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Chapter One

Amber Allen leaned out the openof the shuttle and drew in a breath of the fragrant jungle air She could identify ht, but their scents couldn't be conveyed in textbooks

"Mr Big owns the whole island," Jimmy, the scruffy man who had ine and crashing waves "About a quarter of it was developed for the resort in the eighties, and his estate takes up another quarter of it If you're lucky, you et a tour"

He gave A that he personally could get her such a treat "The rest is left natural jungle, except the airstrip you came in on"

Amber wanted to ask if the island owner's na Ji She had alreadyher love of plants in a conversational way, and Jimmy had taken it as if she had batted her eyelashes and asked hi

He made another hairpin turn, around a switchback with a steep cliff on one side, barely shrouded in trailing greenery, and a rocky plunge to the ocean on the other The road was scarcely wide enough for the rusty van, and had potholes large enough to s a bus

"Scarlet took over the resort about three years back," Ji hi in her seat "She cleaned up the old cottages right nice, and et aniot a British boar couple, and a chinchilla frouess he's from the East Coast by his accent, not Siberia Russian nah"

Amber flinched despite herself, and looked up in alaret used to the idea of a place where she could speak freely about being a shifter

"You didn't say what kind of shifter you were," Ji her eyes in the mirror

"A cat," Alad when he had to break their eye contact to navigate the narrow, bumpy road

"Here kitty, kitty," Jih she found it nothing but creepy "How'd you hear about us?"

"I found out about it fro to her ar as the shuttle whipped around another blind corner None of the seatbelts worked, and she was beginning to wish that she had resisted her rooestion that a tropical vacation was just what she needed a little more strenuously At least she should have insisted on soed this rather peculiar destination