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  HEAT

  An Ellora’s Cave Publication, October 2004

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.

  1337 Commerce Drive, #13

  Stow, OH 44224

  ISBN MS Reader (LIT) ISBN # 1-84360-942-8

  Other available formats (no ISBNs are assigned):

  Adobe (PDF), Rocketbook (RB), Mobipocket (PRC) & HTML

  HEAT © 2004 MARGRETT DAWSON

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.

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

  Edited by Raelene Gorlinsky.

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Heat

  Margrett Dawson

  Chapter One

  There was no moon, but myriad stars danced in the black bowl of the sky. Serah’s cat eyes picked out every rock and bush as she lay, belly to the ground, watching the gang of poachers. Impala moved on the horizon. Earlier as she’d padded toward the elephants, one of them had caught her scent and had led the herd out of range.

  She edged forward, the branches of a thorn bush providing a screen between her and the elephant group. She could sense the presence of the poachers huddled together, waiting their chance. The animals shifted restlessly as they lifted their heads, puzzled by the scents of both man and lioness that drifted on the wavering air currents. Elephants had no fear of Serah on the prowl, but still the old matriarch of the herd flapped her ears and growled.

  They were right to be uneasy. The poachers had slipped like shadows through the underbrush, surrounding the herd of three females and six young. Serah hunched her shoulders, her claws gripping the earth, the tip of her tail flicking with tension.

  One of the gang took aim at the youngest female with a tranquillizer gun, and Serah burst from cover, streaking across the ground, intent on spoiling the shot. Low to the earth she veered behind the milling elephants and they responded instantly to her presence, forming a trampling mass of feet and huge bodies. The stampeding herd made directly for the group of poachers who scrambled for their lives, running pell-mell for safety.

  Serah sat back on her haunches. One more elephant saved. Each one a victory.

  A smudge of pearly gray sat on the horizon to the east like a smear of finger paint. Time to join her half-sisters for the hunt.

  In the pale light of dawn the lionesses dragged back the kill for the rest of the pride. The misty gray had turned to pink and gold and the savannah stirred with life. A pair of jackals trotted nervously in the distance, watching for the moment when a family group of cheetahs would have eaten enough and would abandon their kill. A solitary lion called throatily in the distance, seeking a brother to share a hunt.

  In the shelter of the bushes Daudi first ate his fill, then allowed the females and their cubs to feed. The smell of the fresh blood and the sight of the raw meat repelled Serah, yet she found herself inching forward, tempted to lick up one of the warm, red rivulets from the sand, just like her half-sisters who had no human genes. She pulled back, appalled at the growing strength of her feline instincts.

  Sated, the pride fell asleep, but Serah remained wakeful and restless. The poachers were gone for now, only to leave her mind filled with her other problems. Yet her body craved rest after the exertions of the night, and after a while she dozed.

  A few hours later she stretched on the warm, red earth and yawned. The sun had risen higher and her hindquarters were merely dappled with shade. She rose on her forepaws to survey the scene.

  Jillo, her eldest half-sister, looked up, one front paw holding down a squirming cub while she licked its face and ears. Serah gazed down toward the river where the rest of her nephews and nieces were playing in the shallow water. Then she glanced at Beuttah and Mwagni.

  Jillo was all lioness with no human genes, but she had an uncanny knack of reading Serah’s mind, could always sense when she was uneasy or unsure. Communication in the group was telepathic, enhanced by the twitch of a tail, the curl of a lip.

  “No need to worry about them,” Jillo telegraphed. “They’ve never understood the problem. All they’re interested in is their next meal and their next litter. As long as you hunt as you did today, they don’t care where you disappear to.”

  Serah knew that was true. Just before dawn she had selected the prey, run it down and left it to the others to close in on the old buck and make the kill. She loved the race, the scent of the fleeing animals, the power of her muscles, but she had never sprung onto the back of the victim, nor locked her jaws on its throat. But today her instincts had almost overwhelmed her.

  It was time, as Jillo said, not just to return to her other existence, but to tame the warring urges in her body. There was only one way to do that.

  A cool breeze rose from the water and the bushes stirred. In a moment Daudi himself appeared from the spot where he lay alone, stretching his back just like her neighbor’s tabby cat in her other life. He stood foursquare and looked around his harem, then turned his magnificent head and stared at Serah. His tail twitched lightly and he shook his mane. She saw the quiver of his nostrils, the tremor in his haunches. She was fertile and he knew it, could catch the scent of her.

  Her loins ached with the need, but if she allowed him to penetrate her, pump her full with his seed, all would be lost. She would never retain her human attributes.

  She rose to her feet and turned her back on him. It was a calculated risk, almost daring him to leap on her and pin her down. He hesitated, still not confident enough to brave the taboo, unaware that if he did…

  She moved away, holding him back with the power of her will and reached the shelter of the acacia and her discarded clothing.

  Sara Parker joined the end of the line of the tourists completing the late morning walking safari. She slipped in next to the middle-aged blonde who limped along, obviously longing for a shower and a cold drink.

  “So, how are you feeling now?” Sara asked.

