Jaguar Night by Doranna Durgin Page A

escape what hunted him.
    A futile effort, and he knew it. But he lost himself to the change anyway, a flash of internal light that sizzled off the post-and-rail of the porch edge, reflected off the counters in the kitchen and faded away around the form of the jaguar, darker than the night itself.
    He stalked off the porch, through the yard…and down into the wild desert highlands.

Chapter 10
    M eghan dreamed not of Dolan or of their intense encounter, or even of the Atrum Core stalking this ranch.
    Meghan dreamed of her mother.
    Her mother laughing, her mother’s wildflower scent, her mother’s enfolding arms, the spare and satisfying hug of a woman as wiry as Meghan herself.
    She woke feeling comforted and somehow serene…and she couldn’t understand it in the least. She felt as though it was meant to be a message, and she hadn’t the faintest idea what it meant. She stared up at the ceiling she couldn’t even see in this darkness, and finally settled on gratitude.
    If she’d ever needed a hug from her mother, it was now, confronted by this unexpected part of her mother’s legacy, confronted by the Atrum Core and tangled up somehow with a shape-shifting Sentinel who askedeverything of himself—and, it seemed, everything of her.
    She reached out to him, an action quickly grown to habit, just to touch his presence, which was as much as she could do…and could do it at all only because of that impossible hum persisting between them.
    If only she’d had some inkling of those unintended side effects when she’d laid the incantation on the herbs, or when she’d laid the herbs along his gums—or when she’d failed to duck his lightning-swift paw.
    Right. Because then she’d surely have turned and walked away, leaving him to die.
    Dammit. This had been her choice. Her choice to listen for him in the night; her choice to go to him when he called out in his pain and warning. Her choice to break out her mother’s enhanced, preserved herbs, and to add her own touch to them.
    She hadn’t known what she was getting into…but in hindsight, that was no bad thing. Cowardly, cowardly hindsight—not knowing had spared her the struggle of an informed decision, and she was glad of it.
    Only then did she realize she hadn’t found Dolan where she expected—that he wasn’t asleep in the guest room, succumbed to the exhaustion of the day and their hard work near the end of it. She sat up in bed, and the chill night air hit her bare shoulders. Sleeveless tank above, girly boxers below—snug, comfortable indulgences from Victoria’s Secret. Not exactly sexy, no matter how it looked on the models with their chests thrust out.
    But Meghan’s life hadn’t required sexy. Hard work, practicality and persistence…a love of life. But sexy?The men around here were hard, age-bitten cowboys or adolescent boys.
    No wonder Dolan’s presence had hit her so hard.
    Meghan cast her vision wider, hunting him as her mother, taking the coyote, had once hunted mice.
    Except her mother had let the mice go. Meghan wasn’t sure she’d have that choice with Dolan.
    And there he was. Downhill from the ranch, stationary. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, groping for the hoodie sweatshirt she’d left over the wroughtiron footboard, then hesitating when she realized he felt…different. Bigger. More powerful.
    Understanding hit her like a blow. He took the jaguar.
    He was improving not only daily, but practically by the hour, and he’d found the jaguar again just as she’d so casually assured him that he would. The implication of it—that he had little reason to stay here any longer, that he was no longer virtually chained to this ranch, to her guest room—that he could leave at any moment—had her across the house to the pile of shoes by the back door, stuffing her feet into sneakers even as she pulled the hoodie on, running out into the yard where the cold air hit her bare legs and jolted her to a stop.
    But only for a moment.