by Lenore Wolfe
“And then the barkeep called me a Jaguar Witch—and I felt stripped bare. All I could think was—how did he know?”
Jes sat back down on the couch. Mira sat next to her.
“So—how does it feel to know you have a sister?” Mira asked with a laugh.
Jes smiled widely. “It feels pretty… amazing actually.”
“I know—huh. I’ve wanted to tell you since the first time I saw you. I was so upset when Amar wouldn’t let me. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done—not telling you. I was—just so happy to know I had sisters. But then—you didn’t remember. And Sandra was missing—and….” Mira looked down—a sad look crossing her face.
“I know.” Jes felt choked up, too, at the thought. “I didn’t even know she was—my sister,” she finished quietly. “It’s all so hard to grasp.”
Mira grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Do you think you can begin training—soon?”
Jes nodded. “Give me a little time with these other lessons.”
Mira nodded and got up. “But I’m coming back to see you—very soon. And you know that Amar will want to come see you right away.”
Jes followed her to the door. Mira opened it, and turned back to hug her.
“Did they tell you to tell me?” Jes asked after a moment. Now that she found she had a sister—she didn’t want her to leave—even for a little while.
Mira shook her head. “No. And Amar is going to have a fit.” She giggled. “But I have felt this—urgency—lately. I had to come—I had to tell you. That’s all I know.”
Jes nodded. “I’m glad you did,” she said softly.
Jes went straight to bed, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t go to sleep. She tossed and turned. She was simultaneously excited and grossly overwhelmed. She didn’t know whether she should laugh—or cry. She didn’t know how to feel.
It felt as if her whole life had been one big lie. Yet, she couldn’t be happier to know that it had been.
She didn’t know what was up—and what was down. The mother she had loved—had been her sister. The grandmother she had loved—had been her mother. She had three sisters—and hadn’t remembered them at all. And now—she was one of the power of three.
How could she possibly process any of it? But most of all—how could she process that? She had rejected all signs of her powers—forced them down—tamped them down with growing determination.
She knew what these powers were—even though she hadn’t been told anything. She had been raised around all things supernatural.
She knew what such powers were.
She just hadn’t wanted to know.
Chapter Fourteen
Jes and Justice
In spite of all of the guards, Jes woke to find an uninvited male in her room that night. She sat up in a rush—and it wasn’t her usual fearless façade that came rushing through.
A deadly enemy was in her room. She could see that easily by the glow of his eyes. But she could smell him, too.
“Dracon,” she intuited. “What do you want?” she breathed, trying to get her rapid heartbeat under control.
“Don’t transform,” he whispered breathily. “I want to get a look at you—Justice’s mate—now that you are all grown up.”
She glared at him. “And why would I give you this to you?”
He smiled. He was very handsome—for a vamp, she thought. She had thought she had remembered that wrong—thought she’d been caught up in some teenage illusion—or delusion, as the case might have been. But, no. Here she was, a full-grown adult, and he was still breathtakingly handsome.
She felt sorry for the human women he took up with. He was hypnotic, mesmerizing; how could a mere human resist him?
She had to concentrate to avoid panic. She wanted to look around, to try to gauge if she had an opening for escape. But she knew there wouldn’t be and forced herself to remain still.
“How did you get in here?” she asked—as if she didn’t know. But they had prepared for such things.
He gave a low laugh. “Your people are always underestimating us.” He stepped forward.
“Our people, now? Once, we were all friends.” She sat up. He was the most handsome vamp she had ever seen. He moved with a lithe grace that would have left even the Jaguar People envious. There as something dangerously appealing about him. She knew—had always known, instinctively—he would make an extremely dangerous enemy.
And she had always been glad he was not their enemy.
Until fifteen years ago.
“Relax, I’m not going to harm you—not even going to touch you.” He stood still as stone. “See, I’m staying right here. I’ve only come to look at you—to see what he sees in you. To see what would make him do something so foolish—as to threaten me….”
She gave a sharp laugh. “Yeah, like you couldn’t move in the blink of an eye.”
The next thing she knew, he was sitting beside her. “You mean like this,” he said and ran a finger down the side of her flushed face. “Hmmm, yes.”
He got up from the bed and moved away from her. “Not the scent of a human—but very desirable, nonetheless.” He walked to the window.
“I thought you people needed an invitation?” she spat.
“Then it would seem—I’ve been invited.” And he turned and was gone.
She went limp with relief. And then, she jumped up and ran to the door, and forcefully threw it open. It crashed against the wall. That was all that was needed to alarm everyone in the house. In the next moment, the guard in the hall was in scanning her room.
She wouldn’t have to do anything foolish to get Justice to come to her after all. His sister got right on the phone. It would seem that Justice’s worst enemy had just paid her a visit.
He showed up within two hours and came straight to her room.
