by Wood, Vivian
Jace rolled his eyes when he heard Tessa talking over his back, leaning up to apologize to an older lady who’d been in their way moments before. The girl worried about propriety right now? Jesus.
Jace dashed to the side exit. After a quick check to make sure their pursuers had followed them inside the store, Jace pushed out into the bright New Orleans sunlight. He put Tessa down and dragged her over to his bike.
“What are we-” she got out before Jace stuffed a helmet onto her head. He tore off his jacket and put it on her, then climbed on and started the bike.
Tessa hesitated, and Jace turned to her with a furious look. She was still scrambling onto the seat behind him when he started backing out of the spot. Moments later, they were racing away from Royal St.
Jace chuckled as they hit the street. McDonough’s men were outside the grocery store, staring after them. He’d laughed too soon, though. A huge black sedan pulled up and the men climbed inside. Jace gunned the engine of his bike and swerved to avoid a city bus, then began weaving his way up to the heavier traffic of Rampart St. The SUV barreled after them, gaining too fast for Jace’s liking.
Jace had two choices: slow down, or do some serious maneuvering. If he slowed down, the sedan would doubtless catch up to them. If he maneuvered just a hair wrong, they'd both end up with serious road rash.
She could live with a little road rash, but not a bullet wound. With that thought Jace pushed the bike to full speed and prayed that he wouldn’t get her killed one way or the other.
Chapter Five
When Jace slowed the motorcycle to a halt, it wasn’t the kind of place Tessa had expected. For one thing, they’d only driven maybe twenty minutes; about half of that time seemed to be used circling and cutting back to make sure they weren’t being followed.
It also wasn’t the nicest part of town. Tessa didn’t know much about New Orleans outside the French Quarter, but every ghetto she’d ever seen had looked almost exactly like this one. They’d passed several sets of ill-kept brick housing projects on the way here, making the neighborhood seem even less welcoming. This neighborhood was filled with long, skinny one-story houses in varying states of disrepair. The houses leaned this way and that at alarming angles. Every window and door was covered with thick security bars. People gathered in groups on their porches, staring at Tessa and Jace as they climbed off the bike.
Tessa pulled off the helmet, looking around. Jace store right up to a porchful of people, as comfortable as if he owned the place. A tall, thin young black man came down the steps. He gave Jace a long look, and then put out an expectant hand.
Tessa blinked. Jace clasped the man’s hand, and they executed a well-practiced series of complicated gestures. Then Jace held out the keys to his bike. The young man nodded before going back up to his porch.
Tessa opened her mouth to ask one of the hundred questions that sprang to mind, but Jace simply grabbed her arm and started towing her down the street. After a few blocks, Jace released her and walked across an ill-kept lawn to a dilapidated, bright pink shotgun-style home.
Jace pulled open the unlocked door and hustled Tessa inside. He held a finger up to his lips, motioning for her to stay put. He walked straight back through the long series of rooms that made up the house, checking everything out. He stopped at the back door, turning bolt locks to secure the door. That finished, he returned to the front room.
When Tessa sighed and started to speak, Jace shook his head. Again he motioned for her to stay put, slipping outside. She could hear him rustling through the overgrown grass on the side of the house, pulling at windows and checking the back door from the outside.
Tessa wasn’t sure if he was overprotective, or if she was in a lot more danger than she knew. Either way, it didn’t look good for her. He returned to her side, closing the front door behind him.
“Where are we?” Tessa asked, watching Jace engage the numerous locks on the front door.
“Safe house,” Jace grunted. He tested the doorknob to make sure everything was locked tight.
“Yours?” she asked.
“It belongs to the Louisiana pack.”
“If it’s yours, why was the door unlocked? Wouldn’t you have a key?”
“What good is a safe house that you can’t get into? It only needs to keep people out when someone is inside,” Jace grumbled, scanning the front room again.
Tessa wrinkled her nose. She turned and headed down the single hallway to give herself the tour.
