His cry of terror echoed through her mind, replacing hunger and confusion with a focus she might not otherwise have found.She saw him reaching for the cat, trying to aid her. Not wanting to risk his life, she broke the telepathic connection between them and dissolved. Her body turned to vapor, streaming up and around the cat to reshape into that of a male jaguar with a broad, heavy head and a larger, stockier body the color of the darker shadows. Droplets of blood fell like mist, spattering the leaves and roots as she took the form of a rare black jaguar. She snarled a challenge and leapt. The two cats crashed heavily together, rolling across roots and boughs, the sounds of battle disturbing the night. Many cats used strangulation to kill, but the jaguar, with its exceptionally powerful jaw, would bite directly through the skull between the temporal bones, killing prey instantly. Jaguars were extraordinarily strong, with compact, muscular bodies and broad heads. Stealthy and ne
The jaguar roared, drawing Storm’s attention back to the danger closest to her. She forced a careless smile. "You have the taste of my blood in your mouth. And I have the taste of yours. You have information I seek. You tried to kill me and I owe you no quarter." The cat remained motionless, not a muscle moving, eyes focused intently on her. The jaguar people were as elusive and secretive as the great cats, and like their animal part-or because of it they preferred the dense rainforest near streams and riverbanks. They were rarely encountered and, most likely, were stealthy enough and too familiar with the rain forest to ever be seen unless they wished it. The men, like the animal, were heavily built and enormously strong. They had tremendous night vision and excellent hearing. They were good tree climbers and strong swimmers. Little was known of their society, although she knew they had bad tempers when aroused. Before she probed deep into the brain of the jaguar, the hunter took a
Kon opened his memories to Storm and flooded her with as much information as possible. For many years he'd worked to restore the dwindling strength of his species. Too many of their women had left, seeking companionship and love with human males rather than the careless abandonment of their own males. He'd influenced the others to follow the way of the Storm’s kind and mate for life, to provide a home and a family, a reason for women to stay with them. At first, many had gone along with his ideas and had begun to give up their solitary way of life, but recently, they had become divided in their thinking, as a slow, subtle change occurred. Packs of men had begun committing terrible crimes against women. A "new order" of jaguars had begun searching for women of their kind and raping them in an effort to have pureblood children. Kon hadn't known of the horrors, other than unconfirmed rumors, for the first few years, but now more and more men had joined the bands of marauding rebels. H
Storm woke up with a sense of dread churning in the pit of her stomach. She had just had a horrible dream, and the memory of it lingered like a dark cloud over her mind.As she lay in bed, trying to shake off the remnants of the dream, she felt a wave of panic wash over her. Her chest tightened, making it hard to breathe, and she struggled to control the rising panic that threatened to overwhelm her.The dream had been vivid and unsettling, filled with images that made no sense to her. She tried to piece together the fragments of the dream, to understand its meaning, but it felt like trying to grasp at smoke. Vampires, demons and what-nots. What was all that? What was the dream trying to convey to her?Her emotions were in turmoil, like a storm raging inside her. Fear, confusion, and a sense of foreboding mingled together, creating a tangled web of emotions that she couldn't untangle. She still remembered the words that she had exchanged with the jaguar man, Kon. For some reason, it w
Desperately, Storm tried to think of what to do to get rid of the malevolent presence. It was not giving up yet. She said another prayer.She didn’t think she could hold onto the wall for long-she could actually feel its strength withering. Could the presence feel it too?Should she try to confront the presence head-on, or should she flee from the room and seek safety elsewhere? But before she could make a decision, she felt the presence begin to dissipate both from her mind and her room, like smoke fading into the night.Relief flooded through her, washing away the fear and uncertainty that had gripped her moments before. But even as the presence faded away, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched, that something sinister was lurking just beyond the edges of her perception.For the past few days now, she had felt it, this sense of being observed, of being watched by unseen eyes. It had started out as a nagging feeling in the back of her mind, but it had grown stron
A girl walks into a bar, dressed in a black crop top and ripped blue jeans. A black chunky boot which has seen better years adorned her foot.The bar was empty, not yet open to customers. It looked normal-windowless walls painted black, rows of glass bottles, the smell of beer and stale air. But it wasn't normal, standing on the edge of Shappy Town as it did. She wasn’t surprised though. It was still late afternoon. This place gets filled and going only at night.“Storm? What are you doing here?" A man washing glasses asked her. He looked cool, at least he was still sober. There was no air of aggression, no air of menace. Well, relatively no air of menace. This was a crappy part of town, and menace was its stock-in-trade.Storm told herself she had nothing to be afraid of; at least for now. So, she shrugged her shoulders to the man’s question. He was familiar a bit, but she was surely not going to ask him how he had known her name. She wasn’t interested in knowing that. She just want
The strange man sat back down, returned his motorcycle boots to the top of the desk, and laced his hands behind his head. “He will be here in a minute. Why are you looking for him though?” He asked.The lilt in his voice was unmistakable. Storm put that with his black hair, impossibly blue eyes, and exotic name. "You're Irish." She muttered, before she could stop herself.He smiled a smile that could melt a woman at ten paces. "And who else would be running a pub?" He asked."But you don't own it." She stated, remembering that Mr. Tim was.“Perhaps.” He said with a shrug. “But I doubt that is the answer to my earlier question.”“I’m here to collect my pay. He had eaten at my step mum’s restaurant without paying up. She sent me to do the needful.” Storm replied, meeting the man’s gaze steadily.“I see. How much is that?” The man asked.His voice went frosty, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes smoothing out. “Four hundred dolls.” Storm replied, and the man’s eyes narrowed, pupils
From this angle, staring at the man’s face as he ran his eyes through the bar, Storm thought that he looked like the legendary Zofan hated the thought of using the guardian sword. His primary job was to be called in when there was no longer any hope, and that fact put a dark edge to his entire life. Not many people saw this, but she had noticed, as she had gone through the book.Storm was close enough now to the man to sense his muscles relax as people assured him, they were all right. The people climbed slowly to their feet, shaken, but there was no one dead or wounded. They'd been lucky.The floor was littered with glass and splintered wood, the smell of spilled alcohol was sharp, and bullet holes riddled the dark walls. Half the bottles and glasses behind the bar had been destroyed, and the one of the bartenders crawled shakily out from under a table.A man zoomed in through the front door and stopped by a clump of people not yet brave enough to get up. Storm didn’t know who he was