Chapter 8: Protection
Paul wasn't going to stand by and let his imprint be hunted. He was going to found and take down those motherfuckers. He was outside the Swam house, in the wood behind the house. His patrol, the mid shift, was over but he wasn't leaving Daiane unprotected tonight. He stands in the deep shadows of the trees staring at the window that belonged to his imprint. It was dark at the moment, no lights were on in the house, but that didn't surprise him, it was 1 o'clock in the morning, no normal human being should be awake at this hour.
Daiane returned to Charlie's house yesterday evening after healing completely. He would have like for her to come live with him, but his house wasn't ready yet. He would be working harder than ever to get it done, so she could move in with him. Well, if she wanted too.
He can smell her here; he moves around the perimeter of the house, scenting her more. If he can scent her, they could too. He starts marking the trees in the woods around the house, trying to hide her scent from anyone who may come looking for her. After he is satisfied with his work, anyone who passed by would smell him, and if they really tried, he supposed they would scent her too but hopefully they would be scared off by his scent.
He needed to know more about Jaguars. He takes out his phone and pulls up Wikipedia, because really were else was he going to look, Werepedia, the site for all things Were.
If only, he finds some interesting fact about Jaguars on the page. The largest cat in the Americas, can be found from Mexico to Argentina in a variety of habitats, including swamps, tropical forests, scrublands and deserts. Maybe that was why Daiane was ok with living this far north, so far from her home. These were strong cats and his Daiane was one of them.
Damn he found a clip of a jaguar fighting an alligator, and the jaguar won, like no contest. Then he reads the part about mating, about a breeding pair can mate up to 100 times in one day. That sounded exhausting but damn did he want to try it.
Snip. A twig breaks behind him, he spins around on the threat, he couldn't believe he let himself be so distracted like that.
An angel steps out from behind a tree, long chestnut hair and emerald green eyes of a jaguar looks at his. She holds onto the tree, hiding behind it slightly. She didn't need to hide from him, he had to get her to be comfortable around him again. He needed to be her friend. He knows this was mostly his own fault, he should have had better control back at Sam's place.
He just couldn't seem to hold in his wolf when she talked about someone hurting her. The thought of another man touching her, hurting her, sent him to the edge of his control. And the way she cried, it hit him right in the chest. His wolf wanted to kill something but he needed to stay in control for her. She was the one hurting, he needed to be here to protect her, not somewhere else fighting some unknown pack.
"Hey, Kitty Cat," he says, jovially. "What are you doing up this late?"
"Don't call me that," she returns with a glare. Doubly noted, no calling her Kitty Cat.
"Sorry," he says picking up his phone from the ground where he dropped it.
"Cat is a derogatory term for us," she says, looking down as she realizes that he may not know that. She continues says, "Sorry, you wouldn't have known that."
"Sorry again then," he says with a quick wave, pushing the matter aside.
"What are you doing here?" she asks.
"Looking out for you," he answers. "I was trying to make sure no one would be able to scent you here."
"I can tell, it smells like wolf all over the place now," she says moving out from behind the tree.
He can see she is still suspicious of him after everything that happened at Sam's so he says, "Listen, I'm sorry for scary you at Sam's place. I have a bit of a control problem sometimes. The others don't seem to have the same problem I do, I don't know why." He wants to say more as he runs his hand through his hair in frustration, why was it mostly him with the control problem. He really couldn't say.
"One of my brothers had a lot of problems controlling his animal instincts too," she responses. "I understand it can be hard for some to control that instinct, to rush in and attack."
Her understanding shocks him, his brothers accepted him but they didn't understand him or why he lost control so much more than they did. She walks over to him and tells him, "He had a lot of trouble being around those who didn't know about us and would isolate himself because of it. His name was Ace, I know, his parents had a strange sense of humor. They were gamblers and liked poker and other things—he didn't have a stable upbringing." She looks up at him, with kindness and sympathy. She doesn't tell him anymore about this Ace, holding on to the information entrusted to her, but her eyes tell him that this Ace guy didn't have a good childhood and was hurt a lot.
It was like she struck him in the chest, to hide the discomfort that her words and eyes during, he looks away into the woods. He didn't have a good upbringing; his mother was not a kind person and had abused him and his father often. He knew how ridiculous that sounded; two big strong guys being abused by a little woman. His mother would use words to hurt them and cut to the heart, and when his father wasn't around, she would neglect him and sometime hit him. His father was the only one who took him places or played with him, or even made him food. If his father was away at work all day, he may not eat that day.
His father eventually divorced his mother when he was 8 and they moved to La Push. His mother showed how little she cared about him then; she didn't even fight for visitation. He hasn't seen him mother in almost 12 years. He didn't even know where she was or if she was died or alive.
But here was his imprint, the perfect woman for him, and she understood that he was just … misunderstood.
"Ace calmed down after he heard the call from a pretty little human in a nearby village," she says with a weary smile. "I'm sure you will too."
He already heard the call, and she was calling him. But he didn't want to tell her that tonight, he wanted to know more about her.
