Alterant (Belador #2)(25)

It looked like she’d been dropped in a jungle that smelled of damp earth and decaying vegetation constantly composting. Water drizzled over her face and streaked her sunglasses.

If not for her unusual optics, she’d have been blind in this almost-total darkness. That meant her twenty-minute visit to the Nether Realm hadn’t lasted five hours in the mortal world this time, or she’d have been facing sunshine.

But how long would a day or “more than a day” in the Nether Realm translate into human time?

Or had Loki meant one day in the human world?

Who knew, but she had to get back to Atlanta—with three escaped Alterants in tow—and help stop an Alterant massacre.

At least she could offer the three Alterants she took back a chance at real freedom.

She used a finger to squeegee water off her forehead.

Warm water soaked her shirt. Glancing up, she couldn’t even make out cloud cover through the thick canopy of hardwood trees and tropical palms. Hidden somewhere up there were critters that chirped, screeched and chattered.

So this was where Tristan lived, if she’d landed in his spellbound prison. When she’d first met him in Atlanta, he’d said his cage was in a South American jungle, but not the specific location.

And that had been when they’d been on speaking terms, before she’d used the Ngak Stone to return him to captivity.

A tingling warmed the skin on her chest. She looked down.

The amulet still dangled from her neck.

Thank the goddess she hadn’t lost it. She always worried about losing some part of her clothing or her sunglasses in transit, but she instinctively put a hand on her glasses to hold them when she teleported. If the leather thong holding the amulet had come loose while teleporting, would the necklace have landed at her feet or ended up in another part of the world?

She didn’t know. Now the thing was heating up even more.

Just like it had before she’d been ambushed in Atlanta.

The jungle stilled. Not a chirp to be heard.

She didn’t have to be hit over the head to figure out this silver disk was acting like some kind of warning device, but why? Nicole’s spell on the amulet was long gone. Opening her senses wider, Evalle tried to determine if the danger approaching was of this world or preternatural.

No energy touched hers.

That ruled out preternatural.

Regardless of where she’d landed, she couldn’t use her supernatural powers to harm a natural creature of this world.

She needed a defense plan or someplace to hide if she didn’t find Tristan soon.

What did he use for shelter here?

She suffered another swipe of misery at sending him back to isolation in this place. From her perspective, living in a jungle beat being confined in a basement for eighteen years, but she doubted Tristan would see it that way.

She couldn’t blame him.

Loss of control over your life sucked even if you lived trapped in a castle, like Brina.

Poor Brina could never leave the Isle of Treoir except in a holographic image. Doing so would put the whole Belador tribe at risk of destruction.

Hair stood up along Evalle’s arms.

Two bright eyes, probably yellow, peered at her from between wide palm fronds and froze the blood in her veins.

She could tell it was a large jungle cat but not much more.

For a moment, her heart leaped to the hope that the animal stalking her might be Storm in his black jaguar form. But even if he could track teleportation he couldn’t have found her in another country—and on another continent—this quickly.

She’d probably never see him again and wouldn’t be able to help him find the woman he was hunting either. If she didn’t satisfy the Tribunal’s demands, the list of people she’d let down would continue to grow.

The animal watching her didn’t blink.

Running generally excited a predator, but she couldn’t stand here all night. She had to find a hiding place before daylight, too. With her deadly intolerance to sunlight, she’d fry faster than fish in hot grease the minute rays hit her skin.

And end up just as dead as being eaten by a three-hundred-pound, four-legged killing machine.

Evalle took a step back, then one more.

Another set of predatory eyes with narrow black centers appeared several feet to the right of the first cat. A hunting party, or just taking advantage of a snack dropped in front of them?

Both cats moved forward at the same time.

Game on.

She swung around and dove headfirst into the jungle, swatting low branches and thick undergrowth out of her way. Thorny vines clawed at her clothes and arms. Her boots sucked in and out of wet bogs of mud. She felt as though she ran against a current of energy, like swimming in a resistance pool.

Even her natural Belador speed was useless here, which pretty much confirmed she was inside Tristan’s enclosure. She couldn’t see any other reason she’d slow down to the speed of a human.

She could hear the snap of twigs and rattle of vegetation as the cats stalked her at a steady pace. She hurried ahead, willing herself to outrun them in spite of her mind arguing that was unrealistic.

When she entered a moonlit clearing, she stopped in the center and turned slowly.

Three more sets of yellow eyes faced her from the other direction.

Now she got it. The first two cats had been herding her.

The amulet around her neck warmed and glowed again.