Marcus shrugged. “I think it’s not my concern unless it’s involved in all of this. I find it hard to believe there’d be another breed of shifters—but then again…”
Nathan scowled at him. “Then again what? You can’t just stop there.”
With that cocked hip and irritated expression, Nathan was sexy enough to get Marcus aroused all over again. Unfortunately, they had a lot to do. “Then again, the North American packs have always been very insular. They hadn’t been encouraged to think beyond themselves by the previous Alpha Anaxes. It’s always just been about us, our own kind. There’s a lot we…I…don’t know about the world, and ruling out anything like other breeds of shifters seems hasty.”
“So why’s the damned thing popping up?” Nathan asked. He got in the shower and hummed. “Oh yeah. God, this cold shower is just what I needed. The humidity here is awful.”
“We’re too used to the arid desert we live in.” Marcus joined Nathan in the shower. “As for the jaguar, maybe it’s not used to us, either. Could just be a cat that’s not sure what to think about the wolves in its jungle. All I know for sure is, as long as it stays away from me and mine, it can do whatever it wants.”
* * * *
The sounds coming from Keegan and Olin’s room sent Dallas as far away from it as he could get. He didn’t consider himself a prude at all and was a complete believer in to each his own and everything like that, but he was positive that was the
whack
of belt on skin, or some other heavy instrument of pain being used.
That kind of rough play scared him. He’d had a lover smack his ass once while they were fucking and it had totally thrown Dallas out of the mood. He’d tried to cover it with louder moans until he’d received a couple of even harder slaps, then it had all kind of gone to hell from there.
As he sprinted past Marcus and Nathan’s bedroom, he heard more smutty noises. They at least just sounded like they were fucking, which was all well and good.
Except people were getting laid and he wasn’t, and that kind of sucked the big green weenie.
Dallas’ left temple throbbed, and he stopped in the kitchen, cradling his head in his hands.
“Are you okay?”
He peeked through his fingers at Zoe. She was standing at the stove, cooking what looked to be eggs.
Dallas sniffed. His ability to scent was off and he grimaced. “I can’t smell right.”
Sissy Dee walked into the kitchen—he’d heard her footsteps and turned to see who was coming in. Sissy patted his shoulder, a sympathetic look on her usually scowling face. “You’ll be fine. That hit to the head you took messed things up with your senses. I’ve heard of it happening before, but everyone I know that’s experienced it recovered after a couple of weeks.”
“Weeks?” Dallas squeaked, letting go of his head. “But— But I’m a shifter! We heal fast and…weeks, really?”
“At least you’re still cute,” Sissy said, giving him another pat before sauntering over to the table. “Maarten will be here soon, and he’s bringing groceries for at least one good meal. Once he’s here and we’ve gone over the plans, we’ll be heading out. Since your sense of smell is fucked up, Dallas, you stay with the two guards I’ll leave here. It’s better that you aren’t trying to hunt when you can’t even smell right.”
Dallas gawped at Sissy.
Honestly, let the woman fuck you once with a nice fat dildo, and she thinks she’s your boss
.
“Close your mouth, hon,” she chided.
Dallas did, only to open it up again as she narrowed her eyes at him. He wasn’t going to give up and let Sissy order him around. “I don’t have to listen to you. I’m part of Marcus’ pack, and Keegan’s his captain.”
“He’ll tell you the same.” Sissy lit up when her mate entered the kitchen. “Juanita, you look lovely this morning. I’m the luckiest gal in the world.”
He was going to have to take his arguing to Keegan—or Marcus. Maybe even Nathan.
Sissy and Juanita exchanged a long, loud kiss.
Dallas groaned. “Gawd, all you mated pairs are all lovey-dovey.”
“Jealous?” Juanita asked, her accent making the word thick and sexy.
“A little, except for the whole vagina and boobs part,” he admitted.
Zoe snorted and threw a spoon at him. Dallas caught it easily.
“At least your reflexes are quick,” Sissy pointed out. “We all know your aversion to our parts. It just so happens, we don’t care for yours either.”
Dallas would let that go, because what he and Sissy had done once hadn’t really involved their genitals touching. Just her, him, and that big dildo. They’d both been bored and curious. Although, he did know other guys who’d put out for Sissy in such a way before. It didn’t matter now. Sissy was mated and happy.
