A growl escaped her. “She needs to be punished.”
“She was. She went to jail.”
“That’s not enough.”
He sighed. “My dad agreed.”
“He avenged you?”
“Sort of. He didn’t hurt her but he made it known to anyone in the area that if they helped her, he’d know and they’d pay. She was alone for a very long time.”
Jessie narrowed her eyes at him. “Please don’t tell me you feel sorry for her.”
“She was my mom, Jessie. I just wanted things to be normal.”
Before he could say another word, she wrapped her arms around his neck, hauled herself into his embrace, and nearly squeezed him to death in the process.
“I swear to you now, any cubs we have, I will defend them with my life.”
“Hey,” he chided, letting his hand fall on the curve of her back. Slowly stroking up and down, he murmured, “I never thought anything else.”
“I don’t know what the dickwads in this place have told you. I know I keep surprising you. And you’ve seen Ava now, and you know what she can do... Yes, that’s in me, but our cubs would never be in any danger from the Sow.”
“I never thought they would be,” he tried to soothe, astonished that the conversation had led onto this—their hypothetical children not being beaten by her. “I swear, Jessie, it never even crossed my mind.”
He could hear her swallow as she nodded, a little feverishly, against him. “That’s okay then.” Her breath was warm against his throat, but he didn’t move her. He knew she needed comforting as much as he did.
“I-I didn’t really remember it. Not until the Goddess mentioned it. But when I... I almost died, I fell into her arms. She was there to guide me back. I’d completely pushed it from my mind because it wasn’t like I could talk to anyone about that. Nobody would have understood, and everything was in chaos after I got out of hospital, anyway. What with Mom in jail and Dad on this guilt trip.” He shook his head at how crazy those days had been. “Anyway, she reminded me then. Reminded me of that time.”
“What happened? Was there a bright light? Or something as dopey as what the movies make out?”
He thought about that a second. “No. No bright light. Even then, after you bit me, it wasn’t light. If anything, it’s dark. There’s the faintest glow where she is. It’s so dark it’s oppressive. Like there’s been an earthquake and you’re caught in the rubble but you can move, and you can breathe, but you’re trapped.” He shuddered. “There’s a peace there but it’s not my style.”
“Did she talk to you when you were a little boy?”
“I think so. I don’t really remember,” he murmured, thinking back to those hazy moments he’d convinced himself were nothing. “If she did, it was hardly anything. She said, during the Claiming, that I called to her and that it had never happened before. That I should never have been in that situation, and she brought me back as an apology.” He wriggled his shoulders uneasily. “It was creepy as fuck.”
“Do you know how many Shifters would kill to converse with the Goddess just like you did?”
There was a teasing tone to her voice. “Well, they’re weird. It’s bad enough being chastised by your parents or the law. A Goddess? That’s a whole other load of batshit weird.”
“True. Did she say anything else?”
He hesitated. This was where his concern stemmed from after all. “She said that when you were born, you were my gift from her.”
“And you think that she won’t give you another one? One like what the female mates get?” she asked, the words mumbled against his throat as she tightened her arms around his waist. She wasn’t letting up, wasn’t letting him go.
And God help him, he didn’t want her to.
“I think it’s a possibility,” he explained. “I mean, if you throw in the other stuff she said about needing to make better life choices... it’s not like I deserve anything else.”
She nodded against him. “I understand. But don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t it? Won’t people wonder why I don’t have one?” He hesitated. “I don’t want people to know about my past, Jessie. It’s bad enough that the older guys in Spider’s Venom know. I wish they didn’t. But they were there at the time.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” she told him. “Honestly. They don’t share shit about mates. Why should we be any different? The only reason the MC knows about my mom’s gift is because when she was pregnant with my brothers, she had insane morning sickness because of her insane sense of smell. I figured out what Annette’s is, but only because I know her well, and I know a lot of the guys don’t realize what her talent is. As for the rest, it’s rude to ask and unnecessary to share.
