“Oh, my…”
Hester cut her eyes to Valentina – she was horrified. Either she deserved an Oscar, or this really was the first time she was seeing this.
Valentina ran towards Daniel, hovering over him. Hester tried not to gag on the scent of blood. Her cheetah snarled – she already knew Daniel was dead, but Valentina started trying to resuscitate him with shaky hands. Not easy given that the claw marks raked across his chest meant that most of his organs were now on the outside.
Hester went to her and pulled her off him. “He’s gone,” she murmured.
It wasn’t easy, Valentina was working her way up from surprised to all out screaming panic, and wasn’t easily budged from Daniel’s body. But Hester could scent the death. She wasn’t exactly au fait with dead bodies, but she had worked at the SEA long enough to know the scent.
Valentina started whimpering, and Hester gave her a firm shake. Just as Valentina looked like she was about to sober, she’d glance down at her blood-streaked hands and start up again. Hester finally settled on a small slap to the face, and that did the trick. Made Hester feel a little better, too.
“What happened?” burbled Valentina, staring up at her with eyes that flickered from blue to gold. Both the woman and her jaguar were frightened and looking to Hester for answers. Of which she had none, and Hester was not a sympathetic cheetah.
“You’re asking me?! This is your house.”
“My mother… Where is she?”
“Good question,” murmured Hester.
Her cheetah sniffed, but all she got was Daniel’s blood – of which there was a lot - and Valentina’s fear.
“Do you think she’s…” Valentina faltered, and Hester would always wonder what she was going to say. Whether Valentina really thought her mother was a victim, or whether she knew she was the one who killed Daniel.
Hester didn’t find out, as the next moment, the woman in question appeared, dragging the missing cub with her.
“Mikey?” Valentina tried to move forward, and Hester held her back.
“Miss. Valentina!” he exclaimed, trying to look stoic, but his fear was obvious.
Marta rolled her eyes in anger. “What are you two doing here? You’re supposed to be out looking for this brat.”
The brat in question hissed and bit Marta’s hand. He bared his teeth in defiance. She snarled but didn’t loosen her grip.
“Don’t hurt him!” cried Valentina.
“You crazy bitch!” added Hester since no one else seemed to want to.
Marta’s eyes glittered with hatred.
“What on earth is going on?” wailed Valentina.
“She took Mikey to get rid of everyone,” said Hester as her cheetah hissed. “She knew all the jaguars would leave the compound to search for him, and no one would suspect her.”
“Well done,” sneered Marta, her hand still firmly clamped around Mikey’s rapidly purpling arm.
“B… but why?” burbled Valentina, looking like her world was crashing around her. Which Hester supposed it was. How would she react to find out her mother was completely looney? Nah, wouldn’t happen – she already knew her mother was a loon, but not a violent or malicious one, and Marta definitely ticked both those boxes.
“Why?” snapped Marta, her eyes burning with hatred. “Why do you think?”
“Seriously, why?” insisted Hester. She could guess, but it was better to get it out of the horsey mouth – her lips really were too big for her face and Hester suspected some kind of collagen injection. Plus the longer they kept old horse mouth talking, the more likely it was that someone would come looking for them. Perhaps they could take her – Valentina was almost as big as her mother – but Hester wasn’t sure she could depend on the somewhat docile jaguar shifter, plus they had Mikey to consider.
“Because this leap should be mine!” howled Marta.
Valentina flicked a glance at Hester who in turn gave her a ‘huh’ look. Yeah, it wasn’t just her who didn’t get it.
Marta bared her fangs at their confusion. “I should lead the leap – I deserve to! My grandfather was prime; it should have been my mother who inherited the title and then me.”
“Wait, I thought it had always been the Chavez Leap,” interrupted Hester, earning her an eye tic from the unstable Marta.
Valentina nodded without taking her eyes off her mother. “That’s right; my grandfather was a Chavez. We’re kind of distantly related.”
“That’s a little bit hinky.”
Again, Valentina nodded. “We’re talking generations ago but yeah – the interbreeding is one of the reasons the males started kidnapping brides.”
“Well, yeah, nothing worse than a jaguar with two tails and three eyes.”
“Silence!” bellowed Marta. Fur sidled out of her skin; she was rapidly losing control to her beast, and right next to her was not a good place for Mikey to be.
Hester’s cheetah paced, considering their options. So far all she had was shifting and lunging – not ideal – or waiting for Antonio to rescue her. The feminist in her balked at the idea of waiting around to be rescued, but yeah, a little jaguar help wouldn’t go amiss at that moment.
Marta beat a fist against her chest. “The leap should be mine; it should have stayed in my family. Do you know what it was like to have to watch Roberto’s father take it away from me – what was rightfully mine? Lord knows I tried to get it back. I tried to get his father to take me as his mate, but he wanted to stay loyal to his little human mate.” She spat the words out in disgust. “I tried to get Roberto’s older brother, but he was just as besotted with a fucking human. So I mated and waited for the next prime. By the time Roberto was prime, I was lumbered with a useless mate and a whiny brat.”
Valentina huffed.
“By the time I was rid of my mate, Roberto had already brought home his pathetic, weak human – and just like his father, he wouldn’t hear of mating me. When she was finally gone, Roberto wasn’t interested in mating again – no matter what I did. At least I thought I could make use of my brat.” Marta jutted her chin at Valentina, whose jaw dropped open.
