Jace: #6 (Luna Lodge: Hunters of Atlas)

by Madison Stevens

  Embarrassment over her inexplicable arousal would have brought some heat to her cheeks, if her body wasn’t already hot. She shook her head, trying to focus on the issue at hand. She needed to get laid more often if she was getting all horny at a time like this.

  Marcus glanced her way, and her anger swallowed her arousal.

  “I have no idea what’s going on,” Veronica said and stood. “I was trying to set up a system to keep predators away, and the next thing I know, Jace grabs me, runs through the forest God knows how fast, and some red-eyed thing is roaring at us. I didn’t get a good look at it, but it’s like Sasquatch’s evil brother.”

  She gritted her teeth. She’d had about all she could take of this shit. Weird eyes, funny feelings, creepy beasts in the forest. This was not what she’d signed up for. She was just supposed to be finding a stupid bear or mountain lion and scaring it off with sound.

  “All I wanted to do was my job and finishing my damn paper,” she rambled as she backed away from the men staring at her once again. “To help protect the boundary between man and predator. Obviously, that is not what is going on here.” She shook her head and gestured toward the door. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here.” She raised her hands. “I don’t even know if I want to know what is going on here.”

  “Veronica—” Jace said.

  Her gaze found Jace, and again, the strange feeling of arousal washed over her. She didn’t trust herself anymore. Maybe he’d drugged her. He’d had plenty of opportunities to do so. All she knew was that she should be pissed, not aroused.

  “Nothing is making any sense right now,” she said with more fire, trying to push down her other feelings. “Screw this. No one is explaining anything, and I’m done. I’ll walk back to my car in the rain if I have to.”

  With that she raced out the door, desperate to get a little fresh air and away from her raging hormones.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jace stepped forward to follow Veronica out the door but stopped when Rem stepped in front of him. He frowned at his leader, but didn’t move to challenge him.

  “Hang on,” Rem said quietly.

  “I need to go after her.” He kept his tone controlled, even though every part of him wanted to shove Rem out of the way and run after his Vestal.

  The other men still stood around them as Marcus glared daggers. Jace returned the other man’s glare before focusing again on his leader.

  “You need to make her understand,” Rem said. “All of it. It’s not going to be easy, and she certainly speaks her mind.” He grinned at Jace. “But we don’t have time for her to get comfortable. That Glycon has her scent now. She’s in danger more than ever before.”

  Jace nodded. He knew what was at stake. “I’ll take care of it. But what about the Glycon?”

  “We’ll send some men out to get her car when the storm lets up and see what we can find,” Magnus said. “It might be tough, but it’s not going to be able to take on several of us at once.”

  Marcus grunted loudly. “Let me take care of it. I deserve to be the one.”

  Jace was surprised when Rem stepped toward him, a frown on his face.

  “We have bigger issues than your ego right now,” Rem said. “Even if you don’t give a shit about the people in that town, if that Glycon kills another person, it won’t be long before the government or the Horatius Group is here. That Glycon puts us all at risk, and we’ll need everyone working together to keep the people here safe. We need to be smart about this.”

  Marcus glanced over to Jace and then back to Rem before giving a nod. His shoulders sagged slightly. “Agreed.”

  Though the hybrid had always been one to speak his mind, he was also pragmatic.

  “We need to find out just what the hell it’s doing here,” Rem said as he looked around the room. “And then we need to kill it.”

  Jace gave a final nod before heading outside. He had been listening to Veronica as best he could over the storm. She’d paced outside for a bit before getting into his truck.

  That was exactly where he found her: sitting in the passenger side, her face pink from the cold, and maybe because of him, at least a little. Or so he hoped.

  Jace stepped over to the driver’s side door and slid inside.

  “Take me to the motel,” she said instantly.

  He looked over to her. She continued to stare straight ahead.

  “No,” he said after a few seconds of silence.

  Her head whipped toward him as she glared through her long lashes. Hints of her pretty green eyes reflected some light from the nearby building.

  “I’ve had enough of this,” she said, pointing her finger. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I’m sure the police can handle it. Whatever that thing is, I’m sure it’s not bulletproof.”

  He knew it was going to be tough. He considered his words carefully and then gestured toward the wind shield being pelted by rain. A thin layer of ice was already forming

  “There’s an storm, I can’t take you home,” he said calmly. “We’re lucky we didn’t have an accident on the way back. And, yeah, maybe the Glycon isn’t bulletproof, but you know how fast it is, and you know what it can do. Do you really think some local cops could survive taking on a Glycon?”

  She frowned. “Is that what that thing is called? Is it human?”

  He let out a large sigh. Somehow, he imagined that he’d be telling this to her in a totally different way. Like over dinner, not after being nearly killed in the middle of the woods.

  “Yes, that’s what it’s called. As for human, well, it was a man, of sorts, once, but it’s been changed, made more beast than man.”

  “Changed?” Her face scrunched up in confusion. “You mean, like… wait, like a hybrid? Like at Luna Lodge?”

