Hunger's Mate (7 page)

Jacques was the only one that routinely checked on her, in his candid and serene manner. He seemed to be just there, all the time. Including tonight of all nights.

“Hi,” she said, trying to sound as normal as she possibly could.

“Good evening,” was his reply. “Can I come in?”

The last time Jacques had been to her room he'd used his key and he'd locked her inside for a time afterward. Told her it was for her safety as there'd been a break-in at the resort. She knew that to be mostly true since she'd seen the intruders while she'd been below in the bunkers with Priya Drake, the reporter that was now sleeping with the owner of the resort. Talk about moving up in the world.

“Sure,” she answered, stepping back to let him in. Once she closed the door and faced him it was her turn to ask a question. “What's going on? Is there an issue with the wedding party?”

“No,” Jacques replied immediately.

He looked serious, as usual, his dreadlocks tied neatly at his nape, hanging to the midway point of his back. His black slacks were the perfect length to rest atop the black boots he wore, his beige shirt tucked neatly inside. He moved throughout the living area of her room as if he occupied the space with her, touching a finger along the back of the couch as he passed by, stopping and turning as he stood beside the end table.

“You went out tonight. Did you have a good time?”

Jewel tilted her head, trying to see if she could figure out where this conversation was going. She already knew she didn't want to have it, didn't want him to be here right now. From the way he was looking at her she got the sense that Jacques knew this too.

“I was not on duty tonight, so yes, I went out. I had a good enough time and now I am back. Is there a problem with that?”

His even look changed with a lift of a thick dark brow. He folded his arms over his chest, his shoulder muscles bunching with the motion. Jacques wasn't a broadly built man like … she didn't want to think of him at all. Still, Jacques possessed this quiet type of strength, a lethalness she could never quite explain but felt each time she was near him. It was like that with all of them, Sebastian Perry, Jacques, Syfon and Paolo, and the others that she saw hanging around near the bunkers even more frequently since the break-in. Danger hovered around them like a dark cloud and she'd long wondered why.

“No problem,” he said with a shrug. “Just wanted to check on you.”

“There's no need,” she replied as nonchalantly as she could. How did he know she'd gone out? Was he the one watching her? “I went out. I'm back now and all is well.”

She said the last as happily as she could manage, even offering a smile to seal the deal.

“We should meet sometime tomorrow to go over logistics for the wedding festivities again. I checked my e-mails when I came in and the bride wants changes, as expected.” Jewel kept right on talking as if this was the most natural visit in the world, even though her gut told her something totally different.

“You know you can always take one of the resort vehicles and a driver when you need to go out,” he told her.

“What? Why? Are any of the other employees using the resort vehicle and a driver?” She knew they weren't and up until this moment had never been offered the same.

“You're not other employees. You're my assistant and if you need to go somewhere, you can have a driver take you in one of our vehicles. It's no big deal,” he stated frankly.

And yet, Jewel knew that it was. It was a big, controlling deal that reminded her so much of Larry she almost took a protective step back.

“I don't need special treatment, Jacques. I have a perfectly functional vehicle that can take me wherever I want to go. Now, if you don't mind, it's late,” she said, moving toward the door. She thought that might sound a little rude, but really didn't care at the moment. She wanted him out of this room right now, before her panic attack escalated and he saw a side of her she didn't want anyone to see, ever.

Thankfully, he only nodded and walked toward the door. With great relief, she opened it and held her breath as he stopped, giving her a questioning look and said, “If you need anything, you know all you have to do is ask. You're a valued employee here, Jewel. If I can help make your life here easier, I will.”

She swallowed, hating the words that sounded so nice on the surface, but scared the hell out of her.

“I'm fine,” she managed once more. “Really, I'm just fine. I'll see you in the morning.”

Again, he nodded, his face still a solemn mask of good looks. “See you in the morning,” he told her before turning and walking away.

Jewel closed the door, engaging all the locks as she had before, including the chair, before going back into her bedroom, where she fell face-first onto the bed, tears stinging her throat.

*   *   *

“You were right,” Jacques told Ezra when he rounded the corner after leaving Jewel's room. “She's afraid.”

“Of what?” Ezra asked tightly, his fists already clenching at his sides. “How long has she been here? What do you know about her?”

“Bas did the background check. I read it briefly and she was cleared,” Jacques told him.

“Just like that?”

Jacques frowned. “Just like that.”

“I want to know everything about her. Where she's from, how she came to be here and what the hell is going on with her now,” Ezra insisted, his hands clenching at his sides, an unfamiliar emotion soaring through his body simultaneously with the simmering anger.

He'd sensed fear before, pain and death and a host of other emotions, in humans as well as shifters. None of those instances compared to what he was feeling here and now, what he'd felt the moment the scent of her fear had permeated his senses. Now, all he could focus on was the fact that he needed to find the source and put a painful end to it. To save her in some way.

Then he would address the other—the arousal that to a lesser shifter may have been debilitating, but to him was simply a growing nuisance. Or maybe he wanted to think that was all it was.

“Hold on a second, here,” Jacques told him, raising a brow and crossing his arms over his chest. He looked like he was contemplating, figuring something out, and about to draw all the wrong conclusions.

Ezra was actually finished talking to him. “Forget it, I'll find out on my own,” he snapped, moving around the other shifter.

Jacques grabbed his arm and Ezra reacted. Moving with the agility of his cat, he reached out, twisting Jacques's arm and pushing the Enforcer into the wall.

“You planning on stopping me?” he asked, lips drawing back in a snarl, teeth sharpening and pressing into his bottom lip.

“Stand down,” Jacques said in a voice all too calm, considering Ezra could break his arm at any second.

