Black Seduction Read online

  Black Seduction

  Lorie O’Clare

  Black Jag, Book One

  Raul VicMoran and Angela Kalucian will not tolerate what Colony is doing to their kind, the jaguars. One of the leaders in the community is making arrangements with the humans to sell their services as mercenaries. Hired killers. To hunt, capture and eliminate someone else’s prey. The level of humiliation is too strong to endure.

  After fleeing Colony, Raul and his two male littermates travel through the mountains, south into the desert and finally the jungle as they work their way to Central America, where the only other known colony of jaguars live. Raul and Angela’s love for each other blossoms during their trials and ordeals while traveling. Angela also comes to respect all three VicMoran males to the point where she feels protective of them. Raul knows in his heart, without any doubt, Angela is his female. No one will ever challenge him for her. But for one night, in the complete blackness of the heart of the jungle, all three VicMoran males will share Angela, truly bonding the four of them together for life.

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Black Seduction

  ISBN 9781419927942

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Black Seduction Copyright 2010 Lorie O’Clare

  Edited by Mary Moran

  Cover art by Syneca

  Electronic book publication May 2010

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Black Seduction

  Lorie O’Clare

  Foreword

  To My Beloved Readers,

  The first thing I must say is how grateful I am to all of you for enjoying my world of lunewulfs, Cariboo lunewulfs, Malta werewolves, leopards and owls. I’m writing this note to you because we’re about to embark on a new species, one not quite the same as the others we’ve come to love.

  For those of you who are just joining us, welcome to a world so much like our own yet different. Please join me in this world where loyalty means more than a paycheck, where tradition is valued as much as our laws are, and where bloodshed resolves a crime instead of a courtroom. This isn’t some fantasy world existing in a realm we’ve never heard of. This is our world, our towns, our streets, our neighborhoods.

  We’ve run with the lunewulf across Canada to Prince Charles and we watched them spread out, with some of them settling in Minnesota. We absolutely drooled over the Cariboo lunewulf when they came down out of the Canadian Rockies. We were thrilled to watch the Malta werewolf mold the elements to their liking when they fled the Malta Islands and settled their dens in Colorado. We met the leopards just outside Seattle and ran with their litters from Fountain Hills, Arizona, up to Wheeler’s Point, Minnesota. And it was an incredible journey, flying with the owls in Banff.

  Every species has their qualities and their flaws. We’re now meeting a species, the black jaguar, whose path has been forcibly altered throughout history. Black jaguars are one of the deadliest species on earth with the power to latch on to a skull with their teeth and kill their prey with one swift clamp of the jaw. These deadly black beauties are also known for their unpredictable tempers. Many have howled that the unusual nature of the jaguar is because they are naturally unstable. Those cruel enough to voice it have accused them of inbreeding, but the jaguar’s history predates all others. They are proof how those will talk when they know little of the truth.

  I don’t want to give all the details away before you have a chance to enter into the black jaguars’ world. What I will say is, due to the complexity of their bloodline, I found it necessary to take a slight jump back in history. With every one of my shapeshifter books the time frame has always been current. If you’ve read from the beginning and through each book, one series after another, you’ll see how the time line continues, one book after another. In order to fully understand what brought the jaguars to the predicament they are in now, we’re going to jump back in time a bit.

  Allow me to welcome you into the world of the black jaguar, a species dealt a tough hand but more than determined to play it out until the end.

  Good hunting!

  Lorie O’Clare

  Chapter One

  Angela Bernard stared at the small town below. From where she stood on the cliff, Telluride, Colorado, looked like a child’s creation. Almost-straight roads, crisscrossing each other from one end to the other, and square houses, lined up neatly on both sides. Tiny cars moved along the roads.

  What would it be like to walk among them, witness firsthand how they lived?

  Several pebbles rolled down the incline besides her. She glanced up the cliff, sniffed the air then returned her attention to the rest of the view down the mountain. No one should be able to find her here. Arguing with her littermate put her in a foul mood. Some alone time, a hard run over the mountain, and possibly she would be able to sort out the nightmare threatening to explode and destroy her world. In spite of the beautiful scenery, her fight with Natasha still annoyed her.

  “For once I wish you would see the big picture,” her sister had snarled. “The world is closing in around us. We attack or become extinct.”

  “How will buying our meat already dead in a store, instead of killing it fresh, help us to grow?” Angela wouldn’t buy into the insanity. “We moved from the jungle to the mountains. Now you would suggest we move from the mountains into their cities?”

  “Humans will help us survive. We don’t have to live among them, but we will live off them.” Natasha used her condescending tone and it had made her sound even more annoying than usual. “Humans accepted werewolves. They will accept us. And we’re better. Not to mention, we’ve got something to offer them.”