The squat front room had only a cheap card table and two folding chairs as furniture. Though the outside of the house was grungy, the inside had been painted a startling white. It looked as if it had been cleaned very recently.
Next was a spotless bathroom, which boasted a brand new shower liner and an empty trashcan. Everything was the same stark white, making her stomach lurch a little. Ever since she’d been trapped in that prison cell, too much white made her queasy. She moved on to the next room.
A tiny, cramped kitchen awaited. A small fridge and stove, a couple of shelves stacked with simple aluminum camping plates and utensils, an open pantry with tons of canned goods. There was a hanging rack on the wall that held one pot, one frying pan, and a few spatulas.
The second to last room looked more like a bedroom. There was an impeccable and expensive-looking full-sized white mattress on the floor. Other than a single white floor lamp and a closet door, the room was bare.
The last room seemed to be for laundry or storage, but there was nothing in it. At the end of the house lay the back door, riddled with locks and drop bars. Jace followed her into the back room, testing and retesting the back door. He was starting to freak her out now.
“This place is frigging creepy,” Tessa remarked. She headed back to the front room, noting that all the windows were painted over with a thin coat of white paint. They let a little light in, but no one could see in or out.
“I don’t see why,” Jace replied. His tone was flat. He was busy checking each window, making Tessa notice that they’d been painted and nailed shut.
“Well… for one thing, it’s way too white. And all the floors are linoleum. This looks like a serial killer’s lair. You could just spray the whole place down if you had drains in the floor.”
Jace frowned at her, as if she shouldn’t know something like that. They came to a stop in the front room, Jace giving her a condescending look.
“That’s the point of a safe house. It’s anonymous. Anytime we use it, we have a crew come in and dump everything, remove every trace of evidence that we were here. No one knows about it except the pack members and Ronnie.”
“Ronnie?”
“The guy I gave my keys over to earlier. He takes care of things around here, whatever needs doing. Does that satisfy your curiosity, human?” he crossed his arms, leaning against the wall.
“Ronnie. That’s your go-to guy? He looks like a frigging gangster, not to mention he’s like sixteen years old max,” Tessa said with a frown.
A glint of amusement lit Jace’s eyes as he smirked at her.
“I’m gonna have to tell Ronnie that you said that. He’ll get a kick out of it.”
“Must be good genes,” Tessa said, laying the sarcasm on thick.
“Or the fact that he’s half elf. One of those two things,” Jace retorted, heading for the kitchen.
Tessa stood open-mouthed for a few long beats before she followed him.
“You’re kidding. You are kidding, right?”
Jace rummaged through the fridge, bent at an uncomfortable-looking angle just to get his head down that low. Christ, the man really was ridiculously tall. Now that Tessa was staring right at it, she noticed that he had a nice behind. It looked… grippable.
Tessa took a deep breath before asking again.
“Right, Jace? You were kidding?”
Jace straightened, popping the tab on a Coke. He took a long swig before turning his attention back to Tessa.
“Coke?” he offered.
Tessa shook her head. She wasn’t that big of a fan of carbonated drinks in general, they never tasted right to her.
Jace nodded and closed the fridge.
“I’m not kidding,” he said. His words were slow and hesitant, and his eyes scanned her face for a reaction.
Tessa pursed her lips, nonplussed.
“I’m just getting used to the idea of werewolves. I don’t think I can handle any other weird stuff right now.”
Jace cocked his head and leaned closer, making Tessa back up a pace. He was cocky. His stature and bad-boy demeanor made him too bold. Even in conversation, he didn’t ask questions. He demanded answers, and he gave back little enough information. Tessa sighed, barely listening as he reprimanded her.
“Don’t call us anything but Shifters. We don’t like to be confused with werewolves, they’re bastards.”
“There are werewolves, too?”
“Did I stutter, human?”