She had been watching out the window, but she still didn’t manage to catch his entrance into the house. She turned around, and then did something she thought she’d never do.
She raced over and threw herself into his arms.
He held her tightly for a long moment. Then he leaned back and searched her face for any signs of damage. “He didn’t hurt you, then?”
She shook her head. “Did you really think he would?” she asked. Then, bit out, “He was here, Justice—in the house. Your sister seemed to think you’ve been talking to him.” Her voice came out in a rush. “How was he able to come in? He said it would seem that he had been invited?”
“And so he was,” he said with what sounded like regret in his voice.
“How?” she asked. “How was he invited? This isn’t the same house as when we were kids. How did he get invited into this house?”
He strode across the room and sat down on her bed, where she joined him, searching his face for answers.
“He was my best friend, Jes.”
She couldn’t have been more surprised if he had hit her. “I know that, Justice. But all of that changed, didn’t it? How have you managed to still be talking to him?”
He gave a sharp, derisive laugh. “Don’t you mean, how did I manage to remain good friends—best friends—with a vamp? Isn’t that what you always wanted to know?” he asked derisively. “It was easy. We were raised together—just like you and me.” He looked at her and winced. He had a great deal of sadness in his eyes that checked anything derisive of her own that she’d been about to say.
“I’m sorry, Jes,” he said with obvious regret.
Jes did something she would question for some time later. She hugged him—hugged him closely. After a moment, she pulled away.
“Justice—he hated you that day—that day he left. And I thought you hated him.”
“Jes, he is the most dangerous vamp I have ever known. If he had hated me—I wouldn’t have lived.”
They had gone down to the kitchen, where she had made them a stout pot of coffee. They sat across from each other. He was sitting quietly. She sat waiting for him to explain.
/>
He gave a heavy sigh. “As I have said, we have been talking. We were part of the Alliance; you knew that. That day, I thought he would come back and kill me—but he never did. And then, he did come back—and wherever I went, he would show—on occasion. He said he was keeping an eye on us. We were to ensure that our people never severed the bond. We make a great Alliance.
“Jes—apart from us—as you well know—he’d make for a very dangerous enemy. And our feuding could bring a lot of destruction to the Earth—and the human species.”
She nodded. “I can see that. I can even see how raising us all together might have helped us to better understand one another. But why you two? What do the two of you have that would possibly impress two powerful races?”
“We are part of the ones who have watched over the one known from the prophecy.”
Her mouth formed a little “o”. She shifted, trying to comprehend this. “What happened that day to make him so angry? Why did he come to the house in a murderous rage, Justice? How did he become your enemy?”
He looked up at her then. “Your father happened. He almost succeeded in killing me. But that day, he did succeed in killing much of what was good in Dracon.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jes
Jes felt the wind leave her in a whoosh. She searched Justice’s face. She didn’t detect the slightest hint of accusation in his tone or face; so why did she feel so badly?
“You did not do this, Jes,” he told her, shaking his head. “And I don’t tell you this to make you feel guilty for something you had no control over. I tell you this because Dracon was in your room, and I need you to understand exactly why he is so dangerous.”
She cocked her head, watching him.
“Dracon is a very angry customer. They were training us as…,” he paused, “the right-hand men of the prophecy.” He looked up at her then.
She sensed something he wasn’t saying.
He nodded, but didn’t enlighten her. Well, she didn’t see the point in pressing. He wouldn’t tell her until he was ready.
“Anyway, your father killed his sister.”
Jes sucked in her breath.
“Then why didn’t he kill me when he had the chance?”
He looked down, tilted his cup. “I haven’t the faintest clue. I would have thought that he would have.”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
He pressed his lips into a grim line, and brushed his hand through his hair. He looked exhausted. That wasn’t an easy feat for one of the Jaguar People.
“He went crazy when his sister died. He swore he’d have revenge. He wanted nothing more to do with the Alliance. It became one of the single most important things I set about to do—to change his mind.”
She shook her head. “He’s your enemy. He was in my room. You don’t even know why he didn’t kill me. Why is it important to change his mind?”
He looked at her. His eyes were sad. “Because—without him—there is no Alliance.”
Jes lay in her bed—she’d tossed and turned the rest of the night. Now, she watched the sun rise and light up her room, spilling warm, gentle fingers over her blankets.
Try as she might—she hadn’t been able to get Justice to explain what he’d meant by that cryptic comment. He looked resigned, like the weight of it was almost enough to do him in. Apparently, everything for which he had fought for so long hinged on Dracon.
And Dracon did not look as if he had any of intention of cooperating.
Why on Earth would any of this hinge on the decision of a vamp, albeit a dangerous one?
She was out of bed and facing the sun when it fully rose. She lit a candle and said a prayer. Then, she wrote a spell on a piece of paper and lit it on fire from the candle, setting it into a heat-proof dish.
