Hunger's Mate (29 page)

Her father had grasped her hand tightly as she'd tried to walk away. He was wearing his dark shades so she couldn't see his sightless eyes. It didn't matter because she looked away from him, unable to stare at the man she loved more than life itself, knowing what she was about to put herself through. He would hate the sacrifice she was going to make, would argue with her if he knew what she was going to do. But he didn't know, only she did and if she didn't hurry up and see it through, she didn't know if she'd make it another second.

She yanked her hand away from her father's, ignoring the heavy weight settling uncomfortably in the center of her chest.

Larry made a sweeping motion with his hand, signaling her to leave the room ahead of him. She did and didn't look back. Couldn't turn to see her father's sadness, his utter disappointment because he couldn't understand that all his life, all the sacrifices he'd made for her meant that it was time for her to return the favor. She'd promised her mother she would take care of him and no matter what evil impurities she had to endure, Jewel planned to do just that.

They were barely down the hall to the living room before he'd grabbed her. She'd expected it so the gasp he most likely was waiting for never came. Instead she leveled her gaze at him, meeting the icy glare with one of her own.

“What are you going to do now, Larry? Are you going to rape me again? Is that the only way you know to control your women?” she said with enough vehemence his entire face crinkled with rage.

“I'm going to make your ass pay!” he said, pulling her deeper into the room then slamming her so hard against the wall her breath was lost.

Before she could regain her composure he was up in her face, grabbing her by the back of her neck to pull her head up so he could see her. “Where the fuck are my diamonds, you thieving slut?”

Tears stung the back of her eyes but Jewel dared them to fall. He would not see her cry, not ever. “They're back in the car you had your robotic beast tear me from. You wanna try sending him back for them? He's under your complete control, right? So you don't have to worry about him stealing from you.”

“I shouldn't have had to worry about your ungrateful ass!” he yelled into her face, his spittle flying against her cheeks until she closed her eyes.

“I gave you everything!”

“You made me nothing!” was her retort.

“Oh no, sweetheart, that was all you. You're the one who wanted to gyrate for money. All I did was pay you.”

He tightened his hold on her but Jewel fought against it. She moved her shoulders, shook her head, anything to show she wasn't simply going to take whatever he dished out. Not anymore.

“I wanted to help my father!”

“You wanted to get fucked and get paid at the same time,” was his hateful retort.

The follow-up to his words was his other hand coming to the collar of her shirt, ripping it straight down the middle so that her bra-covered breasts and bare torso showed. She saw the moment the glint in his eyes changed, the second his arousal began to overtake his anger. That was an intense fight, the sexual hunger that always seemed to be lurking inside him and the anger that Jewel was certain had never come solely because of her. No, Lawrence Crowe had a lot of pent-up rage boiling throughout his veins, something someone had done to him long ago had made him the monster he was today. She prayed it had been a female that had hurt him as much as he liked to hurt her.

“I'm gonna fuck your brains out, you miserable slut. Then I'm gonna tie you down and let you watch while I kill your father slowly. And if you so much as think about leaving me again I'll cut your heart right out!”

He'd emphasized that threat by tracing his finger over her left breast, down to just beneath the mound where her heart beat the strongest.

“And then you'll go straight to the darkest corners of hell, where you belong!” she spat back at him. “You don't scare me, you sorry sonofabitch!”

He slapped her then. Such a simple and clich
é
d action, but one that snapped her head back and sent stinging sensations to every nerve ending in her body. It took everything—and Jewel meant every single stitch of her—not to cry out with pain. Instead, she let her head roll slowly back into position where she glared at him again, praying he could see every iota of hate she had for him.

“I like a tough bitch!” he said with an evil grin, his lips wet from the drool that had begun to form.

She'd never seen him quite this far gone and wondered if he'd sniffed some of that gray powder he'd had in the basement. She had no idea what the substance was, but she'd seen those same boxes being loaded into crates and being shipped to the Comastaz Labs. Whatever it was, Larry had also used it here.

