Roberto and Antonio strode into the temporary offices of Vertigo. The company had set up shop a couple of towns over – between the jaguar leap and the lion pride – renting some offices in what used to be the town library. Not many people around there were especially interested in reading.
A young, curvy secretary looked up at them, flashing a thousand watt smile and thrusting out her barely covered chest. Little wonder why she was hired – to distract the male clientele.
If they weren’t so mad and Antonio already enamored by his cheetah shifter – who was currently off somewhere with his mother who was ignoring his text messages – grrr, they might have been slightly distracted.
“May I help you gentleman?” she asked in a breathy voice.
Roberto curled his upper lip, growling, and the small sound made her fidget uneasily.
“Where’s Draper?” demanded Roberto.
Her smile fixed on her face, but unlike her original expression, this wasn’t genuine – she had to force it there. Under the penetrating glare of the prime and his nephew, a small bead of sweat formed on her forehead. “Mr. Draper is out of the office for the rest of the day,” she lied.
Draper was in charge of the resort project. He had been the one to approach Roberto about selling their land. The one who had sneered at them, looked at them like they were no better than animals. Yeah, they’d met humans like him before, but none of them had demanded the leap sell them their land.
Antonio smiled back at the young woman, disarming her slightly for a moment, easing her and making her smile genuine again, at least temporarily. “Strange that,” he purred, tapping his chin.
The secretary cocked her head to one side, questioningly.
“Because we can scent him in this building.” Antonio took an exaggerated sniff and allowed his eyes to flash yellow.
Her smile dropped, and sweat peppered her face, turning her layers of make-up blotchy.
Roberto strode past her desk and flung the door open to Draper’s office. They found him lounging in his chair, one foot on his desk while he played with an iPad.
“Ah,” the secretary flushed.
Antonio gave her a wink. “I guess he must have climbed back in through the window.”
Draper looked up lazily as Roberto and Antonio planted themselves in front of his desk. The man was small, little more than about five-foot-two, but he made up for it with attitude. He wasn’t easily scared, and the hulking presence of two jaguar shifters didn’t worry him in the least.
“Did we have an appointment?” he asked smugly, his gaze wandering back to his iPad. He appeared to be playing chess.
“Shall I call security?” asked the secretary, hovering in the doorway.
Draper sneered. “No, it hardly seems worth it for a couple of stray cats.”
When Draper visited the leap, he brought two enormous human bodyguards with him – enormous by human standards. They might have been as big as an average jaguar shifter, but they wouldn’t last five seconds in a fight with one. Though, they were more than happy to flash the guns they wore strapped to their hips at everyone. The men were merely a show of power by Draper, trying to either impress or intimidate the jaguars.
The secretary filtered away, and Roberto leaned forward, both fists on the desk as he glared at Draper with yellow eyes.
“Stay away from my people,” he snarled.
Draper let out an almost musical laugh. “Trust me; nothing could make me want to get anywhere near your people. I’d be afraid of catching fleas.”
“You’ll never get our land.”
Draper’s lips twitched slightly as if he was holding back a smirk. “Is that it? Is that what you came all the way down here, dragging your knuckles, for? To warn me away from your people?”
“You want us out,” said Antonio, fairly mildly considering the anger stirring deep within his beast. “But it’s not going to happen.”
“Of course,” oozed Draper, shutting off the iPad and beaming at them.
“If I find out you tried to hurt any of my people…” Roberto let the words hang in the air, but he plucked the iPad out of Draper’s hands, and with one meaty paw, crushed it.
Draper’s eyes flickered with hatred, but that was quickly doused. “A pleasure as always gentlemen,” he crooned as they turned to leave.
The secretary let out a long breath of relief as they left, and they walked back to their truck in silence. Antonio’s jaguar growled uneasily. On the plus side, there hadn’t been any fighting, the local police chief hadn’t been called, and no one was going home with any wounds. However, there hadn’t been any fighting…
Draper had been a bit too complacent, a little too self-satisfied. When they had visited him in his office before, because one of his security guys had tried to get handsy with a leap female, he had called security immediately. He wouldn’t even talk to them. But today, he had been all slime and smugness. Which made Antonio think he was hiding something and had wanted to lord his secret over them, to enjoy his own little private joke.
“He’s hiding something,” groused Roberto, echoing Antonio’s thoughts.
“Yes.”
Roberto growled and started driving home.
