THE pack members gathered in the clearing, called there by the deep, coughlike roar of their alpha. Men and women and children slid silently from the woods, some in their jaguar form, most in a human one.
At his father’s left, his hair and skin still wet from a morning swim, Aryck frowned, noting the absence of the four adventurous Jaguar cubs who so often found trouble—and a fifth, Caius, a Tiger born to a Jaguar female. When this was done, someone would have to find and chastise them for straying so far from camp they didn’t hear Koren’s summons.
The bloody clothes of Daivat’s victims lay piled on the ground in front of the alpha. Aryck had brought them back not to serve as evidence, but so they could be thrown into the fire at the center of the challenge circle to ensure nothing remained of the dead man and woman.
Murmurs arose from those gathered as the scent of human death and Daivat’s involvement reached them. Tension built—in anticipation, in dread—stirred to life by what the clothing represented. Threat.
Sound flowed into silence when Daivat arrived, shifting easily from his jaguar form to his human one. Several of the lower-ranked females edged closer, jostling for the attention of a male in his prime, some of them seeking only transitory pleasure while others were ripe and fertile and intent on gaining a permanent mate.
Daivat ignored them, sending a challenging look to Aryck instead.
Aryck met the gaze with a cold one, uncaring about the females who openly courted another male after having presented him with swollen vulvas earlier in the day when he was in jaguar form.
Daivat’s fingers flexed in subtle challenge. Rage flared to life in his eyes as a female Jaguar emerged from the woods and rubbed the length of her furred body against Aryck’s before changing to human form, her bare breast pressed to Aryck’s arm.
Aryck resisted the urge to step away from her but couldn’t remain quiet. “This isn’t the time or the place for your overtures, Melina.”
She purred and pressed a pebbled nipple to his upper arm. “Later then, when this matter is settled.”
The deepening of her scent indicated she was aroused by the prospect of violence, by the thought of two dominant males fighting in her presence as though they fought over the right to mount her.
Several male human-formed Jaguars standing nearby hardened in reaction to her heat-scent and sultry voice. Aryck’s cock stirred, making him glad he’d pulled on loose shorts rather than coming to the clearing naked in preparation for changing form. He wanted to give Melina no encouragement.
Across from them Daivat’s expression darkened with hatred and jealousy when Melina’s hand settled on Aryck’s belly. Aryck captured her wrist and squeezed in warning. “Not now,” he growled. “Not later.”
He turned his head to give Melina a deadly stare, Jaguar to Jaguar, one that ordered her away from him. One she couldn’t refuse.
Her eyes flashed, resenting him even as he knew his ability to resist her only increased her hunger for the feel of his cock thrusting inside her.
He regretted taking her in the past. He’d only coupled with her for a season, and not exclusively, but that didn’t matter to her.
She’d now reached the age when the Jaguar soul wanted to breed. But unlike the other unmated males in the pack, he had no desire to answer her yowling calls or to end up with her as a permanent mate.
True jaguars took no life-mates; they bred and separated, with the duty of raising the cubs to adulthood falling entirely on the mother. Among Jaguar Weres it was different, nature’s way of keeping them from indiscriminate breeding.
When a child was conceived, a bond formed between the parents. It was nearly impossible to break.
If he was foolish enough to cover her and sire her young, then he’d never be free of her.
He understood the compulsions driving Melina. And because he did, he tried to avoid her in jaguar form despite his father’s attempts to throw them together.
Deep inside him the beast soul longed to pair, to find a female and claim her thoroughly, completely, in every way a male could take the mate who belonged to him. The man’s soul wasn’t far behind in wanting a woman to call his own. But even though beast and man, instinct and rational mind, agreed the one they wanted for a lifetime wasn’t among the pack, when he wore fur, scent became a prime motivator, as did the powerful, natural urge to procreate.
He wasn’t so vain as to think Melina’s interest in him was only because of his prowess when it came to lovemaking. One day this pack would be his with his father’s blessing, or he would leave it to claim a different territory, taking many of its members with him when he did so.
