Darkness Bound (14 page)

He couldn’t take her fraught look any longer. He glanced away, ashamed.

In a small, horrified voice, she asked, “Where we’re going . . . your colony . . . have they all seen the pictures? Has everyone seen me . . . us?”

Self-serving bastard that he was, Hawk saw an opportunity, and pounced on it.

“I’ve already told you more than I should. So if I answer your question truthfully, I get an answer of my own. Even if you don’t like mine.”

Panic flickered across her face. She began to twist a strand of her hair between her fingers, over and over, chewing the inside of her lip as she debated. After a moment of silence, she dropped her head and threaded her hands into her hair, staring at her feet.

Then she stood and faced him. “Agreed.”

Courage
, he thought. How much courage did it take to walk into this situation, to go where she knew she wasn’t safe or particularly welcome, to entrust a man who’d already betrayed her, to get an answer that may or may not be devastating, and in return answer a question she probably already knew the content of, and would be loath to respond truthfully to, if her last reaction was an indication.

As if from a distance, Hawk heard himself say, “I know this isn’t easy for you. And if it’s any consolation . . . I admire your courage.”

Her throat worked. She looked at him, her eyes fierce. “I’m not courageous, Hawk. I’m a coward. I’ve been afraid every single day of my life. I’m afraid right now. Most likely, I’ll be afraid until the day I die.”

Had she told him she was in love with him, he wouldn’t have been more astonished. Her honesty felt like a sucker punch to the gut.

As if pulled by an invisible lure, Hawk took a step toward her. “That’s exactly why you
are
courageous. That’s what courage is: moving forward in spite of your fear. Not letting fear make the decisions for you, no matter how hard it tries. Walking toward danger when everything inside you is screaming at you to run away.”

He took another step toward her, then another. She didn’t move as he approached, she just watched his progress with vivid blue eyes.

He stopped a foot away. Rain glimmered in her hair, a fairy crown of shimmering drops atop the sunglow red, and he had to resist the violent urge to plunge his hands into all that beautiful hair, tug her against his body, and cover her mouth with his.

“Tell me,” she said, a whispered demand that may as well have been, “Kiss me,” the way his body reacted, the tightening he felt in his groin as he stared down at her. The sudden heat flooding his veins.

“
No one has seen the pictures but me.”

Her lids fluttered shut. She exhaled a quiet breath, then nodded.

She believed him. Why that should make him so happy, he didn’t know.

She opened her eyes and gaze
d at him. Without waiting for the question she knew he would ask, she said, “Garrett is my older brother. It’s his fault I’m so fu—” She stopped herself, and began again. “It’s his fault I’m so messed up. He’s the reason I’m always so afraid. He’s the one who broke me. And I’m not saying this to make you angry or play games, but I can’t talk about him. I can’t talk about him without wanting to put a gun to my head and pull the trigger, to be free of this ocean of fear I’ve been drowning in for so long.”

Her eyes filled with moisture. A lone tear tracked a zigzag path down her cheek, and before he knew what he was doing, Hawk had lifted his hand and brushed it away with his thumb.

“No one could break you,” he said vehemently. “You’re too goddamn strong.”

She blinked. “You cursed,” she whispered, staring at him wide-eyed.

“And you didn’t,” he replied, his voice strangely hoarse. In fact, he realized, she hadn’t cursed at all in the last two days.

Since he’d asked her not to.

They stood there like that in silence, his hand on her face, her gaze locked to his, until the sudden screech of a howler monkey brought them both abruptly back to Earth.

Jack took a step away, and dropped her gaze to the ground. She sat back down on the mossy rock, shoved her feet into her boots, then rose and walked away.

“Waterfall,” she said stiffly over her shoulder. “Bath.”

She disappeared into the trees, leaving Hawk alone in the clearing, his heart twisting like a wild animal inside his chest.

If pressed, Viscount Weymouth would have to say he first began to hate the Queen the day she stopped him from killing Morgan Montgomery.

It was several years ago, but the memory of it still rankled him, doubly so because Morgan was supposed to be executed for plotting to kill
him
.

He was Keeper of the Bloodlines of the Sommerley colony, and prior to the Queen’s arrival, he’d been an important member of the tribe. He might even go so far as to say
revered
. His position wasn’t only ancient and respected, it was necessary to the continued survival of their species. Without him and the Matchmaker, couples would woo and wed willy-nilly, and what would become of them then?

Nothing, that’s what. The purity of their Bloodlines would be lost, and so, most likely, would their Gifts. Eventually they’d be no better than humans.

And now that the new half-Blood Queen had decided to abolish the Law of arranged matches and allow young couples to let “love” be their guide, Viscount Weymouth had been effectively neutered, and hated the Queen even more.

Love. Such quaint, plebeian folly.

Though he shouldn’t be surprised; the Queen’s own father had been executed for falling prey to its grasp. As for himself, he’d never been touched by love’s dangerous whims. His own wife of thirty years was an outlet for the base urges of his body and a valued breeder—she’d given him two strong sons—but nothing more. It was a peculiarity of
Ikati
nature that they mated for life, but that didn’t always mean they mated for love. In fact, Viscount Weymouth was convinced love was a concept some long-ago female had devised during the throes of a forbidden passion in order to feel absolved from guilt.

