Everything, querida.” His softly voiced words struck straight to her core. Mark stepped a foot closer to her, his dark eyes seeming to bore into her very soul. “My kind know their perfect match through scent. When I entered your hotel room, I was overwhelmed by the knowledge that I have searched the world over for you, and suddenly—without the slightest warning—here you are. I mean to make you mine for all time, Shelly. You will be my partner and mate, the mother to the next generation of black jaguar, if the Goddess wills. And I will be your faithful husband for as long as we both shall live.”
Nick looked at his boss sharply. “Coming on a bit strong, aren’t you, Mark?”
For the first time in her presence, the bodyguard cracked a smile. It changed his face. Made him seem human. She still didn’t like him, but she would give him the benefit of the doubt. He certainly seemed to care about his boss. His…Alpha? Was that the word Mark had used?
Mark was walking, talking sex on a stick, but she didn’t have a right to think about him in anything other than a professional capacity, despite the preposterous words he had just spoken. He was raving. He was nuts! He was…a jaguar? Were shapeshifters—like in the movies—real, after all?
Or was she just having some kind of psychotic episode?
Shelly sank to the couch behind her, knees trembling and hands clenched tightly together. She almost missed the seat, and would have if Mark hadn’t sprung forward to catch and guide her. He sat gently next to her, taking her tightly clenched hands in his much larger grasp. Then, he rubbed her suddenly cold arms, and his dark eyes were full of concern when he tipped her chin upward so she had to look at him.
“Don’t faint on me now, querida. You’ve been strong tonight so far. Be strong for a little while longer.” His smile invited her to lean on him.
She didn’t know what to do. Her gaze went around the room, looking for a way out, but there was only Mark and his meanie bodyguard.
“Kindness might kill her,” Nick said, surprising her. “She needs your strength now, Alpha. She doesn’t shrink from confrontation. She’s stronger than she seems.”
The mean guy’s vote of confidence nearly floored her, but it did cause her chin to rise and her spine to stiffen just a bit. She’d stood strong in the face of Attila the Bodyguard’s harsh questioning. No reason to let his boss’s insanity turn her into quivering mush.
“I’m not sure what to say, Mr. Pepard.” She tried to pull her hands out of his, but he wouldn’t let go. His touch was gentle, though. He didn’t force her, but he was also firm in his resolution to remain touching her. “I’ll consider working for you, but anything else… Surely even you have to admit this is all a little sudden. Ten minutes ago, your bodyguard was all up in my face, threatening to make me disappear.”
Mark looked up at Nick, a scowl on his face. “Nick, I’m shocked.”
“No, you’re not.” Nick’s easy manner with Mark spoke of a long friendship between the two—and an equality she wouldn’t have guessed at before seeing them interact. “Until you arrived with your announcement, I thought she was a danger to you, Alpha. It’s my job to keep you safe.”
“And mine to watch out for you, as well,” Mark said quietly. “The Alpha protects his Clan.”
Shelly didn’t understand any of this. It was too much to take in all at once. Only a few minutes ago, she’d been interrogated, and then, she’d seen something…something completely unbelievable. Her mind was in shock. Shelly shot to her feet, breaking Mark’s hold on her hands.
“I’d like to go back to my hotel, please.” She tried to put some fire behind her words, and apparently, she managed a reasonable facsimile.
Mark stood and tried to touch her, but she dodged his hands and went to stand by the door. She didn’t know how far to push him, but so far, her bravado seemed to be working.
“I want to go now, if you don’t mind.” She resisted tapping her foot impatiently. She didn’t want to go overboard.
“Querida, don’t you realize how serious I am? You are my mate. Don’t ask me to let you go now that I’ve found you.” Mark sounded genuine, but the whole notion still seemed insane to her. How could he claim such a thing when he didn’t know all that much about her?
“I’m sure you’re very serious, but so am I. You’ve given me a lot to think about. You have to realize there is no way I can give you an answer right now. I need time to adjust to…all of this. Before you…did what you just did…I had no idea such a thing was even possible.”
“You overwhelmed her, Mark. Seriously,” Nick shook his head, “you’d think you never dealt with a human before.”
“I don’t want her going back to that hotel. It’s not safe.” Mark seemed to give in, and the look on his face nearly broke her heart, but she had to remain strong. She had to get away from him. She needed to think.
“You have to. Think about how it would look if she didn’t, Mark. The man who attacked you tonight was no doubt a pawn in a much larger game. They’re going to be watching. She needs to carry on as if she is as innocent as she was when this evening started.” Nick’s eyes pinned her in place. “You can do that, right? Your life probably depends on behaving as you would normally, and not as if you learned that shapeshifters were real tonight.”
“Normally, I’d have spent the night at the hotel and then driven home tomorrow. I just finished a project and have leads to follow up on when I get home,” she admitted, thinking it through.
“No leads. Tomorrow, I will arrive at your home to discuss the work I want you to do for me,” Mark said firmly. There was no arguing with Pepard when he got an idea in his head, or so the gossip said.
“And you will be guarded day and night,” Nick put in. “You won’t see them, but if you run into trouble, our people will be near enough to help, and to call in the cavalry, if needed.”
“Who would bother me? I don’t understand this at all.”
Mark’s expression was pained. She thought maybe she’d really hurt his feelings by wanting to get away, but she needed time—and space—to think.
“The Alpha has enemies,” Nick explained. “All rich men do. But shapeshifters have more than most. There are many who want to kill us simply for what we are. Others want to try to control our power and our magic. Some want to study us or keep us as prizes or even pets.”
“I’d like to see someone try that with me.” Mark grinned, and he looked every inch the predator in that moment.