It was their way. It spread their rule over the lands few humans dared venture into and prevented battles of dominance between fathers and sons, as most often, bloodlines ran true and those who ruled were born to it.
That Daivat, too, might one day lead a pack of his own made him a worthy mate in the eyes of many of the females. His father was Nahuatl, the pack’s shaman. And a bloodline filled with telepathic alphas was strong on his mother’s side.
Like Aryck’s mother, Daivat’s had gone to the ancestors. And though her bones were never recovered and placed with those in the ancestral cave, Nahuatl knew of her passing through their mate-bond and because he was shaman.
Koren straightened to his full height, signaling the beginning of the proceedings. With his foot he nudged the clothing on the ground, releasing more of its scent. “I call Daivat before me to answer charges of law breaking.”
Daivat crossed the circle boldly, skirting the fire blazing hot in its center as if he had no fear of what its being lit meant. He stopped beyond the shredded clothing, nostrils flaring and eyes holding defiance as he spat on the bloodied trousers in challenge and insult.
The muscles along Aryck’s back and arms rippled as the Jaguar rose inside him, instinctively preparing to defend the alpha or enforce his will.
“You were in territory forbidden to all but those sent by my order,” Koren said. “You killed two humans and thought to conceal it. What defense do you offer?”
“I am only just now returning to camp. I heard the summons and came immediately. As soon as I saw the clothing I knew it was too late to approach you about what I’d done and why I’d done it. My reason for entering Coyote territory was simple. I intended to capture one of the humans and learn what they hope to find and how long they intend to stay.
“I encountered the human female first and accepted what she offered. She was seemingly alone, a whore well used by the men in the encampment. Her companion came upon us afterward and took exception to her fucking an animal when his witch-amulet flared in my presence. He killed her and I returned the favor.”
Daivat glanced at Aryck, his lips pulling back in a snarl. “Or did your enforcer tell a different story?”
“The enforcer told no story at all, nor did he find the amulet you mention. He merely gathered the facts. By your own words, you have admitted to defying the law I set down when the humans arrived, and to taking lives without sanction.”
Daivat met Koren’s eyes in unmistakable challenge. “And I would repeat my actions on behalf of the pack. We cower, hoping the humans will leave on their own and not enter Jaguar territory, when we should be hunting and killing the interlopers one by one if that’s what it takes to get rid of them.”
Discord rippled through the pack, uneasiness. Many of those gathered felt as Daivat did about the humans.
Aryck agreed with the sentiment. A subtle attack might work where open warfare would bring the military and could all too easily lead to the suspension of laws specifically forbidding hunting Weres in their furred form. But he also saw the wisdom in his father’s caution, in gathering information over hasty action.
Daivat’s gaze shifted to meet Aryck’s. It burned with a desire to fight a battle for dominance, one heightened by Melina’s presence at Aryck’s side, by her shameless pursuit of another when she was also letting him mount her.
“The enforcer has failed our pack,” Daivat said. “It’s time another took his place, someone who has already shown courage and gotten closer to the humans than he has. I issue challenge.”
“A man who stands accused of law breaking has no right to do so,” Koren said, his voice little more than a rumbling growl. “You claim your motive for entering Coyote land was pure, done for the benefit of the pack. Yet the taking of the human female and the death you left in your wake are both signs of one on the rogue path. There is also the curious lack of the amulet. By your actions you could be cast out, but I will let the ancestors judge your heart.”
If Daivat feared the ancestors’ judgment, there was no sign of it in his scent or expression as he was forced backward when those gathered moved forward, not stopping until they were standing shoulder to shoulder just steps away from a circle marked in the dirt.
Aryck stripped off the shorts, entering the challenge circle naked. Heat from the fire at its center stroked his skin in a deadly caress, reminding him that he, too, would soon be in the presence of the ancestors and subject to their judgment.
The shaman, Nahuatl, joined them. Black eyes stared out through a snarling Jaguar headdress. The hide it was attached to formed a patterned cape and matched the silver-clawed gloves he held, both pairs of them altered to fit human hands.
