They smelled of elephants, horses, camels, lions, tigers, and dogs. The circus? Had to be from there.
He wrinkled his nose. That was the problem with being a shifter—their enhanced ability to smell odors. He noticed other patrons glancing their way, wrinkling their noses. Must be shifters, too.
The jungle music beat shook the floor and tables as conversations hummed all around him. A few couples danced on the floor, while others were just drinking and talking. Piped-in sounds of parakeets and parrots twittering and an occasional monkey’s howl made the silk leaf jungle sound more like the real deal.
David’s attention returned to Alex and Nate. Though not as muscular, they were both as tall as David. Alex’s hair was blond, his eyes dark blue, while Nate was less tan, and his light brown hair shaggier.
One was dressed in camouflage pants, the other blue jeans, both wearing black T-shirts with pictures of jaguars screen-printed on the front. The words Panthera onca—the scientific name for jaguar—announced that they were jaguar shifters, though only their kind would realize that’s what they were saying.
When David had been that age, he’d felt the same way. He’d wanted to shout to the world that he was a jaguar shifter and damned proud of it, instead of hiding it from everyone who wasn’t like him. Since there were more human females than female jaguar shifters, he’d wanted human girls to see him as someone truly special. He’d often fantasized that girls he’d had crushes on were of his kind and not strictly human. Most of his kind were born as jaguar shifters, but some ended up turning a human, which was not the best of ideas. Though his brother’s wife, Maya, had turned her brother’s wife-to-be and that had worked out well, despite the trouble it could have caused if Kat had had family.
So he could definitely commiserate with the twins.
The boys grabbed chairs at a table and David sat at another close by. Nate flagged down a server wearing a skimpy leopard-skin dress, cut high on the thighs and low on a very well-developed bust. Red curls bouncing about her shoulders, she smiled brightly at the boys as Alex whispered their drink order.
Grinning, the kids focused on two women who were dancing, breasts jiggling in their teeny bikini tops. David shook his head. The boys were so much like him and his twin brother, Wade, at seventeen.
The server returned with the boys’ red-colored drinks topped with lime green paper parasols, the toothpicks seated in cherries.
David was about to move in to ensure the drinks were nonalcoholic when Alex said, “Okay, listen, Nate. We did it your way last time and you know how much I objected. This time we can’t take a chance with the missing zoo cat.”
David sat back down in his seat, listening intently. They had to be talking about the missing zoo cat from Oregon. Maya’s cousin—Tammy Anderson—was looking for it.
Nate snorted. “Hell, everything would have been fine with the jaguar if all had gone as planned. At least she’s safe for now.”
He wanted to hear more of the boys’ conversation about the missing cat before deciding whether to take them in for further questioning, but he saw something big and muscular in his peripheral vision. The bouncer. Brown eyes, nearly black, muscles bulging in readiness, mouth turned down. Hell. Joe Storm. As much as David didn’t want to make this personal, he couldn’t help having a grudge toward the guy. David still believed if Joe hadn’t stolen Olivia Farmer away from him and promised to marry her—which he had no intention of doing—she wouldn’t have committed suicide.
David watched the former JAG agent–turned club bouncer stalk toward the boys. He looked eager to teach the teens they weren’t welcome at the club until they were of age. David knew Joe from working with him on a couple of assignments; Joe liked women—too damn well, in David’s opinion—made allowances for most men, and had zero tolerance for troublemaking teens.
“Hey, Alex, trouble’s coming,” Nate said. Though David knew from experience that kids had to learn from their own mistakes, he also knew how hard Joe could be on them, and David didn’t always agree with his stern methods of enforcement.
Before David could reach the boys and protect them, the bouncer grabbed Alex and Nate by the arms and hauled them through the crowded club toward the back door. “I’ll break both your bloody noses,” Joe growled. “See if you’ll want to come back for more after that, eh?”
Joe never made idle threats. David had seen him rough up a drunken human who had started a fight in the club. Joe had broken another man’s nose for harassing one of the club’s dancers. Talking Joe out of what he intended to do was not going to work.