[Project Nemesis] Jungle Fever (5 page)

            She flinched
again when Rafael invaded her personal space to sniff her, his chest so close
to hers she could barely take a breath without her breasts touching him.  He
shuddered slightly and quickly spun around and away from her.  She noticed
suddenly that they all spoke to her, but angled their bodies away from her--she
didn´t smell that bad for Christ´s sake!

            How embarrassing. 
Yvonne had been busy imagining some kind of fantasy foursome, and they´d been
cringing at her BO.  No, wait, Armando´s erection hadn´t been faked, so what
the hell was going on?  She was pretty but she didn´t inspire instantaneous
lust in any man.  Unless it’d been ages since they’d been with a woman, she
really didn’t understand their reaction to her.  She didn´t think that any
woman could, especially, when that woman was covered in mud and wore torn and
dirty army gear.  She hated to think of what her hair must look like after
being dragged repeatedly through the jungle.

            She studied them
surreptitiously in the silence that followed her questions, then stiffened her
body when Armando jostled her and pushed her over to the tree that Rafael had
been leaning against.  She sat on the forest floor, looking up at them, knowing
that she wasn´t in the best position for escape, but she knew that unless she
could injure them somehow, she wouldn´t be making a getaway anytime soon.  Of
course, the other option would be to seduce her way out of this, but she wasn’t
convinced she could take on three testosterone raging men in the condition she
was in.  Could be fun, though….

            “We´re the ones
who are asking the questions,
chica
, remember that. What the fuck
are
you doing here?  Are you a scientist?” Armando asked her suspiciously.

            “What?  No!  I
was hired to track down a pack of cats that had been released from the facility
here on the island.  That´s all.  My job was to capture them alive,” she told
them honestly.

            “Hmm, do you
believe her, Rafa?” Remy asked mock-sweetly.

            “I don´t think I
do, the Project wouldn´t let just anybody in on their secrets ... she must be
important to the whole thing....”

            “No!” Yvonne
interrupted quickly, sensing the danger in the physical reaction of the men. 
They were pissed at the project, for what reason, she wasn´t sure, but she had
to tread carefully.  Maybe they were the ones who had indeed let the cats go in
the first place and they just didn’t want her to know their role in this.

            Try as she might,
she couldn’t think of another reason for them to be lost in the jungle with no
way to get back home.  “I´m telling the truth.  I was hired--I´m a tracker,
normally humans, but I can hunt too.  My remit was to catch the cats and return
them to the facility here on the island.  That was it.  I know nothing about
the project, only what was deemed necessary for this assignment--basically fuck
all!”

            “Didn´t you think
that was wrong?  Hunting cats that had escaped from experimentation, only for
you to send them back there?  Or do animals not count?  You said you´re a hunter,
I suppose it doesn´t matter to you,” Remy said quietly.

            Not a question
per se, more of a statement.  She abruptly felt like crying.  “No!” she told
them vehemently, “I didn´t want to do it, but it was either that or I go to
prison.  I love animals, they´re much nicer than humans,” she said earnestly,
“But I can´t go to jail, I just couldn´t stand it.”

            Their love of
animals was pretty convincing to her—they had to be the men responsible for
unleashing the genetic experiments onto the island.  She had no way to
anticipate what they were capable of, and she didn’t want to find out.

            “Why were your
choices prison or this?”

            She sighed,
hoping the truth would help her in the end.  “My ex saddled me with nearly
$300,000 in back taxes.  This was my only chance to pay off that debt with the
IRS.  It’s hard to resist that much money when you’re so desperate.”

            “So, you prefer
to condemn helpless animals instead. I see,” Rafael replied.

            “I don´t!  You
might think I had a choice, but I didn´t.  I know nothing about the project,
security only cleared me to know the basics, nothing specific or detailed.”

            Armando smiled
nastily at her.  “Know what that means guys?  She has no idea what we are.”

