Be Still My Cheetah Heart (Bridenapping Jaguars Book 1) Page 19

  Valentina huffed.

  “By the time I was rid of my mate, Roberto had already brought home his pathetic, weak human – and just like his father, he wouldn’t hear of mating me. When she was finally gone, Roberto wasn’t interested in mating again – no matter what I did. At least I thought I could make use of my brat.” Marta jutted her chin at Valentina, whose jaw dropped open.

  “Yeah,” said Hester, “I kind of figured that’s why you were pushing her at Antonio. Guessed he was next in line to be prime.”

  “I thought he’d be a lot easier to manage than Roberto as well.”

  “Is that why you’ve been trying to kill me?”

  Valentina gasped, but Hester had her suspicions confirmed the moment they found Daniel’s body. The type of female who would murder her own leap mate would certainly try to kill an outsider.

  Marta shrugged, unconcerned and unabashed. “Well, that and the land deeds. Daniel told me what a good job you’d been doing in the office, by now I’m sure even a dolt like Roberto knows that the missing land deeds are the ones Vertigo wanted.”

  “Let me guess; you seduced Daniel into taking them?”

  Marta smiled coldly. “I said it would all be fine once my daughter was the leap’s female prime, but she couldn’t even do that right.”

  The angry gaze swung back to Valentina who flinched, and Hester quickly tried to get it back to her.

  “So the plan was to sell all the land, get all the money and then what? Roberto would have stood in your way.” Even Marta cringed under his alpha gaze. For all her talk, she wasn’t dominant to Roberto.

  “Roberto would have a little accident. Didn’t you hear? We have a little problem with hunters. Once my daughter was in charge, I could have persuaded Antonio to move the leap. It was perfect. Through my daughter, I would have had the leap. But then Antonio, that idiot,” and she really screeched the word idiot – her cheetah yowled and Hester had to stop herself from covering her ears, “brought you back here and you didn’t seem to want to die.”

  “Yeah, I’m annoying that way,” quipped Hester, trying to ignore her increasing heartbeat. She was trying to act like her usual bitchy self, to hide the fact that with every passing second she was just a teeny-tiny bit worried about the situation they were in.

  Marta scoffed in agreement. “I’ve given up on you going anywhere, or on my lazy daughter mating Antonio, now I’m just going to take the money and run.”

  “Why kill him?” Hester nodded over at Daniel, still in the horror-stricken pose he had died in.

  “He was having cold feet,” grumbled Marta, “ he wanted to go to Roberto and admit what he did and beg for mercy. I tried to reason with him but he just wouldn’t listen, so I had to do what was necessary.”

  Marta spoke of it so casually, as if she were admitting to squishing a bug. Hester almost wanted to vomit. She’d heard some pretty awful things in her time in court, but this seemed worse. Maybe because this was one of her leap mates talking about another leap mate. Huh – one of ‘her’ leap mates. She guessed that’s what they were – warts and all. A lot of freaking warts if Marta was anything to go by.

  Her cheetah yipped in contentment before growling at the situation again. Hester cleared her throat. “You’re nuts.”

  It went without saying but, she didn’t want to miss the opportunity to say it. Shocked the hell out of Valentina who was trying to curl up on herself, but yeah, Marta was nuts, and she wasn’t just going to walk away. Calling her nuts wasn’t going to make it worse.

  “I’m just sick of being treated like nothing in this stupid leap,” snapped Marta. “Look at me? I’m special.”

  Hester bit her lip. A smart-ass comment was not a good idea at that moment in time.

  Marta just continued ranting, “Hardly any females are born shifters in this leap, and yet here I stand. Against all the odds, I’m a female jaguar and they treat me like a regular female. The other females should bow to me – I should be the female prime, yet they’ve always expected me just to be another female. How ridiculous! I tried to become the prime the normal way, but Roberto’s father wouldn’t leave his dumb old mate for me and then when I was finally rid of my mate, Roberto brought home that sickly human, Lana. Now, he’s too grief-stricken even to see what a good mate I would be…”

  Maybe not thought Hester. She knew he was filled with grief, but he could see what a bad choice it would be to have Marta by his side.

