"I don't suppose you could have," he murmured.
Alice collapsed into a chair. "I've never done anything like this before in my life, Mr. Bannaconni. I swear I haven't, and I'll never do it again."
That smelled like the truth. "Ryan manipulates women," Jake said softly, tilting her chin so she looked into his eyes.
He stared at her without blinking, focusing on her completely, dropping his voice to a low, soothing note. "He preys on young, vulnerable women, so many of them, using sex to get his way."
She wiped at the tears still streaming down her face. "He's married. He told me he could never leave her, but he was so unhappy."
"Of course he did. He tells them all that. And then he gets them to spy for him."
"On his own son?"
"We don't claim the relationship." He leaned his hip against the desk. "Maybe you should pass him information."
"Mr. Bannaconni!" Alice gasped, shaking her head. "I'm sorry. I really am."
He tapped his finger on the desk as if considering the idea. "I know you are. I'm not going to have you prosecuted, but maybe we can find a way to save your job and your reputation as well. Maybe we can feed Ryan a few things that won't harm us and yet will satisfy him. Although"--he looked at her sternly--"you might want to quit sleeping with him and ask for a good sum of money instead."
He allowed a small smile to touch his mouth. Alice never noticed that it didn't reach his eyes. She was the first of many such recruits.
TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS
JAKE took his first trip to the Borneo rain forest to find his heritage. The rain forest overpowered him, a seductive mistress, beckoning him with mystery and promise. He never expected to feel peace or solace, but the network of tree branches in the canopy formed a highway where he could run and perfect his skills as a leopard. Trees competed for every inch of space. The floor was surprisingly open, yet vines and flowers draped every tree branch, and brightly colored birds were in constant motion.
There in the forest he could barely contain the wildness raging within him. The change swept through him before he had a chance to think, the dangerous animal bursting free, stretching the roped muscles and leaping onto the limbs overhead. Bands of sunshine poured like gold from the sky down through the trees to light up the foliage and cages of roots. There was no silence in the jungle, as he first thought. The rain forest was alive with sound, rustles and chirps and loud calls. The other creatures knew he was there, a stranger walking their land, and almost immediately he was joined by the keepers of the forest.
The leopard people were secretive and territorial, but they recognized him as one of their own. One of them--a man named Drake Donovon, who had been recently injured and walked with the help of crutches--watched over him. Jake didn't kid himself that it was friendship. Drake was a powerfully built man, as the others were, carrying most of his strength in his chest, shoulders and arms, and he had piercing eyes that could look through a man and judge him. Jake didn't want him seeing to his soul. Drake wouldn't find it like the others in his village. Jake was flawed, a child shaped and molded into a monster.
He had long since perfected the art of subjugation, and he pushed down his dominant personality in order to gain the knowledge he needed from the others. The leopard people had a code they lived by, even with their animal traits ingrained so deep. In spite of himself, Jake found he admired them. They had quick tempers and could be very jealous, so much so that Jake rarely saw one of their children or females, but they were also men who risked their lives to rescue kidnap victims along the waterways and return them safely to their homes.
Jake found he was reluctant to leave. He wanted to establish ties to the community so, in the end, he helped to fund their cause, pouring his money into their network of businesses, strengthening their abilities to purchase up-to-date weapons and much-needed medical supplies. Money was the only thing he had to offer, and he was more than willing to part with it in order to keep the door held open for his return.
THIRTY YEARS
HE had it all--and he had nothing. Nothing. Everything he wanted was finally in place. He could take down the companies of his enemies, sell them off piece by piece and make another fortune. Jake sat in his private jet and looked around at the luxuries his money had bought him, and he knew it was all worthless. He was alone. He would always be alone. He could have nearly any woman he wanted, but he wanted none of them--not permanently. His life was empty. Yes. He could avenge his childhood and he could ruin his enemies, but once that goal was achieved, what would he have left? Absolutely nothing.
The pull of the rain forest was irresistible and Jake found that even with nightly runs on his Texas ranch, he was becoming an insomniac. He spent most of the night working in his office or pacing the floors of his home after running free. He knew he needed something more in his life, but he didn't know what. And even if he had known, he didn't know how to get the things he'd talked about with Drake Donovon. So here he was, back in Borneo, to talk to a total stranger about what life really meant.
