Dark Joy

Chapter

1

Just past sunset, a cool breeze slipped through the canopy as Sarika Silva stood on a boulder and peered up at the umbrella of branches far above her head. There was little light on the forest floor, and few plants thriving, yet there were hundreds of years of debris. Ferns and some smaller bushes managed to grow in the dark, dimly lit atmosphere.

She could hear the scurry of lizards and mice, of voles and beetles as they hurried back and forth preparing for the night and the host of predators emerging. She drew in a deep breath, taking in the amazing scents surrounding her. Scores of tree frogs of various species called back and forth to one another.

She held herself very still, trying not to attract attention. She had an unfortunate trait she hadn't yet found a way to rid herself of. All manner of wildlife found her fascinating. She reciprocated the feeling, which was fine at home when dogs and cats sought her out. Or the occasional bunny. But in the various rainforests she'd visited, the animals had been diverse and often quite dangerous.

It wasn't in her best interest to draw attention to herself. She'd had monkeys, sloths, capybaras and even gorillas seek her out. There had been ocelots, orangutans and countless other animals that showed up in camp or found her on the trails. Once a Bengal tiger. Herd animals followed her.

The rainforest was moody. Eerie. Mysterious. Beauty and danger went hand in hand in the rainforest. Sarika had spent time working in several around the world. This was her first visit to Peru, and to her shock, she felt as if she'd come home. The emotion was overwhelming, so much so that when she'd first stepped off the boat onto solid ground and made her way to the designated meeting place arranged with her guide, she had felt tears welling up. Her heart accelerated, and every single nerve ending came alive.

Alive. That was the true feeling. She felt intensely alive. It was such a weird, unexpected reaction when she'd spent several years studying the various rainforests. Her interest had begun when she was a little girl. She would read everything she could get her hands on, reading far above her grade level on conservation and especially jaguars and the way they were slowly going extinct. She wanted to find a way to save them, and it became the driving purpose of her education. Never once had she regretted her decision to save the jaguars.

Her hero was T. Smolnycki Sr., the leading expert in the field she was most interested in. She'd read everything he'd written, every paper he had produced. He was a conservationist, a biologist and a mammalogist. No matter how long she'd searched, she'd never managed to find a photo of him-or his son. His son went by T. Smolnycki Jr. When his father retired, he took over his work and became her new hero.

The father and son had worked tirelessly to establish conservation for the rainforests, but more importantly to her, they were passionate about the preservation of large cats, including jaguars. That passion came through in the various articles they had written and the worldwide organization they had founded. She found it interesting that Smolnycki Jr.'s papers sounded so similar to his father's writing. They had the same turns of phrase, the same eloquence. The research was always impeccable and had held up through the years, as had their conservation ideas.

When she was eight years old, she wrote to Smolnycki Jr. To her shock, he had answered her. They established a correspondence of sorts over the years. He had always encouraged her in her dream of saving the jaguars. He seemed to take her ideas seriously, never chiding her for suggesting various plans to him. At times he would point out very gently why a particular idea wouldn't work; other times he seemed excited about an idea she'd come up with.

T. Smolnycki Jr. often disappeared for months at a time. He would emerge from the wilderness to write another paper or pertinent article or spearhead the drive for the jaguar corridor spanning countries across the globe. His father had been her idol, and while she respected and admired him, she felt Smolnycki Jr. was more of a friend and mentor.

Sarika had gone into the same field as the two men. As she furthered her education, she became a veterinarian for exotic animals, specializing in cats. Along the way, she rounded out her education by becoming a biologist and conservationist. In the years she was getting her education, she made numerous trips to rainforests around the world, volunteering, studying and working, but she'd always avoided Peru.

Peru was home. Peru was where she'd been born into the world of jaguar shape-shifters. She should have been raised there, but instead, when her mother died in childbirth, her father had kept his son but sent her to be raised by his older brother, who lived in the United States.