  “So forget this leap. I’ll take all their money and find a new leap, become the prime of that.”

  “So Vertigo already has the land deeds?”

  “Y… yes.” Marta’s eyes flickered to a small case in the corner of the room.

  Hester inhaled. It wasn’t too late for the leap. “That’s why you needed Daniel – to steal them right? As crappy a job as Daniel was doing, he still would have noticed if land deeds went missing, so that’s why you seduced him. Except, I bet he didn’t want to hand them over, did he? He wanted to keep them, and then he decided he wanted to give them back to Roberto.”

  “Doesn’t matter, I have them now, all I have to do is hand them over to Vertigo, and that’s that – they’ll give me the rest of my money and I’m gone.”

  “And us?” quavered Valentina.

  Marta gave her a mocking look. “You could come with me, dear. You’re not much as a daughter, but you could be useful in the new leap.”

  Valentina scowled. “No way.”

  “Suit yourself, you ungrateful, lazy, little bitch.” Marta glanced at her watch, “I have a meeting with Vertigo in forty minutes, so I really don’t have the time for this.”

  Hester and Valentina looked at each other uneasily.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill my own daughter – I’ll just lock you up in the basement with this brat.” Marta squeezed on Mikey’s arm making him wince and making Valentina breathe in sharply. “You, however…” Marta growled at Hester.

  “Yeah, yeah, I think we’ve had enough of your supervillain speech. You hate me, so you’re going to kill me, blah, blah.” Hester flexed her claws, and her cheetah snarled. “Lessing yapping, more clawing. You want me? Come and get me.” She kind of hoped she didn’t want her.

  Marta smiled nastily. “Don’t worry; I came prepared.”

  Marta pulled out a gun and fired off two shots – aiming for Hester. Valentina screamed, and Mikey burst into tears.

  Thirty-One

  Antonio halted and sniffed the air. Something was wrong. The jaguar could just tell. Roberto prowled beside him and nudged his flank in question.

  It wasn’t Mikey, but something was wrong. Something was off. He could scent something coppery in the air, like blood – but no, there wasn’t any blood around there. But somehow he could sense that there was blood somewhere. But…

  Hester.

  He roared and started pelting back to the compound.

  *

  Valentina dove for Mikey as Marta dove for Hester. While Hester was hardly a stranger to cat fights – she got into a fair amount of scrapes as a teenager – an unhinged jaguaress was another matter.

  “I’d rather kill you with my own claws,” hissed Marta, slashing at Hester.

  The hot pain as the bullets scraped her skin was nothing compared to Marta’s claws. Hester held onto her wrists as the two of them toppled to the floor, trying to keep the deadly points away from her. She could feel hot, searing agony at the scratches Marta had already landed.

  Her cheetah snarled, trying to push forward, trying to take over. But if she did, Hester would have to lose her grip on Marta’s wrists and those darn claws

  Marta writhed on top of her, her larger frame and heavier weight – ha! – easily pinning Hester. The woman was deranged, snapping her jaws, trying to take a bite out of Hester.

  Hester managed to land a hard kick, momentarily stunning the jaguar and ably spinning them, so she was on top. But Marta flipped them back again, so they were rolling around the floor, destroying anything and eve
rything in their path. Hester pushed out her claws, piercing Marta’s skin, though the woman barely seemed to notice. She growled and grunted, but she wasn’t sure she could physically best this lunatic.

  Was this it? Was this how she was going to die? Torn to shreds by some crazy woman with delusions of grandeur? She had regrets of course. Small ones; like the one about not buying that pair of green pumps while they were on sale. They were still four hundred dollars, but Hester was certain she would have worn them… once or twice. She wished she’d been kinder to her mother, hugged her more instead of lamenting how bossy and interfering she was. Hester’s very possible imminent demise didn’t change her mother’s personality, just made her wonder if she could have done a better job of ignoring it.