“Our parents don’t even share it with their kids. Not openly. If we pick up on it, that’s one thing, but we never have an open conversation about it.” She hummed under her breath. “That’s weird, I guess, but it’s just custom. It’s something that’s unique to each mate bond and is as intimate as sex.”
He released a relieved breath. “So, nobody has to know.”
“No, nobody.”
“I’m really glad to hear that,” he admitted.
“This is our secret,” she told him softly, pulling away from his shoulder to stare him square in the eye. “I promise, I’ll never tell anyone.”
“I know you won’t,” he said, smiling at her as he tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She nuzzled her cheek into his palm.
“I’m sorry for what your Mom did, Devon. I’d make her pay if I could.”
He couldn’t help it, he grinned. “My bloodthirsty wench.” It shouldn’t have amused him, but it did. He loved her fire, loved that it only warmed him when it would give anyone else third degree burns.
“Only for you.” She winced. “And our cubs.”
“The cubs we haven’t made yet?”
“Yeah, those.”
He snorted at her sheepishness. “How did my life get so crazily good?”
Her eyes brightened at that. “You must have done something great in a past life.”
“That’s it,” he said, clicking his fingers in a ‘Eureka’ moment. “I was definitely Gandhi.”
Laughter pealed from her, and he knew he’d broken the tension and was glad for it. He reached up to kiss her laughing mouth and said, “Come on, let’s go and face your dad.”
“Do we have to?” she half-whined.
“You know we do,” he chastised but softened it with a grin. “All will be well.”
“It had better be,” she said grumpily as she got to her feet. When he patted her on the ass, she whooped with laughter and ran around the back of the sofa to escape him.
Her amusement had replaced the licking flames of fury from her eyes, and he was glad for that. He wanted to protect her, he realized, but at the same time he needed her to be his partner, needed to share with her the things he’d always kept hidden.
With her, he felt he could do that, and the difficult decisions he had ahead of him, ones that appertained to his future, what they’d be doing with themselves once the situation with Sammy was resolved—because resolved it would be—would be easy to make because she was there.
Brightening his day.
Easing his load.
Filling his heart to bursting.
With wide eyes, Jessie peered around the Council room. She’d only been here a few times in her whole life. Which was crazy. A room in her ‘home’ that she’d hardly been in? When she’d been nearly glued to this fucking place?
It was a reality in need of rectifying.
The sound of someone clearing their throat had her wide eyes focusing on the person in question.
She scowled at Kiko when he asked, “What’s Jessie doing here?”
“I want her here,” Spyder said softly, his hand tightly enfolded around hers. He led her around the table, pulled out a chair, and guided her into it. She sat down with a
plunk, loving that the she had the right—well, kind of—to be here.
Kiko’s scowl deepened at the sight of her in the chair, and it only grew darker when her father huffed out a resigned sigh.
“Mars ain’t gonna like this,” Kiko chided, folding his arms across his chest.
“Well, Jessie’s my mate and I want her to be a part of this. If she’s in danger now because of me, then it’s only fair she knows what we’re doing.”
“You agree with this, Mundo?” Kiko asked.
“He doesn’t have a say anymore,” Jessie chimed in.
“Just because you’re mated, girl, doesn’t mean I didn’t whelp you,” Mundo retorted, but he looked amused rather than hurt. She grinned at him, and grinned wider when he shook his head at her cheeky ways. “Dear Goddess, what did I do to deserve such an ungrateful brat for a daughter?”
“I don’t know, Dad,” she retorted. “Maybe gone to jail a time or two? Done some things you shouldn’t have.”
He narrowed his eyes. “See what I mean?” he asked no one in particular. “Ungrateful.”
“Nah, ungrateful would be to stop loving you for all the naughty things you’ve done. But love doesn’t work like that, does it?” she cajoled.
