Jaguar Pride
Authors: Terry Spear
Copyright © 2015 by Terry Spear
Cover and internal design © 2015 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover design by Juliana Kolesova
Cover image by Blake Morrow
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To those who serve to protect the exotic animals in the rainforest. Thanks for making it possible for so many of them to remain in their natural habitat and for stopping those who are destroying the animals or transporting them from their homes in the wild.
At dusk in the Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica, Melissa Overton barely heard the constant sound of crickets chirping all around them. Prowling through the dense, tropical rainforest as a jaguar, she listened for the human voices that would clue her in that her prey was nearby.
Waves crashed onto the sandy beaches in the distance as she made her way quietly, like a phantom predator, through the tangle of vines and broad, leafy foliage, searching for any sign of the poachers. Humans wouldn't have a clue as to what she and her kind were when they saw herâapparently nothing other than an ordinary jaguar. And she and her fellow jaguar shifters planned to keep it that way.
Her partner on this mission, JAG agent Huntley Anderson, was nearby, just as wary and observant. The JAG Special Forces Branch, also known as the Golden Claws, was only open to jaguar shifters and served to protect both their shifter kind and their jaguar cousins. For this mission, JAG Director Martin Sullivan had ordered Melissa and Huntley to capture a group of poachers. The JAG agents were to let the Costa Rican authorities take it from there, which didn't sit well with Melissa. She understood Martin's reasoning, but she'd rather end the poaching in a moreâ¦
permanent
way.
Otherwise, the bad guys would be back to poaching once they'd served their time. And she and others like her would be trying to apprehend the poachers again, before they killed or injured the exotic catsâor took them out of their native habitat and sold them to the highest bidder.
An ocelot caught her eye, but as soon as he saw her, he quickly vanished. It was May and the rainy season had just begunâa time when many tourists avoided the area because flooding made hiking more dangerous. She and Huntley made their way through a tiny section of the park's more than 103,000 acres of tropical rainforest, searching for Timothy Jackson, the leader of the poachers, and his men. Intelligence at JAG headquarters indicated that this was the group's favorite area to poach from.
Jackson was an enigma. He'd fought bravely in the desert on two combat tours and left the service with an honorable discharge. But when his wife took their baby daughter and ran off with another man, the shame and anger seemed to have consumed Jackson. He'd finally quit his job as a Veterans Administration clerk and had turned into something dark and twisted.
Melissa's paws didn't make a sound as she moved through snarled roots and wet and muddy leaf litter at the base of the towering tropical trees, her ears perked, listening for human voices.
Wearing his black jaguar coat, Huntley was sniffing the air nearby and pausing to listen. Darkness had claimed the area, the trees and rapidly approaching rain clouds blocking any hint of light at dusk. Though Melissa's golden coat, covered in black rosettes, was difficult to see at night if anyone should shine a flashlight on her, Huntley was even harder to see, making him hauntingly ghostlike. In broad daylight, his rosettes could be seen, but in a darkly elegant way. She'd never tell him. As hot as he looked, he probably knew it well, and she didn't want him to think she was interested or anything. Not when they were each currently seeing someone else.
She loved working with him, though.
Some would incorrectly call Huntley a panther, but he was a black jaguar. Black jaguars, a melanistic form, accounted for about six percent of the regular jaguar population. The jaguar shifters weren't sure about the ratio within their own kind. Huntley's mother was a beautiful black jaguar, and his dad, golden. Both his brother, Everett, and sister, Tammy, were also golden. For whatever reason, Huntley's coat appealed to Melissa, especially on missions like this. He seemed like a ninja warrior in jaguar formâsleek, agile, and deadly. And she liked that he was wild like she was, making them both able to live in their native environments without a hitch. Unless they had trouble with poachers.
She realized more and more that she should have hooked up with a cat like Huntleyâand not a city cat like Oliver Strickland, who didn't ever shift or want to experience his wild side. How boring was that? She had believed that if she showed Oliver how much fun it could be, he might change his mind. She should have known that altering someone's personality wasn't going to happen unless the person wanted it to. Oliver was strictly a human who kept his jaguar persona hidden from everyone. Including her. Not that he wasn't a gorgeous specimen of a man to savor. He was. She sighed, wishing he was moreâ¦wild, in a jaguar way.
