Jungle Freakn' Bride (9 page)

Again, not one of her brightest ideas. Who was she kidding? She never stood a chance outrunning Mr. Kitty and his friends
,
b
ut
as
the focus of their attention,
a sudden panic gripped her
and
replaced common sense
as her
heart pound
ed with
fear. An instinct older than time, a need for
self-preservation
,
saw her feet moving. She didn’t even make it three steps.

A broad arm wrapped around her waist. She shrieked and a hand covered her mouth. She bit. He didn’t budge his fleshy gag as he held her aloft. Pirouetting, to a cheering crowd,
Mr. Kitty
spun her around twice before he slung her over his shoulder to wild cheers.

Head hanging down, arms free, she pummeled his back. Punched him in the kidney. And how did he reply? He slapped her ass
in the same spot as before
.
O
uch
!
So she bit him right in one perfect cheek.

*

She did not.
Oh yes
,
she had. Acat couldn’t believe she nipped him. On his buttocks
!
Wors
e
, it didn’t go unseen.

“Ha, she has marked
Acat
first
,
”
jeered a warrior.

“His woman thinks to claim him,” snickered another. “Perhaps she will fight for him as well.”

“She didn’t draw blood.
Perhaps she is not his chosen.
”

“She is mine,”
Acat
roared in an attempt to quell the taunts as others s
ought
to undermine his claim.

Chaob laughed. “Ignore them. They are just jealous that we found her first.”

“
I am beginning to wish I hadn’t
,
” Acat growled as he climbed the ladder leading up to the bridal hut.

“
Liar. You want her as
much as
I
do
.
”

“
She is more trouble than I anticipated. And possibly
crazy.”

“No, she has spirit,
”
Chaob corrected.
“I
,
for one
,
like that.”

Listening to her rant as she continued to cause damage, Acat couldn’t disagree
about the spirited part and added violent too
. Still speaking in Mayan, he asked his beta
,
“Are we doing the right thing?
Perhaps we should have
answer
ed
some of her questions.”

“And break tradition?”

“It wouldn’t be the first rule we’ve rewritten.”

“But is it the one that would make the whole ritual fail?
W
here would that leave us?”

Swinging onto the hanging rope with its spaced knots, Acat wondered
,
s
omething easier to do as she stopped her harangue while he completed the ascent.
Finally
,
something that shut her up
–
heights. He welcomed the silence.
A clear head was needed for the upcoming battle.
Doubting his course now would serve no purpose.

The challenge was issued. The contenders lined up even now. Rewriting the law would have to wait another day. He needed to fight, fight for the right to claim this fiery female. And hope she didn’t kill him
when she found out the truth
.

For the third night in a row, the thumps and grunts resumed,
overcoming
the nighttime symphony of the jungle. Carlie wondered what it meant, or if it even concerned her and the two other girls taken from camp. It wasn’t as if anyone told them anything since their captors last dumped them in their prison
, a nice prison as cells went
.
Light, airy
,
and clean, it actually proved more comfortable than her tent and sleeping bag, but nice accommodations didn’t excuse the locked door and loss of freedom.

The last time she’d seen someone other than her roommates was when Golden
Grin
and Mr. Kitty too
k
her freakn’ ass back up that crazy tree and into the hut nestled among the boughs. When she’d finally dared open her eyes again, lest the view make her puke,
her
g
olden
-
e
ye
d captor
caught her gaze, the mirth in
it
easy to read.
L
anguage barrier be damned, he understood the waggled middle finger’s intent when she flung it his way.

What did the
strange dance by the naked old guy
mean? Was this the part
where
they got fattened up? Raped? Killed?

Mr. Kitty, despite the abuse she’d heaped on him,
tossed her – gently
,
with a wink of his one blue eye– onto a leaf
-
filled pallet in the prison hut. Without a word – grope
,
or even a stolen kiss – he and his
golden
-
eye
d
friend left her
,
as did her two companions
’
abductors. Left her confused, frightened, still a bit angry, oh
,
and horny. Inexplicably, to an embarrassing degree, horny.

That
had been
days ago. Since then, they remained cooped up, prisoners in a
spacious
room with a vaulted ceiling, crisscrossed by living tree branches. Heavy shutters covered the windows
–
locked
,
she noted when she tried to push them open. The
only
door out of this place resisted all manner of pushing, shoving, crying
,
and the more than occasional kick.

Their food arrived silently, from various niches in the wall, empty one minute, filled the next with a pitcher of fresh spring water and a platter covered in fresh food. Fruits and vegetables for the most part, interspersed with seared meat, more red inside than she personally enjoyed.

