Tempted by the Jaguar #1: Transformation (Riverford Shifters) by Cristina Rayne

Maybe it’ll give you some
closure.”
    She turned back to him. “Where exactly will you be taking me?” she
asked, letting suspicion creep into her voice.
    “To the forest on the other side of the river along the outskirts of
the city,” he replied.
    “So—what—one of the elders has a house out there, or do you jaguars
have some sort of secret lair?”
    “A house, no. The elders stay in a pretty sweet cave deep within the
forest,” Hunter said seriously.
    Kylie stared at him. He had to be pulling her leg.
    “You must be joking.”
    “‘Fraid not.” He looked her up and down. “In fact, it can get pretty
chilly, so you might want to go grab a coat.”
    So he was the teasing type. Maybe. On any other day, she probably would
have humored him, but right now she was in no mood for his or anyone else’s
games. She would call his bluff—if bluff it was.
    “Forget it,” she said stonily as she jammed the key into the lock. “You
must be high if you think I’m going to follow a guy I barely know into a cave
deep in the forest to meet a bunch of people I have no way of knowing even
exist.”
    She managed to open the door before Hunter grabbed her arm. She had
expected him to panic, to plead, or even apologize. That’s why she was thrown a
bit off-balance when he doubled over laughing.
    “I’m sorry, but the look on your face…” he managed to get out between
wheezes as Kylie glared daggers at him. “I take it you’re not the outdoorsy
type?”
    “I like the outdoors just fine,” Kylie retorted, jerking her arm out of
his grip. “I just don’t want to end up as the latest missing persons report on
the six o’clock news tonight.”
    “You’re right,” Hunter said, swallowing his remaining laughter. “That
was incredibly insensitive of me wasn’t it? My brother—well never mind. I’m
sorry that I upset you. I’m not really taking you to a cave, I promise.”
    Kylie folded her arms across her chest. “Then where?”
    “One of the elders is Donald Gaither.”
    Kylie started. His was a well-known name in Riverford society, the CEO
of a major architectural firm. This was something Karen had never told them!
    Hunter’s lips quirked up. “We’ll be going to his office downtown. The
rest of the elders should already be there waiting for us.”
    She hadn’t exactly expected something like the Batcave, but she also
had not expected to be taken to a regular office building either. The thought
of going somewhere so public eased some of her tension. It was still the middle
of the day, so the building would no doubt be filled with workers—potential witnesses.
They couldn’t all be shifters, could they?
    “Come on. My truck is parked across the street. We can talk more on the
way over.”
    “Fine.” Kylie shut and relocked the door. “Why didn’t you just park in
the parking lot? I knew you were following us, so why all the subterfuge?”
    Hunter raised an eyebrow. “You don’t smell it?”
    Kylie laughed humorlessly. “What don’t I smell now? You’ll have
to be more specific.”
    “It’s something sweaty and—oh, I suppose you can say aggressive. There
really is no comparison to something a human can smell, so it’s hard to
explain.”
    As they began walking to the front of the apartment complex, Kylie
inhaled deeply. She instantly wrinkled her nose as the plethora of both
familiar and unfamiliar scents strengthened to the point of being nauseating.
    “I can smell lots of things that could be described as sweaty,” she
replied.
    He shrugged. “Then I suppose that’s one of the first things you’ll need
to learn—how to recognize the different types of shifters by smell alone. While
the scent of a jaguar can be rather pleasant, I can’t say the same for all the
others with the exception of maybe the other feline-types.”
    Kylie tensed. “Are you saying that you smell other shifters around
here?”
    “I really hope that you’re near the end of your lease,” Hunter