“The Sacred Light is gone,” he growled, tamping his anger into a manageable place. “And the law never protected you from anything, it made you slaves again. I’ve made my choice and my choice is Kira.”
“You choose her over your own people?” Edward shouted, flushed and angry.
“Kira is my people! She almost died saving my life,” he thundered, halfway across the room, his claws extending when the intruder alarms sounded.
Edward whirled and jerked a book from the shelf behind him, triggering the mechanism that slid the bookcase away from the elevator that led to the tunnels…and Kira. Edward was tearing at his clothes as Sebastian called upon his Warrior and challenged muscle and bone, shifting and snarling as he reformed.
* * * * *
“What are the words,” Marquette screamed, wild-eyed and desperate. “Say the name,” he roared, holding her against the wall, one hand around her throat, his hook poised at the edge of her jaw. Her toes were barely touching the ground.
“It won’t do you any good,” she gasped, barely able to get the words out. “Fontaine took the Light down with him. The earth swallowed them both.”
“It doesn’t matter where it is. You are the link. We have the Codex but there must be another,” he spat. “What is the name? Say the name!”
There was a low hum, like the beat of several hearts, all converging and surrounding her. Kira struggled, felt the ribbons of crackling energy connecting her to The Twelve.
Yes, the voices whispered. Yes, say the words.
The last words Fontaine had screamed had been directed at her. He’d been imploring. He had prayed to the Light and then—
Da-naa-hak-nahee. Thought is deed and I am the power in my world.
Again, they whispered. Again.
The chant was a buzz inside her head and the power surged up through her toes in bursts, sparkling and bright. There was power in numbers, the collective consciousness reaching out to her, filling her, empowering her, helping her push back the darkness.
He was babbling when his nose started to bleed and by the time blood leaked from the corners of his eyes there wasn’t any force behind the hook that skittered along her jaw. She watched the realization that he was powerless as it settled over him. Anger, confusion and denial contorted his face into a mask of rage. He lost his grip, latching onto her shoulder as he slid and his momentum took them both down.
She saw the light leave his eyes, heard the deep gurgle of his death throes. Outside her door there was still fighting going on, snarls and growling, the screams of the dying. Bastian was screaming her name. Just like before. When the Sacred Light had shattered and bled.
But there were voices added to his, voices that called her and claimed her as one of their own.
Say the words. Hak nahanee. I am one. Hak nahuu. I am whole.
She could feel the heat bubbling from inside her, the glow of sparkling, silver-white shards. She closed her eyes and reached for the red, pulsing ribbons, felt the tingle in her fingertips and focused, still chanting as she felt the first slide of bone against muscle.
Her skin stretched and she welcomed the pain. Tearing at the clothes confining her, she pushed Marquette’s body away with a hand that slid into a claw. She marveled at the strength and could taste the power as she scooted from beneath his body, and stood shakily upon muscular spotted legs. She welcomed her beast with a cry that thundered through the small room. She was Jaguar Warrior.
* * * * *
Sebastian charged into the middle of six black-robed, Brotherhood priests beating a sedated Diego with flat, silver clubs. He caught the first by surprise, slashing his throat as he turned, jumped over his body and slammed into the second who was no more prepared.
Behind him, Jaguar Warriors poured into the narrow hall and Edward guarded his back as the Brotherhood began to panic. Bastian jumped over two headless Jaguar Warriors and sank his teeth into their killer’s skull so quickly that the man died before he had time to cry out.
Light poured from the cell at the end. No, No, No. Fear wormed its way into his gut and he screamed her name. He was still screaming when the light burned brighter for an instant, shattering as an unfamiliar jaguar’s cry ripped through the dying heat of battle.
He made it to the doorway and no farther. She stood over a dead priest, staring at her hands, claws extended. Her Jaguar Warrior was small and perfectly formed…and beautiful. Her skin glowed golden, her downy fur delicately spotted, an aura of red pulsating around her like a halo.
She stumbled, taking her first step toward him, cocked her head and looked down at her feet, a line of concentration knitting her brow. She shifted her attention to the man sprawled below and it was then Sebastian saw the hook.
And so did Edward, and Book, who’s bloody mouth dropped open.
Kira continued her staggering shuffle, straightening when she reached out for him and he led her from the room into the bloody, narrow hallway full of dead priests and Jaguar Warriors.
They walked past the bodies of Dax, her attendant from the Alvarez compound. He served his higher power no more. He was sprawled beneath the young Warrior who’d spat when Bastian had claimed her as firstmate. His claws were still embedded in the larger man’s throat but he’d paid a heavy price. A silver crucifix-dagger protruded from his spinal cord.
Bastian thought she was just surveying the damage when she locked her gaze on Diego, still on his knees, slumped over but trying to stand. She let go of his arm and stepped over a black-robed body to kneel at the miserable young tracker’s side. Sebastian went down with her, barely able to discern Diego’s whispered confession or her reply. He didn’t need to when she put her arms around the young shifter and cried with him.
“Put him back in his cell,” Edward ordered as he approached and Bastian snarled. Two Warriors who’d advanced at Edward’s command, halted. Kira rose, one hand still touching Diego’s shoulder.
