by Lenore Wolfe
He groaned and did what he did every time these kinds of thoughts began to take him over—every time they threatened to cripple him. He tried to push the thoughts away, like he’d tried to do every time they played themselves out in his head—like a bad movie—forcing him to watch—forcing him to stay conscious and watch everything that had happened, always in slow motion—never letting up—never giving him any peace.
Peace had definitely been elusive since that fateful day. The only thing he usually felt was a never-ending, relentless rage.
He again tried to force back the memories as the deep anger swept through him. As usual, he wasn’t successful.
He saw it all again—their dark-red blood on the clean, white snow.
He knew the anger was the left-over remnants of that boy, remaining because he felt helpless to change a thing.
The anger took him to his knees like a blow to his midsection—stealing all the air from his lungs. He’d done a lot of things since that day, but none of the other memories took him down like this—not like his memories of that day—the day when everything good had been stolen from his life.
The day he’d first let the monster loose.
He wanted to beg the heavens to release him—to let him go. He wished the gentle rains could wash him clean like they had washed away the blood that covered him that day.
But nothing would ever make him clean again. Nothing could take it back. Nothing could stop the fact—that he’d murdered all of those boys.
Sure they were gang members—but they were boys. Yes. It was true that they, themselves, had killed before—but that was because of others who had preyed on them—the same way they had been taught to prey upon him.
He dragged himself off the floor. Such thoughts weren’t doing anyone any good. The only thing that would—was fulfilling the prophecy.
And getting Jes back.
Resolutely, he finished getting ready. He even fixed himself a cup of coffee from his single-cup coffee maker.
He was ready to head out the door before the sun broke the horizon. He was hot on a trail, and he wasn’t letting up. He had his hand on the doorknob when his phone rang. Snarling, he reached into his pocket, grabbed his cell, and flipped it open without missing a beat. He had again placed his hand on the doorknob when his sister’s words stopped him cold.
“What?!” His sister started to repeat herself, but he stopped her. “No. I heard you the first time. Did she say anything else?” He listened. All thoughts of going out the door were now gone. Four words kept drumming though his head. Jes had found him.
Well, he thought, it is finally here.
“She left her card?” he repeated, going numb. What kind of cop leaves a calling card for a murderer?
“It will be all right,” he reassured his sister. “I’m heading over there now. We’ll sort this all out when I get there.”
Though his thoughts churned, he didn’t speed. He didn’t believe emotions warranted such behavior, although he understood the impulse. It was just that, for him anyway, he felt all things should be well thought out and executed precisely. He wasn’t given to doing anything in the heat of the moment.
So, during his hour-long drive to his sister’s house, through the bumper-to-bumper traffic, Justice planned. And by the time he got to his sister’s house, he had formulated a plan—a contingency plan for the one that Jes had unwittingly blown for him.
He parked in front of the house, which was sandwiched in between all the others—with hardly a yard in the front or the back—and only a sidewalk and a very tall fence in between it and the next house.
For a fleeting moment he wondered how many more plans she would blow for him. He stopped, with his hand on the door.
Jes.
She was what kept him moving forward—well, Jes… and his sisters.
And Jes hated him.
She hadn’t known him since they were kids—but she still hated him for what he had done to those kids in the alley.
Memories broke through, though he tried to fight them back. He’d never become used to the monster inside of him.
And he was pretty sure he never would.
When he walked in, it was to find all three of his sisters gathered in the kitchen. One of them was cooking something that smelled delicious. All three were muttering something about the fact that they knew they shouldn’t have come back here.
But that wasn’t what they’d been saying when they convinced him to return. Well, and it had been time to return, and they had simply known this.
But they’d been gone all this time. How could she have found him so quickly?
When he walked through the door, Mia handed him a plate—and Ophelia handed him the card.
“She left it with the maid,” she told him. “If one of us had been the one who had opened that door….” She let the rest go unsaid.
He stared down at it, then looked up at all three of his sisters. “It wouldn’t have mattered. It’s time to have a talk with her,” he told her.
Jasmine gave him a quivering smile. They were all afraid for him.
“We’re not going anywhere,” he told the three of them. His eyes glittered. He knew they did, because his sisters withdrew slightly. He made a conscious effort to soften his demeanor. “We’ve come home to stay,” he said, now in a softer tone. “It is time. Everything is in place.” The ring in his voice was final. He looked at them. “We’ve been training all this time for this. Hell, we’ve been training all of our lives for this. This is a battle we have been waiting for—the one that everyone has been waiting for. They are all just waiting for us to give the word.” Three heads nodded in unison.
Jasmine came around the counter and hugged her brother. Next to his petite sisters, he seemed like a giant. He was tall, and naturally muscle-bound. The stout, young man of his youth had taken on his promised size. People usually gave him a wide berth when they saw him. Some even did so just because of his size.