Switching her attention from thinking about her tame boyfriend and her hot JAG partner, she listened again for any human sounds. Nocturnal animals were out hunting, which included all the wild cats that lived thereâthe pumas (also known as cougars, mountain lions, and a variety of other names), margays, ocelots, oncillas (a small wild cat, also known as the little spotted cat), and the jaguar. All wild cats were territorial, but the jaguar was king.
She'd spotted what looked like domestic cat prints in the mud underneath some of the ferns. In reality, they were an oncilla's paw prints. She and Huntley were leaving their own jaguar pug marks in the mud, though they were not using any of the human-made trails so no human was likely to encounter them.
They used the coastal track to search for the poachers, which meant having to ford several rivers, the Rio Sirena being the most dangerous at high tide. All of the rivers could be treacherous if the currents were strong enough, especially for inexperienced hikers. The Rio Sirena also had its fair share of American crocodiles, bull sharks, and spectacled caiman.
Melissa and Huntley had traveled nearly two miles, staying hidden in the rainforest near the track, which hikers could use to make a two- or three-day trek through the park and camp at five different ranger stations. She and Huntley would consider anyone they came across as suspect. Hikers carrying backpacks and camera equipment were probably there for just a visit. Anyone toting a rifle or gun would be their number one suspect.
Before dusk, she and Huntley had stashed their own camping equipmentâsingle tent and two sleeping bags, clothes, hiking shoes, and insect repellentâhigh in a tree. They didn't want to tempt anyone who might think to steal their “abandoned” equipment by leaving it lying about.
They searched for the poachers at night because that's when the men were most likely to be hunting. This was the second day of trying to locate the poachers, and she wanted to find them
now
.
Mosquitoes buzzed around her, making her glad to have her jaguar fur coat. She suddenly spied several tapirs as they poked around, looking for vegetation worth eating. She and Huntley made a wide sweep around them, not wanting the animals to believe two jaguars were hunting them. The sound of insects roared in the thick, humid air. An owl hooted. A vampire bat flew overhead. That surprised her because the bats often stayed near herds of cattle. She glanced up at the cloudy sky. Vampire bats didn't like hunting during the full moon when they were visible.
Only the stout of heart would come to the rainforest during the rainy season. That meant more of a chance for her and Huntley to catch those who weren't there just to sightsee. Anyone visiting the area would have to watch the tides. The virgin rainforest, deserted beaches, and jungle-edged rivers were a visitor's paradise. But the park also had vast swamps that were inaccessible to humans. As cats, they could go there, but if the poachers couldn't navigate the swamps, it wouldn't do Melissa and Huntley any good to search for them there.
Martin said that the poachers had been seen hunting their prey in this area. They were suspected to be hunting here at night, sometimes when the jaguars went to the beach to eat sea turtles. It was indeed the perfect hunting ground for the poachers, who could use the beach to escape with their bounty. She loved it there in the South Pacific region. This was a favorite vacation spot for her, so she hated to think that poachers would be there hunting any of the beautiful cats. Or any of the animals, for that matter.
Melissa was startled to see two spotted cubs sniffing around the ground, and she immediately stood still. A mother would be nearby. And dangerous. Melissa couldn't tell from this distance and without being able to smell the cubs' scents whether they were jaguar cubs or pumas. The two species were so similar before they were six months old that they were hard to tell apart. In the tropics, jaguars and pumas were known to overlap territories to some degree, unlike in other locations. Though if the puma came across a jaguar, he'd give way to the bigger cat.
Her heart pounding, Melissa caught sight of the motherâa tan-colored puma. She nudged one of the cubs, who looked to be about four months old. And then the mother and her cubs disappeared into the rainforest. Melissa glanced back at Huntley. He looked wary, ears pricked, his blue-green eyes focused on where the puma had disappeared. Normally, the puma wouldn't have chanced a confrontation with a male and female jaguar, but any mother with a cub could be unpredictable.