“No cages,” she lisped around her teeth. “He aided our escape from Alvarez.”
“Diego will heal,” Edward insisted, “but he cannot be allowed to roam free.”
Bastian saw the subtle change, the mantle of authority surrounding her, as natural as another skin. “I don’t think you understand,” she said softly. “I was not making a request. Call for the doctor. Or I will have someone else do it.”
Edward was clearly not used to taking orders from anyone, let alone a shaky female Warrior. “The Council will be assembled,” he said, clearly attempting to ignore her, “because someone had to let these bastards inside. We have a traitor in our midst,” he bit off tersely, his words perfect, unaffected by the vicious canines he flashed.
Kira straightened, regal and defiant. “There is no traitor, Edward. There is a young man that no one wanted because he didn’t fit your rigid guidelines. He didn’t even realize what he’d done until the man he thought was his friend tried to beat him to death.” She nodded toward the large, blond priest, claws still embedded in his throat.
Edward speared Sebastian with a patronizing glare. “There is still a price to be paid. She cannot circumvent that. She has no power until she is accepted as the Chosen One.”
The red glow around Kira burned brighter for an instant and Edward blinked. The first Warrior to stand behind them was Book, who did not command the two who had jumped to do Edward’s bidding, but who now came to stand behind him. For the first time that Sebastian could remember, Edward looked uncertain. He tried to look through Kira and command his Warriors with only a glare. They remained steadfastly behind Book.
Kira shook her head. “Tread carefully, Edward. And take comfort in the knowledge that The Twelve are more compassionate than either you or the Brotherhood.”
Edward’s glare receded at the mention of The Twelve. It was as if he’d just noticed the female Jaguar Warrior who stood before him, unafraid of the power he wielded.
She refused to leave Diego’s side until Mycroft Bell arrived and the surprised young doctor supervised the young t
racker’s removal to a makeshift infirmary. Only then did she lean against Sebastian and he realized how exhausted she was. He reached beneath her knees and hauled her up against his heart, where she belonged.
“Do you challenge my right as firstmate?”
Edward glanced around the room and shook his head. He stood aside, looking older than he had during the battle and Sebastian almost pitied him.
Kira tucked her head into his shoulder and didn’t speak until the elevator doors closed.
“Where are we going?”
“Upstairs, so that you can get cleaned up and then we’ll have Mycroft check you out, make sure you’re okay.”
“I need to tell you—”
Bastian shook his head. Not yet.
After everything they’d been through together he shouldn’t have been surprised that she wasn’t surprised. She glanced around the elevator, checking out the corners, then the panel in front of them. There was an intercom system and it could have been activated. She settled back.
Three bustling, uniformed maids looked up then lowered their eyes when they saw he carried Kira. He didn’t bother to introduce her. They already knew who she was from watching the battle on the closed-circuit feed in case they’d been needed.
The guards that lined the entryway and staircase nodded in deference as he carried her past, everyone would know who she was within the hour, his firstmate. The Chosen One.
Kira knew what Bastian’s display was all about. She’d acknowledged them all but by the time Bastian put her down in his suite her legs were trembling. She was not used to this form. The energy it took to maintain it sapped her remaining strength and she had no choice but to give in to the pull and let her human dominate.
The process was slow and Bastian stood over her the entire time, then lowered her, naked and weary, to the large, soft bed. Propped against pillows, she didn’t look away as his Warrior receded and his human muscles twisted around his lean, hard body. Bronze and dominant as she’d first seen him behind the waterfall, the only difference being that this time his anger was not directed at her.
“When I saw the light burn out in an instant, I thought…you were gone. I thought they’d killed you,” he groaned, reaching for her. He looked as if he were trying to memorize her face until he bent and claimed her mouth.
He burrowed his hands in her hair, clasping her head while she folded into his embrace, unable to think of anything but that they were safe for the moment and there was a chance they might get another tomorrow, and another, and another. All filled with the promises he was giving her now, tempting her with the slide of his lips, his warm tongue dueling with hers, promising more. She was panting by the time he broke away.
“You should be resting,” he breathed against her mouth. “Someone will be banging on that door any minute. They won’t be able to resist.”
“We can resist opening it,” she suggested.
“I want this resolved. I want you in my bed and in my arms just as soon as Mycroft—”
“No more doctors, no more tests. I just want this and you and some semblance of normal until the world comes crashing down on our heads again,” she whispered with all the urgency of a Warrior fresh from battle and needing proof that he could still feel something.
Unable to resist her plea, he slid in beside her, chest to breast, cock to pussy, and pushed the coverlet away. He licked the curve of her shoulder and her skin held the slight tang of antiseptic soap, a bitter reminder of the cell from which he hadn’t been able to save her.
“Don’t think about it,” she whispered and he pressed his lips into the soft hollow of her throat, gauging her quickening pulse with his tongue.
“Are you a mind reader now? Will I ever have a thought you don’t know?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” she moaned. He eased his mouth over one taut nipple, taking as much of her breast as he could, reveling in her pleasure as she writhed beneath him and he nipped the distended little bead.