            Yvonne felt taken
aback.  Just when she thought she’d figured things out….  She crossed her arms
over her chest, feeling a chill creep over her skin.  “What do you mean, ´what
you are’? You´re men,” Yvonne added hastily.

            “Show her Remy,”
Armando said, keeping his eyes trained on her face, waiting for her reaction.

            Yvonne´s head
spun around in time to watch Remy throw himself to the ground.  His body
crouched, his back curled until his head flew back and his face became a grimace
of pain.  Hair sprouted through his pores, bones audibly crunched and cracked until
suddenly Remy wasn´t a man anymore.  He was a golden cougar.

            Yvonne didn’t
realize she’d stopped breathing until the cat hissed at her.  She gasped,
feeling her heart pound with fear.  She stared blankly at him for a second and
covered her eyes, muttering,  “I´m crazy, I´ve lost it.  Fucking Tyrell, he´s
made me lose my frigging mind.”  She shook her head, willing the image to go
away before she uncovered her eyes again.  She lowered her hands slightly, but the
cougar was still there, she flinched and recovered her eyes, wondering what
kind of nightmare she’d wandered into

            Armando gave a
cold laugh and grabbed her elbow, dragging her to her feet. “Come on, we need
to stay on the move.  There will be more out after her--she´s scented strongly.
 We have to move out.”

            She looked at
each of the men.  “Are you all like … like that?”

            With a hiss of
pain, Rafael shifted into a black panther, and before Yvonne knew where the
hell she was, a red/yellow snake lay dead at her feet minus it´s head.  She
tried not to be the girl that she was when she saw the dead creature, but she
couldn´t help her grimace of distaste.  She had spoken the truth, when she´d
told the three men that she preferred animals to humans, she would never
willingly hurt an animal unless it was injured and needed to be put down, or it
was about to hurt her--she was a Vegan, for fuck´s sake!  Seeing the dead snake
detracted from Rafael´s return shift back to a very naked, virile man.

            “Why did you have
to kill that snake?” she demanded angrily, looking away from his nakedness.

            “
Muñeca
,
that snake is, what we Colombians call a
verrugoso
, aka a Bushmaster.  That
thing will kill you quicker than Armando will smile.  It will bite you twice,
and within seconds--
muerto
,” he snapped his fingers, then chucked her
under the chin again, “You should be grateful, it had its beady little eyes on
you,” he teased her, not offended by her anger.

            He bent and
slipped his ragged jeans up and over his semi-hard cock.  He grinned at her
when she noticed it.  “This snake won’t bite you,
mi amor. 
But it will
hurt you.”

            She looked
quickly away, encountering Armando’s dark eyes on her.

            “For a hunter,
you´re mighty squeamish about dead animals,” Armando said suspiciously, he held
her close to his left side and Remy held her right arm.  Rafael drifted from
behind and wandered up front, wherever he perceived there to be a threat,
apparently he´d just done her a favor!  Remy and Armando dragged her through
the jungle since she couldn´t keep pace with them.  For every step she took,
they could take four--how the hell that was even possible, she didn´t know.

            She gritted her
teeth, ducking her head against the brush they dragged her through.  “I´ll have
you know, I´m a Vegan,” she told them, her voice equal parts snooty and proud.  She
glared when all three of them, even Armando, the dour one, burst into laughter.

            “Cherie
you´re joking! How do you hunt anything?
”
Remy
asked her.

            She narrowed her
eyes, disliking the way they made her feel ridiculous.  “I trap and then
release them.  I never hurt them.  You three were so busy condemning me for
taking this job, and not wanting to go to prison, you never asked me my hunting
method!”

            “I think it´s
safe to say,
muñeca,
that we never expected that to be why!” Rafael
joked and all three of them grinned at her, each shaking their heads in
surprise.