Nahuatl sang an invocation over the gloves, offering Daivat first choice of them then giving Aryck the remaining pair. When they’d put them on, the shaman stepped from the circle and began a different song, one meant to draw the ancestors’ attention.
Pack elders standing at points marked north, south, east, and west struck the drums they carried, a heartbeat rhythm tying pack to ancestors, symbolizing the fragile, ethereal barrier between life and death and between the two worlds.
Daivat lunged quickly, attacking immediately, as if he wanted to have the battle over with before the ancestors arrived.
Aryck danced away, retreating, sweat already coating his skin from the fire’s heat.
“Coward,” Daivat baited. “Is this why you’ve brought nothing back? Why we still know nothing important about the humans?”
“And you know more after covering the female and filling her with your seed instead of Melina?”
Daivat closed the distance instantly, swinging savagely. Mercilessly. Making Aryck regret answering taunt with taunt as silver-tipped claws tore through the flesh of his upper arm.
In the center of the challenge circle the fire flared at first blood and the heat grew more intense. Around the circle the elders responded by increasing the tempo of their strikes against the hide-covered drums, driving the combatants’ heartbeats into a faster pace.
Aryck’s blood mixed with sweat, no longer a sheen coating his skin but drops pouring off him like sacrificial rain.
Nahuatl began chanting welcome to the ancestors, and Daivat struck again.
This time Aryck was ready. He deflected the attack, ducking and swiping across Daivat’s unprotected belly before moving out of range.
Fear flashed in Daivat’s eyes at the opening of his skin. He came at Aryck fast and hard.
Aryck scored another hit, raking claws along Daivat’s forearm but sustaining an injury as well.
The silver burned as it cut through the skin over Aryck’s collarbone. He hissed in reaction, bared his teeth against the pain.
His heart thundered in time to the nonstop beat of the drums. His blood poured down his chest in a tide of red.
Heat from the fire siphoned strength and will. Aryck fought the effects of it and attacked.
Daivat snarled and leapt at the same time as Aryck did.
Talons grazed Aryck’s cheek, leaving a clawed trail. He twisted, savaging Daivat’s side.
The fire flared higher, drinking the spray of blood and demanding more of it.
Nahuatl’s voice rose, moving from welcome to a prayer for judgment.
Aryck and Daivat circled each other, and as they did Daivat’s form changed. Fur replaced the skin on his arms and face and chest, turning him into something neither man nor beast.
Chant and drumbeat ended, the abrupt silence signaling the fight was over.
There was no sound other than the crackle of flame and the panting of the combatants.
Around the circle the pack members’ expressions were grim, condemning. Nahuatl stepped forward, hands out to accept the gloves. When he held them he said, “Change,” and Aryck did so, accepting the sharp pain with welcome as his bones and organs reorganized and he became Jaguar.
In front of him Daivat remained standing, trapped between forms. Judged so all who looked at him would know the ancestors had sundered Daivat’s eternal soul, casting it out of the shadowlands as unworthy to live among them.
Koren spoke. “I name you outcast. Leave Jaguar lands before sunset or be hunted and killed.”
A cry followed the pronouncement. Not one of protest but the terrifying wail of a cub in grave peril.
The circle dissolved immediately. And as Caius came into view, horror filled those gathered, pulsing and vibrating in the air like a living thing. The Tiger cub was in human form, the skin on his arms and torso and face an open, hungry wound.
The smell of vomit and raw, exposed muscles reached Aryck even as Caius crumpled to the ground before the first of them could reach him. In a thready, pain-filled voice the cub whispered, “I tried to help them.”
He succumbed to shock and unconsciousness before he could say more. But Aryck knew by them Caius meant the four Jaguar cubs he so often trailed.
At a caution from Phaedra, the healer, Caius was left where he lay until a blanket could be brought to serve as a stretcher, and leather gloves put on in case his skin was contaminated.
Around Aryck others changed form to lend their noses in retracing the cub’s route. Lead, Koren said. Others can follow with blankets and gloves. I will remain here with Phaedra so you can report what you find and she can advise you on how to proceed.
Aryck loped out of camp in answer, his fight with Daivat forgotten.