  “Glycons are different. Hybrids have better strength, speed, and senses than humans, but they still retain their minds and souls. Glycons are killing machines.” He stared at her. “We’re nothing like Glycons.” he said quietly. “There’s nothing left human in them.”

  “You’re a hybrid?” she said quietly.

  “Yes, well that and maybe more.”

  Veronica stared at him for several long moments.

  Jace shook his head. Explaining just what he was wasn’t the easiest of things. He wanted to act like the big difference between Glycons and hybrids was humanity, but just how human any of the hybrids were at this point was questionable.

  This was even more so for his group. He didn’t know if he believed all the stories about them being descended from Atlantean gods, but after some of the strange things they’d witnessed in recent months, he knew that it wasn’t just a matter of fancy genetic engineering.

  “So, you’re a hybrid, like the ones on TV?” Veronica asked. “I… thought they all had yellow eyes.”

  She’d turned toward him now in the truck. Her leg was propped up on the seat so close to him he could feel the heat from it.

  Jace shook his head and forced his gaze back to her face. He watched as her eyes widened in surprise. He nearly jumped back when she brought her faced dangerously close to his own, her pretty green eyes staring into his bright blue ones.

  “They are… different from us, but we’re all hybrids.”

  “I thought I saw them glowing earlier. I wasn’t sure. I guess I should have known after how fast you moved in the forest. I think I was too scared to connect the dots.”

  Her hot breath spread out against his skin, and Jace could feel the animal in him begging to be unleashed.

  As if she felt the same thing, Veronica glanced down briefly to his mouth.

  “I… uh,” she said and leaned back a little. “Brown. Uh. Your eyes were brown before. You were wearing contacts?”

  Jace nodded and leaned back against the door. “It’s how we can live here without drawing attention to ourselves.”

  He could see the wheels turning a mile a minute inside that beautiful head of hers.

  “So you’re on
the run?” she asked. “From that Horatius Group they’ve talked about on the news?”

  “Yes and no.” Jace chuckled. “Not just them, anyone with power,” he said. “All of them. Everybody.”

  “I don’t understand. Wouldn’t it make sense to live at Luna Lodge? They have walls and more guns, from what I’ve heard.”

  “You have to understand. They may be hybrids, but we’re a different people. They are more like cousins than brothers. They have their own problems, and we have ours.”

  “I see.” Veronica frowned a little. “And did you have anything to do with that Glycon tonight?”

  Jace shook his head. “It just showed up,” he said. “We don’t know why. No one knows we’re here. If they did, we would have probably been attacked just like the hybrids at Luna Lodge by soldiers and Glycons.”

  “Wait. Glycons? If they’ve attacked a public place, why isn’t it all over the news?”

  He shrugged. “Probably both the hybrids and the government trying to keep things quiet. You’d have to ask Rem.”

  “But now one of those things is here and killing pets.” Her eyes widened. “Oh my God. That man who was killed…”

  Jace nodded slowly and let out a sigh. “We thought we dealt with it. Marcus fought it and killed it by drowning it in a freezing pond. At least that’s what we believed, but it somehow managed to survive. I was tracking it when you stumbled across me that night.”

  The satisfaction of knowing the truth filled her. It all added up now. All that time she’d suspected that he never really had a dog and that there was more than what he was telling her.

  She didn’t immediately respond, and he didn’t continue talking. Only the patter of the falling rain kept silence at bay.

  “This thing is even more dangerous than I thought,” she said. She sighed. “Since that’s the case, I don’t understand why we can’t go to the police.”

  Jace gave her a hard stare. “You’ve seen it,” he said. “You really think the locals around here could handle something like that? Marcus isn’t weak, and he took it on, and only barely managed to win by tricking it into falling into freezing water. Even at my top speed it was still breathing down my neck. The police would be dead before they even knew what was going on.”

  A shudder shot through her, and she knew he was right. There was no way the local police could handle that creature. Even a group of Army soldiers might have trouble.

  “We can’t just do nothing.”

  “We’re not. We’re handling this, all the hybrids now, not just me. We’re going to find it, and a group of us are going to kill that thing before it hurts anyone else.”

  “What about warning people?”

  “If you warn them, then our enemies will know we’re here, and they’ll come and kill us.” He turned away. “We were their slaves, our lives, even our memories taken from us. You’ve watched the news. You know how evil the Group is.” He shook his head. “And it won’t just be us. They’ll do things like release packs of Glycons. They won’t care if innocent people get killed.” He returned his hard stare to her. “No, to keep anybody from getting hurt, we need to take care of this ourselves and as quietly as possible.”

  She nodded and looked down. The whole situation was overwhelming. She’d never thought that much about the hybrids. Sure, it was interesting to hear about them on the news, but they seemed so far away, distant, not something that would ever affect her life.

  Veronica jumped when Jace stripped off his jacket and laid it in the seat beside him. For the first time, she could clearly see the outline of his chest. Her heart hammered loudly. She knew he was well built and felt his hard body as he ran with her in his arms, but now it was on full display, just inches from her.