He cupped her between her legs, squeezing her juncture until she came up on tiptoe.

“You wet for me, doll?” he asked before tracking his gross wet lips along the line of her jaw and back to her ear. “Tell me you're wet and hot for me.”

Jewel had something else in mind to tell him as her hand reached behind her back to the rim of her pants where she'd stuck the knife. The knife was sheathed in a leather case with a snap that held it closed. Luckily she could flip the snap free with one hand, and shaking her hand, had the case slipping free from the blade.

Larry was licking along the line of her neck, going down toward her partially exposed breasts when she lifted her hand and brought the gleaming sharp edge of the blade down, thrusting it deep into his back. She screamed with the action, the adrenaline from all she'd been through in the last two days coming to a boil, the triumph of causing him a fraction of the pain he'd caused her as liberating as breathing.

He reared back, his face contorted in a mask of shock, calling her every type of bitch he could manage while reaching behind him to pull the knife she'd left buried in his back free. “I'm gonna kill you, bitch!” he yelled, holding the knife up and getting ready to charge her.

From across the room glass shattered, raining down onto the gleaming wood floors that shook beneath the booted feet of the Shadow Shifter that had come to her rescue.

 

Chapter 20

Rage was a hazy shade of red, blanketing Ezra as he leapt through the window only to see Crowe moving toward Jewel with a bloody knife in his raised hand. There was no controlling the roar that rumbled free of his chest, no stopping the claws that broke through the skin of his knuckles.

Crowe jumped at the noise coming from behind him, turning until his icy gaze landed on Ezra. In that instant Ezra could see the man's lips moving, knew he was saying something but had no idea what or to whom. Correct that: the loud crashing coming from his left signaled exactly who Crowe had been speaking to.

ADAM crashed through the drywall, fists balled, teeth bared, every muscle in the six-and-a-half-foot-tall creature bunching as it immediately blocked Ezra's path. Its chest heaved up and down as if it too relied on oxygen to live, but Ezra doubted that was true. This thing, no matter what its intention, was not a Shadow Shifter. That ooze coming from ADAM's ears and now the cracks of his eyes, told another story entirely. So did the blurry haze over eyes that were green like a jaguar's, its nose flat, lips peeled back from long, sharp teeth, and with two holes in its neck on either side.

Ezra and Eli had been stuck on either side of their neck by Dagar, the night the protection ceremony had taken place. The shaman had used a branch that was as sharp as a knife to pierce them at spots the shaman had previously marked. They'd been temporarily paralyzed from that point down.

ADAM wasn't paralyzed. No, Ezra thought, feeling the power of his cat invading every corner of his human body, the creature was ready to kill.

And Ezra was the target.

Or after a few cracking bones, stretching muscles, and a roar that rattled the remaining windows on the lower floor of the house, the jaguar was now ADAM's target.

Ezra didn't hesitate to lunge for the big creature, jaws open wide, teeth bared. To its credit ADAM didn't move, but spread his brawny legs a bit farther apart and squatted, thick arms hanging at his sides like he was ready to catch the cat that charged him. The cat's first bite landed on the left side of the creature's chest. Then the cat was struggling to breathe as ADAM did what Ezra had first expected, wrapping those cannon-like arms around the cat and squeezing. The cat's bones almost broke beneath the creature's strength, but a twist and a direct bite to ADAM's left bicep had the arms releasing, the cat falling on its feet to the floor.

Ezra wouldn't call it pain—the creature didn't look as if it could decipher emotions on the physical level, just things that stopped it from completing its task. It looked down at the huge gash in its arm that Ezra had created and growled down at the cat. Ezra didn't give a damn and wasn't afraid. He was pissed off beyond repair and showed his attitude by going for the big beast's legs to take a bite. This time the beast reacted quickly, kicking out said leg and sending the cat careening across the room.

It stomped across the room then, the floor shaking in its wake. The cat had once again landed on its feet but was now backed into a corner. It hunched, staring at its prey with glowing eyes and killer teeth. ADAM stared back, its clawed hands at its sides. It walked like a man and could probably pass for one if its eyes would stay human or if it wore a nice pair of wraparounds. It looked angrier if that were even possible, its eyes almost bulging out of the sockets, teeth gnashing.