He tested her flesh beneath his fingertips as if it had been years instead of days since he’d skimmed over the curve of her hip, the slope of her breast, the warm, wet cleft between her legs.
Bastian watched as she reached between them, fumbling for his erection and encircled his cock with grasping fingers. “I want you inside me,” she demanded, firmly grasping his cock and stroking up and down his hot, hard length. Moisture seeped from his slit and she rubbed it over his cock head, swiveled her grip and increased the pressure.
He smiled and slid two fingers inside her and her warm inner flesh closed around them. She gasped as he thrust. He bent his knuckles and added a twist that resonated throughout her body. She cried out and rocked against his hand, her clit bouncing against his palm. She furiously pumped against his fingers and licked her lips.
“Not until you come,” he whispered, wanting desperately to give in to her demand but knowing any moment someone was going to come knocking at their door. And whoever it would be would want answers. “My hand is wet to the wrist,” he said, slipping another finger inside her, thrusting faster. “Come for me.”
She slowed, her stroke less firm, and pulled him closer, lay back and opened her thighs. She was panting, pushing her pussy against his hand. He licked into the hollow of her throat where her pulse thrummed wildly, and twisted his rough knuckles, increasing the pressure and felt her tighten around his fingers, the first ripples of her orgasm fluttering against them.
She lifted her hips, reaching for more until she shook and her orgasm rolled through her. He drank in her greedy cry with a kiss while she still shuddered. He speared his tongue inside her mouth and she took him inside, giving more than she would take. Just as she had the first time he’d kissed her.
He couldn’t wait. He positioned his cock at her entrance and separated her pulsing sex. He let her clasping flesh draw him in, still kissing her, openmouthed and desperate for more, until he was fully seated. He almost came from the sheer pleasure of her fluttering sheath as it swallowed him.
Sebastian slipped his hands into hers and closed their fingers together, pressing her into all the downy softness beneath them. Her surprised gaze told him she remembered her wrists, pinned against the rock wall by nothing more than his request.
He lowered his mouth to hers and curled his hips. He claimed her with each stroke, the rhythm of his blood challenging her as she lifted to meet him. There was an edge to her desperation that excited him, but not because she feared him. Never again because she feared him.
She squeezed his hands and pumped her hips, setting a furious pace that she dared him to match until his balls drew up and the pressure tightened, coiled low in his belly.
Kira wailed as her orgasm lifted her body and her voice and he felt the primal surge of possession that he no longer feared. He came the instant after she shattered, pulsing around him, holding him while he kissed her long and hard. She was his.
He held her while she shook and rippled around him until she was limp and boneless. He came down beside her, curling around her, his palms cupping her quivering breasts as she shuddered in the aftermath.
“Still afraid I’m going to escape?” she panted.
“I hope you never want to,” he said, kissing her shoulder and listening for the steady breath that would signal she was finally too exhausted to move. He just needed her to stay in his arms until he was sure she was safe. That would take at least forever.
Kira let the pleasant euphoria settle over her but at her back Bastian was tense, wrapped around her as if he were afraid she’d float away. She looked around the spacious, masculine room with its heavy dark wood and its green and gold furnishings and knew it was his. It resembled a jungle where he’d hidden the trappings of his life within the heavy bookcases that lined the walls. Battered books, an antique model airplane, a stone bowl holding three tiny blue eggs.
“Did you grow up here?”
He sighed and spoke against her neck, his breath heavy and warm. “It’s not that impressi
ve, Kira.”
“It is to someone who’s never had the luxury of acquiring a past they could display,” she rasped, turning into him and pressing a kiss against his jaw. “What happens when your father and the Council find out about Marquette?”
“He’s the priest who scarred you, isn’t he?” he asked, drawing back. “He wasn’t trying to exorcise you ten years ago. He was trying to use you.”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you in the elevator. Marquette wanted the words. There’s something about the chant…prayer…whatever you want to call it that Fontaine used before he took the temple down. I used them to access The Twelve and take down Marquette instead.”
“Is that when you became three-natured?”
She shook her head, sighing before she scooted back against the pillows. “The Twelve gave me the words. I knew what they meant but I swear, I’ve never heard anything like them before.”
“The Jaguar language has been forbidden for centuries. It’s why a Jaguar temple carries a Spanish name. I always thought it was because the language could identify us. Now, I’m not so sure. But how the hell did Marquette know about them?”
“He said something about a Codex but the one he had didn’t have all the information he needed. He wanted the other Codex and the words.”
“I don’t think any of us have had all of the information. Marquette knew what you were and why you were here.” Bastian shook his head. “There’s always the chance that he was acting alone, as much a rogue as Fontaine. If he had the force of the Brotherhood behind him they would have attacked in stronger numbers. Marquette thought he would defeat us using the Sacred Light’s power over our minds. It’s the only reason anyone would attack a stronghold with inferior numbers.”
“So we should be safe?”
“For the time being and that might be all we ever get.”
“That’s all anyone ever gets,” she said reasonably. “If people thought about everything that was trying to disrupt their lives on a daily basis, most would go crazy, worrying. I learned a long time ago to take each day as it comes.”
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