by Tara Rose
Drake addressed his sons. “Do we know for certain whether her uncle was part of the League?”
“We have no direct physical evidence, but everything fits,” said Micah.
Drake nodded. “Go on, Saffron.”
“When my powers began to emerge and my uncle realized I was melanistic, he started talking about mating me with Marc and Jake Rosen. He and Topaz would have arguments about it all the time. I tried not to listen, but when I did, they shouted about things I didn’t understand.”
“Such as what?” asked Drake.
“Things about the bloodline and sacrifices.” She ran a hand through her hair and Landon just kept stroking her arm. He didn’t know what else to do for her. “I wish I remembered all of it so that I could tell you now, but I don’t. I was afraid all the time. Every day. I withdrew from everyone and everything except Topaz.”
“How did she die?”
“In her sleep. I found her one morning, cold. The healer in our village said it was her heart. She’d been ill for a while.”
Landon brushed away the tears that ran down Saffron’s cheeks. Nevada pulled her close and whispered something in her ear that Landon didn’t quite hear.
“I thought above leaving all the time, but I didn’t know where to go or what to do. There was no one I could ask. No one I trusted.”
“What made you leave the morning of the fifth?”
“Nothing in particular. I just finally had to get out of there. Marc and Jake were at the house all the time, and it seemed like the entire village just assumed I would be mated to them one day. No one ever asked me what I wanted, or whether they were who I wanted. They were all planning my life for me.”
“It’s okay,” whispered Landon. “We’re right here.”
He shot Nevada a look, but his friend’s expression was impassive.
“I finally just left. I had no definite plan or destination. I simply ran. I packed the night before, I woke up before dawn, and I left the house.”
“Did you see your uncle the night before?” asked Nevada.
“Yes, of course. I made him dinner. I did every night.”
“Did you see him that morning?” asked Drake.
She shook her head. “No. I wanted to get a head start before anyone in the village was awake…” Her voice trailed off. Landon realized how incriminating that statement would sound, but it still didn’t mean she had killed him.
“Is your pocketknife still in your backpack?” asked Nevada, quietly.
She gave him a look filled with pain. “Of course.”
Nevada rose and no one spoke. Landon couldn’t even look at Drake or the other men. He just kept stroking Saffron’s arm. When Nevada returned, he handed the knife to the jaguar who had brought over the parchment. “I don’t know if it will help, but take it anyway.”
“All right.” Drake turned to his sons and the jaguars who had come with them. “Let’s leave these three alone now. They have much to discuss.”
As soon as they left, Saffron spoke again. “I didn’t kill him.”
Landon pulled her close and held her. Her body trembled, but she’d stopped crying, which he suspected was even worse because she’d received a horrible shock. He didn’t know what to do or think right now, and he hated himself for that. How could this sweet girl who had never lashed out in anger or threatened to hurt either of them, despite the fact that they’d chained her up like a dog, stab someone?
Then again, she’d been terrified of her uncle. She’d told them that already. And, he’d been forcing her into a marriage with two leopards she obviously didn’t want to be with. If he were standing in Drake’s shoes right now, what the parchment said would make sense in light of what little they actually knew about Saffron.
“Why don’t you go and lie down? Nevada and I will clean up the breakfast dishes.”
“I don’t want to lie down. I want this to go away.” She sounded like a frightened child, and Landon was at a loss. He had no idea how to help her right now. He only knew that he’d fallen like a stone for her, and he couldn’t imagine losing her. These past three weeks had been the best of his entire life, and no woman—human or shifter—would ever be able to take her place.
He’d always tried to imagine what it would be like to fall in love, and now he knew. He hadn’t told her that only because their situation here was so precarious, and he didn’t want her to have one more thing to worry about. Maybe he should have? Should he do so now? No. She’d think it was related to the bounty and he didn’t want her to believe that.
He and Nevada needed to talk, because Landon wasn’t sure right now what his friend was thinking, and he didn’t like the unnerving silence from him. Landon wanted to be certain that Nevada’s thoughts were going in the same direction as his own.
“Come on.” He helped her to her feet. “You’ve had a bad shock. Lie down for a while. Nevada and I will take care of all this. We’ll figure something out.”
“But I want to be here with both of you.”
“You are here, love. We’re not leaving. Come on.” When she was curled up on her side in bed, he pulled the comforter over her.
“Leave the door open. Please?”
“All right. We’ll be in the den, Saffron.”
“Landon, I’m scared.”
He stroked her hair. “Nevada and I are going to talk. We’ll figure this out.”
“Promise?”
Her voice was so tiny and full of fear. She sounded like she had that first day, when she’d kept begging them to unchain her. Landon didn’t know how he was going to reassure her when he felt lost and confused himself. “I promise.”
As he left the room and returned to the kitchen, he sent up a silent prayer that he would be able to keep that promise to her.
* * * *
Nevada felt numb inside, as if the snow had somehow found its way into his veins and his heart. This couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be. But he was unable to get the image of the pocketknife he’d taken from her backpack that first morning out of his mind. Had it been stained with blood? No. But she might have washed it clean.