Juanita’s brother, Guillermo, joined them in the kitchen. At that point, Dallas sprinted for a chair since there was only one more left. He’d give it up if he had to. Until then, his happy ass was going to sit.
“Y’all don’t get too used to me cooking,” Zoe groused, loading up the toaster. “I’m not domesticated, just hungry, and anyway, this is all I can make. Scrambled eggs and toast.”
“I can make bacon or sausage,” Guillermo offered.
Zoe scoffed at that. “None in the fridge. I looked. Three times.”
Guillermo got up and strode to the cabinets. He opened them then crowed as he took out two cans. “There is Jia canned beef and pork! I love this stuff!” He held the cans out to Zoe.
Zoe took one and wrinkled her nose. “Uh. This looks a hell of a lot like Spam.”
“What is Spam?” Guillermo asked.
“A question we
all
would like to know the answer to,” Dallas contributed. “But I’m hungry enough to eat anything.”
“No more capybaras,” Olin said from the doorway.
He did look a little gray when he spoke.
Keegan rolled his eyes and nudged Olin to enter before following the shorter man in. Keegan seemed to be a little stiff in his movements.
“It tasted good.” Dallas wouldn’t think about it beyond that. He ate things in his wolf form that he’d never touch in human form. Though he probably wouldn’t eat the canned meat product were he to turn into his wolf now, come to think of it.
“Earth to Dallas.” Keegan was standing right in front of him.
Dallas blinked. “Oh. I was thinking about capybara and Spam.”
“That’s a disgusting combo.” Olin leaned against the counter, arms crossed over his chest. His blue and purple tipped blond hair was kind of neat.
Dallas wondered if he could pull that look off. His faux-hawk was all…limp.
“Anyone have any ideas about the drugs and this Robert or Roberto Butler?” Sissy asked without any beating around the bush. “The lady said Roberto, then Robert, so I don’t know for sure which he uses. Mary-Jane will be trying to get more info out of her, I’m sure.”
“Mary-Jane?” Dallas knew he couldn’t be the only one thinking about that name.
Sissy flicked him an annoyed look. “Believe it or not, her parents didn’t have a clue what else that means. They weren’t raging potheads.”
Olin snickered. “I think raging potheads is an oxymoron. Everyone I knew that smoked was pretty damned un-raging.”
“Whatever. The point remains the same. Mary-Jane’s parents never left the pack property without their Alpha Anax’s orders to do so. They didn’t know they were naming their kid after pot, therefore, they didn’t.” Sissy took the glass of juice Juanita handed her. “Thanks, babe.”
“Maybe we’ll learn something from Dana when she returns my call.” Keegan huffed. “Actually, I think she was on the phone with Marcus, so probably we’ll hear whatever she has learned from him.”
Outside, the morning sunrise was accompanied by a sound that sent shivers down Dallas’ spine. Not quite a roar, but a plaintive, feline sound that conveyed irritation nonetheless. If not irritation, some kind of emotion.
Oh, look at him putting human emotions on a damned cat.
“That’s the jaguar,” Olin muttered, rushing over to the window. “I swear that fucker’s stalking us.”
Dallas shivered again.
Chapter Two
His rainforest was being invaded by even more wolves, Tiago mused as he stretched out on a thick limb. The marsh deer he’d dined on earlier was making him feel lazy and the sunlight tempted him to sleep. Maybe he would, just for a little while, though he suspected the wolf shifters would be heading out soon. Following them was imperative. Wolves had caused too much trouble for him and his fellow native rainforest dwellers. Like any invasive species, they screwed up the ecosystem, which was why they would have to go.
Tiago purred and reveled in the sunlight leaking through the dense greenery above him. It warmed his fur, his body, in a delightful way.
There had been wolves in the rainforest for some time now. Decades, that he knew of. No other shifters native to the area seemed concerned about it, but Tiago was. The drama that had occurred over the past week was just more proof to him that the wolves had to go. Gun fights, crashed planes, drugs—Tiago smelled them and he knew. Something bad was going on, and it was time to clean up the rainforest. People had already done too much damage to it as it was.