He grunted, but his eyes carried on sparkling. If there was anyone who understood her sense of humor, it was her father because, Goddess help them both, she’d inherited his.
“If Spyder’s okay with her having nightmares, then I’m okay with it too,” was all he said, but he said it smugly and sank back into his chair until it rocked, that same smarmy look on his face.
She snorted. “When was the last time I had a nightmare?”
Jarvis scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “About six years ago.”
She could feel Spyder stiffen at her back. “I used to get bad nightmares,” she confessed.
“Bad?” Mundo hooted. “Used to wake the whole goddamn clubhouse up with her screaming and wailing.”
Jarvis grimaced. “I can attest to that. I’m on the other side of the damn clubhouse and I used to hear her.”
“You all have sensitive hearing,” she snapped, feeling her cheeks turn red. “You’d have heard me yelling even if I’d barely made a peep of a sound. And anyway, I only had a bad dream because someone, a dude called Mundo, decided it was the right time to introduce me to Pennywise.”
Mundo chuckled. “Damn, your mother sulked with me for a week over that.”
“So she should have done too,” Annette answered for Jessie, sauntering into the Council room.
The men eyed her, and then eyed Ava when she came in too.
“Is it just me, or are there getting to be lots of X chromosomes in this room?” Major asked.
“I don’t know, Major, you’re the healer. You’d know,” Jessie retorted.
“That tongue of yours is like a knife, girl,” Mundo chastised.
“That’s because I was raised by you, Daddy.”
“She’s got you there, Mundo. By the short and curlies.” Annette clapped him on the shoulder as she carried onto the Prez’s chair. She took a seat. “Mars will be along in a minute.”
Jessie smiled at Ava as she took a seat and Chris stood behind her.
The meeting had been called, urgently, this morning. She knew Spyder was hoping for good news.
He’d told her about the package and what Martinez had wanted to do with it. He’d also told her that her mom had ascertained there were drugs and weapons inside, which they were destroying and getting rid of.
As Spyder hadn’t complied with Martinez’s request, he’d been on tenterhooks these last two days. Sammy was in the worst possible place to be on the receiving end of retribution, and every moment that passed she knew he’d been terrified on his brother’s behalf.
How could she not understand?
Spyder was an abused child. The last thing he’d want is his baby brother to be suffering something similar. And only the Goddess knew what Sammy was enduring in jail.
Her daddy, with one of his questionable contacts, had managed to wangle it so Sammy was in solitary, but not even that was infallible. Not where a man like Martinez was concerned.
Hell, hadn’t he bribed the Assistant District Attorney to try and convict Sammy on a case with fabricated evidence?
What wasn’t the man capable of?
She shuddered at the thought and kept her eyes trained on the door, waiting for Mars to appear.
She was nervous on her mate’s behalf, and had been teasing her daddy to break some of that tension—her being hyped up was the last thing Spyder needed.
His hands were on her shoulders and he was kneading them, not for her sake, but for his. She could only imagine what that nervous energy was doing to him.
“Where is Dad?” Ava asked as she eyed Spyder and apparently sensed his nerves. “Can’t we get on with this?”
Annette shook her head. “You know he’ll sulk.”
Ava rolled her eyes. “Dear Goddess.”
Chris snorted. “I swear, ever since I mated you my Prez is looking less and less fallible.”
“That’s what happens when women get involved,” Mundo said mournfully. “A man’s reputation takes some heavy hits.”
Annette hooted out a laugh. “Like you had much of a reputation before you met Christie.”
He put on a puppy dog face. “See, gentlemen? See the abuse I get?”
A chorus of laughter went up around the table, and when Mars stepped in, it didn’t really die down.
“What’s the joke?” he asked as he rounded the table and bent down to kiss Annette’s forehead. The gesture was absentminded. Not in a bad way, but in a ‘I suck air in, then blow it out’ kind of way.
Kissing Annette, connecting with his mate, it was like breathing to Mars. Just like it was with her daddy and momma, and the rest of the males who were mated on the Council.
