“How did I give you the idea that you are unwanted by me? I made every effort, despite some difficulty, to reach you when the sun set so we would have as many hours as possible to get to know each other. I am told I do not show enough emotion. Is that the problem?”
He’d called her out, just as she had done to him. “Family trait?” she murmured, flashing him a little half smile.
“I would imagine the two of us have quite a few traits in common. Stubbornness might be one of the foremost traits we share.”
Sarika gave a little shrug. “I know I’m stubborn. That particular characteristic might be considered a negative one, but it got me through some difficult times.”
“Such as?” he prompted.
It was the first question he’d asked her about herself that showed real interest. She could tell he really wanted to know. He was so low-key, his mask impossible to read. No real inflections when he spoke, but the flare of interest was there in his eyes. So brief, she might not have caught it had she blinked.
“I’ve spent a good deal of my time working on conservation in the world’s rainforests. Several of the expeditions I went on went awry due to numerous causes: weather, war, poachers, any number of reasons.”
“Determination,” he corrected. “Not stubbornness.”
She burst out laughing. “You say that now, but once you have to deal with me, I believe that you’ll decide the determination was stubbornness after all.”
Sarika expected a smile, even if it was only a brief one, but his tough features didn’t change expression. Apparently, she wasn’t nearly as funny to her cousin as she was to herself. She repressed a sigh and hung determinedly on to her smile.
“You say you worked on conservation in the various rainforests—did you do so alone?”
The tone was mild, not at all condemning, but Sarika felt the reprimand and instantly reacted. Like a porcupine, with every hair on her body rising like quills, she actually felt prickly. She couldn’t imagine being friends with Luiz, no matter how long she knew him. He didn’t look judgy, but it seemed as if he was judging her. He looked indifferent. No, not even that.
She sighed, wishing she weren’t so prickly with him. She made every effort to keep her tone even, with no trace of annoyance. “There were others I met going on the expeditions. While I was in school, I went on a few, and that allowed me to meet others interested in conservation. Once I was out of school, I joined several organizations for the preservation of jaguar habitats and was accepted on various treks. We set up cameras and tagged a few of the jaguars. The idea is to open a corridor for the jaguars so they aren’t interbreeding. By enlisting the aid of locals, we have a much better chance of success. So far, the program has been working.” Animation crept into her voice. She believed in the work. She knew that without intervention, the jaguar species would become extinct.
“You joined total strangers trekking into the rainforest?” Luiz repeated it as if he couldn’t quite comprehend.
“Are you having a problem with my choice of career?” she challenged. She tried as hard as she could to tamp down the belligerence, but there was just something about him that set her off.
“Do you think it was safe for you to do such a thing?”
“Is it safe for you to live here? Or any of those you say reside here?” This cousin thing wasn’t working out quite the way she had envisioned.
“You were raised in a far different environment than me or anyother shifter, male or female, residing here,” Luiz said. “You’re trying to save a species of wildlife and not considering that jaguar shifters are dying out as well? Without women and children, the jaguar shifter species will be extinct in a few years.”
“Just because I was raised differently doesn’t mean I wasn’t taught how to protect myself.” She did the chin thing again before she could stop herself. Alois and Gemma always warned her that little gesture of defiance would get her in trouble someday. They emphasized that she needed to appear serene and feminine, as if she were an easy mark. They had told her never to give away the fact that she could protect herself because that took away part of her advantage of sheer surprise.
Luiz didn’t react to the challenge of her chin tilt the way several of the men had when she argued with them on the various treks she’d gone on. The men had automatically assumed they would lead, and she would follow quietly along, even in the discussions. She eventually earned her reputation for intelligence. That didn’t negate that things were usually awkward in the beginning.
The rainforest seemed to reflect Luiz’s silence. Those gold-flecked green eyes seemed to pierce right through her, as if he could see every mistake she’d ever made.
One moment Luiz was several feet from her; the next he was behind her, one arm locked around her throat and the other holding a knife to her chin. “How do you protect yourself from an attack such as this one?”
His voice was that same mild, expressionless tone. His body was relaxed, but she felt every muscle. He felt like a stone column, not a physical flesh-and-blood man. Although he held her in a very dangerous hold, she didn’t feel nearly as threatened as she had when he was standing in front of her—which made no sense at all.
“I see what you mean,” she said, because she did.
The moment she acknowledged that she wouldn’t have been able to stop him had he cut her throat that quickly, he released her, stepping away from her.
“How did you move so fast?”
Luiz’s gaze went past her, looking over her shoulder. His expression was inscrutable, but the danger emanating from him increased tenfold. One hand very gently settled around her arm, and Luiz guided her behind him. It was done so smoothly and firmly that she didn’t have time to think about what she was doing. Nor was she alarmed. She actually felt safe and protected.
A man sauntered out of the brush off to her left, facing Luiz straight on. He moved with an easy assurance in the jungle, as if he’d been born there—as, undoubtedly, he had been. He was a little shorter than Luiz and very compact, his chest dense, his muscles apparent. His hair was a tawny color, and his eyes were the rounder golden eyes of a jaguar. They held that same particular focus as Luiz’s gaze did. It took discipline to keep from wrapping her hand in Luiz’s shirt and holding on because those eyes were on her. And they were hungry.
“Percy,” Luiz greeted.
That cool tone brought the jaguar shifter to a halt. He switched his gaze to Luiz with an obvious effort, almost as if he had dismissed the threat in order to get to her. She took one step back to give Luiz fighting room if it came to that, but she remained behind him.