Antonio pulled out his phone, checking for messages from his mother. There were none, and his jaguar flicked his tail impatiently.
*
Hester cackled with laughter as she scrolled through the text messages on Maria’s phone and quickly deleted them.
“Teach you to take my phone away from me, douche bag.”
Naturally, when Antonio kidnapped her, he had taken away her phone. She wouldn’t exactly say her whole life was on her phone, but… well, yeah, her whole life was on her phone. E-mails, contacts, messages – she needed her phone and being away from it felt unnatural. How she ever got by before it she had no idea.
So when Maria went to the bathroom and left her phone on the table, Hester might have picked it up and took a quick look at the thing. It wasn’t like she was calling for help or anything – she was still honoring the promise she made Antonio. She just wanted to hold the phone, to make her withdrawal symptoms abate a little.
But then a message had popped up from Antonio. ‘Where are you?’
Then another. ‘Seriously, Mom, where are you?’
Then another. ‘Are you both okay?’
Numerous more followed. When she glanced up, she noticed Maria talking to Roman, her bear friend, and Hester realized she had a little time.
She gleefully read message after message as it arrived until the last. ‘Tell me you’re not dead!’
Boy, he really sounded like he was worried - hence the deleting of all the messages. A little mean maybe, but all was fair in love and kidnapping. Let him worry. Her inner cheetah huffed at her, and Hester gave her a mental raspberry.
She managed to get the phone back in its spot before Maria made it back to the table. The older woman’s cheeks were a little flushed, and a small smile graced her lips.
“Roman again?” teased Hester.
Maria’s face dropped. “Oh, you saw – you know he just came in to pick up something to eat. He has a standing lunch order; I had no idea he’d be here!” Her cheeks flamed with embarrassed denial.
“Ummm hmmm.”
“There’s nothing going on between us,” she said adamantly.
“He wants something to be going on.”
“No, I would know…”
“So you already know that he was checking out your butt as you walked away?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” hissed Maria, before leaning forward. “Was he?”
Hester chuckled, and Maria twisted her napkin in her hands. “I’ve only ever been with my mate, and I haven’t even held hands with a guy since he died. I’ve no idea about any of this dating stuff.”
“Well, when your courtship consists of a guy abducting you, I’m not surprised.”
“There was more to it than that,” insisted Maria. But on seeing Hester’s look of disbelief, she added, “I suppose the kidnapping part sped things up – but my mate did try to woo me. He brought me chocolates every day; he wrote a song for me… It was a terrible song, but at least he tried to show me how much he cared.” She sighed as if lost in happy memories.
Hester leaned back in her chair and glanced around the restaurant. It was a pretty nice steakhouse. Tablecloths and real napkins, and friendly staff. She caught Manny looking over at their table, and she bared her fangs. He quickly returned his attention to his plate.
Yep, the two leap males the prime sent to follow them had followed them right on into the restaurant. At least they hadn’t tried to sit next to them. They were far enough away that they couldn’t hear their conversation but could keep a close eye on them. Maria didn’t mind or didn’t even notice their presence, though Hester still didn’t like the thought of having a chaperone. Even her cheetah bristled at the two males, feeling too much like she was being stalked.
Would this be what it was like to live in the leap full time? Would she be followed every time she tried to leave the compound? Maybe Maria didn’t care, but Hester wouldn’t want to live like that. It was too stifling, too much like being trapped – too much like living with her mother again. She had only been living with the jaguars for a few days, but already not being able to shift and run free was grating at her nerves and making her cheetah a little frazzled. Even living in a big city like Los Lobos, she could shed her skin for a run every couple of days. She especially liked running up and down the beach, dipping her paws into the ocean and running away like a wildcat when the waves lapped at her. That was blissful. Antonio would probably love it too. While his jaguar wasn’t nearly as fast as her – which she would smugly have to remind him about again – he was a good runner. Perhaps they could run through the sand, playing catch until she ‘allowed’ him to catch her, to pin her down. Then they could shift and make love…
Hester crossed her legs and quickly busied herself in taking another bite of her banana cream pie. She was thankful for the fact that Maria was human – she couldn’t scent the arousal wetting her panties. Though one of her stalkers appeared to be looking up and sniffing the air. Hester picked up a spoon and quickly threw it at his head. Ha! Bullseye! He looked around suspiciously, and Hester adopted a ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ expression.
She tried to take her mind off Antonio and quickly refocused on Maria who was staring at her own dessert thoughtfully.