Females
, he thought with contempt, staring at his reflection in the floor standing mirror as he adjusted his mustard velvet cravat beneath his florid jowls.
Always more trouble than they’re worth.

Satisfied his old-fashioned neckwear was in perfect order, the viscount patted the lapels of his matching silk vest and turned to and fro before the mirror. He sucked in his paunch, for a brief moment envisioning the slender young man he’d once been long ago, then released it with a gusty exhalation that strained the waistband of his custom-made Italian trousers. This was, in all likelihood, the last time he’d admire his formidable figure in the oval polished glass of his bedroom, and he was in no great hurry to move along.

God only knew what those savages in the rainforest in Brazil would be wearing. The thought of himself clad in a loincloth made him shudder.

“They’re ready for you, My Lord,” his valet said, bowing from the bedroom door.

“Yes, I imagine they are,” replied the viscount absently, donning his jacket. He didn’t move from the mirror.

Behind him, his valet raised his brows, but the viscount only smiled.

Let the Queen and her lapdog Alpha wait a while longer. He was in no rush to comply. Though outwardly he remained a loyal servant, inwardly he’d stopped complying long ago.

Case in point: the Plan.

Devised by that madman Caesar Cardinalis—a creature as equally devious as he was insane, neither of which, in the viscount’s opinion, negated the soundness of his stance on the correct way to handle both humans and the liberal new Queen—the Plan was simple. The rewards he’d reap if he carried it off successfully, however, would be extravagant indeed.

Deliver the message to the Brazilian colony that their destruction was imminent and they could either join Caesar or die. Lead everyone to Morocco. Kill the Queen.

Not necessarily in that order, of course.

He’d already been quietly assisting the more vocally dissatisfied members of the colonies to join Caesar for months. He had only to read the weekly reports of the names of the attempted deserters to know where to look. It was an unfortunate fact of colony life that some couldn’t bear the weight of their burden to stay secret and silent from the rest of the world, and tried to run. They were always caught, always severely punished—oftentimes put to death—but that didn’t stop the random attempt.

Only now that Caesar had decided to fast-track his plan for
Ikati
world domination and had spread the word that all deserters were welcome with him, the attempts were no longer quite so random.

His valet cleared his throat. Viscount Weymouth rolled his eyes, and gave himself one final once-over.

“All right,” he said, satisfied. “Off we go.”

Humming “We’re Off to See the Wizard,” the viscount followed his valet out of the room.

The Sommerley colony in southern England was the largest of the five
Ikati
colonies spread over the globe, and by far the most opulent. The Alpha who originally settled it had been concerned only with secrecy and the safety of the few with him who’d escaped the deadly clutches of Caesar Augustus after Egypt fell to Rome, but successive generations of his offspring, emboldened over time by the hubris of those who’d outwitted death, proved particularly adept with money.

The tribe began to amass a fortune in textiles and trade.

Spices, incense, precious stones, ebony, silks, rare woods, gold . . . there were few things in which the tribe didn’t have a financial interest. By the mid-sixteenth century, they’d grown too wealthy and were comprised of too many to escape notice any longer.

The Crown itself took an interest in the secretive, dark-haired clan living like kings at the black ragged edge of the New Forest. Envoys were sent. Discussions were held. Calculated lies were presented.

Concessions to the visibility their success had brought were made.

Eventually, an earldom was granted, then a viscounty, then a barony, and the tribe that had so long tried to stay hidden found itself included in the ranks of the most visible and documented group in the civilized world: the British peerage.

So the English
Ikati
learned to hide even more effectively by hiding right under their enemies’ noses.

Except for the occasional shiver of fear that would tingle the spine if one looked too long into the vivid green eyes of these elegant imposters, nothing seemed amiss. No one was the wiser. Life proceeded smoothly.

Until one day it no longer did.

“Morocco,” Leander McLoughlin, current Earl of Normanton and Alpha of Sommerley, said, speaking to the beveled glass panes of the picture windows in the East Library of Sommerley Manor. He snapped the word as if it were sour, as if it tasted bitter on his tongue.

“Hmm,” agreed the woman seated in the plush comfort of an antique silk Hepplewhite chair behind him. Absently, she stroked her fingers over the downy pale fluff atop the head of the newborn she held swaddled in her arms.

Only sixteen weeks old, and so tiny. Like her twin sister, Honor, Hope was a solemn baby who rarely smiled, and even more rarely cried. The pair had been born after a difficult pregnancy and a long, excruciating labor, and their somberness seemed to acknowledge the fact that they’d been brought into the world only after a great deal of pain.

Hope looked up at her mother now with a peaceful, even stare, so intent and far-reaching it was as if she saw straight through her into some other landscape. It was at moments like this the Queen felt with absolute certainty her children were creatures born not of her but
through
her, as if they’d existed somewhere else before, whole and infinitely intelligent, and her body had only been the portal to bring them forth into this plane of existence.

