Leopard 03 - Burning Wild

her to marry him. In those days, women didn’t have many rights and no one helped her. He had discovered the secret and knew that with the traits of the species, we could gain wealth and power. And he wanted it. He was ambitious and he wanted it.” He hung his head, running his hand over his face. “Our bloodline carries the epitome of cruelty. You don’t want to live like them. You must take care to keep yourself decent. The genes are strong in you, and with them come responsibility.”
    Jake felt his belly knot into tight, hard lumps of protest. “I have to be whatever it takes to get away from them.”
    Fenton sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Have you ever studied breeding? Breeding anything at all, cattle, dogs, whatever? You can breed good or bad traits into a line. You have to take care, watch what you do, or you end up with very bad blood. Leopards are cunning creatures. You hunt a leopard in the wild and they’re one of the few predators that will circle around to stalk and kill their hunter. They can be cruel and fierce and bad-tempered. But they’re also cunning, sharp and intelligent. Read up on them, Jake, and then you’ll have an idea of what any of us with shifter genetics contends with. We don’t have to shift to feel the effects.”
    “Can you really not shift?” Jake asked. He kept his eyes downcast, his face still, afraid he’d give away his excitement. “I know you said you couldn’t, but you know so much.”
    The old man shook his head. “I really can’t. The leopard is there inside me. I reach for it, but shifting eludes me. I traveled to the rain forest when I found the diaries my grandfather kept, and I met some of the people. They aren’t like us. We’re abominations in comparison. Cathy, my own granddaughter, is a sick, twisted being, cruel beyond measure, and I know I’m responsible. I married a woman to further the bloodline. Don’t do that. Don’t continue this experiment. It’s dangerous and the people we create are dangerous.”
    “Like me,” Jake said quietly.
    Fenton stared at him.
    “You know what they’re like behind closed doors, yet you left me here with them,” Jake accused, voicing the reason he didn’t trust the old man. “They would have let me go.”
    “Never. They would have fought to keep you because they have to present a certain picture to the outside world.”
    “They hate me.”
    “They fear you.”
    Jake’s golden gaze jumped to his great-grandfather’s face and burned there, a fixed focus, while his heart pounded. It was true. They feared him. And they should, because someday he was going to be stronger, faster, smarter and much, much crueler than they’d ever dreamt of being—and he was going to tear their world apart.
    EIGHTEEN YEARS
    JAKE Fenton was dead and young Jake felt as if he were the only one mourning the man. Cathy and Ryan hadn’t bothered to go to the funeral, but they sat in the lawyer’s office, waiting hopefully for an inheritance, although both had loudly speculated that Fenton had used up every penny on acquiring more and more worthless land. When the news came, Ryan and Cathy were stunned and pleased.
    Fenton owned several companies and even more stocks. They inherited two construction companies outright and, between the two of them, what appeared to be the majority of stock in a chain of major hotels.
    Young Jake was given three companies, a mediocre plastics plant that barely kept its head above water, a company called Uni-Diversified Holdings and a corporation that was a parent company for several smaller businesses. He also inherited Fenton’s Folly, which was a huge tract of land in Texas no one wanted, two corn farms and several tracts in other states that appeared to be swampland. Stocks were in his name as well as a sizable cash inheritance, although Cathy and Ryan received the bulk of the money.
    The lawyer went on to explain that there were a couple of absolute conditions that had to be met. No one could contest the will or they would forfeit their portions immediately. Cathy and Ryan could not inherit from Jake, even if he should die, nor could Jake ever sell to them or give them anything of Fenton’s. If he did die before his fiftieth birthday and he had no children, the land, money and stocks would be put in a trust for a list of charities and an immediate investigation into Jake’s death would take place. At that time, two letters that Jake Fenton wrote would be opened that might aid the