Do I want there to be?
After a moment of fraught indecision in which she debated the merits of opening this particular can of worms, Jack said, “I thought you thought I was a bigot.”
He answered softly, “I thought you thought I was a lying, scheming, underhanded son of a dung beetle.”
The air all around them breathed with the lush music of the rainforest. Frogs croaked. Insects whirred. Mammals chirped or called or howled. Everything smelled of nighttime and wildness, and the space between them was palpably alive. Jack felt on the verge of something vast and bottomless, a weightless, sightless sensation of falling or flying blindfolded, of jumping into impenetrable blackness and having it swallow her whole.
Why do you make me feel like this?
Why is it when I look into your eyes I feel . . . free?
“I do think you’re a lying, scheming, underhanded son of a dung beetle,” Jack agreed, letting him see the truth of it in her unguarded gaze. “I hate that you tricked me. I hate that you used me.” She hesitated, then went on, smaller; emotion constricting her voice. “I hate that I liked it so much.”
He said her name, his eyes as soft as his voice.
“I hate that I could have looked back on that night with only good memories—amazing memories—and now I can only look back and see one more betrayal.”
She’d wounded him. She saw it in the way he stiffened, in the way his glittering eyes reflected back sorrow and shame. For a moment she was brilliantly, blindingly glad she’d hurt him. For a moment it was enough that she wasn’t the only one in pain.
But then he whispered with searing, startling remorse, “I didn’t know you, Jacqueline. I didn’t know you. If I had, I never would’ve agreed to it. I never would’ve hurt you. I thought you were something else, someone else, this heartless woman who felt nothing, who only wanted to spread hatred and fear. But you’re not. You’re . . . unexpected. You’re . . .”
He hesitated, but seemed unable to continue, or unsure of what to say.
His gaze dropped to her lips.
Everything honed to a crystalline clarity. His eyes, his face, the space between them, crackling hot. A frenzy of emotion whipped her heartbeat into a thundering gallop, and it became hard to breathe.
A sinister rustling in the underbrush ripped her attention away from him to the dark forest.
Hawk whirled around. He shoved Jack behind him with one hand. From his throat he issued a low, preternatural hiss.
It was answered by more hissing from the darkness.
Jack froze in horror as she peeked around Hawk’s shoulder and saw, slinking forward in a solid line from the depths of the jungle, ten monstrously huge black panthers. Their long tails waved in sinuous harmony, their eyes shone with predatory malice, their muzzles full of sharp fangs were bared.
They moved clear of the underbrush, slowly spread apart, and sank into coiled, silent crouches.
Poised to pounce.
“I didn’t realize our lord and master would send a welcoming party,” Hawk snarled in the Old Language to the gathered animals, feeling Jacqueline’s fingers digging into his back. “You’re lucky I didn’t rip off your heads before I realized who you were!”
A flash of light, a coil of smoke, and there stood Luis Fernando, head of Alejandro’s security detail, naked as the day he was born.
Smirking.
“Su sahapu beleti immaru masku amari sumsu mimma, ahu.”
Translation: You were too wrapped up in lady white skin to realize much of anything at all, man.
“Edin na zu, Nando,” Hawk replied, shooting the naked Fernando a murderous glare. Go to the desert. It was the equivalent of “go to hell” in the ancient tongue, and was used in the same way.
How much had they heard?
If the smirk on Nando’s face was any indication, far too much.
Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Already this was proving to be the disaster he’d foreseen, and they hadn’t even stepped foot inside the colony.
In a burst of energy that sent a heated blast of air rippling through the small clearing, the nine other panthers Shifted as one. Behind Hawk, Jacqueline squeaked in terror.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Nando stepped forward and peered in avid curiosity around Hawk’s shoulder. Against his back, her fingers trembled, and before Hawk knew what he was doing, a low warning growl rumbled through his chest.
It brought Nando up short. His brows lifted. “No need to get testy, ahu.” His lips twitched. He added, “You lying, scheming, underhanded son of a dung beetle.”
The other nine burst out laughing, and Hawk’s temper snapped.
He stepped forward, lashed out with his fist, and connected with Nando’s jaw like a hammer against a mango.
The big male went flying backward in an awkward tangle of naked limbs. He landed on his back in a thicket of underbrush with a thud and the pouf of flying foliage. Shouting a volley of curses, he thrashed around among the low branches until he scrambled to his feet again, while the others howled with laughter, slapping one another on the back.
“The next one who says another word is going down with him,” Hawk snarled, eyeing each of them in turn.
“Somebody hasn’t gotten laid recently,” chuckled one of the group.
Another answered, “I’m sure he’ll take care of that later tonight; Luiza’s so hot for him to get back she’s practically in Fever.”
Hawk had them both flat on their backs with devastating punches before either of them could make a move in defense.
“Anyone else?” he shouted to the remaining seven.
No one replied.
Cradling his jaw and staggering around in the demolished bushes, Nando snarled, “You won’t be able to play with Luiza tonight because you’ll be back in the stocks again, Salsu Maru! You can’t attack the Alpha’s guard!”
