“I have been telling you the truth. You aren’t listening to the truth.” There was no impatience in his voice. He kept walking, veering slightly along a faint path.
Maggie could hear the continual roar of a large body of water. She glanced back in the direction they had come and saw only forest, no path, no house. She was well and truly lost, dependent on Brandt to return her home safely. Her fingers were tangled with his. She told herself she didn’t want to bother with a struggle in the heat and the humidity, but the truth was, she liked the feel of him strong and protective beside her.
“I’m listening,” she said, because she could feel the heat wave starting in the pit of her stomach, spreading like a wildfire through her blood. “Tell me about the change.” Something was happening deep inside of her. Something she didn’t understand or want. She tightened her fingers around his, holding on to the only security she had while her body went up in flames. She didn’t look at him, but stared into the trees ahead of them, trying to ignore the sensations assaulting her.
“Let me finish the story, Maggie. The ritual of promise is a wedding of sorts. Two lost hearts bound together as one. The story goes that cats have nine lives. The male is reborn remembering what came before. He must find his mate. No other will do. He must recognize her and lay his claim before the onset of the Han Vol Dan. Before the change overtakes her. The ritual of promise occurs when the two live in close proximity and the male recognizes the reborn female. Or, if the soul is new, when the male recognizes his mate at an early age.”
“How can he do that?”
His eyes moved over her again. Moody. Brooding. Dark with some hidden mystery. “The aura of the woman or child calls to him, melds with his. The elders can see the two colors merge. The little girl was recognized and promised in the ritual. But the poachers had their revenge. They had been tracking the couple, trying to find their home, wanting to be rid of them. A very clever trap was set.”
Maggie could feel the acceleration of her heart. Of his heart. She could hear them both pounding, remembering, reliving the terror. Her mouth went dry and she shook her head. “Don’t tell me any more. I don’t want to hear.”
“Because you know. You were there when they came with their guns and their torches. When your father woke your mother and bundled you up and put you in her arms. When he kissed you for the last time and turned to fight the mob, to hold them back to give your mother a chance to save you. You remember his change, the way his fur felt against your skin. And you remember your mother’s sobs as she wept and ran with you through the forest away from the village that was already being burned.”
He turned up her hand, brought her knuckles to the warmth of his mouth. “I remember it vividly, every detail, Maggie, because my mother died that night, too—oh, not right away; she lingered for months before her physical body gave up.” He couldn’t feign his sadness. It was as real as her own. She saw it in his eyes, and his poet’s heart wept.
She did remember the frightening, nightmare images—a leopard leaping, snarling, a mass of teeth and claws cutting a path while they ran with dizzying speed. She remembered her mother flinching as a shot reverberated. Her mother ran several yards, staggered, recovered valiantly, and continued. Maggie pressed a hand to her mouth. Memories? Were they real? Could her mother have run through the forest in the dead of night, away from all she had known? Away from her husband and people? Run with a terrible wound draining the life from her?
She dragged in her breath. “And she took me to Jayne. Jayne Odessa.”
“A very wealthy woman who had never had children and had always wanted them. Who was your mother’s friend and shared her concerns for the rain forest and endangered species. Who knew nothing about what your mother was, only that she loved her and would do anything to keep you safe. She witnessed your mother’s death and she took you back to the United States and legally adopted you.”
Chapter 5
Maggie stood absolutely motionless. It was insanity to believe anything Brandt Talbot said, yet she knew it was true. She did have memories of that night. And Jayne Odessa had spoken often of a friend she loved very much who had died violently, tragically. A woman named Lily Hanover. The two women had worked tirelessly to preserve the rain forest and all the endangered species within it. Saving the environment had been the cause that had brought Jayne and Lily together. But Jayne had never told Maggie that Lily was her mother.
Brandt caught her chin. “Don’t feel sad, Maggie. Your parents loved you very much and they loved each other. Few people ever have that in their lifetime.”
“You knew them?” Her green gaze locked with his, daring him to lie to her.
“I was a boy, but I remember them, the way they always touched each other and smiled at each other. They were truly wonderful people who always practiced what they believed no matter what the danger.”
Maggie glanced up into the trees, caught sight of the several frogs sitting openly on the leaves. Their eyes were huge, enabling the amphibians to hunt at night. Higher up, clinging to the branches of a tree, was a small tarsier with its round shiny eyes staring down at her. He looked like a fuzzy, huggable alien creature. Her mother and father had seen these little creatures just as she was seeing them, perhaps had stood under the same tree.
“Thank you for telling me about my parents, Brandt. I understand better why Jayne was afraid for me to come here to the forest. I used to talk about it all the time and she would get upset, even cry. I longed to come to the rain forest here and in South America and in Africa. When I became a veterinarian, it was with the idea that I would be working in the wild to preserve rare species.”
“Jayne Odessa witnessed the poachers murdering Lily. She had no idea of Lily’s heritage, that she was a shapeshifter.” Brandt took a breath, let it out, all the time watching her expression carefully for signs that she was rejecting the things he was revealing to her. “It must have been so frightening for Jayne to know that poachers would murder someone just because they tried to protect the animals. And then you had to grow up just like Lily, wanting to save exotic animals.”
He stroked her hair, the lightest of caresses, but the touch sent heat spiraling through her body. She ached for him but did her best to ignore it. Though he appealed to her on so many levels, she was leery of the sheer force of the attraction between them. “I may have inherited the tendencies from my birth mother but Jayne certainly influenced me, too. She surrounded herself with books and information on habitats and endangered species, supported the causes monetarily, and volunteered for all sorts of things. Of course some of her passion rubbed off on me.”
“Do you believe the other things I told you, Maggie?”
Brandt framed her face with his hands, bent his dark head toward hers as if he couldn’t bear the inches separating them. “Do you believe another species could exist? A species of shape-shifters? Do you believe you’re one of us?”
He was so close, so tempting, his golden eyes glittering with intensity. “I don’t know,” she answered carefully. “I guess it wouldn’t be all that difficult to prove.” There was a challenge in her voice.
“And have you run screaming from me?”
“I may run screaming from you anyway,” she pointed out with a small, self-mocking grin. She was watching his face, saw his sudden resolve, and her heart began beating overtime in her chest.
In the canopy overhead a monkey screamed; the flutter of wings told of birds taking flight. Brandt swung his head around quickly, alertly, his eyes suddenly flat and hard. “James! What are you doing here?”
Maggie looked in the direction Brandt was staring just as the wind shifted. She caught a vaguely familiar scent. She had smelled that presence a couple of times now, in the forest as she journeyed on her way to her parents’ home and then outside the house, near the verandah. She could barely make out the man hidden in the shadows.
“Just curious, Brandt.” The voice floated to them, almost a challenge.
Maggie instinctively moved closer to Brandt, feeling that odd “fur ruffled the wrong way” sensation she didn’t like. Brandt seemed to recognize her discomfort and circled her waist with his arm, drawing her beneath the protection of his shoulder. Before he could introduce the other man, James had melted into the bush.