  Something blue caught her attention. There was something on his arm near the door, she leaned over slightly to get a better look.

  “You have a tattoo?”

  Somehow it seemed strange that he would despite the fact that she pretty much expected it from most other guys his size.

  He turned his body some, and she breathed in deeply. The scent of sandalwood filled her nose, and warmth seeped through her body.

  “It’s part of my special hybrid nature,” he said.

  The blue tattoo called to her. Something about it was so unnatural, she reached out to touch it before she had even thought if she should.

  Her fingers traced the soft blue line. The piece glowed, and a jolt of electricity shot through her.

  Veronica brought her gaze up to his. His blue eyes glowed brightly now as he stared at her.

  “What was that?” she whispered.

  Jace leaned in a little. She knew she should sit back, but the same warm feeling had returned inside her. It trickled down her body and settled between her legs. Her nipples tightened.

  “We’re connected,” he said.

  Veronica stared at him for a moment as his words settled over her. Connected.

  She wanted to deny what he was saying but she could feel it deep inside. It was all too much.

  “I think I should go back to the hotel,” she whispered.

  Veronica watched as his face inched closer to hers.

  “Stay,” he whispered. “Stay with me.”

  She sighed loudly, and with it went all the worry. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered beside the hum that echoed through her and the man sitting so very close.

  Veronica closed the distance between them and pressed her mouth to his.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Surprise shot through Jace. It wasn’t surprise over the fact she kissed him. He’d always wanted and hoped that she would. It was more how timid she was with the kiss. The almost demure kiss didn’t really fit the small, sassy woman.

  She pressed her lips softly to his, kissing him semi-open mouthed.

  He didn’t want that. Sure, he wanted to kiss, but not this way.

  He wanted true passion. The beast inside him raged to be unleashed, desperate to devour her.

  He brought his hand around to the back of her head and pressed her more firmly to his mouth. She groaned against him, and Jace’s chest rumbled in response.

  Damn, she turned him on. Her lips. Her taste. Her smell.

  Now that he was kissing her, he couldn’t believe he’d spent his entire life without her. Forget the abuse of the Horatius Group, living his life without his Vestal had been true torture. Now, he understood that.

  Jace shifted in the seat, trying to adjust himself in such a way that she might not notice the raging hard on he was sporting. He felt her shiver and then leaned back.

  He cursed silently. He’d been so wrapped up in his own lust that he wasn’t even considering her needs.

  “It’s too cold in here,” he said softly. “Let’s get you inside.”

  “You don’t understand.” Veronica stared at him. “I’m not shivering from the cold.”

  His eyes flared for a moment, casting a blue light around the truck before returning to normal.

  Jace stepped out of the truck and marched around to the other side, cold droplets plopping on his head and shoulders. He swung the passenger side door open and lifted Veronica, their bodies touching one another as he did so.

  “Where we going?” she asked. Her wide eyes stared into his own.

  “My place.”

  This was absolutely insane. Veronica had no idea what the hell she thought she was doing. Going to some guy’s house she barely knew after kissing him?

  He wasn’t just a normal man, either, but a super-human hybrid.

  Yet she continued to let him lead her, his warm hand holding hers, guiding her through the ice and snow pelting them.

  She glanced up, but all she could see was the gray around them. Whatever relief nature offered them before was gone, and the storm was back in full force, if not even worse than before.

  She wouldn’t be at all surprised in the morning if she saw the whole landscape around them coated in thick ice.

  Jace stopped outside a
small house. There wasn’t anything that stood out about the place. No sign that it was the home of a man she was already thinking of amazing. White siding, black trim. A simple little place.

  He opened the door, and the warmth from inside wrapped around her. She hadn’t realized just how cold she was until that moment.

  The door closed behind her, and she glanced around the small living room. A simple interior, just like the outside. Basic living room, small dining area. She assumed a kitchen to match.

  So, there she was, in his home. Her brain told her the whole thing was a bone-headed idea. The rest of her ached to do something more than just kiss Jace.

  She considered that maybe she should stop the whole thing before they both did something they regretted. She opened her mouth to say something but stopped when his mouth crashed against hers.

  Veronica responded instantly to the passion that was there, all her doubts devoured by her needs. She pressed her body to his as his warm hands wrapped around her back.

  His tongue skimmed the line of her mouth, and she opened to him, letting his slip inside and twine with her own.

  She felt the rumble of his chest as it pressed against him.

  Veronica broke away from him and leaned back to stare at the giant man before her. Rather than the cocky self-assurance she’d expected, he looked down at her with a mask of uncertainty, a question in his eyes.

  Then it dawned on her. Maybe all this wasn’t just new to her but to him as well. It never even crossed her mind that he might be just as nervous as she was.

  Silly as it was, on some level she assumed he must have brought women home all the time.

  “Is there something—” he began.

  Veronica dropped the coat she’d been wearing to the floor. The leather landed with a loud thud. She pulled her shirt out of her pants and pulled it over her head, again dropping it to the floor.

  His eyes glowed so brightly she was certain she could turn off the lights and still make him out.