He took a trip down the Amazon into the interior of the rain forest, and the moment he stepped out of the boat, he inhaled deeply. Already the animals and birds were announcing his presence to the others, but . . . there was something wrong.
Jake tossed his backpack aside and took off running deeper into the forest, leaping over fallen trunks, avoiding vines and the grasping flowers roping the trees. He stripped as he ran, as he'd learned from many years of practice. His muscles moved like molten steel, flowing beneath his skin, the wild beast already breaking free. He wanted the other's senses, welcomed them, embracing the change as he kicked off his shoes and paused only to toss his jeans aside.
His body bent, bones and sinew popping, lengthening, shifting until his other burst free, going to all fours, still running, sheer adrenaline and joy pouring into him. The lure of staying in his leopard form was tremendous. He didn't have to worry about life or his decisions or what kind of monster he was. He only had to run free and lead a simple, full existence surrounded by the beauty of the forest. He could lose himself in the other.
The scent of blood and smoke and death assailed his nostrils as he ran. His whiskers were radar antennae, bouncing information to him so that his brain flooded with stimuli. Drake Donovon. If there was fear, it wasn't coming from Drake. Only defiance, fury, rage pouring from him and filling the night around him. The sounds of taunting laughter, hard fists hitting flesh, fresh blood bursting into the air so that the forest erupted into more shrieks of alarm.
Jake raced along the forest highway, high above in the trees, ignoring the screaming monkeys and the cries of the birds. He coughed once, twice, warning Drake of his arrival. In his life, Jake had never once stood for another. He fought his own battles and never asked for or expected help. He didn't have friendships or trust any other being. Drake had given him information, but he hadn't offered friendship, nor would Jake have accepted it, yet Jake didn't hesitate any more than the leopard rushing toward three men with guns.
One stood over Drake's bloody form, beating him methodically with a thick cane.
"Where are they? Tell me where they are!"
The man kicked at Drake's injured leg and for the first time Drake screamed. Something ugly and deep burst free in Jake and he launched himself at Drake's assailant, going instinctively for the kill, raking at the jugular with sharp claws as he knocked the man flat.
Gunfire erupted, kissing the leopard's shoulder, but Jake was already in motion, as fluid as water, using the dead body as a springboard to take the second man from the side, sinking teeth deep into the throat. The third man stumbled backward as another leopard rushed him from the trees. A third landed on his back, slashing and tearing.
Jake shifted to his human form and knelt beside Drake, running a hand over his damaged, bloody body. For the
first time he knew someone other than himself mattered to him, but he still didn't understand why, only that he was grateful he was capable of the feeling.
2
TWO YEARS LATER
JAKE Bannaconni swore viciously as he swerved the sleek, purring Ferrari just in time to miss the Buick pulling out right in front of him. Downshifting, he was around the car and gone, the Ferrari a silver streak on the treacherous mountain road. Ahead of him, on the switchbacks, he caught glimpses of the Porsche he was pursuing. The low, sporty car was veering all over the road, traveling insanely fast on the steep, narrow ribbon of a highway. Thanks to his "other," Jake had amazing reflexes and vision, and that advantage allowed him to push his car to the limit in an attempt to catch his quarry, even on the narrow, twisting mountain road.
A quick glance in the rearview mirror revealed his face was a granite mask, hard lines etched deep, his golden eyes twin chips of ice, glittering menacingly. It didn't matter that he could scare anyone with his look; he felt murderous in that moment. He didn't care about the two occupants of that car, both falling down drunk, pawing each other obscenely in front of everyone at the senator's party, but he damn well wasn't going to let them destroy his child.
Shaina Trent, society's darling, jet-setter, life of the party and precious do-anything-for-daddy daughter of Josiah Trent, was carrying his son. How could he have been so damned careless? He had known exactly what she was when he'd bedded her. He had known both his family and hers had wanted the alliance. Each family suspected that he was the very thing they'd been seeking all along--a shifter--and they wanted his powerful blood to boost their fading abilities. Most of all, they wanted to regain control of him. He should have suspected something when Shaina had thrown herself at him--after all, she'd never looked at him before, always acting so superior and barely acknowledging him at the parties he'd attended in the past. Her daddy must have commanded his little girl to seduce Jake to get what they wanted--a baby.