            “How ... how is
it that you can shift into cats?” Yvonne asked hesitantly.  “If I hadn´t seen
it for myself, I would never have believed it.” The jovial mood quickly
disintegrated, all three of them looked evasive.  Their body language
positively screamed it.  She knew that she wouldn´t get an honest answer.

            “Your Project leader
knows why we can shift ... I wouldn´t say that we had a choice, would you Remy,
Rafa?” Armando told her sarcastically.

            “If you knew the
shit that goes on in that facility,
chérie,
you wouldn´t want to work
for them.  Bastards, the lot of them.  Remember that, they´ll screw you before
there is even the remotest possibility of you screwing them.  Not only will
they fuck with your life, they´ll fuck with your body too, nothing is going too
far, they´re messing with nature, man.  There´s no stopping them now,” Remy
snarled.

            “Chill out, man.  Don´t
start with that freaky shit, you know how you get,” Rafael warned.

            “I´m not a kid,
Rafa.  I know when to stop.  The lady asked a question, I was merely giving her
a reply.”

            Silence reigned
for a couple of seconds.  Yvonne´s panting breaths were loud and broke the
silence up.  “Can we slow down, please?” she asked wearily, she was bruised,
battered and had passed out once already.

            Sure, she´d woken
up refreshed, but it was better not to push her luck.  The faster she walked,
the more energy she´d burn, and she didn´t have that high a reserve in her.
What energy she´d had, had been spent on fighting that damned jaguar.  Not only
that, but she swore it was getting hotter, and she hadn´t had anything to drink
for hours now.  That couldn´t be good.  Either way, she couldn´t handle the
speed they wanted her to run.

            Armando looked
down at her.  “Why are you ill?”

            She breathed
heavily, rubbing her forehead with her shoulder.  “I’m not yet, but I will be
soon if we don´t slow down,” she told him briskly. “Can I sit down for a
second?”

            Armando looked at
her warily for a second.  “We can´t.  Not yet.  We need to get away from this
section of the jungle.  There are more cats around here.  We need to get nearer
to the facility.  It´s easier to hide, and we don´t have to protect our
territory.  More cats have died over here from territorial squabbles than
anything else--”

            As if summoned
from the depths of hell, two cougars leapt from the underbrush, charging into their
midst.  The intelligence in their eyes startled her.  All her suspicions about
the cats she’d tried to capture were confirmed—every single cat unleashed onto
the island had unnatural intelligence.  They had to all be shape shifters.  Why
she wasn’t informed of this, she could understand, but it pissed her off that
she hadn’t been given fair warning to defend herself.  She was trapped on this
island with monsters.

            The cats charged
the group of men.  Almost as one, Armando and Rafael seamlessly shifted into
their cat form—two great, black panthers with fierce, golden eyes.  Their
grimaces of pain lasted only split seconds before fur enveloped their features
in a sleek, feline mask.  They were breathtaking, huge, muscular beasts that
moved in sync with one another, stalking the intruders with the grace of cats,
but the intelligence of humans.

            She held her
breath, waiting to see what would happen.  She couldn’t help but want Armando
and Rafael to win.  Without a word, Remy shoved her back against a tree, knocking
the breath out of her as he shielded her with his big, hard body.  She could
feel the muscles of his back crushing her breasts.  He grunted to feel her
struggle against him, holding a hand behind him to keep her from escaping his
fleshly cage.

            “Let me go.  I
ain’t no baby!” she yelled, trying to get away.  Odd as it was, she didn’t feel
endangered by their attackers, not with the three men seeming willing and able
to protect her—or else keep anyone else from getting and using her before they
could.

            Dimly, she heard
the sounds of the cats warring with one another, though she could see little. 
Yvonne smacked at his shoulders and arms, trying to move him enough that she could
breathe and see the fight.

            He wouldn’t
move.  She gnawed her lip, thinking.  She tried another tactic, sliding her
hands around his hips to cup the edges of his groin, rubbing herself against
his tight buttocks.  He jerked, his cock reacting to her touch.