  “Why would you want to trust your future to half a person?” Angela got tired of trying to reason with Natasha. “If they learn about us, they will panic. You know as well as I do they’ve tried burning out the werewolves, ostracizing them. Better or worse, nothing we offer them will make them trust us. They will try killing us as soon as they know we exist.”

  “It depends on how they learn about us.” Remembering how cold Natasha’s tone had sounded still chilled Angela’s blood.

  Angela shook her head, wishing she would quit thinking about how insane her littermate was becoming. Moving to a squatting position, she inched nearer the edge of the large boulder where she perched. Sometimes she hated her littermate. Natasha might be older by a few minutes, but somewhere along the line she lost her ability to smell out the reality of a situation. Angela got so damn tired of Natasha smelling so angry. Moving to the Rockies from Central America was supposed to make their litters stronger. Possibly losing their parents
when they were teenagers and relying on each other to grow up put a dent in Natasha’s rational thought patterns.

  As if they would be able to associate with humans. They were panthera, apex predators—black jaguars. They were hunters; powerful, deadly creatures who craved the attack and thrived on the kill.

  Humans wouldn’t understand them.

  In another ten minutes or so the morning sun would be high enough to warm the rocks under her feet. It was an ideal spot for sunbathing. Angela stared at the bustling little town below her. It was a human community. They were a species who relied on others, on jobs instead of the land to support themselves. They bought food instead of hunting it. And they relied on the best talker, instead of the best fighter, to lead their people. They were a species who were half of a whole. Humans.

  Another pebble rolled furiously down the incline next to her. Several more followed. Angela looked up and spotted Raul VicMoran lifting himself onto a boulder several yards from her. What was he doing on this side of the mountain?

  She went to her hands and knees, pressing her palms against the cold, smooth rock underneath her. Her nipples puckered in the cold morning air and she exhaled, watching her breath form a cloud in front of her face. Colony, where all jaguar litters lived, was buried on the other side of the mountain. As many times as she came here, escaping her littermate’s tirades, no one had ever followed her. But today, when too many outraged emotions already charged her blood, she didn’t need to be tempted by one of the best-looking males in Colony. She was pissed off, disturbed by her littermate’s sudden craving to embrace humans, and raw inside from fighting with her. The simplest of confrontations right now and she would attack.

  And if she tried attacking Raul, she would touch all that muscle. He would take her on willingly. But fighting him might take her places she shouldn’t go right now. No—wouldn’t go right now. The last thing she needed was some male interfering with her life.

  Although fucking him sure would release the charged emotions ripping her insides apart.

  If the breeze changed directions just a bit, he would smell her. He would pick up on her anger, her confusion and other emotions. And it was those other emotions that he would focus on.

  Lately, Raul wasn’t taking the words “go away” very well. Worse yet, lately she wasn’t minding his advances. Now wasn’t the time to cloud her mind with sexual cravings. Too much weird shit was going on.

  She chewed her lower lip. The longer she watched him, the more her feelings for her sister dissipated. Angela had run to this part of the mountain to get their fight out of her head, but not to replace it with thoughts of Raul’s naked body pressed against hers, his hands on her, his mouth… Crap!

  Her scent changed and she cringed. Convincing Raul she wasn’t interested would be impossible when he smelled lust on her. But damn it, Raul didn’t look like he used to. And they weren’t cubs anymore.

  Raul put one leg forward, searching the mountainside. Roped muscle pressed against his jeans. His black hair lifted from the back of his neck with the breeze, and she focused on his firm jawline as he sniffed the air.

  Angela thanked the breeze for moving in her favor. She stretched out on the boulder, shifting her attention to the town at the base of the mountain. Her sister didn’t know what she was talking about. Their life was perfect at Colony, buried in the Rocky Mountains, with humans not interfering or interacting in any way. It would be best to keep it that way.

  Thinking about Natasha helped curb the sudden arousal that quickened inside her. Raul’s scent drifted toward her and she looked his direction then leapt to her hands and knees as she stared into dark green, probing eyes.

  “Do you always lie so unprotected?”

  “I’m very well-protected,” she purred, proud of her relaxed-sounding tone, and brushed long strands of black hair over her shoulder.

  “Really.” Raul leapt from one boulder to another, creating tiny avalanches as pebbles chased each other farther down the mountain. “And who protects you, my little cat?”

  “I protect myself,” she hissed, moving slowly to her feet. “And last I checked, I’m not your little cat.”

  “I might decide to change that.” He leapt again, landing on the same boulder where she stood.

  Angela stepped backward and felt the edge of the rock under her foot. She balanced herself quickly, itching to extend her claws and slap him for being so damn cocky. The corner of his mouth tilted and his lips parted, revealing slightly sharper teeth than they were a moment before.

