"I could just pick my own," she said, turning pinker.
"I know, but they wouldn't be individually selected and hand-curated for your pleasure. You gave away your necklace, so I have to give you something to make up for it."
Now she laughed aloud. Her laugh was bright and beautiful, and Gio decided he would do whatever it took to make sure he heard it as often as possible.
"Here," he said, plucking another golden flower. Max stood still as he carefully tucked it behind her ear. "Now the picture is perfect."
Max smiled at him. She looked impossibly beautiful with the sun streaming across her shoulders and the flower glimmering in her dark hair. Her loose, colorful blouse fluttered in the breeze.
The urge to take her in his arms and hold her close was overwhelming, but as Gio reached for her, Max abruptly stiffened, looking past his shoulder with alarm.
His first thought was that they had been found by the cult again. He whirled around, preparing to fight, but a quick scan of the hillside showed him nothing that he recognized as a threat.
Then he saw two jaguars loping down the slope toward them. The animals were gorgeous, lean and rippling with muscle under their spotted coats. One was gold with black spots, the other charcoal-colored, with slightly darker spots just visible against its nearly black hide.
"I guess our time's up," Max said quietly. She dropped the flowers, letting them fall to drift on the wind and settle among the meadow weeds at her feet. "I suppose it was too much to hope that we could have just a little longer."
The jaguars arrived. To Gio's surprise, they wore collars, which he had never seen on a shifter before. Actually, there was more than just a collar; each jaguar wore a nylon harness with a small pack attached. He glanced curiously at Max for an explanation.
"These are patrollers carrying their gear," she explained as they began to walk up the hill with the jaguars escorting them. It was a polite escort, but every time they started to drift off course, they were firmly corrected; it was soon clear that they were being taken somewhere other than the village.
"Patrollers?" Gio asked.
"My clan has an organized rota of patrols to make sure the village is kept safe," Max said. "They keep out predators, human tourists, artifact smugglers, anyone who might be up here where they shouldn't be. That's what Sofia's husband was doing when he died—in a rockfall, she said. But normally it's pretty safe. The patrollers carry GPS transmitters, radios, and spare clothing. Since they patrol in jaguar shape, they can comfortably live out in the hills for several days at a time.
"What do they do if they find a tourist?"
Max smiled. "Let them take some nice pictures of the wildlife. And then the wildlife goes behind a rock, and pretty soon someone wearing a fake ranger's uniform turns up to tell the tourist that they're lost and politely redirects them back to a public hiking path."
"You guys are organized," Gio said, impressed.
"It's all part of keeping a secret shifter village secret. And we're good at it. We've been doing this a long time. Unfortunately," Max said with a sigh, "seclusion and tradition can lead to becoming very set in our ways."
"Where are they taking us? Do you know?"
"Oh, I know," Max said grimly, looking ahead. "This is where you stonewalked us to last night—do you remember?"
"I'm afraid I was much too out of it to recall."
"This is the arena," Max said. Her voice was soft. "This is where I challenged my alpha and lost."
They were approaching an amphitheater carved out of the side of the mountain. To Gio's eyes, it bore a striking resemblance to the ruins of ancient Greek and Roman theaters that he had seen. It was built as a half-circle of ranked tiers of stone seats, with a flat stone fighting ground at their base.
There was no railing or wall between the arena and the hillside; on its open side, there was nothing but the plunge into the valley.
Even from a distance, Gio could see that someone was waiting for them. He was standing on the bottom row of seats, and as they entered the arena with their jaguar honor guard, he jumped down and came to meet them. He was about Max's age, ruggedly handsome, his shoulder-length dark hair swirling in the wind. But there was something about him that Gio distrusted, a cruel and fierce energy.
"Nacio," Max said evenly.
"Maxine. I'm surprised to see you here. I thought it was understood that you wouldn't be back."
"Sometimes," Max said, "what we think we understand and actual reality are very different."
Nacio laughed as if she'd made a joke.
Gio growled, an instinctive protective urge seizing him. Nacio gave him a surprised look.
"Who's this, Max?"