“Ask him out,” declared Hester.
Maria blinked at her. “What?”
“Ask Roman out on a date.”
“Oh!” she squeaked as if that was the most shocking thing she had ever heard. “I couldn’t possibly do that.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I ah…” Maria scrambled for a reason, but none seemed forthcoming. “He might say no, and it would be awkward given that we work together.”
Hester snorted. “You hardly work together, you drop off cakes for him to sell. Besides, he won’t say no.”
“No, but he might say yes.”
“And?”
Maria grimaced. “What if things were really good between us, what then? If I wanted to mate him, I’d have to leave the leap, leave my boys. I couldn’t – the leap’s been more of a family to me than my real family ever was.”
“Wouldn’t Roberto make an exception and allow Roman to join you in the leap?”
Maria shook her head. “I can’t imagine Roberto would ever allow that.”
Hester gave her a thoughtful look. “Does Roberto have a crush on you?”
She expected Maria to deny it or at least look surprised, but she merely smiled. “My mate was Roberto’s brother older. When my mate brought me home, he was twenty-five, while Roberto was nineteen and I was eighteen. We were closer in age and got along with each other, and yes he’s always had a small crush.”
“Your mate was the older brother? Was he the prime then before he died?”
That was usual for shifter groups. Leadership passed to the eldest son unless someone else challenged. Anyone could challenge for leadership, but more often than not, the mantle was passed father to son. Though, Hester had heard of a few instances where daughters had taken over. She could certainly believe it of some; there was a female polar bear shifter in the Los Lobos SEA that everyone was afraid of. Not even an agent – she was actually a nurse - a freaking terrifying nurse whose massages could be used as weapons of torture.
Maria laughed lightly. “No, not at all. My mate was not very aggressive. It was always Roberto who was the protective brother, always looking after his big brother. When their father stepped down, Roberto stepped up. It should have been my mate, but he refused to fight him for the position. Not that he would have beat Roberto anyway. My mate was happy to be his second and content to raise our family. Roberto worked hard to build the leap, the growth and prosperity are thanks to him. He waited a long time to find his own mate, and when he did…” she stuttered.
“Antonio told me,” murmured Hester.
Maria dabbed at her eyes with the napkin. “It was truly tragic. Lana was such a sweet woman. The leap elders have been bugging him to find another mate ever since it happened, but he has never wanted to. He nearly fell apart when he lost them both, I tried to help him, but he didn’t want help, and he didn’t want to mate again.”
“What about Marta?”
Maria scrunched her nose as if she had smelled something bad. “Back when my mate brought me home, she was still angling for him to mate her and tried to tear us apart. That was when everyone still thought he would be the next prime. But he would have none of her, so she found another mate, and when it came to it, my mate wasn’t the prime anyway.”
Her cheetah gave a sour humph as she thought of Valentina. Like skanky mother, like skanky daughter.
“I’m sure Marta would have liked very much to become Roberto’s mate,” added Maria, “but it won’t happen – I know him.”
“Aren’t they… ah…” Screwing? Doing the dance with no pants? What would be the least offensive thing to say?
“They had a relationship which I believe Roberto ended, but he had no intention of mating her, and he made that clear to her from the start.”
“How do you know it’s ended?”
“I clean his house; I can see the signs. Roberto’s quite a noble man, though. He will not tell people until she does – he would not want to cause her any harm. Contrary to what my son may think, Roberto would never act on his feelings to me. I’ll always be his brother’s mate, and he loved his brother. He couldn’t even bear to replace my mate as his second after he died. It was only when Roberto suffered his own loss that Daniel stepped in. He was helpful in a difficult time, when no one really knew what to do to help Roberto.”
Hester mulled over what Maria had told her. It would explain why Roberto had such a poor second. When Roberto couldn’t act, Daniel had stepped in, assumed and grabbed as much power as he could. But Roberto seemed strong now; surely it was time to get rid of Daniel? A callous thought maybe, but the male wasn’t leadership material. He was aggressive but didn’t have the necessary dominance, and she doubted he cared much for his leap mates – he seemed to care only about himself.
Antonio would make a better second cooed her beast.
Yes, he certainly would. Without a natural heir, he was also the most likely candidate to become prime one day. She wondered how Antonio felt about that.
Speaking of, the furious, possibly future prime was walking towards her at that moment. Hester raised her glass to him.
“Hey, honey,” she drawled. “Having a good day?”