“Yeah,” said Hester, “I kind of figured that’s why you were pushing her at Antonio. Guessed he was next in line to be prime.”
“I thought he’d be a lot easier to manage than Roberto as well.”
“Is that why you’ve been trying to kill me?”
Valentina gasped, but Hester had her suspicions confirmed the moment they found Daniel’s body. The type of female who would murder her own leap mate would certainly try to kill an outsider.
Marta shrugged, unconcerned and unabashed. “Well, that and the land deeds. Daniel told me what a good job you’d been doing in the office, by now I’m sure even a dolt like Roberto knows that the missing land deeds are the ones Vertigo wanted.”
“Let me guess; you seduced Daniel into taking them?”
Marta smiled coldly. “I said it would all be fine once my daughter was the leap’s female prime, but she couldn’t even do that right.”
The angry gaze swung back to Valentina who flinched, and Hester quickly tried to get it back to her.
“So the plan was to sell all the land, get all the money and then what? Roberto would have stood in your way.” Even Marta cringed under his alpha gaze. For all her talk, she wasn’t dominant to Roberto.
“Roberto would have a little accident. Didn’t you hear? We have a little problem with hunters. Once my daughter was in charge, I could have persuaded Antonio to move the leap. It was perfect. Through my daughter, I would have had the leap. But then Antonio, that idiot,” and she really screeched the word idiot – her cheetah yowled and Hester had to stop herself from covering her ears, “brought you back here and you didn’t seem to want to die.”
“Yeah, I’m annoying that way,” quipped Hester, trying to ignore her increasing heartbeat. She was trying to act like her usual bitchy self, to hide the fact that with every passing second she was just a teeny-tiny bit worried about the situation they were in.
Marta scoffed in agreement. “I’ve given up on you going anywhere, or on my lazy daughter mating Antonio, now I’m just going to take the money and run.”
“Why kill him?” Hester nodded over at Daniel, still in the horror-stricken pose he had died in.
“He was having cold feet,” grumbled Marta, “ he wanted to go to Roberto and admit what he did and beg for mercy. I tried to reason with him but he just wouldn’t listen, so I had to do what was necessary.”
Marta spoke of it so casually, as if she were admitting to squishing a bug. Hester almost wanted to vomit. She’d heard some pretty awful things in her time in court, but this seemed worse. Maybe because this was one of her leap mates talking about another leap mate. Huh – one of ‘her’ leap mates. She guessed that’s what they were – warts and all. A lot of freaking warts if Marta was anything to go by.
Her cheetah yipped in contentment before growling at the situation again. Hester cleared her throat. “You’re nuts.”
It went without saying but, she didn’t want to miss the opportunity to say it. Shocked the hell out of Valentina who was trying to curl up on herself, but yeah, Marta was nuts, and she wasn’t just going to walk away. Calling her nuts wasn’t going to make it worse.
“I’m just sick of being treated like nothing in this stupid leap,” snapped Marta. “Look at me? I’m special.”
Hester bit her lip. A smart-ass comment was not a good idea at that moment in time.
Marta just continued ranting, “Hardly any females are born shifters in this leap, and yet here I stand. Against all the odds, I’m a female jaguar and they treat me like a regular female. The other females should bow to me – I should be the female prime, yet they’ve always expected me just to be another female. How ridiculous! I tried to become the prime the normal way, but Roberto’s father wouldn’t leave his dumb old mate for me and then when I was finally rid of my mate, Roberto brought home that sickly human, Lana. Now, he’s too grief-stricken even to see what a good mate I would be…”
Maybe not thought Hester. She knew he was filled with grief, but he could see what a bad choice it would be to have Marta by his side.
“So forget this leap. I’ll take all their money and find a new leap, become the prime of that.”
“So Vertigo already has the land deeds?”
“Y… yes.” Marta’s eyes flickered to a small case in the corner of the room.
Hester inhaled. It wasn’t too late for the leap. “That’s why you needed Daniel – to steal them right? As crappy a job as Daniel was doing, he still would have noticed if land deeds went missing, so that’s why you seduced him. Except, I bet he didn’t want to hand them over, did he? He wanted to keep them, and then he decided he wanted to give them back to Roberto.”
“Doesn’t matter, I have them now, all I have to do is hand them over to Vertigo, and that’s that – they’ll give me the rest of my money and I’m gone.”
“And us?” quavered Valentina.
Marta gave her a mocking look. “You could come with me, dear. You’re not much as a daughter, but you could be useful in the new leap.”
Valentina scowled. “No way.”
“Suit yourself, you ungrateful, lazy, little bitch.” Marta glanced at her watch, “I have a meeting with Vertigo in forty minutes, so I really don’t have the time for this.”
Hester and Valentina looked at each other uneasily.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill my own daughter – I’ll just lock you up in the basement with this brat.” Marta squeezed on Mikey’s arm making him wince and making Valentina breathe in sharply. “You, however…” Marta growled at Hester.
“Yeah, yeah, I think we’ve had enough of your supervillain speech. You hate me, so you’re going to kill me, blah, blah.” Hester flexed her claws, and her cheetah snarled. “Lessing yapping, more clawing. You want me? Come and get me.” She kind of hoped she didn’t want her.
Marta smiled nastily. “Don’t worry; I came prepared.”
Marta pulled out a gun and fired off two shots – aiming for Hester. Valentina screamed, and Mikey burst into tears.