His expression sent a chill down her spine. This was a dangerous man. A dangerous beast. Both—in one handsome-as-sin package.
“The man who tried to shoot Mark tonight knew or guessed what we are. His gun was loaded with silver bullets. Silver is a deadly poison to us. If you have any silver jewelry, put it away. You won’t be able to wear it around us. Gold is okay. Platinum is all right, too, but no silver. Understand?” Nick seemed to want to drive the point home.
“All right, I get it. No silver. I don’t like silver anyway. All my jewelry is gold. Dad insisted.” She’d always thought that odd, but her father always got his way, even in such trivial matters.
Come to think of it, they didn’t even have silver candlesticks or cutlery. Everything in their household had been gold or gold-plated. Shelly had thought it a bit ostentatious, but that sort of thing was in her father’s control, not hers.
When she set up her own home, she couldn’t afford to waste money on things like real silverware. Good old steel forks and knives were good enough for her.
Nick’s eyebrow arched at her words, but she wouldn’t elaborate. Let him think what he liked. Silly arched eyebrow and all.
“So, the silver-bullet-in-the-werewolf thing is true after all,” she spoke her thoughts aloud and had to stifle a laugh. Either she was going nuts or she was starting to believe this whole crazy scenario. Probably both.
“All weres share our problems with silver. As do bloodletters and some magic users,” Mark confirmed with a straight face. He wasn’t joking around.
“Werewolves are real?” she blurted.
“As real as I am, querida,” Mark confirmed, coming over to her on silent, sure feet. He could stalk in his human form, too, she noted with some alarm. “Wolves, cougars, hawks, predators of many kinds obey the Lords of the Were in North America. My people are from a slightly different part of the world, where older orders of organization apply. We date back to the Mayans, though we were greatly influenced by the influx of Spaniards and those who came later, which is why my friend here sports such exotic coloring for one of our kind.” Mark nodded toward the very Arian-looking Nick, who stood on her other side.
She was surrounded by them, and it was intimidating as well as…exhilarating?
She had to get out of there.
“Am I free to go?” She made herself ask the question.
The light in Mark’s eyes dimmed as he stepped back. “I will not hold what does not want to be held.”
“Come on,” Nick said in a gentle tone. “I’ll arrange for you to get back to your hotel. I want whoever’s watching to think we let you go after questioning and that we believe you to be innocent of any involvement with the gunman.”
“I am innocent,” she felt compelled to put in.
Nick nodded. “My apologies. You are innocent. In so many ways…” He trailed off, gazing at her until she started to fidget.
He turned to escort her out of the room, but Mark stopped her by grabbing her hand. She turned back to look at him and nearly gave in right then and there. But, no. She had to be strong.
“I will arrive at your home tomorrow afternoon. Be ready to give me your answer about working for me then. I will not give up until you agree to at least give me a chance to prove myself to you.”
“I’m giving you the chance, Mark,” she unbent enough to say. “Just give me a chance to get used to all of this. I’m sure I’ll have a million questions for you tomorrow. Just give me time, okay? I never expected any of this, and it’s a little hard to wrap my head around. Especially after your pal here gave me such a hard time.”
Mark smiled. “I promise to give you as much time as I can. And I apologize for Nick, but if you decide to work with us, before long, I believe it will be you giving him the hard time.”
Nick grumbled as Mark laughed. She had to get away from him for a while to think, and she had to get while the getting was good…or she feared she’d never leave.
“Are you sure she’s safe at the hotel?” Mark asked Nick later that night.
“I’ve got Heinrich and Mario watching over her. Nothing will get past them.” Nick poured another glass of the wine Mark preferred before he uncapped another beer for himself.
“I hope you’re right. She is my life, Nick.”
Nick took a long swig of his beer before replying. “I’m sorry I was hard on her, but I was too angry about the assassination attempt, and I honestly thought she might have had something to do with it. You know how my temper gets in the way of my other senses. That’s why you’re the Alpha, Mark.”
“Yeah, I have the opposite problem. We complement each other that way. As the Mother of All designed it.”
“You have more faith than I do,” Nick said ruefully. “I still think our whole system was set up by our predecessors because jaguars are more uncontrollable than other big cat species. We need more checks and balances.”
“It’s been this way for thousands of years,” Mark said for the hundredth time. “We’re not going to change it now.”
“Did I say I wanted to change it?”
“She is a beauty, isn’t she?” Mark observed, raising his glass with a wistful smile on his face.
“Feisty too. You should have seen the way she stood up to me. She was scared, but she didn’t cower. For a human, she has some serious guts.” He paused for a moment as unease ran through Mark, remembering Shelly was all too human, and therefore, fragile. “I always hoped your mate would be another jaguar, Mark. Are you sure Shelly is strong enough to be Alpha female of our Clan?”
“You yourself said she had guts, my friend,” Mark reminded him—and himself as well. “Don’t doubt her. The Mother of All would not give our Clan a frail Alpha female.” He had to believe that. “She may be human, but many jaguars have taken human women to wife very successfully throughout the ages. It’s not that uncommon.” And he knew for a fact his words were true. He’d read his people’s history. He knew there were plenty of instances where humans bred strong children into the Clan and made terrific mates.
“I hope you’re right,” was Nick’s only reply.
Nick drank the rest of his beer in silence before turning in for the night. They had a big day tomorrow, and Nick had already assigned his best men to watch their unclaimed Alpha female. Her safety had to come before all else. She was the Alpha’s—and the Clan’s—future…if she gave them the chance.
Everything now—the entire future of the Clan—was up to her.