Her uncle Alois and aunt Gemma had never been able to have children, and they'd welcomed her. Surrounded her with love. Given her every advantage. They had raised her in Maine, far away from others. To get to their estate, they used a Cessna to fly in and out, landing on the lake for access to their home. In a dense forest, they were surrounded by old growth, the little that was left from the days of intense logging.

She knew how to fly the Cessna and often would view from above the abundance of the many varieties of trees. There were dense populations of fir, spruce and pine. Yellow birch, paper birch, sugar maple and aspen dominated the stands of hardwood. What she loved most was the diversity of wildlife making their homes in the heavy tree-rich forest surrounding them.

She often flew the plane low enough to catch sight of moose, black bears, foxes, bobcats, deer and lynx. There was an abundance of raccoons, coyotes, porcupines and fishers. She always got a thrill when she spotted the local wildlife. When she backpacked and camped in the forest, many of the animals sought her out. Even then, she had to be careful that no one else witnessed the way animals seemed to want to be with her.

Mostly, what she loved about her life was the way her aunt and uncle taught her to shift from early childhood. She was a jaguar shifter, and her female, Coh, loved to run free in the haven of the forest. That was the reason her aunt and uncle had chosen to live in such a remote location. As jaguar shape-shifters, a very secretive species, they were careful never to allow anyone see them shift. As jaguars needed the forest to roam and stay healthy, her aunt and uncle had found the perfect place to live so that their animals could thrive.

She'd lost them both, first Alois and then Gemma. She loved them dearly and missed them every single day. Without them, she was lonely and felt vulnerable without the stability of a home. She'd traveled all over the world, was away for months, but they had always been there waiting for her. Now she was alone. She felt compelled to come to Peru and seek out her last remaining relative, hoping they would make a connection with each other.

Sarika inhaled deeply, taking in the scents of the Peruvian rainforest. So many. The earth smelled raw and musky. The flowers climbing the trees were fragrant and exotic. The explosion of color against the bark of the various species of trees was stunning. So many vivid colors of green interspersed with the brilliant colors of trumpet-shaped flowers, spidery flowers, orchids and so many others.

Despite the waning light, she found herself drawn to the interior. While the dense canopy overhead protected the forest floor from wind and even, to some extent, storms, the interior felt heavy with moisture. It seemed as though the drone of the crickets and cicadas never stopped. The darkness turned the jungle into an eerie, moody world.

She knew better than to walk too far into the interior. She had a very good sense of smell, especially if she shifted-which she was prepared to do. If necessary, she could utilize all the jaguar's abilities as well. Still, walking into an unfamiliar rainforest was sheer madness.

It was possible remnants of the male shifter jaguars were still around, men her adopted parents had warned her to always be leery of. She knew better, but she couldn't stop herself from moving deeper into the jungle, drawn by the magnificence and the feeling of coming home. She'd never once experienced that nearly euphoric, wondrous feeling of belonging until that moment, not a single time in all the various rainforests she'd visited.

The dark, moody interior called to her. Buttress roots formed giant fins beneath the trees, nearly as tall as she was, anchoring them against the winds. Aboveground, the storms could be wild, but the thick canopy kept the forest floor dark, humid and calm.

She took her time, going from tree to tree, examining the draping orchids and wild trumpets winding their way up the trunks. Sheer beauty. She was familiar with the various plants and their uses. So many were able to be used to make medicine. Others were poisonous. All of them held a beauty that drew her like a magnet.

A sudden chill slid down her spine, and she froze in place. Something-or someone-was watching her. Her radar went off, and it was never faulty. She judged how close she was to the riverbank. She'd wandered quite a distance examining the plants and trees, lost in her world of discovery when she should have been concerned for her safety.

From deep in the interior, a throaty cough sent adrenaline rushing through her veins. Her heart instantly began to pound. There was something about that sound that had goose bumps rising all over her skin and the tiny hairs on her body reacting. She became aware of every sound. There was a rustle in the leaves littering the forest floor straight ahead of her, and she remained unmoving, straining to hear whether it was a small rodent, a lizard or the whispery tread of the jaguar.