Jenna loved them with the voracious, violent adoration of a new mother. Into the darkest, smallest corner of her heart she shoved the unspeakable suspicion that her two daughters were something dangerous, the likes of which had never before been seen.

The night they’d been born, a red-tailed comet had scored the dark sky, vivid as a drop of blood. Jenna had witnessed such signs two other times in her life, and both had been harbingers of disaster.

Of death.

Stop being morbid,
they’re only babies!
She leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on Hope’s forehead.

Leander turned from the window. “You’re sure Caesar’s in Morocco?”

Jenna glanced up at him. Black hair that always looked windswept, even after it had been combed; a lean, taut body; the bearing and powerful presence of an emperor. And that snap of connection, every time their eyes met.

It never failed to surprise her, the way her heart took flight when he gazed at her. Still, after being married nearly five years, after two children, after everything. He could still make her pulse race with a mere look.

“He’s there. I can See it.”

It had been a mystery as to why it had fled in the first place, but as soon as she became pregnant, Jenna could no longer See. Her Gift connected her to all the
Ikati
across the globe. Like stars against the midnight sky, each one appeared to her as a separate, twinkling entity. Even the half-Bloods. The moment she’d gotten pregnant, however, her Sight had fled . . . and so had her ability to read minds with a touch of her hand. So had all her other Gifts. She couldn’t even Shift to panther anymore.

But the moment she’d given birth—
voila
. Like a switch had been turned back on. Unfortunately, the mind reading—the one Gift she needed the most—hadn’t yet returned.

“It’s too far, Jenna. It’s too dangerous.”

Leander’s voice had gone from bitter to forbidding. The way he looked at her was forbidding, too, all knife-blade eyes and thinned lips and smolder. Jenna had to press the smile from her mouth.

It wouldn’t do to let him think she was laughing at him. She wasn’t, but neither was she going to let her domineering, beloved husband dictate what she would or wouldn’t do.

She never had before. No reason to change now.

Jenna stood. Beside her chair was a bassinette, a cocoon of white silk and ruffles in which she laid Hope beside her sleeping sister, tucking her under the blanket.

“Go to sleep, little one.”

Obediently, Hope closed her eyes. Jenna shook off the eerie feeling that her four-month-old daughter might have understood what she’d said.

She approached Leander, watching him watch her hips sway as she walked. Once in front of him, she reached up and wound her arms around his neck.

“I won’t go too near,” she promised, pressing a soft kiss to the space between his throat and shoulder. She nuzzled his neck as his arms came around her back and he pulled her into a crushing tight hug.

“You won’t go near at
all
,” he corrected gruffly. “And stop trying to manipulate me with feminine wiles. You’ll just end up getting thoroughly ravished.”

Jenna laughed into Leander’s neck, a low, husky laugh that had him tightening his arms even more around her back.

“And we both know how much I
hate
that,” she teased.

Leander gently pulled her head back with a hand in her hair, staring intently into her eyes. “No. Just—
no
, Jenna. I won’t allow this. It’s too dangerous, and we have more to think about than just ourselves.” His burning gaze flicked to the bassinette, then back to her. “They need their mother.” His voice grew soft. “
I
need their mother. If anything happened to you . . .”

She shushed him with a finger to his lips. “Nothing is going to happen me, love.”

His dark brows drew together to a scowl. “You could easily be seen—”

“I’ll fly high. Too high to be noticed.”

“There’s nothing to be gained—”

“Information is power. We have to know what he’s doing, what he’s planning. That’s best done up close and personal.”

“You just said you wouldn’t go too near!” he all but shouted, tensing.

Jenna sighed, extricated herself from his arms, and went back to gaze down into the bassinette.
So small. So fragile.
What kind of world will you grow up in, little ones?

A better one than she’d grown up in. Of that she was determined.

“It was a figure of speech. I’ll get in and out as quickly as possible. They won’t even know I’m there—”

“He’ll smell you a mile away! He’ll
feel
you.”

Yes, that was a problem. The
Ikati
could all feel her presence, tangible as a kiss on the cheek.

If she was in physical form, that is.

“I’ll go as the west wind.” She turned to find him scowling at her, arms folded across his broad chest, anger rolling off him in waves.

She drew near to him once again, gazing up at him with the slight, coy smile she knew he couldn’t resist. “A sandstorm. A thundercloud.” She spread her hands over his chest. Beneath his pale blue button-down shirt, his heart thudded hard and erratic.

Very angry. Better up the ante.

She leaned in and brushed her mouth against his. Her tongue slid along his lower lip. “I’ll go as the rain.”

“Jenna!” Leander groaned, but in the frustrated plea she detected the first, faint crumbling of his resistance.

“You know I’m the only one who can do this, Leander. And it has to be done. You and the girls go ahead of me to Brazil. I’ll take a quick detour to Morocco, then meet you there. I promise I’ll be in Brazil by the time you arrive.” She unwound his crossed arms and settled them around her waist. Then she went back to nibbling on his lower lip. She breathed, “And I’ll be waiting with bells on.”