Tessa bit her lip, thinking. One part of her wanted to know more. Were there vampires, fairies, and unicorns too? The question sounded sarcastic, even in her mind. It was just that… a couple of hours ago, she hadn’t believed that Shifters were even real. The journalist in her mind demanded evidence, sources, photographs. She needed to see it to believe it.
Another part of Tessa firmly believed that the less she knew, the better. One day soon, she and Camilla were going back to their normal lives. The fairytales, the stories of creatures that went bump in the night… knowing that they were real would be a burden. Her inner journalist was already screaming with the need to tell the world that Shifters were real. No need to add any other magical creatures to the fire. The more she thought about it, the more the strangeness of it all began to overwhelm her.
“You look like you’re going to throw up,” Jace commented.
He set the Coke down and grabbed her wrist, tugging her a little closer as he felt for her pulse.
The sensation of his warm skin against hers and the closeness between their bodies hit Tessa like an electric shock. Her heart started galloping like a racehorse.
She wasn’t very used to being touched in general, and she’d been starved of any interaction in that horrible white prison cell. Any touch she’d received there had been violent. Not to mention, no one there had been as gorgeous as Jace Copeland. She stared at Jace, her mind flying back to her time at the prison. James, the horrible not-priest, the frightening nurses, the screams…
Fear and panic crept up her spine, wrapping their icy fingers around her heart. All the sudden her chest was tight; it was a struggle to draw breath. She closed her eyes and tried not to think of the Legion, of the danger she was in even now. If a walking threat like Jace Copeland was her lifeline, she was in dire straits.
Jace’s calloused thumb rubbed a circle against her palm; he still held her wrist, monitoring her pulse. She opened her eyes, holding back tears as she peered up at him. Jace frowned and dropped her hand.
Tessa let out a big whoosh of breath. The startling contact was cut short, only to be redoubled when Jace spun her shoulders around and propelled her into the bedroom.
Tessa’s breath caught in her throat as Jace hooked his foot around her ankle, making her fall forward onto the bare mattress. A voice inside her head screamed that she had to defend herself against him, but she was frozen. Even worse, a tiny voice in the back of her head said that it was bound to happen. She’d come here to seduce a Shifter; it was just happening sooner than she’d planned.
The choices Tessa made, the people she chose to trust… it was always going to come to this.
She pulled her arms and legs in close to her torso, trying to protect herself. Jace’s body didn’t come down next to hers, though. As she struggled to draw breath, Tessa turned her head to find Jace rooting through the closet. He produced a number of blankets and pillows, which he arranged around her body.
After several long moments Tessa’s chest relaxed a bit. She realized Jace was talking to her.
“…just get you comfortable, here,” he mumbled. “It’s okay, Tessa.”
Tessa wanted to tell Jace that he’d been half the reason for her panic. Good thing she was still out of breath; it would probably not endear her to Jace to admit that she’d thought he was a rapist.
Jace talked to her in a soothing voice as he pulled out more blankets and pillows and made a neat pallet next to the mattress. He took off his shoes and laid down on the pallet. She blinked, realizing that he had no intention of touching her again. His physical contact had stopped the moment he knew she was hale.
Silence lapsed. Her breathing evened out. Her muscles relaxed in increments, until Tessa regained full control of her body. The quietude stretched for a long time, though Tessa could sense that Jace wasn’t asleep.
When he broke the silence, she jumped. She’d been on the verge of sleep, somehow.
“Better?” he asked. His voice was tight.
“Yes. Thank you,” she said, flushing with embarrassment. “It’s all just a little too much, right now. I’m trying to keep my mind from racing.”
Jace was quiet for another long beat before responding.
“I could tell you a story or something,” he said. His hesitant words, his deep and rumbling voice… some flicker of tenderness lay there, and it touched her.
“I would like that,” Tessa whispered. She took a deep breath, trying to stay relaxed.
“I’ll tell you my sister’s favorite story,” he said, sitting up and settling his back against the wall. He cleared his throat and started to speak.