The jaguar, whether a shifter or a true cat, was the fiercest predator in the forest. Sarika found the formidable, elusive cat elegant and stately. It was also watchful and extremely wary. One didn't walk up on a jaguar and surprise it. It was the same with the jaguar shifters. Both species had excellent vision and hearing. The large cats and their shifter cousins hunted by sight and sound. In any case, that strange attraction animals had to her could be the reason the jaguar was closer than it should have been.

Sarika glanced behind her uncertainly. The jungle had closed behind her, cutting off her view of the riverbank. She knew the way out. She had an excellent sense of direction. As a shifter, she had that same ability to hunt with sight and hearing. She gleaned information from everything around her, but knowing a jaguar was on the prowl, most likely hunting this time of day, filled her with trepidation.

She'd spent far too much time studying the large cats to dismiss a hunter, although there were very few unprovoked attacks on humans. Still, they were deadly predators and certainly capable of hunting a human. Scary and fearless, the jaguar has the strongest bite of all cats, including tigers and lions. They have the ability to pierce through bone with razor-sharp teeth.

The intensity of the silence was broken by a sawing call. She was well aware that both the male and female jaguar could roar. When they greeted one another, they made a sound similar to a snuffling. They hunted day or night and killed with a powerful bite, usually to the back of the skull. The sound abruptly turned into a snarl that lifted every hair on her body. Then came the growling roar she most feared.

As apex predators, jaguars were at the top of the food chain with no natural enemies, other than their own species being a danger to them. Sarika was well aware she wasn't the largest person in the jungle. Even if she tried to make herself appear bigger, she doubted if that would work.

If this jaguar was female and she had a den nearby, going forward could get her in trouble. It would be far better to get out of the trees. Sarika found herself hesitant to do that. Shifters were a secretive species. It had been drilled into her from the time she was a toddler that she could never reveal her true nature. Better to shift if she needed to defend herself there in the rainforest out of sight.

It was just that . . . she had no fighting experience. That sawing roar was troublesome. It wasn't a greeting. It was a clear warning. She had a healthy respect for the powerful cats, and she would never want to endanger, hurt or kill one. She also thought it would be impossible for someone as inexperienced as she was to defeat a fully grown cat with fighting experience.

She was well aware jaguars could easily climb trees and leap long distances. She wouldn't be any safer in the water than she was on land. Jaguars were excellent swimmers, loved lakes, rivers and wetlands. They hunted in water.

"Not the smartest thing I've ever done," she murmured aloud.

"No, it wasn't." A male voice came from the darkened interior.

The unexpected reply set her heart pounding. She had concentrated so much on the jaguar that she had no indication a male was anywhere in the vicinity. She should have scented him. Sarika inhaled deeply, expecting to find out how close he was to her, but she got . . . nothing.

"I told you to stay out of the forest. To wait by the river for me." Now that voice was pure male, quiet but powerful. Velvet soft and compelling, but there was no mistaking the absolute authority.

"Luiz?" she asked. "Luiz Silva?"

"Luiz De La Cruz," the voice corrected.

Her heart skipped a beat. Fear washed over her. She certainly knew the name De La Cruz. They were notorious in both Peru and Brazil. They owned more land than legal, their ranches expansive and guarded carefully. It was said they were ruthless. Enemies of the De La Cruz family tended to disappear.

"I thought I was corresponding with my cousin, Luiz Silva," she said, imposing strict discipline on herself. For some unexplained reason, she felt threatened. She couldn't say it was the voice exactly. He spoke in a low tone. It wasn't even the words he spoke or the fact that he'd identified himself as a De La Cruz. He felt dangerous. Powerful. She hadn't even seen him yet, but the warning that had preceded the jaguar came through just as clear. Maybe more so.