Others kept their distance due to the look in his eyes—and the ever-present rage that seemed to boil off of him.
He wasn’t a patient man. And his sisters usually didn’t argue with him. But he still had a big heart. He would have laid down his life to protect them, as they all had witnessed many times, first-hand. They chalked his impatience up to his need to protect them, and the constant danger.
When he was a boy, he’d had immense patience.
But the years had taken their toll on him. He was constantly being pursued. Half the time they had no idea who their enemy was—the other half they did. He had taken his sisters outside the city, to the Alliance, after their parents had disappeared. And he knew the gangbangers had not been the ones who hunted them. He knew the main group who hunted him—who was, in fact, still after him.
They had never stopped—and Justice knew why. Too much was at stake. His destruction would ensure an easy victory for the people. A people who had been slowly, ever so slowly, taking small steps, putting small chess pieces into place—all in the effort to take the power. It was a power that would give them control over the world—with no one to stop them.
Well, no one was in place to stop them… until now.
Now, he had returned home.
He looked around at his three sisters. He would have been lucky enough to have one sister: he was even more so to have three. The Jaguar People were not an immortal race: they just lived so long that they appeared immortal to shorter-lived humans. However, because of the hardships this placed upon their bodies, the people didn’t have a lot of children. Families were usually lucky to have one child. But somehow his parents had been blessed enough to have four.
And yet, this had been foretold.
The sisters didn’t live together, but they had a good reason for this separation: they each had several men living with them. Each of them had guards, and they couldn’t exactly keep so many people in the one house. People would talk. So, they lived in three different houses on the same street. For their safety, the
y couldn’t live any farther apart than that.
Justice was closest to Jasmine, and he’d missed her the most when he was away. But they all had their places—they all had their training.
And he had his hunting.
Until now, that is.
Now it was time: time for them to return home. They had set everything into motion. They had put everything carefully into place. It was a little sooner than any of them had expected, but Jes had set that into motion by seeking him out.
She had, unwittingly, accelerated their plan’s launch when she started digging around and searching for him. But that was okay. Nothing was lost by them coming home sooner. They had all waited a long time for this. If anything, they were all relieved to finally be doing something—instead of just training for it.
All but Justice; he hadn’t been sitting idle, even to train. He’d been busy—and so had all the men whom he had trained.
None of them had been sitting—or waiting—either.
They had all been very busy waging their own brand of war. And they had gained the respect of an entire nation for it.
It was his sisters who were itching to start going forward. They had trained long and hard and hadn’t had the privilege of doing anything that actually moved things forward. So they were ready. They had been waiting a long time—and they were ready.
The four of them looked at each other. Anticipation heightened their senses. They were excited—but not afraid. They had waited for this moment for far too long too be afraid. It was likely that if anyone one else had to face what they were about to face, that other person would have wanted to run—would have been feeling more than just a little fear. But these siblings had been trained for this practically from the time they were born. They had been planning for this since the day someone had tried to steal it all away from them that horrible day—fifteen years before.
They were—the four of them—like well-honed steel, born of fire and ash. They had planned for every aspect of what was about to take place, and followed every plan down its path—allowing for anything that could possibly go wrong in order to make sure they had a contingency plan for every possible situation. Save one.
They hadn’t completely figured out the mystery surrounding the disappearance of their parents—that was the one x-factor to their plan. Well, and another existed too.
Her name was Jessica Kincaid—and she was one contingency for which they could not plan.
She was also the one part of the plan he had no intention of going without—ever again.
He hadn’t had a choice when he was fourteen years’ old, and suddenly responsible for getting his sisters to safety—and had therefore been forced to walk away from Jes.
Ophelia had convinced him that he would only put her in more danger. She had said that only her grandparents could protect her now. Ophelia was the sage one, always practical—and kind, even when she was a very young child. But it was the most difficult thing he had ever done—to walk away from her then.
He would never again walk away from her—and now, she was the second x-factor.
Actually, she was more than just an x-factor. She was the hinge to the swinging of the door—a door that could swing wide open—or slam shut. Now, as the siblings looked at each other, they could only see the one question in each other’s eyes. Would that x-factor make their plan work—or destroy it?
The biggest problem was—Jes hated him. Not that he blamed her. But she was apt to do anything in her hate—and she was as integral a part of their plan as any other part. No contingency was available for the possibility that she couldn’t be brought around. They did not have any type of plan for that.
She was important to all of them—all three of his sisters—and especially himself. She was part of their future—a part of what was about to happen. She was much too important to their plan for him to fail to bring her around. He couldn’t even consider it—he wouldn’t make a plan for that.
And neither would his sisters.
It was time—to bring forth the prophecy.
