by Lenore Wolfe
“Some of them do not want the war—much as they do not agree with, or even follow, the elite elders of their race,” he agreed with her earlier statement. “Some of them know—as clearly as the rest of us—that such a war would essentially be the genocide of both of our races. And some of these rogue races are dangerous enough to simply squash out all that stands in the way of anything they see as dangerous to their people. These factions will annihilate your father if they ever get their hands on him—and you, now that you have made yourself visible to them.”
She scrambled to sit up. “Me! How on earth did I do that?”
“By visiting that gangster’s house!”
“What?” She nearly came off the bed with this “What does an old gangbanger have to do with this?”
“I have reason to believe it was your father who sent them back, in spades, for me—all those years ago.”
She was back to strangling. “No!”
But he wasn’t finished. “And that…,” he stumbled.
“What?” she did come off the bed this time—for the second time that night—and for the second time—the news nearly drove her to her knees.
“I think your mother tried to stop him….”
She screamed at this. She screamed because she knew it was true. Memories of her parents fighting came flooding though.
He kept her from hitting the floor for the second time that night. He laid them both back upon the bed—soothing her. It was too much information. He hadn’t wanted to give her any of that information—hadn’t wanted her to ever know, but he’d had no choice. She was in too much danger.
But it was too much information for her to take in all at once.
He watched the scenes that played through his head, like a movie, as her thoughts went from one memory to the next. She remembered her parents—fighting. Only, this time, she could hear some of the words.
Her mother was telling her father he was a traitor about something. She couldn’t imagine why her quiet, loving mother would ever call her father a traitor.
He was telling her that she didn’t know what she was talking about. What could she possibly know about the politics of their people? What could she possibly know of what went on between their two races? He was telling her that she was as foolish as all the others—that if they all had their way, they would give up their power into the hands of a silly prophecy.
She screamed at him, telling him that he was betraying her family—that he was betraying their friends—that he was betraying his own best friend.
But he didn’t care. Her loving father didn’t care. She hadn’t understood what the implications of their words meant. She hadn’t understood what they meant!
And then, when her parents had disappeared… she’d buried all the memories.
She cried silent tears of grief. Everything she believed was an illusion. Her quiet idyllic childhood was an illusion. Her loving parents were also an illusion.
She wanted to escape—and did so—into sleep.
Justice got up from the bed and covered her up. She had fallen into a fitful sleep. Tomorrow she would have to receive the rest—as if she hadn’t had to receive enough tonight. The knowledge that everything you thought you knew had been a lie can test the depths of your abilities to stay centered—even perhaps to stay sane.
But tomorrow she would also have to accept the knowledge that her life, as she knew it, was forever and irrevocably changed.
Chapter Twelve
The Killer
Justice had strong coffee, and bacon and eggs waiting for her by the time she had pulled herself from her bed, showered, and made it into her tiny kitchen.
She looked around. He had packed things up in her room. He had done so down here too. She had the uneasy feeling she hadn’t heard everything—yet.
“Am I going somewhere?”
He nodded, setting down his cup. “You are going to take an indefinite leave of absence. And I know you won’t put us both through the trauma of trying to hang onto your life.” He frowned at her. “I’m sorry, Jes. You know this must be.”
It was funny how bossy a man could be when he was afraid that the woman he was so desperate to protect was going to fight him every step of the way. She didn’t put him through any more. “I know, Justice,” she whispered. “I’m stubborn, not stupid. It would be stupid to paint myself as a target to this enemy.”
He let out a visible sigh of relief. He’d clearly thought she was going to make this difficult.
“Where will I go?”
“To live with one of my sisters.”
She nodded and almost grinned. He had never before shown her so much of what he was thinking as he was right now.
He smiled at her. “Okay. I’m relieved. I’ve a feeling you can be very difficult to deal with if you don’t agree to go along.”
“You would be correct in that assumption.” She took a sip of her coffee, and curled her lip. It was stout. “But I have to have the opportunity to talk with my partner.”
He nodded.
“Will I get in on some of this training?” She smiled. For once he was surprised. She was getting better at this. “I assume the rest of my life will be spent in dealing directly with our people—and the Crow elite. So—I ask again—will I get in on some of this training?”
His gaze smoldered. She’d seen that too late. In answer, he stood up and pulled her into his arms. “Does this mean you have accepted the rest of your future?”
She went up in flames. She hadn’t missed the full implications of that question.
He kissed her then, and she was helpless to stop him. She’d never felt anything like this—not ever.
He pulled away with a groan. “We have to get you out of here—and then….” He let his meaning sink in—and the full realization of exactly what that would entail.
She quickly took herself up to her room. She threw herself across her bed in mortification. The memories of last night flooded her—in spite of her grief, he’d still caused the most intoxicating feelings of desire to burn within her that she had ever known. How was that possible? How could someone like him make her feel that way?