  The woman gave her a puzzled look.

  “I spoke to you earlier,” Sara told her with a reassuring smile, hoping she wouldn’t recall their chat had taken place a day earlier. “Your feet were hurting.”

  The woman obviously wasn’t inclined to make the effort to remember where and when she’d spoken to the tour manager. Instead, she heaved a big sigh. “And they still are. Why we couldn’t do this in a vehicle, I’ll never know.”

  Sara knew it was no use telling the tourist that you could never catch the feel of the waving grass, the play of the shadows, the aromas of baked earth and animals if you were closed in a van.

  “Besides,” the woman said. “Supposing a lion attacked us. That club of his wouldn’t be much use.” She waved at the guide in his red robes.

  “The lions are dozing,” Sara said, “because they’ve hunted during the night. They like the bushes in the heat of the day, not the open plain. We’ve never lost a tourist yet.” She gave an encouraging smile. “Come.” She tucked the woman’s arm in hers. “Let me help you.”

  By the time they arrived at the lodge, the tourist was convinced that Sara had completed the walk with the group. “Thank you,” she said. “The last part went much faster with your company.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. The evening game drive will start at four-thirty. Just time to freshen up before lunch and take a siesta.”

  “Right. See you later.” The woman went off with a happy wave.

  Sara paused at the door to her office and drew a deep breath, preparing herself mentally for her other world.

  * * * * *

  While the tour groups were at lunch, Sara worked on the accounts for an hour and snacked on a chocolate ba
r. A knock at the door made her look up just as she pushed the Print key on her computer. “Dickie” Dickens, the lodge manager, loomed in the doorway.

  “So, what’s the bottom line?” he asked, lounging against the doorjamb.

  “Good afternoon to you, too.” She peered at him over her reading glasses.

  He grunted in reply. “I looked for you earlier.”

  “I can’t imagine why. You know I had the morning off.”

  He grunted again. “You weren’t at lunch. Beats me where you disappear to. I can never find you.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to be found.” She forced a small smile to take the edge off her words. He was pushing forty, twice divorced, and lacked people skills. Although he believed he had a deft touch with the guests, Sara steered him away from them as much as possible and was thankful he left most of the PR activities to her.

  As the only two white people at the lodge apart from the tourists, who came and went in a day or two, he had assumed at one time that they would drift into intimacy. Since the night she’d let him know in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t interested in more than a working relationship, he’d been surly and argumentative.

  She sighed. Daudi wanted to add her to his harem. Tricky Dickie wanted to jump her bones to relieve the boredom of living so far from civilization. Her own biological urges were pushing her to find a mate. If she failed to find a human one she would destroy the fine balance between her two selves. And she had to track down the organizer of the poachers, who were succeeding in taking at least one animal every month.

  “So, how are we doing?” Dickie interrupted her thoughts.

  She picked up the printout and scanned the figures. “Not bad. Seventy percent capacity most weeks of the year, so we’re more than breaking even.” She handed him the page.

  He ran his eye down the column of figures. “What’s this?”

  He poked a stubby finger at a row of figures and Sara craned her neck to see, adjusting her glasses on her nose.

  “Consultation fees,” he added. “Just who in hell are we consulting out here in the back of beyond?” He shot an angry look at her. “Not that shifty fellow from the village again? Koggi or something.”

  “Koigi,” she corrected him. “He had some information and I paid him for his time.”

  Dickie slapped the paper against the desk. “And what was this supposed information?”

  “He’d heard rumors about the poachers—”

  “Made up some story more like it. There are no poachers. How many times do I have to tell you that? He conned you again. That’s all he’s getting from this organization. No more handouts. Is that clear?”

  “Very clear.”

  Dickie spun on his heel and strode from the room without another word.

  “Jerk!” Sara whispered under her breath and carefully aligned the edges of the papers before fastening them with a clip. So she would pay Koigi from her own pocket.

  She stood, grabbed a towel and a swimsuit from a rack near the door and stepped out onto the paving outside the dining room, breathing in the hot, heavy fragrance of the jacaranda and the hibiscus. The trees in the open area provided shade for the scattered tables where a couple of Italian tourists lingered over cups of coffee. Sara glanced at the waiter, standing impassively to one side, hoping to finish resetting the tables for dinner. He’d been on his feet since dawn and would work a fourteen-hour day. He needed the three-hour break in the afternoon, but the Italians would take their own sweet time until they sauntered back to their furnished tent.

  She went over to him.

  “Don’t worry about it, John,” she said, in a low voice. “I’ll see to it later.”

  “Asante,” he said with a smile of relief. “Thank you.”

  Sara liked the afternoons with the quiet, oppressive heat of the equator that hung like a silken blanket in the air. After lunch public areas of the lodge were usually deserted because most of the tourists partied well into the night and rose at dawn for the first game drive. They would be snoozing very soon. She often took the opportunity to indulge in a solitary swim in the pool.

  Slipping off her shoes she padded along the walkway, under the fragrant bushes. The water lay smooth and clear, a deep turquoise against the white tiles and the vivid green of the plantings. She ducked into the shower stall, changed into her swimsuit and strode to the edge.