The other man was in a higher position than Ezra, but he didn't give a damn. Or at least Ezra hadn't thought of that before he'd reacted, which was a bit strange for him. Still, he only loosened his grip minutely as he continued to glare at the shifter.

“I won't have anything happening to her, not while I'm here. So I'm putting you on notice that I plan to find out everything there is to know about Jewel Jenner, and if there's something, or God help me someone, in her past that needs to be addressed, that's what the hell I plan to do.” The words had rolled out of his mouth without any pre-thought. He'd staked a claim he wasn't even sure he had a reason to. And he wasn't about to take it back, not one damned word.

“I said, stand down,” Jacques repeated. “This is not necessary and you know it.”

There was a moment's hesitation where Ezra thought about what Jacques had said. Those thoughts mixed with a replay of what had happened in the parking lot. Logic permeated the haze of desire and possessiveness that had come on faster than he could comprehend.

He released Jacques, moving away from him and back down the hall toward the stairway without saying another word. There was nothing left to say. He knew what he had to do and he planned to do it, without explaining his reasons to anyone else. If he allowed himself to really think about that, he'd admit he didn't have an explanation anyway.

Ezra went to the room he'd been given at Perryville. It was located on the ground floor, on the opposite side of the spa, so that he wasn't visible among the other guests of the resort. It was imperative that he keep a low profile while at the resort. He'd rented an apartment closer to the lab that would coincide with the persona of the lonely, geeky, almost broke Chicago transplant they'd created for him.

The accommodations were still on the nice, if small side, and he'd decided as soon as this job was complete he'd be happy to return to Havenway, the shifter headquarters in Alexandria. At least, that's the way he'd originally felt. Now, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it onto the bed, Ezra moved to the small desk pressed against the wall on the opposite side of the room and sat down. Opening his laptop, his thick fingers pressed the button to boot up the machine so hard he probably could have broken it. While the computer did its wake-up-and-play mode, Ezra sat back in the chair, bringing his fingers to the bridge of his nose for a quick massage.

What the hell was he doing? What had he been thinking?

He shouldn't have touched her. Shouldn't have put his tongue in her mouth, his finger in her warm, dripping wet center. He shouldn't have ingested her fear and worry, taking it on as another part of his genetic makeup. He should have kept his distance. Isn't that what he was good at? Being with a woman and not being
with
her at the same time? Yes, that was his specialty. It had been since Acacia, the beautiful
Lormenian
shifter, had taught him and Eli an invaluable lesson in sex, love, and life.

They'd only been eighteen—some would say that with pity and/or empathy for what the twin teenagers had gone through under the hand of the older, much more experienced daughter of the tribe leader. She was as powerful in that tribe and throughout that forest as she was gorgeous and sexually alluring. And to the boys who only two years before had experienced their
awakening
in the world of shape shifting, she was a walking, talking wet dream. Only the dream became a stark reality as they soon became Acacia's sex toys.

She taught them everything there was to know about the physical act of being pleasured and pleasing a partner. Through the gatherings in a sweaty hut, lit by torches in the twilight hours she showed them how dark sexual pleasure could go, how intense the need could churn and how fearsome a Shadow Shifter could be in slaking that need. She showed them that there was only need, only hunger, and in the end, never love.

Inevitably, Ezra now thought, she'd shown the brothers that emotions and addictions were for the fragile and that in the Shadow Shifter world there was absolutely no room for weakness. Everything that had happened between them was a game, a means to an end for the lovely princess. Sleeping with and toying with the minds of the young
Top
è
tenia
trainees was a jab at her father, a disgraceful alliance Acacia had hoped to use against Teodoro in retribution for him sending away the shifter she truly loved. In essence, the twins had been used as pawns, their grandfather and his legacy disgraced by the shame that Teodoro and his tribe brought down on them.

The most unfortunate part was that none of these events had hampered the desire that burned inside Eli and Ezra, the need that chewed at them constantly. Despite what Acacia had done they still wanted to sleep with her, still felt drawn to be in her arms, until they had no choice but to seek help, to seek out the shaman in search of some type of solace from the addiction that they now knew could destroy them and everything they were supposed to be.

And once they'd finally found relief, Acacia had sent her minions for them. She'd died that night, alongside the shifters that had dragged the twins to her hut. All of them had died at the hands of Ezra and his twin. There were moments when Ezra thought they may have had the easy way out. Living and breathing every second of every day with the memories never seemed to be a victory in his eyes. Instead it bore down on him like a sadistic curse.

Now, the blaring lights from his laptop were the beacon. It was, for now, the call back to reality, to the life that he had to continue to lead, no matter what pain the past held. The waiting screen pulled him out of his reverie and Ezra immediately sat up, putting his fingers to the keyboard. Taking a deep breath he reached into his pocket and pulled out the USB drive he'd had with him while he'd worked at the lab today. Inserting it, he waited for the contents to appear then clicked on the first file.

For the next few hours he read, submersing himself in the world of chemical and biological warfare. His stomach clenched with all the projects he had knowledge of, all the ways supposedly intelligent humans had come up with to kill other humans. It was almost dawn when he clicked into the final file titled: The Genesis Project.

 

Chapter 6

“Finally,” he whispered. “I've finally found you.”

Lawrence Crowe sat back in the leather chair of his home office, staring at the video he'd just received. It was her, he had no doubt.

Of course there was a wig and sunglasses, but he'd know that body anywhere. Every step she took was like her hand stroking along his naked body. His dick grew harder as the video played, as she moved from the building to her car, her hands sliding along the steering wheel. He remembered her hands and her hot little mouth, so eager to please. He remembered everything about her, everything about the way she made him feel on a daily basis. He also remembered that she'd stolen from him and she'd run away. Two things he could not forgive.

He'd told her to never run away, to never leave him. She'd promised she wouldn't. And then she had.