  But there was one freaking huge regret, and his name was Antonio. She’d felt something the moment he sat down in front of her at the speed dating – lord how that now felt like a lifetime ago! But it had been there. That easy smile, those twinkling eyes – neither of which dimmed as she all but barked at him. Her cheetah had fallen for him instantly, not understanding why they weren’t just trying to climb him like a tree. But Hester was stubborn – hell, why did she have to be stubborn? She refused to just throw herself at him, and admit she wanted him, admit she needed him. Course, he didn’t help matters with the whole kidnapping thing – though even that didn’t bother her now.

  She should have admitted how she felt, admitted that she was falling for him, that she wanted to be his mate as much as he did. If she saw him again, she was going to throw herself at him, kiss and smooch him and tell him unreservedly that she wanted him. The obstructions to their future hardly seemed worth mentioning in the face of death by clawing.

  Marta’s eyes seemed almost red, and Hester screamed in frustration as she slowly wilted under the onslaught of teeth and claws. Her cheetah howled.

  Just as she thought she was about to give out, Marta snarled and lurched forward. Hester kicked her over her head, sending the woman sprawling.

  Valentina stood over her with a baseball bat, trembling slightly. She looked scared and frantic, but hey, help was help. Hester scrambled to her feet, and the two of them faced the seething Marta.

  The woman actually threw back her head and cackled in true supervillain style. “Please, I can take both of you.”

  As Valentina let out a small whimper, Hester believed her. She could feel the blood oozing out of the various scratches she already had, and Valentina looked like she would scream if someone shouted ‘boo’ too loudly.

  “I believe you,” said Hester weakly, and her cheetah mewled pathetically, somehow feeling she had let Hester down.

  Hester took a second to comfort her beast before pulling the gun out from behind her back. Marta’s smug smile froze. After Marta had fired off a couple of rounds – with terrible aim it had to be said, as while they grazed Hester, neither bullet scored a direct hit - she dropped the gun and just lunged at Hester. While trying to get to her feet, Hester found it and hey, a gun was a gun.

  “Unlike you, I’m fine with killing you with a gun.”

  Marta narrowed her eyes. “You won’t shoot… ugh.”

  Hester shot her. More than once. Valentina let out a yelp in surprise, but it didn’t deter Hester. She’d used a gun once or twice, going to the shooting range with SEA colleagues. She was proficient, but she didn’t carry or own a gun. Never had the need. She had sometimes wondered if she would be able to shoot a living person, and whether or not it would matter if it were in cold blood. For Marta, it didn’t seem to matter. This was a female who had stolen from her leap, killed a leap member who was infatuated with her and kidnapped a child. Not to mention all the times she had tried to kill Hester and probably a lot of other nasty things they didn’t know about. Hester dreaded to think about how Valentina had been treated over the years. No, she felt no remorse for this, especially since Marta didn’t even have the decency to die and was groaning on the floor.

  Ugh, with the shifter healing powers she possessed it meant there was a good chance she would survive. Bitch.

  “I think I’m going to throw up,” moaned Valentina.

  “Fell free,” murmured Hester trying to pry the bat away from her. “Just avoid aiming at Daniel’s body. Where’s Mikey?”

  “I took him a couple of houses over to Sally – she has cubs, I knew she would be home even if her mate was out with the search party. Should we call them back? But how can we? They’ll all be in their jaguar forms and won’t have their cell phones…”

  Valentina was babbling, and Hester let her. Seemed like she needed it.

  “Should we get the pack healer? Or an ambulance or something?”

  Hester hesitated as her cheetah harrumphed. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  They were considering their next move when the door burst open, and the naked forms of Antonio and Roberto flew through it.

  Hester lit up, and her cheetah yipped in happiness. He was a sight for sore eyes. She remembered everything she had promised herself, but her stubbornness, mixed with a tiny bit of shyness, reasserted itself.

  “You took your sweet time,” she said. Her cheetah groaned.