“We’ll see about that,” Hawk muttered. He turned, grabbed Jacqueline’s hand, and pulled her along behind him as he marched into the trees, not bothering to look and see if the group had followed.
They hadn’t yet . . . but they would.
They always did.
After trudging through the dark forest behind a seething Hawk for about five minutes—and regaining her equilibrium after witnessing a group of giant black cats morph into a group of giant naked men—Jack said, “So! That went well.”
He spat something in that strange, beautiful language Nando had spoken. His strides were so long and hurried she nearly had to run to keep up with him.
“Just out of curiosity . . . are you that popular with everyone in your colony?”
Still he didn’t answer. She heard grumbling and growling over his shoulder, some noises that sounded like a spitting snake, but he didn’t answer or even break his stride, seemingly determined to get where they were going as fast as humanly possible.
Humanly. Ha!
Jack was breathing hard, and it wasn’t because of their accelerated trek through the jungle. Her nerves were screaming, her heart was pounding: she felt as if she might jump right out of her skin.
This was it. This was what she’d spent nine days of her life sailing and hiking and dreaming about, and getting mentally prepared for.
The Big Event.
Did a bride walking down the aisle feel as nervous as this?
She doubted she’d ever find out.
“Uh . . . Hawk?”
Silence.
Okay. You don’t want to talk. Fine. Let’s try—
“Salsu Maru!”
What a lovely sense of satisfaction that was, watching him freeze mid-step when she spoke those two—admittedly unknown—words.
He whirled around and stared at her with all the geniality of a shark contemplating the fat, luscious form of a seal bobbing in the waves above its open maw.
“You don’t even know what you’re saying!” he spat, livid.
Jack crossed her arms over her chest. “Whatever it was, it served my purpose. I have your attention now.”
His lips thinned. His nostrils flared. His eyes—the darkest, richest emerald—narrowed.
Scary-beautiful. Been there, done that. Moving on.
“I just want to ask you this one thing, and then we can continue our lovely death march down the hill toward my ultimate demise.”
He waited, breathing hard, his eyes flashing Danger! like neon signs.
Jack drew in a breath and asked, “Are you okay?”
He blinked a few times. His nose twitched. “Am I okay.”
He’d repeated it flatly as if she’d spoken in a foreign language and he was trying to grasp the meaning of the words.
“Yes. That’s the question: Are you okay?”
It seemed to pull the plug on his anger, letting it filter out of his body like water down a drain. He exhaled, passed a hand over his face, and muttered, “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
Jack frowned at him. “Uh . . . no. Yes? I don’t know. What do you mean?”
“Do you have any sense of self-preservation whatsoever?”
It seemed a reasonable query, delivered with a solemn, intent gaze, so Jack answered it honestly. “Yes. My sense of self-preservation is intact, thank you. As is my sense of empathy for other people who might be having a hard time. Which you seem like you might be having. Hence the question.”
Bizarrely, Hawk groaned. “You see—that!” He pointed an accusing finger at her. “Stop doing that!”
“Doing . . .”
“Being nice!” he shouted. “Being compassionate! Being . . . you!”
“Don’t be me,” Jack repeated, nonplussed. “Right. You’d rather I be . . . ?”
“Someone else! Anyone else! Be the cold-hearted bitch I thought you were before I got to know you better!”
That hurt. It also confused the hell out of her. “Why are you mad at me?”
He shouted, “Because you make me crazy!”
Jack dropped her arms to her sides. “Hawk—”
“No! Just—no! We’re going to keep walking, and you’re going to keep quiet, and we’re going to go into the colony, and you and I are going to forget anything ever happened between us. You’re going to get your story, and get the hell out of my life! All right?”
Jack wasn’t stupid. She understood men; she’d had plenty of experience with their rage, their possessiveness, and their irrationality when pushed into a corner.
She knew by his words and his tone and the fury in his eyes that she’d triggered all the dark, slinking monsters of his nature, the things he would never admit to himself that he felt or thought or needed, and in doing so, had sealed her own fate.
She’d driven him away.
She’d made him hate her.
She was going to die in this jungle, alone.
The realization sliced through her body, cold as winter wind.
Fine. Hate me. Leave me. Go back on all your promises.
You won’t be the first.
Calmly, quietly, looking Hawk dead in the eye, Jack said, “All right.” Then she brushed past him, striding ahead into the dark forest.
After she’d gone several paces, Hawk called from behind her, “You have no idea where you’re going.”
“Yes, I do. This way.” Jack shoved a branch out of her face that appeared from the darkness.
She heard his “Argh!” of exasperation, and hoped he choked on his tongue.
“Jacqueline, stop!”
Tch! Like I’m taking orders from you again! She kept marching forward, stumbling over tree roots, flailing her arms in front of her to keep away the vines and branches and something that hovered nearby, whirring ominously close to her head. Was it a bird? An insect? A vampire bat? With her luck, it probably was a vampire bat, and she was going to die in the rainforest with a furry, winged rodent attached to her neck, fattened with her blood.
