CHAPTER NINE
JES
Late into the night, Jes woke with a start. She lay there, getting her bearings. The last couple of weeks, the intense feeling he’d created, within her, had become stronger, throwing everything off balance, and she couldn’t understand why.
She only knew she couldn’t shake the feeling things were about to change.
She could still see his face, clear as day in her mind. She hadn’t seen him since a few weeks before that fateful day—yet she could still see his face. And not as it had been but as he was—now.
After a while, she finally managed to drift back to sleep. But she’d no sooner done so when she woke with a start.
She could feel Justice, as clearly as if he were standing in her room….
The bonds between them were stronger than ever. He was in Chicago. She could feel him. It unnerved her. She’d been dealing with her connection with him her entire life, but it still unnerved her. It was so strong now that she’d swear she could hear his heartbeat.
Why did she feel him so keenly?
She sensed others too but never as strongly as she sensed Justice now. The power between them pulled at her, more powerful than ever before.
How would get clear of him? How could she break herself free from him when the closer she came to him—the more power he had over her?
She glanced at the clock. It was 3:00 a.m. What he could he possibly be doing up at three in the morning. She felt like….
Her gaze flew to the shadows of her room. He sat, there, in the darkest recess.
Goosebumps raced up her arms. She opened her mouth. She wanted to scream, but fear paralyzed her. Fear—and something else.
No. She quickly realized—it wasn’t fear at all.
She was actually happy to see him.
Her breath lodged in her throat. He didn’t move. Every sense in her body heightened—electrified to his every breath. But he didn’t move. She felt heady with emotion, giddy with unnamed desire. She couldn’t fathom why she’d feel this way—for a killer.
That thought gave her back some of her control. Control she needed over her runaway emotions—it would seem—and over her body.
That’s it, Jes, she told herself. Keep reminding yourself of who he is. He fooled you once—he’ll never do so again.
After a moment, her heart slowed a tad. “What are you doing here, murderer?” she asked in a voice much more steady than she felt. She knew he could feel her, smell her blood the way she could smell his.
Hell, she felt his heartbeat as surely as she felt her own.
She could smell everyone’s blood. It had been that way since she’d come into her power. No wonder the smell of blood drove a blood-thirsty killer crazy for the feast.
Her heart picked up another notch.
“Relax,” he said in a low voice. “I didn’t come here to scare you to death.”
“No,” she snarled, “more likely to eat me to death.”
He laughed. “It’s a thought.”
More goose bumps swept up her back. This time they had nothing to do with fear. A new round of alarm filled her veins when she realized she felt pure—desire. And she couldn’t seem to keep those feelings at bay.
She sat up in panic. “Talk to yourself, Jes,” she commanded in a whisper. “Talk some logic into your stupid head.” How on earth could she feel desire for a monster? He was a killer. He was pure animal—murderer. She could never feel desire for such a beast.
There—yeah—that worked. Some….
He stepped forward as if he could read her mind. Oh, Goddess, he couldn’t read her mind, could he? She’d spent the last fifteen years hating this man for killing those boys, even if he had killed gangbangers. The Jaguar People were about teaching—protection. They were here to help the humans—not contribute to making them extinct. He was a killer. He might think he was doing justice….
She laughed out loud. Did he really think he was doing justice?
She felt him scowl.
In the next instant, he pounced on her. He covered her lips in a brutal kiss before she could even think to scream. She clawed at him, hit him, but to no avail, and then she lost all sense of what was happening. The next thing she realized—she kissed him back.
She kissed—a killer.
She kissed Justice.
Oh, Goddess, how she’d missed him. She kissed Justice.
And Justice was a killer.
She started to struggle, but before she could put two thoughts together, he got up—and was gone.
She’d worked herself into a fever pitch by the time the sun rose the next morning. First, she paced, going over every possible, logical explanation of why she’d reacted to him the way she had.
When that didn’t work—she told herself they’d been close. That she’d missed his sisters. Yeah—that was it. Mia was her best friend. They were the family she didn’t have.
She turned around and went back in the other direction, not paying attention to where she headed in her frantic state. She quickly reached a wall and turned around again.
Well, the truth was she had family—but she’d been an only child, and her grandparents were quiet, subdued people, with their own life to lead, their own things to do.
She’d missed Justice’s sisters. She’d felt abandoned when they all disappeared. That must be why she reacted to Justice the way she did. That had to be why. Why else would she have missed him so much?
So, was she now admitting to missing him?
Jes shook her head. If that were true, there could be no help for her, now.
By the time the sun broke the sky, she was busy pouring over historical writings of her family, and the Jaguar People as a whole, which her grandparents handed down to her. She couldn’t remember the first three years, or so, of her life. Then, her parents disappeared when she was a teen. She knew something happened when she was young—and wondered if it had anything to do with why they disappeared
Something always stopped her from getting too close, whenever she started to remember when she was a small child, a time that was completely missing from her memory bank. A time that she assumed was because she’d been too young to remember.
When she’d been eighteen, or so, she tried to approach her grandparents about it. They wouldn’t talk about it—which only made her more suspicious. Something about it didn’t set well with her. She couldn’t get anyone to tell her what was going on. And, boy, had she tried.