"So, what do Jaguars like," he asks.
"What do you mean," she returns, nearing her eyes in semiseriously. "I'm a person too."
"Well, what is your pack like and what do you guys do in the rainforest? What are your parents like?" He throws out random questions.
"My parents are died," she says. "And my pack hates me. As for the rainforest well, it was beautiful and I just wish there was more wetlands around here."
Shit, he cringes. He shouldn't have asked that, now he felt like a hot steaming pile of crap. But she covers her eyes with one hand looking down and a bit upset at herself or at him, he wasn't really sure.
"I'm sorry," she apologizes. "I shouldn't have blown up like that… I know not all of them hate me, I just wish I could see them and talk to them. I've never been without my family this long." She starts to turn away saying, "Sorry I should go—I'm not—good right now."
"No, wait," he reaches out a hand, wanting to touch her and stop her but she is too far away.
She looks back over her shoulder, tears shine in her eyes. She doesn't turn fully to him as he says, "Ummm, would you like to talk about it?" Lame.
"No, not really," she says.
"Would you like to go for a little run then," he offers. It always helped clear his mind when he thought about his mother and he just wanted more time with her.
She just stands there, not answering him or accepting his offer just looking at the ground. Suddenly she starts taking off her shirt. He stares at the gorgeous skin of her back; she's not wearing a bra. He takes a step in her direction wanting to touch the soft skin she revealed. He notices the scars on her side from the attack, faint marks now. She healed well but he was still angry about the whole thing.
He was so close, his fingertip an inch from her back, when she says, "Well are you going to come along?" Oh, she was just making sure her cloths didn't get destroyed, now he felt like a right ass, a horny ass.
"Oh yeah, of course," he says, moving away from her and taking off his cloths behind a tree.
"You wolves are a bit more modest than most shifters, aren't you," he hears her says. Then he hears her phase, he phases to a moment later and walks out from him place to watch as a larger black jaguar stretches against one of the trees. It short powerful front legs clawing into the bark of the tree as it yawns showing ferocious teeth.
She was beautiful in this form too, at front glance her fur looked flat black but when the light hits it just right you would see the dark brown and black spots and patterns on her fur, like hidden secrets. She was a mystery to him, a mystery he wants to know everything about. Her beautiful green eyes didn't have the vertical pupils that house cats did, but were round like his they seemed to glow in the dark shadows of the night. Her long thick tail swings back and forth, silently communicating her wants, but sadly he hasn't seen her in this form enough to understand it.
They can't communicate in this form but he jerks his head to the right away from the house and deeper into the woods. She walks lazily over to him, so cat-like without a care in the world, he couldn't help but stare at her, as she looks into the woods. All of the sudden she was off running at top speed and he had no choose but the trail behind her. Damn, she was fast and so nimble in the woods, jumping and twisting over any obstacle. She was so magnificent that he could barely take his eyes off her, but of course he had too, or he would embarrass himself by tripping and felling flat of his wolf face.
He barks as they get close to a place, he would like to show her, a little grouping of tree in a natural circle. She turns her head and slows letting him take the lead.
He guilds her to the clearing and stops, looking up at the sky and sitting on his hind legs. She soon follows his lead and sits to look up. This was one of the best spots to look through the trees to see the milky way above. It wasn't a big opening in the trees, but the way the trees framed the sky and star was stunning to him. He wanted to show her this spot, he never shared this place with anyone. The pack knew about it thanks to the stupid pack mind, but they didn't see the beauty of it like he did. There were a few clouds in the sky but not enough to block their view of the river of glittering stars above as the tree top move gently in the wind.
After about 5 minutes she makes this strange sniffing noise, almost a purr and nudges him with her muzzle. She looks up and a load roar of a jaguar erupts from her. He stares at the large cat for a moment before he lets out a loud howl of his wolf. She roars again, so he howled again. It became a kind of game as they made loader and louder roars and howls, but this also felt intimate somehow too. He felt connected to her as their voices mangled in the night. It felt good to howl as loud as he could and somehow, he knew she needed this too, to roar as loud as she could to let out the pain and sadness she felt for her family. He wanted to help her so he would howl all night if needed, until his voice was hoarse in the morning.
But after all the bird and critters leave the area flying away as quickly as possible, even the bravest ones were gone by the time they were done. The large jaguar lays down next to him, he follows her lead and lays down with her. A dark silver wolf laying with his back right up against the jet-black fur of a jaguar, two animals who would never normally meet laying side by side.
He stays close to her until early morning, when she gets up and starts to run back to the Swan house. He doesn't hesitate to follow her back to the house. She phases back and puts her cloths back on, averting his eyes to preserve her modesty and his sanity.
"Thanks," she says, moving over to him and strokes his fur. "I needed that."
He bows his large wolf head to her answering her silently. She turns to run back into the house but says, "I need to get ready for work. See you around Howler."
Goodness, he hopes she didn't keep calling him that, he didn't want to guys to start calling him that. He hated seeing her run away from him even if it wasn't because of him, but he would see her soon at the coffee shop.