She looked out at the sun, talking with her mind and heart to the Great Mother, and her guides and ancestors. She gave thanks that Justice and his sisters, her sister—she smiled at the thought of it—and her grandparents were all okay.
She thought about her mother, the woman who she realized now had really been her sister, and how she had been so gentle and kind. She had great courage to face Jes’s father with what she knew—knowing that he was the head of this powerful group—a group that was actively going up against the Alliance.
She needed to speak to her grandparents—or her parents. Jes resolved right then and there that she was going to continue to think of them exactly as she always had—as her grandparents—or she was going to lose her mind trying to sort it all out every time. So they would remain her grandparents until such time as her mind had sorted it all out for itself.
Justice had promised he would not disappear into the night last night.
Today she would get him to take her to see them.
Justice did not want to take her to see her grandparents. He did his best to talk her out of it, but in the end he took her. He was quiet the entire way, other than to tell her that it was more than a bit foolish to go without more of the guards.
Her grandparents, however, were overjoyed to see her—and even more happy to see him. They started to ask him questions, but when he glanced at their granddaughter, they held their silence.
How very odd, she thought.
She broached the subject of her mother with much trepidation, but her grandmother was quick to see what she was leading up to. She watched her granddaughter with a terrible sadness.
“She is gone, Nanna,” Jes said with tears in her eyes.
Justice stepped out of the room while the three of them hugged and cried.
They talked for a long time about her mother—about her gentle nature—about her gentle love. They cried, and they talked.
This closure had been a long time in coming.
And finally, her grandmother asked of her—what she had been hoping she wouldn’t.
“Who killed her, Jes?” Her grandmother anchored her with a look, and Jes was powerless to stop herself from answering.
Jes wavered, tears in her eyes, over what they had lost—over the knowledge that these two people were really her parents. They had given up so much to protect their daughters.
Resolutely she straightened her shoulders. She realized that she was not going to surprise them this night with the knowledge that she knew they were really her parents. “Dad,” Jes choked out, fresh tears pouring down her face.
Her grandmother went to her knees, keening, tearing the breath from Jes. She went down on her knees and held her, rocking her. Her grandfather kneeled and held them both.
Justice had come back into the room at her cry. What he saw brought tears to his own eyes. And he kneeled down and put his arms around them too.
It was a long time before any of them moved. When they were spent, they slowly straightened and made their way to the chairs. Her pappy pierced Justice with a hard look. “I will have your word, son, that you will bring him before the council.”
Justice hadn’t been in the room when Jes had told her grandparents the truth of who had killed her mother. He had hoped she wouldn’t reveal that information yet. Her grandparents had a powerful influence over the council.
But nothing would have kept him from giving his word.
Her pappy didn’t let up on him here, though. “I will also have your word—that you will bring me in on the council.”
Jes couldn’t imagine that her grandfather had just insinuated that Justice had that much power with the council.
No one had that much power with the council.
So she was shocked when he simply nodded. She didn’t know what to say. She could only sit there and stare at the two of them.
Her grandmother got up, telling Jes to come and help her make them all some dinner. Jes stared after her for a moment. She had the distinct feeling she was getting her to leave the two men alone. But she couldn’t ignore her grandmother’s request.
Sooner or later, she was going to get to the bottom of this.
Justice did not h
ave a problem with bringing Jes’s grandfather into the council. In fact, he couldn’t have asked for a better excuse to do so. He may have not planned this, but this was a good way for it to come to a conclusion for the evening. They would eat some dinner, and he would take Jes back to the safety of the manor.
And he would also bring her grandparents to stay at the Alliance.
They kept the conversation light for the rest of the evening. Then her grandparents went and packed for the trip. When they left that evening, two of the guards, along with her grandfather’s own guards, were escorting them to the Alliance, and Justice had set it up to move the rest of their belongings with them.
And, once more, Jes noted that Justice had done all of this—without contacting the Alliance.
She hardly waited for them to make it to the end of the driveway before she gave him a barrage of questions.
He laughed and held his hand up, glancing at her before going back to watching the road. He glanced in his rearview mirror—she knew he was watching the guards.
“Okay. I have the okay, so to speak, of the Alliance, to move this forward any way that is needed. They trust that I will do so with the highest of honor.”
Her mouth fell open. “How on Earth did you pull that off? It’s impossible to get them to move forward on anything, I know, my parents tried. Years later—I also tried.”
He grinned. “You just didn’t know the right buttons to push.
She made a face at him—but it was obvious he wasn’t going to tell her how he had done it—so she let it go.
For now.
When they got back to the manor, as Justice seemed fond of calling it, she went up to her room. It was getting late. She hadn’t slept the night before. Justice had promised her, once again, not to leave while she slept. She gave thanks to the four directions for the blessings of the day. And then she lit the candle, speaking from her heart to the Goddess—and then to her mother.