Figures.
Hawk called her name again, angrier this time, and when she didn’t respond, he bolted after her. His immense speed brought him in front of her in a heartbeat. She stopped short, glaring daggers at him from only a few feet away.
He said tersely, “You can’t see. You’ll hurt yourself. You have to follow me.”
“I’d rather eat a pile of shit than follow you.”
This line was delivered with zero emotion or expression; it was just a stated fact that had the blood rising in his cheeks. He studied her face for several moments.
“You’re angry with me.”
“Your powers of comprehension are remarkable. Congratulations on your acute grasp of the obvious.”
His lips tightened. He folded his arms across his chest.
“Oh, not happy? If I recall, not two minutes ago you told me—so nicely, I might add—you’d rather I be the cold-hearted bitch you thought I was. Well—done. Here she is, Bitch of the Century!” Jack spread her arms wide in a “ta-da!” gesture.
He snapped, “Stop it!”
“You stop it!”
“You’re acting like a child!”
Jack felt as if her eyes would pop out of their sockets. She yelled, “I’m acting like a child? You just punched three guys in the face because you thought they were making fun of you!”
He shouted back, “They were making fun of me! Because of you!”
“What?” she screeched, livid. “How was that possibly my fault—”
“It’s your fault that I’m here in the first place, babysitting, when I could be doing something a little more useful with my time!”
Jack gasped in outrage. “Well I’m so sorry I’m infringing on your precious time! No doubt you’d rather be spending it with Luiza—”
“It’s your fault for writing that article and pushing us into a corner and forcing our hand!” he shouted over her, stepping closer. He was furious, breathing hard, his eyes blazing green fire. “It’s your fault that I’m all upside down and inside out and can’t tell my ass from the end of my nose!”
“It must be hard since they both look alike!” Jack yelled, shaking in rage.
Hawk, vibrating rage back at her, stepped even closer and got right up into her face so they were staring at each other like two fighters in a ring waiting for the bell to sound.
He shouted, “And it’s your fault for making me feel all these . . . horrible . . . feelings!”
Then he reached out, grabbed her, pulled her against his chest, and kissed her.
For a moment there was nothing but cold shock and breathlessness. She was so stunned she didn’t even close her eyes. His mouth was hard and unforgiving against hers, a solid pressure without softness, but then he opened his lips and slid his tongue against hers.
Cold shock was replaced with white hot, encompassing heat.
His taste was velvet soft and complex and lovely in the way of pure, natural things, like sunshine and starlight and clear running water, or the sweetness of a summer peach plucked right from the tree. It was the same as the first time she’d tasted him, and she reveled in it the same way, wondering beyond the sudden rush of pleasure how anything could taste quite so delicious.
Her arms wound up around his shoulders. Her lids slid shut. She pressed herself against him, her anger forgotten, and he moaned into her mouth.
The kiss went on and on, rough and deep and greedy and wonderful, until she was so flush with desire she ached.
He had calluses on his hands, she remembered that from when she lay naked beneath him at the hotel and he’d peaked her nipples simply by brushing them with the rough pad of his thumb. Now those hands were cradling her head and bottom, crushing her against him so tightly their bodies were nearly as fused as their mouths,
so tightly she felt the straining hardness of his erection, pressed against her lower belly, straight through their clothes.
She broke away first. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. He didn’t open his eyes, and he didn’t release her. He just held her like that, breath ragged, lips parted, a tremor running through his chest.
She watched as he slowly came back to himself. He swallowed, licked his lips, his lids drifted open. He blinked as if he didn’t know where he was, but then his eyes cleared and a new look came into them, replacing the warm haze of only seconds before.
Horror.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped, releasing her so quickly the cool night air was a shock against her breasts, so recently pressed into the heated expanse of his hard chest.
He stammered, “I’m sorry . . . I-I don’t know . . . it-that won’t happen again.”
Though he was avoiding her eyes, his expression told her he was mortified. He stepped back and clasped his hands behind his neck, as if to keep them from going anywhere else.
“Okay,” Jack whispered, her head still spinning. “That’s good.” She nodded, confused and off-kilter, but unwilling to admit that it wasn’t good, especially since he seemed so aghast and ashamed with himself.
She pushed her feeling of disappointment—stupid, stupid—down and away, hoping it would never reappear.
Because judging from the way his face had gone white and he was blinking like a baby bird who’d utterly failed his first attempt at flying and now lay stunned and broken on the sidewalk, that wouldn’t be happening again.
Without another word, he turned and walked stiffly away, and Jack was forced to decide whether to follow him or stay in the jungle. Alone. In the dark.
She followed him.
After fifteen minutes of silent walking, they broke through the trees and, at long last, Jack got her first glimpse of the colony, filled with supernatural creatures, which would now be her home.
Magical. Enchanted. Spellbinding. Dazzling. Unreal.
Darkness Bound (A Night Prowler Novel) Page 15