  Only to stand frozen with fear.

  The water loomed cold, unwelcoming, like a sullen threat. The clear blue had changed to a murkiness shrouding the bottom. Tentatively, she stretched out her foot and touched the surface with a pointed toe, then withdrew it with a shudder. She couldn’t go in, it would drag her down, cling to her fur, fill her mouth…

  What was she thinking? She was Sara. Sara, who loved to swim, who delighted in the satin caress of the warm water on her skin.

  It was Serah, the cat, who hated the water.

  She stared at her extended foot. It was smooth and lightly tanned, the nails shaped and polished. No fur, no claws.

  She breathed out in relief. She had always been able to control her physical change, but these urges deep in her belly were new. Last night she’d wanted to tear at the flesh of the kill just like her half-sisters. The low ache in her abdomen had almost betrayed her when Daudi’s scent had permeated the air.

  Now she feared the water.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw a movement in the hibiscus bush near the path. The branches parted and a beautiful woman stepped toward the pool. A brilliant red katenge wound around her slim body rippled with life as she stepped from the shade into the full sun. She was tall, her skin gleaming black in the fierce light. Her hair was cropped short and multicolored beads decorated her brow and hung round her neck.

  “Jambo,” she said, extending her hand.

  Sara turned away from the awful water with a sigh of relief and shook hands. “Sijambo, Ngina.”

  Still holding Sara’s hand, Ngina glanced at the pool. “It looked as if you couldn’t make up your mind to take the plunge. Is anything wrong?”

  Sara picked up her dry towel and fastened it round her waist. “You could say that. For a dreadful moment it felt like a fate worse than death.” She glanced back at the water, only to find it crystal clear as usual.

  “I see,” her friend murmured. “Come, sit.” With a delicate touch on Sara’s arm she drew her to two loungers in the shade.

  They settled themselves on the warm blue cushions. A tiny breeze scattered a few dry leaves, the only sound in the tropical afternoon. Even the birds had fallen silent, waiting for the cooler relief of evening.

  Ngina spoke softly. “Tell me.”

  Sara threw her forearm across her eyes.

  “I hunted with the pride last night.” She flashed on the blackness of the night, the pounding hooves of the gazelles, the twitch of the white streak on their rumps as they fled in the starlight. Her heart began to beat faster as she relived the chase, the smell of the kill.

  Ngina made a small sound in her throat in the African way to show she was listening.

  Sara moistened her lips. Ngina knew about her, about her powers, about the history of her family, but even so she found it hard to tell this good friend what was happening inside her.

  “I love being a cat,” she whispered. “I need those powers to do what I must, but I must remain human too.” She dropped her arm from her eyes and turned to Ngina. “I want to be both, right to the end.”

  “And why would that not be so?”

  “Because I am more lioness every day.” She told Ngina what she had felt after the hunt. Explained why she was hesitating on the edge of the pool. “Maybe I should go,” she finished miserably. “Go back to the capital and live as a human all the time.” The towel fell away from her legs as she shifted on the lounger.

  Ngina shook her head, lovely shadows flicking across her high cheekbones and ebony skin. Her beads shimmered as she moved. “That would do no good. You are Siri Mtu, the secret one that we t
ell our children about.” She touched the mark on Sara’s exposed thigh. “The one who protects our beasts from harm.”

  Sara sighed. “But I’m a woman too.”

  “Ndiyo. That is true. Our stories say that to be a woman Siri Mtu must find a human mate, because the lion genes are so strong. My grandmother told me about your mother, about how she found your father and married him, and kept herself in upendo. In peace.”

  Peace. Sara felt far from at peace. “If I stay here, Ngina, without a human mate, I will become a lioness like my adopted sisters. They know I’m different, but they can’t imagine being anything else but what they are. Even Jillo, who senses more than the others. Daudi will lose patience, will forget that it’s forbidden to mate with a Siri Mtu and will make me just one more of his females. He’s an animal and will never comprehend what he’s destroyed.”

  If she left the wild, gradually the human traits would obliterate the feline characteristics, just as the rain on the savannah wiped out the tracks of the impala. Hot tears pricked at her eyes and she blinked them away. “If I go away, I’ll find a man who will want to sleep with me, maybe will even love me a little, and I’ll stay human. But if I leave, the poachers will have won. And I will have lost part of who I am.”

  Ngina shook her head again. “Someone will come to you.”

  Sara gave a mirthless laugh. “Not likely. Tourists stay two nights. That’s fine if I want a one-night stand. Again and again. But I don’t, Ngina. I have to find someone like my father.”

  “Or better,” Ngina said calmly. “Two Siri Mtu would be the most powerful.”

  Sara shook her head. “There are no more like me.”

  Without a word, Ngina took a small pouch from her waist and pulled open the leather thong that tied it. She shook out a collection of tiny white bones and small stones. One brilliant blue feather floated onto her lap, vibrant against the red of the cloth. She passed her hands over the objects and muttered a rapid incantation.