Nevada rinsed the dishes as he struggled to recall her exact words that first morning. She’d said she’d crossed water to lessen the chances of anyone tracking her scent. That made sense. He would have done the same thing if he’d been running from someone.
But that also meant she could have washed off her uncle’s blood in the water. Everything she’d told them had been corroborated by the bounty and by what she’d said to Drake moments ago. She hadn’t lied about any of it. But had she killed her uncle that morning? That was the missing piece in this puzzle.
“I’ve never seen you so quiet.”
Nevada startled at the sound of Landon’s voice. He’d been so deep in thought he hadn’t heard him approach. “Just washing the dishes.”
“I can see that. Want some help?”
Nevada shook his head.
“She didn’t kill him. I believe her.”
“I know you do.”
“Nevada, what the fuck? Are you saying you don’t?”
He turned to face Landon. “Is she asleep?”
“No, I don’t think so. Answer my fucking question, dude. Do you honestly believe she killed her uncle that morning?”
Nevada cut his gaze toward the hallway. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “And before you jump all over for me for saying that, hear me out. My grandfather told me a story when I was about ten that still sends chills up and down my spine whenever I remember it. I never told you this. He wasn’t always in such good graces with jaguar communities.”
Landon moved next to him and began to help Nevada wash the dishes as he continued speaking. “When he was in his twenties, he and his parents visited a community of them in Wyoming. They were having trouble with the League and had asked for help. While they were there, my father got into a heated argument with a couple of the jaguars who hated all other cats. They were young, hot-headed, and had narrow-min
ded views of the species working together, or even coexisting. It’s the same now in certain places.”
“This village must be unique, then.”
Nevada nodded. “It is. Anyway, during this fight one of the jaguars pulled a switchblade. My father had one, too. He told me it was a knee-jerk reaction to take it out. An adrenaline kind of thing. Very alpha male, you know. If someone challenges you to a knife fight, you don’t back down. If you do, you look foolish and weak.”
Nevada actually heard Landon swallow. “Did he kill the jaguar?”
Nevada gave him a sideways glance. “He would have if my great-grandfather hadn’t intervened. My grandfather said he was overcome with blood lust. He saw red, literally. He almost shifted. Several of the jaguars standing around watching the fight already had. He said he wasn’t even thinking. He was merely reacting.”
Nevada turned off the water and dried his hands, then turned to face Landon. “She’s a shifter, like me. She has that same instinct in her, Landon. She would use it in a heartbeat if backed into a situation where she had no choice to.”
Landon shook his head, and it was then that Nevada finally saw the truth in his eyes. He’d suspected it, of course, as he felt the same way about her, but neither man had voiced it out loud to the other yet. Landon was in love with her. “Landon, haven’t you ever been so angry, or so emotionally charged by something, that you didn’t even stop to think? You merely reacted?”
“Sure, but…but I’ve never stabbed anyone. You’re making a huge leap here.”
“And I’m sure she never did before, either. She probably wouldn’t do so now. But think about what her life must have been like. She was terrified. I’m certain that on some level she knew what was going on in that house. But her grandmother sheltered her from it so effectively that she never had have a chance to deal with it. She wasn’t forced to until after the woman died.”
“That doesn’t make her a cold-blooded killer. What the fuck, Nevada?”
“Calm down, all right? I’m not saying she is. I’m saying she might have snapped that morning. She was on the verge of being forced to mate with two men she didn’t even like, and whom she probably suspected were up to the same things as her uncle. She’s a black cat, Landon. So are Marc and Jake. Will you just fucking think about that for a second? Any cubs she bore them would have a very good chance of being melanistic as well.”
“So what?”
“So they wanted to keep the bloodline going.” Nevada gave him a hard look. “I have to say this. I’m sorry, but I have to bring it up. You know the League sacrifices people like me, you, and my mother. You do know that, right?”
Landon flinched. “I know.” His voice was hard and set, but Nevada had to make his point.
“It is such a stretch to imagine what they might have done with her children who weren’t born melanistic? Or who were born as you were? Without powers to shift? Do you truly understand what they are and what they do?”
Landon walked away. “You’re freaking me out right now.”
“I’m trying to. This is serious shit. She knew what she was up against if she stayed and mated with those two.”
“But she said her grandmother kept all that from her. Or don’t you believe that either?”
“I’m sure she tried to, but Saffron isn’t a stupid girl. On some level, she understood the potential danger. And once Topaz died, she had no recourse left. She had no one to turn to, and no one to protect her from the League or the Rosens, whom I will believe until my dying day are connected to them.”
“So she snapped and ran. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I don’t know. But don’t you agree that is it possible?”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t. I can’t see her killing anyone, even her depraved uncle.”
“That’s because you’re in love with her.”
“And you’re not? Are you really going to stand there and try to convince me that you don’t love her? That’s bullshit, Nevada, and you and I both know it.”