Tiago had been watching the local wolf pack for a long time. It wasn’t in his nature to act rashly. Otherwise, he’d have jumped in to defend the little human, Olin, when he’d been surrounded by killer wolf shifters a few days ago. Tiago still didn’t know if he’d have been able to keep from intervening had Olin’s lover not shown up.
Keegan.
Tiago learned a lot from listening. The wolf shifters were loud and careless, almost as bad as humans were at being cautious. They had no idea just how acute his senses were. Tiago was exceptional and well aware of it. All of his kind were.
And he was irritated, because one of the wolves made him hard, made him ache to fuck and mate. Tiago didn’t want a wolf. He wanted another jaguar, but that never worked out well. As solitary as they were, it wasn’t unusual for one male jag to kill the other in a territorial spat, even if they had affection for each other.
Tiago would have to settle for some native species. The idea of keeping a wolf as a lover was ludicrous.
Although, if he fucked the one he wanted, then he’d be over it.
Over him
. Tiago considered the idea. He could nab the man, or even seduce him in human form. Tiago was attractive in that shape, too. Perhaps that would be the wiser option. Tiago could fuck Dallas until he was done with the wolf shifter. Surely it’d only take a few times. Tiago rarely wanted more than that from any of his lovers.
He let his eyelids fall almost completely shut. The vacation house the shifters were holed up in was full of windows, so he had seen quite a few interesting things going on. It was his luck that the curtains hadn’t been fully pulled in the one room, and hadn’t been closed at all in the other. That was how Tiago knew the powerful wolf shifter with the white-blond hair liked to be fucked by his little lover, and Keegan needed pain with his sex.
Tiago wondered if all the wolf shifters were like those two pairs, with the smaller men taking the lead in the bedroom. His fur rippled as he shuddered. Tiago sometimes got rough while having sex in his feline form—it was part of being an animal, after all. As a human, however, he had never struck a partner. He liked to be in control in either form.
Which brought up the whole size thing, because Dallas was smaller than him. Slighter of build, certainly, and shorter. As much as Tiago wanted to fuck him, he’d never let Dallas hit him or command him.
He tried to shrug it off. There was no need to fuck Dallas anyway. It was just an urge, a desire, and Tiago could control it. He needed to concentrate on finding out what the hell was going on in his rainforest.
Really, it was too bad jaguars were so territorial. Tiago would have liked to try to gather the native shifters up and address the issue of invading shifter species—he could just image the bloodshed that would follow. Tiago snorted softly. Perhaps his kind were a bit
too
animalistic.
After almost an hour of dozing lightly but never really drifting off to sleep, Tiago heard the sound of strident voices. He flicked his ears and raised his head when he recognized the voice of the man he’d been lusting after.
Dallas. These wolf shifters have the oddest names.
Tiago mewled the name out softly. What would it sound like on his human tongue?
* * * *
“I don’t see how staying here is going to help anyone,” Dallas argued, though he tried to keep his tone reasonable. It wouldn’t do any good to throw a tantrum and would, in fact, work against him. “If I stay, so do two guards and those guards might come in handy for y’all. If I go, I promise I won’t be in the way. My senses might come back full-force any minute. I feel like I’m being punished for being hurt,” he added with a hint of petulance he couldn’t quite tamp down.
Keegan frowned at him. “Dallas, you aren’t a guard. You’re soft, and I don’t mean that bad.”
“Because there’s a good way to be soft in this scenario,” Dallas scoffed. “I can fight. I’m not helpless.”
“We don’t know anything about this person we’re hunting other than that he’s a drug-dealing would-be murderer and kidnapper.” Keegan ran one hand through his hair as he spoke. “Dana couldn’t find any information on him. We don’t have contacts here other than Ryder’s pack. There are the other wolf shifters outside of Brazil, and their packs, and one more on the other side of the rainforest, but none of them knew anything about Robert Butler. He could have an army of his own, and I’m inclined to think that’s the case, considering he had our jet hijacked and there were how many people waiting on that runway, armed to the teeth with guns and knives?” Keegan shook his head. “It’d be best to let the guards handle this—” He snapped his mouth shut.
Dallas felt Marcus’ presence before he turned and watched the Alpha Anax enter the living room. Marcus looked stern and powerful, even with the soft blond curls that hung past his shoulders. He looked like a Greek god or one of those marble statues carved centuries ago, except Marcus had all of his parts. And he was more muscular.
And clothed.