Chapter Six
“Long ago in ancient Greece,” Jace began, “there was an Arcadian king named Lykaon. Lykaon had the best of everything; bountiful crops and scenic pastures, loyal subjects, a large family, and a beautiful wife. In times of peace, everything was good, but there were times of hardship too. When war came to Southern Greece, King Lykaon refused to take part in it. He said that he had everything he desired, and no desire to war and kill.
The other kings of Greece were jealous. They fell upon Lykaon’s golden kingdom. They ravaged everything he had worked so hard to build. Lykaon’s fields were burned, his subjects hunted and tortured, his wife and daughters defiled, their throats slit.
Standing amongst the ruins of his once-great castle, Lykaon turned to the gods. He offered his own life in exchange for vengeance against those who had wronged him. A lone god took pity on Lykaon. The god offered him strength and power, enough to find justice and rebuild his kingdom. The god had three clauses.
One, Lykaon had to be truly willing to die. Two, the king must choose the greatest animal he knew, an animal to guide him into battle, and to teach him harden to his heart against his enemy. Three, Lykaon must be sworn to secrecy, because otherwise all humans would want such power.
Lykaon agreed, saying that he was willing to do anything the god asked. As his animal Lykaon chose the wolf. Clever and quick, but also strong and deadly.
The god approved his choice. He told Lykaon how to gain his power; the king must go down to the lake and leave his clothes behind in the sacred ash tree. Then Lykaon must swim across the lake, leaving his soft-hearted ways behind in the waters. The god warned Lykaon that there was no room for tenderness in the wolf’s spirit.
The king did so at once, emerging from the lake not as a man, but in the form of a wolf. As he took the shape, the spirit of the wolf stayed within him. It guided him as he hunted and destroyed the men who had taken everything from him. The wolf taught Lykaon its ways, and Lykaon was unstoppable in his wolf form.
There was only one problem. Lykaon never learned to harden his heart. Despite his losses, despite the many enemies that fell before the great wolf, the king’s goodness remained.
He came across a small group of his people. They were half-dead, running from a group of mercenaries. The king dispatched the mercenaries, but he could not stop there. He refused to leave his people without defense.
Lykaon took them to the lake and
showed them how to take on the spirit of the wolf; those who were strong enough and brave enough to swim across the lake would be invincible, he said.
And so Lykaon transformed the last of his people, unable to deny a single person his secret.
When the god found out, he was furious. Proud Lykaon declared that he would accept any punishment, because he was at peace again. He’d taken his vengeance, and established his remaining subjects as a new tribe, calling them the people of Arcadia.
The god was impressed by Lykaon’s boldness. Instead of punishing the king, he melded Lykaon’s spirit with that of the wolf . A reward, from the god to the fierce warrior king. The change rippled through Lykaon and all his people, altering them forever.
Lykaon and his followers found that they could change their shape at will. The wolf stayed within them, even in their human forms.
They lived out their long lives in peace, protecting the lake and the god’s secret knowledge. Their children and their children’s children carried the same traits. They came to be called Lycans, after their fierce but soft-hearted King Lykaon.”
Chapter Seven
Jace went quiet.
Tessa was so entranced by his voice and his story, she hadn’t wanted it to end. She blew out a big breath, surprised at his storytelling skill.
“Thank you for that,” she said. She looked over at Jace, the stranger who’d saved her twice in a span of hours. Handsome, courageous… and damn, but he could spin a yarn. Tessa bit her lip, making a mental note to keep herself as far away from him as possible. That combo spelled nothing but heartsickness.
Jace nodded, not meeting her gaze.
“I thought it might take your mind off supernatural stuff,” he said with a shrug.
“Not exactly,” Tessa said. “But you’re quite a storyteller. It did help me calm down, so thanks.”
“I didn’t mean to panic you earlier,” he said, looking uncomfortable with her praise. “Most Shifters are raised knowing about other supernaturals, so I didn’t think about it.”