  “Son of a bitch.” She shifted her weight on the edge of the boulder. It was a long drop to the next ledge down the mountain, one she didn’t plan on experiencing. “No female will ever be yours if you try killing them instead of seducing them.”

  “I thought you could protect yourself,” he said, his voice growing deeper. “Or maybe you like living life dangerously.”

  “I like living.” She pushed her hands against his chest, but she might as well try moving the mountain.

  “You shall live and be protected.” Raul grabbed her wrists.

  Raul flirted with all the single females in Colony. Most didn’t fight him. Or, at least according to the howlings, he got a piece of tail whenever he wanted it. Angela had no intention of being another scratch on his bedpost. If he thought she’d teeter on the side of a boulder while he copped a feel, he could just go growl around some other female.

  “I think you underestimate me, Raul,” she grumbled, lowering her voice just enough to make her point.

  At the same time, she jerked free of him, hating being at a disadvantage. The edge of a boulder on the side of a mountain was most definitely a disadvantage. She twisted her hands, barely managing to slip out of his grasp before leaping around him. Breathing in his scent, laced with arousal, fogged her brain momentarily.

  She hit the ground, landing in the shadow from the large cliff above it. The sudden cooler air didn’t ease the heat still tingling in her hands after touching him or the fire she couldn’t seem to put out, smoldering deep inside. Damn him for sniffing her out and creating sensations inside her she didn’t have time for right now.

  “I’m not going to just fuck you,” she hissed, bracing herself and preparing for him to leap. She didn’t have time to turn around though.

  Raul landed right behind her. Strong hands gripped her waist and suddenly the chill from the shady area disappeared. The warmth inside her swelled and spread, growing hotter until she trembled as his muscular body pressed against her backside.

  “Who said anything about just fucking?”

  What kind of feline trembled from heat? No male turned her on like this. Raul might be good-looking and a distraction at times when she watched him with his littermates, but Angela wasn’t one of those stupid females who fell for a line and a smoldering look. If Raul didn’t already know that, he was about to find out.

  “I did. I’m not some feline who will lift her tail and then not care when you pounce on the next bitch.”

  He pressed against her backside, hard and packed with bulging muscle. His strong arms wrapped around her, not too tight, but with determination that showed he didn’t plan to let her go easily. “I already know this.”

  “Good. I’m glad we understand each other.” She tried moving out of his arms, but he didn’t budge. And his scent—damn. He drowned her with his rich smell of arousal.

  “Why are you out here alone, Angela?” he whispered against her ear.

  She grabbed his hands that were clasped against her waist. Prying him loose didn’t appear an option.

  “Why are you?” she countered, unwilling to disclose that she came here often.

  “I followed you.” He didn’t hesitate in admitting it. “I wanted to be alone with you.”

  “If you think for one moment that I’ll put out…”

  He flipped her around so quickly that her feet left the ground. His face was inches from hers when she looked into his eyes. “I know you will,” he said in
a slow, gruff drawl, his eyes burning with fire that fed the flames inside her. “I can smell how much you want me, how curious you are about me. Times are changing, and I’m acting now. You, my little cat, won’t be hunted by any other male.”

  “You’ve got it part right.” She relaxed in his arms and even rested her hands over his forearms. Roped muscle twitched against her fingers, a reminder of how easily he could overpower her. “I won’t be hunted.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched, and the focus of his attention shifted from her eyes to her mouth. That small window of distraction would be all the opportunity she would have. Being hunted didn’t appeal to her, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know how to attack.

  Digging her nails into his arms, she felt her fingertips pierce his flesh. His expression changed, but she didn’t take time to dwell on what emotion surfaced. Instead she used the strongest muscles in her body, her legs, and jumped, turning at the same time. She made it up to the next ledge, scurrying over rocks that tilted under the sudden impact.

  “If you don’t want to be hunted, then don’t run.” Raul pounced on top of her, forcing both of them to crash onto a slanted rock and then tumble to a rocky path covered with small pebbles and bristly plants.

  Angela let out a very unladylike grunt. “Get the hell off me,” she hissed, more aware of the many places his body pressed against hers than she was of the tiny pebbles underneath her, threatening to puncture her skin.

  Raul wrapped his arms around her then lifted both of them to their feet. “If you want me to hunt you, I will, my little cat.”

  “I’m not your little cat.”

  He grabbed her hair, pulling it and forcing her head back. There wasn’t time to focus on his face before his mouth claimed hers. His fingers twisted in her hair, tugging, pinching. His aggression turned her on and stole her breath. His lips moved over hers, every inch of him demanding she submit and comply with his nonverbal request.