The cat and the human eyed the monstrosity as they watched its approach. It couldn't fall to its feet and shift into a big cat—whatever variety it had been mixed with. And it couldn't quite be a full human. It was stuck in between, the dark evil floating around inside wondering where it fit into the equation.

Similar to the way it had in Ezra.

Only Ezra was a full-grown half-human, half-jaguar. He could take either form successfully and thus, he could take down this faulty creation.

Until ADAM lifted a hand and smacked the cat just like a human would a child. The cat roared then and lunged, coming up on its hind legs, its claws swiping at ADAM's distorted face. The beast reared back, but the cat kept going, biting at its shoulder, its torso, and then the top of its thigh. ADAM stumbled a little more with each assault, letting out horrific roars each time the cat sunk its teeth deep.

When ADAM slammed against the wall, the cat backed off, going into a completely predatory stance. It moved low, keeping its eyes on its prey. ADAM pushed off the wall and staggered a foot or so toward the cat. The thing stopped as if it were listening for something, the head turning in one direction and then another. And that's when the cat pounced.

There was a loud crunching, cracking sound as its teeth sank deep into the back of ADAM's skull. The thing's head reared back as it roared and the walls around them shook. Seconds later ADAM fell to its knees, then finally on its face. The cat held on for minutes longer, its flanks heaving, blood covering the fur around its mouth.

*   *   *

Jewel had run the instant Larry turned from her. She tripped over something, falling in the hallway just a few feet away from the door to the room where she knew her father was. Her heart was beating so fast it echoed in her ears. She'd flattened her palms on the floor and was just about to push herself up and keep going when she heard him.

Ezra's cat.

She'd only seen it face-to-face once and then it hadn't roared. Yet, she knew the sound, had felt it vibrate throughout her body with a stroke of heat to follow. It was as if it called to her, or wanted her to know that it was here. She came to her feet slowly, looking back in the direction of the living room where it was undoubtedly now terrorizing Larry, or better, killing him.

Shaking her head, Jewel turned back toward the room, toward her father. He was her priority, getting him out of here safely had to be her only focus. They could walk back to where her car had been left, it wasn't that far from the house. If her father couldn't walk, she'd have to help him. Getting to the car was imperative because that's where her backpack and the diamonds were. That was the key to her new beginning, the key to saving her and her father's lives.

When she pushed through the door she was shocked to see her father already standing. The windows shook as she ran to him.

“I'm right here, Daddy,” she told him. “Right here with you.”

“Dawn, baby, you're safe,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief, patting the hand she'd put on his arm.

“Yes, I'm safe. But we have to go. We have to leave now!” she told him as she started moving toward the door.

There was a back door just off the kitchen, she just had to get out into the hallway, past the powder room, and they'd be home free. Unfortunately, her father wasn't moving as fast as she needed him to. She tightened her arm around him, trying to force him to lean more of his weight into her so she could drag him along, if need be. But he dug in his heels, stopping completely and she stared at him in question.

“What is it? Are you in pain? Where are your meds?” she asked, her heart no longer hammering, but now beating a steady rhythm that in her mind matched someone else's—matched Ezra's. She could hear it so clearly, the sound of his heart beating as she'd heard it when she'd laid in his arms throughout the night. He'd been so warm and so comfortable and a part of her had really wanted to stay.

“You can't keep running, baby. You gotta stop and stand up and fight your demons.”

His words stilled her and erased all thoughts of lying in bed with that man. She stared at her father, wondering why he'd said those words in particular.

“I'm not running from demons, Daddy. I'm trying to keep you safe.”

“You're trying to take care of an old man that's lived his life. That man's no good and you're afraid of him. You think I can't feel that? I've known something's been worrying you for a long time now. When you put me in that new home, I thought you might find some peace too, but no, not like this.” He was shaking his head.