They stared at each other while the guilt and confusion that Nevada felt fought a battle inside his mind. He wasn’t surprised at all that Landon had seen the truth in him, or that Landon felt the same way about Saffron. It had been inevitable since that first night. They’d both known it, even if this was the first time they’d voiced it out loud.
But what were they going to do now? There was only one way to get at the truth. He’d have to find the Rosens and force them to confess all of it. And in doing so he would either clear Saffron’s name or discover that she had indeed killed her uncle. The bounty wasn’t going to simply disappear. It had to be dealt with, and if they waited here for her to be found, they’d place this entire village in danger. Nevada wouldn’t do that to these people. They were like family to him.
“Well?”
Nevada had never seen Landon look so angry, and he didn’t blame him. “I love her, too. I think you’ve known that all along.”
“About fucking time you said it.”
“We only have two choices, Landon. We either prove she did kill him, or we find the Rosens and the truth so that we can clear her name. Do you agree?”
“I do agree. But we can’t take her with us.”
“No, we can’t. And we don’t have a lot of time to do this. Drake will keep her safe here. So the only question now is when do you want to tell her that we’re going back to Colorado without her?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Saffron knew why they’d left. Intellectually, she understood it. They were going to find the truth and clear her name. Her name would be cleared, of course, because she hadn’t killed Uncle Dennis. But that didn’t help the dark loneliness she felt with them gone.
Emme had insisted she come over to the house as soon as Landon and Nevada had driven away in Nevada’s truck. She’d organized an impromptu gathering of friends in record time, telling Saffron that it was one of her friend’s birthdays and she’d almost forgotten to throw her a party. Saffron knew Emme well enough by now to know she’d no sooner forget a friend’s birthday than she’d forget to breathe.
She understood what Emme was doing. She didn’t want Saffron to be alone, and she believed that if she had a chance to talk to others about this, it would help. But Saffron didn’t want to talk to anyone. She wanted Landon and Nevada. She wanted them to believe her. But most of all, she wanted to know if it was possible whether she had killed her uncle, and had merely blocked it out, the same way she’d blocked out so much of what had gone on in that house.
Could a person actually do that? And if that were true, what would happen to her? She hugged her knees as a shiver of fear passed through her body. She knew exactly what would happen. She’d seen it play out more than once in the center of her village.
She’d be stripped, hung upside down by her ankles, and cut open so her insides fell out and she bled to death, slowly and painfully, in front of everyone. She’d have a sign hung around her neck that read “murderer.” And there would be absolutely nothing that Landon or Nevada could do about it.
Worse than that, they might be implicated as well. She’d seen it happen often enough. And this entire village might be in trouble for hiding her, especially when the Rosens found out that they’d had the bounty in their hands and had done nothing about it. They were hiding a fugitive right now, and in the shifter world that was as much a crime as it was in the human world.
“Do you want some cake, Saffron?” She looked up into Valerie Bellecote’s green eyes and smiled. The girl was beyond cute, and had been trying so hard this afternoon to get Saffron to talk to her, or to anyone for that matter.
“Thanks.” She took the plate and stared at the concoction of cream cheese, strawberries and white cake mix, knowing it would most likely taste incredible, but her appetite was totally gone. Just to be polite, she shoved a forkful into her mouth.
“I’ve never seen a melanistic cat in animal form.”
“Don’t you have a few of them h
ere in the village?”
“Yes, but I’ve never seen them shift.”
Saffron didn’t know what to say, so she ate another piece of cake.
“Do you like it? I made it.”
“It’s delicious. Thank you, Valerie.”
“We all believe you, you know.”
“Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
“Micah and Stephen’s father said you’re innocent, so that settles it.” Valerie’s gaze fell on Drake’s sons, standing with a group of males, laughing and talking about who knew what. The lust and longing reflected in Valerie’s face as she watched Micah and Stephen nearly broke Saffron’s heart. Did they even know how this girl worshipped them from afar? She looked at them the same way Saffron had watched Landon and Nevada those first few days.
“Valerie, do you come over here a lot? To the house, I mean.”
“Oh, fairly often.”
“Do ever you play in their dungeon?”
Landon and Nevada had brought her over here once to play downstairs, but Saffron hadn’t been comfortable doing so. It was very different being in front of people she barely knew, and she’d told the men that she needed more time before they did it again.
“Yes. I’m here a lot.” Valerie rested her chin in her hands. “But I don’t think they notice me. I kind of hang around on the fringes and watch everything.”
“Why don’t you join in?”
She shrugged. “I’m young. I don’t want to look silly.”
“You won’t. Ask them to teach you something. Maybe they simply don’t know you’re interested?”
“Maybe.”
Saffron smiled. “Why don’t you go over there right now? Just join in the conversation.”
Valerie raised her eyebrows. “What? With all those other men around? I couldn’t do that. I’d feel like I was intruding.”
Saffron watched Micah and Stephen for a few moments. It might have been her imagination, but she didn’t think so after the first few times it happened. Both men glanced over toward Valerie as they talked. Their looks were quick, but once Saffron concentrated on watching them, she realized how often they each did it.