Could she ever share her life with a murderer?
They put some of the things she would need into his car. He assured her that he would have the rest of her things packed and moved for her—including her own car.
She hadn’t had time to think about the ramifications of what all this was doing to her life—much less adjust to the idea of it.
Her life, she suddenly realized, was forever changed.
She was on the hit list of some of the most dangerous tribes out there. It would be a miracle if she survived, even with everything Justice was doing to protect her.
It was an hour to his sister’s house, and he obviously wasn’t wasting the time.
He glanced at her—she could feel he had more to say. How much more could she take? She steeled herself. She had to hear it—she had to know it all—know everything.
“Out with it,” she said.
He turned onto the freeway and worked his way into the lane he needed in the bumper-to-bumper traffic. When they were heading in the right direction, he began. “I have been hunting rogue vamps for many years,” he revealed.
He didn’t look at her.
She shouldn’t have been, but she couldn’t have been more surprised. She’d had him tagged for hunting the occasional vamp—the ones who hunted humans—not necessarily whole factions of rogue vamps. She wasn’t easily shocked and usually easily rolled with the punches. But he had managed to consistently shock her.
He kept looking forward, as if he didn’t want to look at her when he said the rest. “I have created something of a respect with the tribes.
Her mouth fell open. “How on Earth did you do that?”
“You don’t want to know.”
She stared at him in amazement. “There’s only one way you could gain such respect—and that is if they actually feared you!”
/> He did look at her now. “Yes. They fear me. And because they fear me—you would be protected—if….”
Yep. She had felt his meaning loud and clear. “Oh, no! Hell, no!”
“You are my mate, Jes!”
“We don’t live by the archaic traditions of our people!”
“But we cannot deny the bond, either!”
That shut her up. She turned her attention to what was going on outside the car, because what was going on inside the car had the power to send her up in flames just by innuendo. How could she fight him off—if she couldn’t even keep her body under wraps?
Her father had betrayed her. Her mother had died because of this betrayal. Her future was gone. The history of her people had betrayed her—she was now hunted.
Now, she felt as if even her body sought to betray her. And now Justice was claiming his right to her—if for no other reason than to protect her.
Destiny sought to force her down a path upon which she’d had no intention of going.
And she didn’t seem to have any choice in the matter.
It wasn’t Justice. She just couldn’t be bound to anyone that way. She didn’t want her entire future—her entire life—every decision she ever made, tied up in someone else. It felt—oppressive.
“Is that how you see sharing your life, Jes? As oppressive? What about sharing a common bond? What about knowing you have someone to come home to, someone to share everything with, even the bad, no matter what happens?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. That sounded too good—much too good.
The moment she saw Mia, the two women hugged fiercely, tears rolling down both of their faces. Justice’s sisters had been Jes’s friends. They were like sisters to her. But Mia had meant something special to Jes.
Mia had been beautiful as a child—inside and out. She’d had dark, curly hair, and golden-green eyes. Her skin had been the color of light cinnamon. But now she was stunning. Her skin was like warm honey. Her hair had the same warm highlights, spinning in thousands of tiny, tight ringlets. She was generous and compassionate about Jes’s situation.
She lived in a beautiful, old brick house on the north side of Chicago. Jes was shown to a beautiful bedroom. She felt right at home, not the least uncomfortable, and she wanted for nothing—except more time with Justice. Which irritated her.
Mia’s name caused some tension in Jes, though. She had stopped thinking about it long ago. It always caused her stomach to clench whenever she heard it. It was as if it rang a bell in her head—threatening to force her to remember… something she would rather forget. Like the day she had met Mira….
Perhaps that was it. Their names were so similar.
Jes was given the opportunity to talk with her partner—which hadn’t been easy. He hadn’t so readily accepted her abrupt change in life plan—and who could blame him? Suddenly, she was running off with people she hadn’t seen since she was a child.
But he had been more alarmed by the idea that so many bands of vamps and Jaguar People existed. And he hadn’t liked the idea of something so powerful hunting her.
He had asked if humans were ever invited to train with the People—and Justice had actually said he would look into it. Jes couldn’t believe he was actually contemplating the idea, but perhaps it was smart. What better way to keep an eye on a human who knew way too much for his own good?
Not that most humans would believe him if he chose to tell.
She was thrown into training. She spent hours upon hours learning hand-to-hand combat moves she hadn’t even known existed. She had already spent many hours learning as much about hand-to-hand combat for her police training as she could find. Chicago had offered even more diversity for further training. And then, the People had their own version as well, which she was now learning.
Justice rarely came around. She tried not to think about what he might be doing; she didn’t like to think about it, because she knew whatever it was—it was likely dangerous, beyond anything she had ever experienced. Thinking about it reminded her of a little newspaper—and a little tavern outside Chicago. Thinking about it made her wonder what happened when he answered those ads.