Just like it would come to be that way with her and Spyder.
She loved the idea of that.
“Sorry about the delay. But I just got off the phone with Senator Jamieson.”
Ava sat up. “You have?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “What did he say?”
Mars cocked a brow at his daughter. “I’m about to tell you if you’d just hold on.”
Annette pinched him. “Don’t tease. Poor Spyder looks like he’s about to have a heart attack.”
“Sammy is going to be released within the next forty-eight hours.”
Relief pummeled Jessie on her mate’s behalf. She leapt up and with a squeal, threw herself into Spyder’s arms. They clamped around her so tightly, it hurt, but she knew he needed the release of emotion in a way that wouldn’t lessen him in the other males’ eyes—she’d been around Bear Shifters long enough to know how men worked. He burrowed his face into her throat and she felt wetness gather there as she hugged him back. His back was to the Council, thanks to the way she hugged him, and he quickly swiped at his eyes as he kissed her cheek. “Thank you,” he breathed into her ear as he pulled away, and she knew he was thanking her for giving him the cover to let loose some of his relief and happiness. “Ava, Mars, I can’t thank either one of you enough,” he told them both roughly.
“You got that in the right order, son,” Mars said approvingly, and he beamed at his daughter. “You did it, sweet pea.”
Ava looked pleased with herself, and Jessie couldn’t blame her. She’d worked a goddamn miracle so she could look as smug as she damn well chose.
“I don’t really know how you managed to get that Senator on board, Ava, but I’m incredibly grateful,” she told the women who was kind of like a sister to her. Hell, Ava was. They sure as shit fought like siblings.
The other woman grinned. “It’s all about leverage. But unlike Spyder, I used it correctly.” He winced at that, making her and the rest of the Council chuckle. “He’s set his sights on the White House.” She shrugged. “I promised him a nice wad of cash to help him out.”
Mars scowled. “I hope we can afford it.”<
br />
She sniffed. “What do you think? Leave the math to me, Dad.”
“I can’t believe it,” Spyder said softly. “This entire thing has been like a fucking nightmare, and it’s over? Just like that?”
Mars grimaced. “Well, it kind of is. Sammy’s out, which is great. But that’s separate to the issue with Martinez. He’s still out to target us, and now we’ve outmaneuvered him and Sammy is going to be home free, well, that’s not going to make him like you any.”
Annette piped up, “For that reason, we welcome you and Sammy and any of your family into the clubhouse. We’d invite your riders, but that’s not going to happen, is it?”
“No, they’re glued to the clubhouse. But Sammy is the only family I have left, and on his behalf, we’ll accept your generous invitation. Thank you so much. All of you. I know he’d still be stuck in there if it wasn’t for you.”
Mars grimaced. “Same could be said that he wouldn’t be in there if it wasn’t for us too. We pay our dues.”
Spyder lowered his head, and Jessie felt the relief vibrating through him as he went back to cupping her shoulders as he stood behind her chair.
“That brings us to the next topic. What we’re actually going to do about Martinez?”
“Shame we can’t treat him to his own medicine,” Ava said with a huff.
“We got out of that business a long time ago,” Kiko replied. “Not that it wouldn’t be a fitting end to the SOB.”
“It certainly seems like he’s a bad penny. To wait all this time to try to get revenge? And to do it the way he did? Involving innocents in his craziness?” Annette shuddered. “The man’s a lunatic.”
“Are you sure he hasn’t planned more for us?” Jessie asked, and watched as eyes all turned to her and not with pleasure. She shrugged. “That package... is that how hard he’s going to hit us?”
“That could have done our reputation a lot of damage, Jessie,” Mars chided. “Cost us a lot in fines, too. And Goddess, if those guns had been used to commit a murder, say, then we could have been implicated in those investigations. Martinez has already proved that he can manipulate the legal system. The Goddess only knows what he could do with that.”
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