Because of this, she’d never unravel this mystery either, any more than the one that surrounded Justice and his sister’s disappearance—or both of their parents. Still, she kept trying, until her grandmother finally became upset with her. Then, she’d begun to look around more quietly, not so openly—or vocally.
Maybe the detective in her wouldn’t let her let it go, but she wouldn’t stop until she knew.
Now, she had a new mystery to unravel. And she wouldn’t rest until she’d figured out why she’d kissed that him back.
What was she thinking?
She slid her finger down one of the ancient, hand-written books—a book that was written much like a Book of Shadows. She was reading from it when a fresh round of goosebumps swept over her arms and back. Her hand flew to cover her mouth, and she shook her head back-and-forth as if she could make it go away.
It didn’t. And you couldn’t unlearn a thing once you knew it.
A member of the Jaguar People could mate with a human, but only at a price. What price? She couldn’t be sure. But if one found their true mate, they’d be able to sense them from miles away. They could also smell their blood more keenly than that of any human—which said a lot.
And they could read each other, hear one another’s every thought.
She hadn’t been able to hear his thoughts, last night, she told herself. She’d only heard silence. She sat straight.
“He kept his them blank,” she nearly yelled out loud.
And read her every thought.
Her face went up in fla
mes. Then, she realized what she’d been thinking.
Justice was her mate, whether she liked it or not!
As soon as Jes came to that awful conclusion, she got into her car and headed west. She’d never yelled at her grandparents in her life—and she wouldn’t start now. But she wanted answers, and she would have some.
When she got there and sat before them, she stared at them, unable to ask, suddenly afraid to hear the answers, to know for sure. Suddenly, she was unprepared for how they’d react.
When she finally did, they both sat there, staring back at her—and looking mutinous.
Yes, mutinous was a good word for it.
They’d looked at each other, as if they’d swallowed something bad, looking green, and—mutinous.
“Out with it!” she demanded. Her grandfather shook his head at her grandmother. “Poppie!” she nearly yelled. “Spill it.”
Her grandmother’s shoulders hunched down like a great weight pressed upon them. She couldn’t imagine what they kept from her, but whatever it was—it didn’t look good….
Finally, her grandfather spoke. “Jes,” he nearly whispered. “I cannot…. We—cannot—tell you what we don’t know. There’s much we can only guess at—but…”
She shivered. “What is it, Poppie?”
“Your papa.” He took a deep breath as if it were too difficult to go on. “He disappeared when you were…”
“Fourteen years old,” she finished for him.
“At the same time,” he stopped and took another deep breath, “as Justice’s parents disappeared from him.”
She took a deep breath. “What does that have to do with us?”
Her grandmother folded her hands in her lap, looking at them. “Justice’s father,” she looked at her granddaughter, “was your father’s best friend.”
Jes frowned. “Okay, I know that. I grew up with them… I still don’t understand….” She shook her head in denial. “I don’t see what this has to do with me…”
Her grandmother frowned at her. It wasn’t like her to deny what she was hearing.
“Jes, dear,” she said. “They were together for a reason. That reason has something to do with why they disappeared together.” She shook her head in mute appeal. “But we don’t know why. We don’t know what happened to cause them to go into hiding. We can speculate. But we don’t have the foggiest notion why.”
“I figured that out. And,” Jes stopped. She sniffed. Her head throbbed. She put her hand up and rubbed her forehead. She didn’t like this. She didn’t like this at all. She finally looked at her grandmother. “Why can I sense him like this? Why have I always been able to—sense him like this?” There. She’d asked the question. But she didn’t want to hear the answer.
“Why, for the same reason I can sense your grandfather, dear. Didn’t your mother explain this to you?”
She shook her head—her mind screaming at her. “No. She didn’t.” She looked at her grandmother with pleading eyes. “If she knew why Justice and I had this—strong bond—then why didn’t she?”
Her grandmother looked back at her—her eyes full of worry. “I can’t imagine, child.”
Jes didn’t want to examine the full implications of what her grandparents were trying to say to her. She’d been afraid of this. She shook her head again, denying the obvious conclusions. She didn’t understand what made the boy she loved—change so much.
How could she be connected to him in this way? The passion she felt for Justice last night…. Well, it floored her.
She pressed her hands to her temples again. She couldn’t seem to think her way out of a wet paper bag today.
She’d never felt like this with anyone. Not ever. What was she going to do? How could she go back to her what she’d known? It felt as if her life never truly existed—until now.
He changed everything.
And she knew she couldn’t go back.
She didn’t know how she’d ever gone this long without him—when being near him upended her entire world—again.
How did she manage when she’d only been a young woman—coming into the first throes of womanhood? How did she manage to live without him—without her parents? And then without her friends, who were more like sisters? And then to lose them all at the same time?
Jes wasn’t one for denial. It was the cowardly way out—pretending things didn’t exist—because you didn’t like the answers….
But she wanted to deny this. She wanted to deny this so bad.
How could she ever go back to her life? Yet, she could never go forward with Justice either—as such a cold-blooded, murdering killer.
Her eyes pleaded with her grandmother to take back what she’d revealed. Her grandmother looked back at her with sympathy. Her grandmother knew her, better than anyone. Jes knew she could see her granddaughter struggled with the implications of what she learned.
But she couldn’t take it back. Justice was Jes’s mate. And nothing could change that.