  “Oh, Hessie,” he exclaimed, bounding into the room, gathering her into his arms.

  She allowed him to wrap her in his naked arms and breathed a huge sigh of relief. This was right where she and her cheetah were supposed to be.

  Thirty-Two

  Hester poked at the bandages on her stomach.

  “Stop that,” called Antonio, startling the chief of police.

  Antonio was about thirty feet away from her, relating what had happened, but apparently, he was paying more attention to what she was doing than the questions the police officer was firing at him.

  Hester stuck out her tongue, and he chuckled. The grouchy leap healer had slathered her cuts in a foul smelling concoction and then wrapped her in bandages. She tried to argue and say that she would heal soon enough, but he wouldn’t hear of it. She tried growling, in an attempt to scare him off, but he was more afraid of Antonio than her and had diligently mummified her.

  An ambulance had carefully made its way to the compound and carted Marta away – along with a police officer to watch her closely because she was definitely under arrest for Daniel’s murder. Mikey was safely back with his family. His little brother, Marco had given her a huge, sloppy kiss to say thank you – one that had elicited an irritated growl from Antonio. Maria was currently trying to take care of Valentina.

  “How are you feeling?”

  Hester looked up at the gruff voice and watched as Roberto sat down beside her.

  “Not bad, all things considered.”

  He nodded and watched the interplay between Antonio and the chief of police. The human was becoming increasingly red in the face, probably because Antonio was still completely nude and, well, he was a lot to take. Hester was quite enjoying running her eyes up and down his body.

  Roberto had found a pair of jeans – probably a good thing. He was kind of her uncle-in-law – she didn’t need to see quite so much of him quite so close.

  “Did you get the case with the land deeds?”

  He nodded. His already hard expression unchanging.

  “Vertigo can’t get your land, right?”

  “Not without the deeds.”

  Hester blew out a breath of relief, and Roberto arched his eyebrow almost quizzically for half a second.

  “It sounds like they already gave Marta some money before they had them…”

  The barest hint of a smile touched his lips. “Good luck to them in getting it back from her.”

  Her cheetah huffed. “Bitch.”

  Roberto actually chuckled, and Hester realized she had said that out loud.

  “We played together as cubs,” he said musingly. “I had no idea she was so dangerous.”

  “Came as a bit of a surprise to Valentina, too.” Probably more so to Daniel she silently added.

  “Her mother was a bitter woman. A
ngry my father was chosen to be prime.”

  “Hopefully that bitterness will leave with Marta, though I wouldn’t turn your back to Valentina for a while – just in case.”

  The uncharacteristic chuckle returned before he became serious again. “I figure Daniel did the shooting, thought he was just trying to scare you, to get rid of you because you were going through the leap paperwork. I don’t think he was aiming to hurt you, though maybe that’s what Marta was hoping for when she gave him the gun. Daniel was quite weak, but not vicious.”

  “How did Marta get it? The gun I mean.”

  Roberto looked almost rueful. “She slept with the owner. Stole it from him.”

  “The steakhouse owner, right?”

  She had seen him talking to Antonio –tall, skinny, balding fella. Great taste in food, bad taste in women. Though, Roberto couldn’t claim his taste was any better.

  Roberto must have sensed the direction of her thoughts because he looked almost sheepish. “Right. According to the chief, he didn’t tell me because he thought Marta and I were together and he was afraid I’d kill him.”

  Hester smiled. “Would you have? If you were together, I mean.”

  He shrugged. “Probably not. Might have suggested he seek psychiatric help.”

  She giggled and then thought better of it as she pulled at one of her stomach wounds. Her skin would slowly knit together again, but it would be itchy and irritating until it was over.

  “She kept trying to poison me, didn’t you question her about that?”

  Roberto let out a small rumble. “Yes, but she’s a good liar.”

  Probably better than he gave her credit for, and Hester could tell he was angry about it. Roberto wasn’t exactly easy to read – his default setting seemed to be stonewall – but he was angry at himself for not seeing it sooner.