Chapter Three
Second Chances
Jes was sitting at the bar, sipping on a beer, and watching everyone who came in the door of Second Chances. The bartender was glaring daggers at her, but she ignored him. Not so easy to ignore—was her partner.
She didn’t want to deal with him. She wanted to deal with the young man who had haunted her dreams every night. She’d played with him when she’d been just a little girl—and he a little boy. She’d been drawn to him, like a moth to the flame.
She didn’t understand how the boy she had loved so much—had gone so wrong.
No. She didn’t want to deal with the bartender—or her partner. What she wanted was to finally track down Justice—and get some answers.
Her partner was also giving her dark looks, but not with the intensity of the barkeep. His glances were born from a different source, and she knew it. He was concerned; he didn’t understand her obsession with this case.
A case that the rest of the department considered cold—as in dead, as in the leads had all dried up and blown away a long time ago.
She straddled the stool, set down her beer, and gave her full attention to her partner. “Okay, out with it,” she said, though she was in no mood to hear it.
The only thing that was on her mind tonight was Justice; and the feelings he invoked in her were stronger than ever.
“What are we really doing here?” He nodded toward the bartender. “He has had it out for you since we walked in here.”
Jes looked at the bartender, swallowed, and looked away. She was surprised he hadn’t come over and told her to leave.
She looked at her partner. He wanted answers—answers she wasn’t willing to give. And the time for dodging questions had long since passed. He had reached his limit with her obsession.
Her partner’s name was Jared. He was more than six feet tall, and packed with a lot of hard muscle. He had dark hair and midnight-blue eyes. Women fell all over themselves to get his attention wherever he went, as they had been doing here all night since they’d first walked in, but he generally ignored them. And he did so now.
He was serious when it was called for and funny when he was relaxed. He was anything but relaxed now. He’d been her partner for more than five years now. But lately, he’d become more and more irritated with her—witnessing her work turn into an obsession with the back-alley slasher. He didn’t understand it, and she’d never enlightened him. She knew if she didn’t do so, and soon, he was going to ask for a different partner.
He was losing faith in her.
She looked up into his midnight-blue eyes. She knew he was sweet on her. Just as they both knew they could never allow that to go anywhere.
“Jared, I have been searching a long time for this guy,” she started out, then scowled. Even she knew she was off to a bad start.”
“Why?” His tone was harsh. He wasn’t taking any half-truths, or half-baked stories.
She’d waited too long to give him something—to give him anything short of the truth. And he wasn’t going to believe the truth.
Who would?
She glanced at the bartender. She wanted another beer, but he didn’t look inclined to help her out. She turned her head fully and glared back at him. He threw down his towel and, hands on hips, met her glare for glare.
She glanced back at Jared, who was clearly watching—and waiting for an explanation.
This wasn’t the place for this.
She glanced at the bartender, who wasn’t bothering to look away at all now. Looking back at her partner, she knew he wasn’t going to wait another minute to hear something—anything—about what they were doing here, or why she’d been so obsessed: more than usual, lately, and her usual was obsessed enough.
“Okay,” she held up a hand of surrender.
He crossed his arms, leaning back on his stool, not letting up for a second.
She glared one more time at the bartender
, then stammered out, “You know the kid in the picture?” She didn’t bother to explain which kid—or even which picture. He’d caught her staring at the picture hundreds of times over the years.
He raised a brow. “The kid that lived through some crazed back-alley slasher that day. You mean that kid?”
Hmmm, it sounded as if her partner had some suspicions of his own. “Yes. That kid.” She took a deep breath. Well, she couldn’t hold back now. “He is the slasher,” she blurted out.
His brow shot up. It took a lot to surprise him. But he clearly was waiting for the punch line. When she gave him a purely serious look, a look of priceless surprise crossed his eyes, and he first sputtered, then started laughing. “You’re serious!”
Her brows shot up, daring him to continue laughing at her.
He tried to school his features, to rein in his laughter, but failed and laughed out loud. It was clear that he was trying to picture a fourteen-year-old boy slashing through one of Chicago’s most fearsome gangs.
She glared at him.
Finally, he sobered. He pinched in his lips, trying to contain his amusement long enough to ask, “Why on earth, Jes, would you, of all people, have bought into that theory?” Then he sobered at his own words.
He stared at her.
She stared back.
He shook his head. He knew she wouldn’t believe this—not without a damn good reason. But what on earth could that reason be? She watched him run the gambit, his gaze finally settling on her when he came up empty for anything that could possibly tell him how she’d drawn this outrageous conclusion.
And he knew—she would have some kind of rationale for this—and a good one.
But damned if he knew what it was.
When she saw that he was clearly out of arguments—and better yet, clearly out of any explanations as to why she’d just said something so crazy—she knew she now had his full attention, and she began speaking very carefully, in a quiet undertone, “He is a rogue member of an ancient race called the Jaguar People.”