Of her golden
-
and
-
blue
-e
yed captor – he of the tall and sculpted bod
y
– she’d seen no sign, nor of his friend with the easy grin and teasing gazes. Not a soul came to visit them in their spacious cage. But every night, once the sunlight, gleaming through portholes in the roof of their peaked domicile set, the noise began. A slow drumming beat
followed by a
low, rumbling
roar that sounded like a pride of cats
. And then the
vicious
snarl
s
that set off chaos.

It reminded her daily of the impossibility she thought she’d witnessed on the night of her capture. What was she dealing with? Man or cat – or both
?
Could the rumors of shape
-
shifters in the jungle actually be true?

No
way
. Her imagination needed to settle down. Men did not turn into cats.
I must have mistaken a mask for the real thing.
But
deep down,
she knew what she saw
, and what she
felt. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t quite believe in the most plausible scenario. The other possibility
…
It can’t be. Shape
-
shifters are just stories.

Tell that to the snarls of the major
feline
fight currently in progress.

“Do you think they’ve forgotten us?” Leena asked, blinking in the gloom. Without her glasses,
lost during the kidnapping,
she bore a slightly startled look, and reminded Carlie of her more timid sister
,
Ruth.

“I think,” the bolder member of their group, Sasha
,
said
,
“
t
hat it’s a battle.”

“Well duh. I think we can all hear that.”

“You didn’t let me finish. A battle to see who gets to keep us.” Sasha tossed her long
,
dark hair.

“Like a prize?” Leena squeaked.

“Prize? Wife? New harem girl. Whatever they call a
woman
around her
e
who has to open her legs for the victor.” Sasha didn’t seem too disgusted by the thought.

If thinking of her captors, Carlie could almost understand why. They were pretty damned hot.
S
till
,
though
, modern women did not succumb to caveman tactic
s
,
no matter how sexy the
N
eanderthal
. “Ugh. That sounds so…so…”

“Scary?” Leena supplied.

“Not exactly.”

“Hot?” Sasha added.

“No.”
Yes
!
B
ecause Carlie wouldn’t mind Mr. Kitty
or Golden Grin
doing more than rub
bing
himself against her. Of course, there was the whole why
-
did
-
she
-
think
-
he
-
was
-
a
-
cat on their first meeting issue to get over with first. And his kidnapping. And his continued imprisonment of her and her friends.
Hmmm, on second thought, she had more reasons to keep her legs clamped tight than open.
“I just think the idea of men fighting over who gets to have a woman is kind of archaic. I mean, I understand women’s lib hasn’t penetrated this far in the jungle, but still, there’s got to be a better way for the men around here to date.”

“I don’t want to sleep with them
. I was saving myself for marriage,
” Leena whispered. Even if she couldn’t see her in the dark, Carlie could picture her friend hunched in on herself.

“I’m sure it won’t come to that,” she reassured. Funny how it did nothing to ease her
own
mind.
What should we expect?
In truth, despite their theories and fears, they
could
only
go on
conjecture
s
. As of yet, other than the actual kidnapping, they’d suffered no harm, and if not for the locked room, couldn’t complain of their treatment or accommodations. Fluffy pallets smelling of herbs and covered in soft, tanned animal skins made a comfy place to rest. The hole in a corner behind a screen provided them with a primitive bathroom and didn’t stink to holy hell
,
even if it was embarrassing to use. The food
tasted
good. The air
around them flowed
fresh. The boredom and not knowing was what drove Carlie nuts.

Still wondering at her fate, she fell asleep to the sounds of battle, dreaming yet again of hot, hard bodies pressing in on her, touching her. Kissing her. Claiming her…

The morning brought a shrill scream. Embarrassed at her loss of control, Carlie slapped a hand over her mouth.

It just made the mismatched eyes peering down at her crinkle in amusement.

Forget fear.
Days of not knowing
what to expect
cured her of that. “You jerk!” she yelled. “You scared the hell out of me.”

His reply? A big, white
-
toothed smile. Damn, but
Mr. Kitty
was good
-
looking with his tanned skin and long
,
dark locks. And big too. Even crouched at her side, she couldn’t help but note his size
—
m
assive
,
m
uscled
and v
ery attractive. Despite the wrongness, she couldn’t help a spurt of arousal.

A movement to the giant’s side caught her eye and she noted
the
second male, Mr. Kitty’s friend
and constant shadow
, standing there as well. Golden Grin
still
wore just as few clothes, only a
loincloth
low on his hips and some
smudged
tribal markings
,
which enhanced his nudity rather than detracted.