She had a feeling that something else was behind his long absences, though. She had a feeling he was giving her time and space, but she just didn’t see what he was trying to accomplish by keeping them apart. How would she find any answers with distance between them?
Justice was her mate.
If he was out fighting rogue Crows—she wanted to fight beside him.
But what if he were fighting their people? Worse yet, what if he was killing humans who got in the way? She needed answers—and she wasn’t going to get any answers with him staying away.
She threw herself into her training—if only to keep her cop’s instincts from causing her to go out looking for Justice and thereby making herself an easy target for a rogue Crow and getting herself killed. She had heard that they were exceedingly good at tracking their target—she didn’t want to find out just how good they were. Right now, Justice had her surrounded with Jaguar Warriors.
She didn’t want to think about how a fourteen-year-old boy who had been forced to go into hiding had managed to grow into a man and somehow amass a large army along the way.
At any given time, she had counted at least thirty in his army—and these were only the ones sent to guard her. Seven lived with his sister. She’d been at the other sisters’ houses, and there were seven in each of their homes too. Any more would have had people talking. These were enough. They were intimidating men.
They never all left the house at the same time. Four of them only went out at night. Three of them only went out during the day. And they never left together.
On either side of the sisters’ houses were other houses owned by the People. She knew this because she had spotted more of the warriors coming in and out of those homes. She knew because she knew the Jaguar People. She could smell the blood of a human; she could smell her own people just the same.
They were just as disciplined. She would only see one leave the house on any given occasion. They dressed like everyone else, and went out of their way to do things like bring home a shopping bag or walk the dog, so as to appear like they were doing all the same mundane things as any human.
But they were not human, and they each had one thing that made them stand out from their neighbors—a watchful eye that never missed a thing.
One of them always appeared whenever she went for a walk. She didn’t know how they were doing it, but one of them always came out onto the steps, as if to tell her they were aware of what she was doing—in case she got any ideas of going off on her own.
Nothing ever needed to be said out loud.
Justice was having her watched—like a hawk.
She didn’t know whether she was impressed—or pissed off… but whenever she thought of the rogue Crow hunters, she remembered to at least be thankful—and kept her temper in check.
She asked Mia, about three weeks into her stay, about once again seeing her grandparents. Mia shrugged and told her it would be best to ask Justice about it the next time he stopped to visit. Jes had the feeling that his sisters never did anything without getting their brother’s approval first.
And this rubbed her the wrong way.
She constantly had to remind herself of the danger—if only to keep herself from going off and doing something dangerous out of sheer frustration. Not that she had a whole lot of time for getting herself into trouble. She was kept pretty busy with her training.
Whenever she wasn’t in hand-to-hand or combat training, she was being taught the politics of the elders of their race. She couldn’t, for the life of her, figure out why they were teaching her the politics of her people; she’d been taught both their history and their politics from childhood. Why the brush-up lessons?
When was she going to get to meet this child of the prophecy, who she’d come to understand was a grown man now? And why hadn’t an
y of the other groups of the Jaguar People ever met him?
Apparently Justice’s sisters had. And from the two words she’d managed to get out of any of his guard dogs, apparently they’d met their prince, too. So why hadn’t the People?
Her grandparents—and, for that matter, her own parents—were part of the elite of the Jaguar People, so why hadn’t they met him?
The questions were building—and beginning to burn a hole in her. Justice had better turn up soon—or she was going to have to go looking for answers.
If only to make him come to her.
Justice moved like a shadow. He didn’t make any sound. Neither did the twelve other shadows that moved with him. They moved forward with the precision of well-trained men, ready for battle. They’d had years to perfect their training together. And they needed every advantage they could get.
The prey they were hunting didn’t go down easily.
A band of vamps was holed up in an old house. Contrary to popular belief, they weren’t exactly vulnerable during the day. And they were quite dangerous at night.
The hunters moved forward in twos, each pair clearing the way for two others to move past them, until they were well within the compound. Though still within the city limits of one of Chicago’s suburbs, this particular old house was built well off the beaten path, and if not obviously so, it was still very well reinforced.
The fence was made of rock, and stood six feet tall. The guards were well-hidden on four well-placed, and hidden, sections of the fence, facing the four directions. It hadn’t been easy for his men to take them out. They had done so with blow darts.
They were not killing the vamps. They had been ordered to bring them in alive, so each and every one must be taken the same way.
The small dose of poison would not keep the vamps paralyzed for long, so several sentinels were moving behind them, dragging them to an armored vehicle and locking them within, while also providing a hind-guard.
They had been watching this particular group for the past few days. They had counted nine of them. So far, they had taken down the four guards.