Burning Wild (Leopard People 2)

"Just a few scratches," Drake answered casually. "I've had far worse playing around with friends in leopard form."

Jake stretched his tired muscles. The rain had slowed to a fine drizzle. "I'm sorry, Drake. I could have hurt you."

Drake sent him another small grin. "I knew you wouldn't."

"Then you knew more than I did. Where's Joshua?"

The grin widened. "Sleeping like a baby. He wasn't worried about you."

"He does a good job of pretending," Jake said. "He worries. Why do you suppose he left the rain forest? He isn't all that happy here, but he doesn't want to go back."

"Joshua is Joshua. He doesn't share much about his life. Whatever happened must have been bad or he never would have left. No one leaves because they want to."

"You did," Jake pointed out.

"I couldn't stay in the forest without letting my leopard run, and I can't shift. It became . . . difficult."

"Did the doctors try grafting your own bone?"

Drake nodded. "It didn't work. I didn't understand the entire process, but some of us have the ability to regenerate bones and others don't. I apparently don't."

"Did you try using someone else's bone?"

"Like a cadaver?" Drake made a face. "We incinerate our dead immediately. It's the only way for our species to survive, to keep our existence secret. And it doesn't make much sense that if I can't use a piece of my bone, then someone else's would work, now does it?"

"They can do all sorts of things now, Drake. You just have to find the right man." Jake opened the door to the pickup and paused to look around.

He owned everything for miles. He'd patiently acquired acre after acre, adding on to the land his great-grandfather had given him until he had a sanctuary. He'd turned miles of that into a shaded, wooded area for his leopard. He had built a cattle empire. Step by step, patiently. And he had slowly begun drilling for the oil he knew was on other tracts of land he'd inherited. Recently he had acquired several large pieces of property he was certain concealed natural gas just waiting to be developed. Looking at Drake--his friend--the one person who had stood for him, he realized that all of his accomplishments stacked up to very little. Billions of dollars maybe, but the money was a tool for him. And he knew what he had to do with it.

Drake needed a solution. In comparison to his friend's problem, the years Jake had put into his plan to take down his enemies seemed a waste when a man as good as Drake was suffering.

Jake cleared his throat. He found it strange to think about another person, to worry about them. Emma's influence. She was doing something to him with her presence that he couldn't quite understand, but he knew she had changed him somehow in the brief two years she'd lived in his home. He didn't know when the change had occurred, but he knew Drake was more important than any revenge possible.

Jake pulled open the door. "Do you want me to drive?"

Drake shook his head. "I've got it. Just shove Joshua over."

Jake gave the other man a good-natured push and Joshua lifted his head and growled a warning. "Get in the back," Jake said. "You can sleep there."

Joshua snarled but complied, curling up to go back to sleep even before Jake slid into the passenger side. "Who did your surgery? Are there doctors in your village?"

"We have one doctor for our people, but no specialist like I needed, and my bones won't graft and shift."

Drake sounded matter-of-fact on the surface, but Jake listened with heightened senses. Drake didn't show by his expression that he was depressed, but Jake caught the heavy note in his voice and looked at him sharply. "I need you here, Drake." He kept his voice low, the admission churning his gut. He hated that feeling, the sudden clawing fear at the idea of losing his friend. He wasn't supposed to need anyone. It made him feel vulnerable and small.

He took a breath. No. It wasn't really fear of losing Drake. He had asked Drake to come to him, to leave the rain forest and help him. Drake was his responsibility. That was all. The way Emma and the children and even Joshua were his responsibility. He needed to find a way to help the man, to save him, because there were few good men left in the world.

Drake didn't pretend to misunderstand what they were talking about. "You're going to find out soon enough that a leopard can't be suppressed forever. I don't have a lot of time left, Jake. And frankly, what the hell is there left for me?"

"Surgery. Don't be an idiot. You don't give up until you've tried everything, and you haven't even begun to scratch the surface. Your bone won't work. We don't have a cadaver, but you have me. Or Joshua. One of us might have the ability to regenerate and if we don't, we'll find someone who does have it."

Drake shot him a look out of the corner of his eye. "I doubt it's that easy."

"Nothing worthwhile ever is." Jake's mind was already working at a fast pace. He could easily set several of his staff searching for the best team of orthopedic surgeons. With enough money, anyone could be bought. And the one thing he had was money. "I'll set it in motion tomorrow. If neither Joshua or I can be used, we'll keep looking for a donor until we find one."

Drake moistened his suddenly dry lips. "You think someone could really fix me? That I could go without the plate? I thought about having them amputate the leg."

"Why shouldn't they be able to fix it? We just need the right surgeon and the right donor." He glanced out the window. "You forgot to turn on the headlights. You're using your leopard's night vision."

He'd noticed both Joshua and Drake did that a lot, interchanged the leopard's senses with their own. Maybe their leopards weren't as destructive as his and were more easily controlled. He'd studied the animal quite a bit. They had bad tempers. Jealous rages. They were highly intelligent and cunning, and were secretive creatures. He was all of those, amplified a million times.

Drake didn't bother with the headlights. Instead, he changed the subject. They were driving over the trail back toward the ranch house. "You need to tell me everything you know about Emma's background. I know you must have had her investigated before you ever hired her."

"I've got her file, but there's not much in it. Where she went to school. Her parents." Jake gave another casual shrug.

"Have you read about or spoken about the Han Vol Don with anyone?" Drake asked.

"I've heard you use the term. What is it?"

"Females are very different from males in our species. No one knows what triggers the Han Vol Don. It isn't puberty or sexual activity. We have no idea, and believe me, we've tried to figure it out. For males the leopards shift when the leopard is strong enough or the boy is undergoing extreme stress. Maybe a combination of the two. It is very different for our women."

"And the Han Vol Don is . . ." Jake looked at Drake expectantly, a hint of impatience in his eyes. He knew about being male.

"Dangerous. To everyone. A female will suddenly go into a combined heat, both woman and leopard merging together. She throws off an alluring scent, and when in close proximity, her presence can trigger a thrall--the madness you experienced--in a mate. Mates find and recognize one another lifetime after lifetime. I think Emma may be leopard."

The moment he heard the word mate, the leopard in him leapt and the man in him recoiled. He wasn't anyone's mate, least of all Emma's. She was his. She belonged to him, but he belonged with no one. His life was a carefully built sham.

"That's impossible. There's nothing whatsoever in her past to make me think that. And she was married to someone else." The last came out too much like an accusation, and Jake kept his eyes fixed on the fences as they raced by them.

"That doesn't mean she wasn't your mate in a previous life. Are there ever times when she seems familiar to you? Do you have memories of her that you shouldn't have?"

Jake took a breath. "How could she be leopard and not know?"