Her heart settling a bit, Melissa continued to explore, finally coming across a human trail. With only a hundred feet of visibility because of the thick vegetation, getting lost in the rainforest was a real concern for a visitor who didn't stick to a trail. But she and Huntley could smell and hear things that humans couldn'tâlike how far they were from a swamp or a river or the ocean. All rivers lead to the ocean, right?
There the rivers could end up in crocodile-infested swamps before they continued on their way to the sea, so hiker beware.
Men's voices deeper in the rainforest caught Melissa's attention. She couldn't make out what they were actually saying. Huntley was beside her in an instant. Were the men camping in the rainforest? She'd heard at least three different voices. She could smell whiffs of smoke from their campfire. She and Huntley headed in that direction, drawing closer until they could hear the three men talkingâabout rugby, girlfriends, and sex.
Australians
. Most likely they were not who she and Huntley were looking for.
“Hey, mate, look at this. Hold the light closer.”
One of the men was holding a flashlight as they looked at a tiny, neon-orange poison dart frog sitting on a broad green leaf.
They thought that was exciting?
To give the men an experience of a lifetime, and before Huntley could dissuade herâif he thought to, or before he did it firstâshe ran near the camp and past it. She caught one of the men's attention before she disappeared into the rainforest.
“Holy shit!” the man said, scrambling to his feet.
“Was that aâ” another man said.
She heard Huntley chasing after her.
“Two of them?”
“A black jaguar?”
“Did anyone get a shot of them?”
The men were so excited that they continued to talk about their experience, wishing someone had gotten a picture of the two jaguars.
Both Melissa and Huntley were well out of sight, having disappeared into the foliage seconds after their appearance in camp.
Huntley was close enough that he brushed his shoulder against her hip in a playful wayâamused at what she'd pulled and playing along. She grinned back at him, showing a mouthful of wicked teeth.
He grinned in response.
He
could
have gone on a path parallel to hers, staying hidden, but
no
, he had to follow her, probably giving the tourists a near heart attack when they saw not one but two jaguars. Orâ¦it might have given them more of a thrill.
She smiled, never knowing what to expect from her partner, whom she'd been with on two missions before. He could say the same for herânever knowing what she might pull. Sure, he would have an inkling of what she was about to do from the way she would shift her footing and tense her body, preparing to lunge or run. But he wouldn't have enough time to react.
Wouldn't the tourists just love to tell the park rangers that they had spied two jaguars running together? Jaguars rarely made an appearance for them. A black jaguar was even rarer. But a female and male running together? In the jaguar worldâas opposed to the jaguar shifter worldâthe big cats only did that when they were courting.
She smelled the salty ocean and headed that way, intending to see if maybe someone had ditched a boat in one of the isolated coves. She and Huntley finally reached one of the beaches, where the warm ocean waters lapping at the sandy shore teemed with marine life, brightly colored coral, and rock formations. She sniffed the ground and the air, trying to smell any sign of insect repellent or suntan lotion.
Neither
. She glanced at Huntley. He shook his head, indicating he hadn't smelled anything either.
Then they spied a jaguar at one end of the beach searching for sea turtles. She'd read that the park used to have more than a hundred jaguars, and now it was down to between thirty and forty. This jaguar was one of the lucky ones.
She and Huntley avoided it and took off in the opposite direction. She ran along the sandy beach, her paws leaving imprints in the sand, and then she and Huntley reached the mouth of the riverâand saw fins. Bull sharks, one of only a few kinds of sharks that could survive in both fresh and salt water. She was surprised to see so many because illegal poaching of shark fins was decimating the numbers.
Melissa and Huntley needed to cross the river to get to the other beach and continue their search for a boat tied off on the shore. She was certain this wasn't an ideal spot to traverse. Not that the jaguars couldn't defend themselves against something that had the notion of biting into them while they were swimming. But they didn't want to be injured. Sure, jaguar shifters healed fast, depending on the injury. But then their boss would want to know what had happened, they might miss taking down the bad guys, and Martin would use them as an example of what
not
to do on a mission when lecturing his other agents. No one wanted to have their aborted missions showcased as an illustration of what happened when an agent made a mistake on an assignment.