The Fallen One (Sons of the Dark Mother, Book One) (16 page)

“
Don’t transform,” he whispered
breathily. “I want to get a look at you—Justice’s mate—now that you
are all grown up.”

She glared at him. “And why would I
give you this to you?”

He smiled. He was very
handsome—
for a vamp
, she thought. She had thought she had remembered that
wrong—thought she’d been caught up in some teenage illusion—or
delusion, as the case might have been. But, no. Here she was, a
full-grown adult, and he was still breathtakingly
handsome.

She felt sorry for the human women
he took up with. He was hypnotic, mesmerizing; how could a mere
human resist him?

She had to concentrate to avoid
panic. She wanted to look around, to try to gauge if she had an
opening for escape. But she knew there wouldn’t be and forced
herself to remain still.

“
How did you get in here?” she
asked—as if she didn’t know. But they
had
prepared for such
things.

He gave a low laugh. “Your people
are always underestimating us.” He stepped forward.

“
Our people, now? Once, we were
all friends.” She sat up. He was the most handsome vamp she had
ever seen. He moved with a lithe grace that would have left even
the Jaguar People envious. There as something dangerously appealing
about him. She knew—had always known, instinctively—he would make
an extremely dangerous enemy.

And she had always been glad he was
not their enemy.

Until fifteen years ago.

“
Relax, I’m not going to harm
you—not even going to touch you.” He stood still as stone. “See,
I’m staying right here. I’ve only come to look at you—to see what
he sees in you. To see what would make him do something so
foolish—as to
threaten
me
….”

She gave a sharp laugh. “Yeah, like
you couldn’t move in the blink of an eye.”

The next thing she knew, he was
sitting beside her. “You mean like this,” he said and ran a finger
down the side of her flushed face. “Hmmm, yes.”

He got up from the bed and moved
away from her. “Not the scent of a human—but very desirable,
nonetheless.” He walked to the window.

“
I thought
you people
needed an invitation?”
she spat.

“
Then it would
seem—
I’ve been invited
.” And he turned and was gone.

She went limp with relief. And
then, she jumped up and ran to the door, and forcefully threw it
open. It crashed against the wall. That was all that was needed to
alarm everyone in the house. In the next moment, the guard in the
hall was in scanning her room.

She wouldn’t have to do anything
foolish to get Justice to come to her after all. His sister got
right on the phone. It would seem that Justice’s worst enemy had
just paid her a visit.

He showed up within two hours and
came straight to her room.

She had been watching out the
window, but she still didn’t manage to catch his entrance into the
house. She turned around, and then did something she thought she’d
never do.

She raced over and threw herself
into his arms.

He held her tightly for a long
moment. Then he leaned back and searched her face for any signs of
damage. “He didn’t hurt you, then?”

She shook her head. “Did you
really think he would?” she asked. Then, bit out, “He was
here
,
Justice—
in the house
. Your sister seemed to think you’ve been talking to him.”
Her voice came out in a rush. “How was he able to come in? He said
it would seem that he had been
invited
?”

“
And so he was,” he said with what
sounded like regret in his voice.

“
How?” she asked. “How was he
invited? This isn’t the same house as when we were kids. How did he
get invited into
this
house
?”

He strode across the room and sat
down on her bed, where she joined him, searching his face for
answers.

“
He was my best friend,
Jes.”

She couldn’t have been more
surprised if he had hit her. “I know that, Justice. But all of that
changed, didn’t it? How have you managed to still be talking to
him?”

He gave a sharp, derisive laugh.
“Don’t you mean, how did I manage to remain good friends—best
friends—with a vamp? Isn’t that what you always wanted to know?” he
asked derisively. “It was easy. We were raised together—just like
you and me.” He looked at her and winced. He had a great deal of
sadness in his eyes that checked anything derisive of her own that
she’d been about to say.

“
I’m sorry, Jes,” he said with
obvious regret.

Jes did something she would
question for some time later. She hugged him—hugged him closely.
After a moment, she pulled away.

“
Justice—he hated you that
day—that day he left. And I thought you hated him.”

“
Jes, he is the most dangerous
vamp I have ever known. If he had hated me—I wouldn’t have
lived.”

They had gone down to the kitchen,
where she had made them a stout pot of coffee. They sat across from
each other. He was sitting quietly. She sat waiting for him to
explain.

He gave a heavy sigh. “As I have
said, we have been talking. We were part of the Alliance; you knew
that. That day, I thought he would come back and kill me—but he
never did. And then, he did come back—and wherever I went, he would
show—on occasion. He said he was keeping an eye on us. We were to
ensure that our people never severed the bond. We make a great
Alliance.

“
Jes—apart from us—as you well
know—he’d make for a very dangerous enemy. And our feuding could
bring a lot of destruction to the Earth—and the human
species.”

She nodded. “I can see that. I can
even see how raising us all together might have helped us to better
understand one another. But why you two? What do the two of you
have that would possibly impress two powerful races?”

“
We are part of the ones who have
watched over the one known from
the
prophecy
.”

Her mouth formed a little “o”. She
shifted, trying to comprehend this. “What happened that day to make
him so angry? Why did he come to the house in a murderous rage,
Justice?
How
did
he become your enemy?”

He looked up at her then. “Your
father happened. He almost succeeded in killing me. But that day,
he
did
succeed in
killing much of what was good in Dracon.”

Chapter
Fifteen

Jes

Jes felt the wind leave her in a
whoosh.
She searched Justice’s face. She
didn’t detect the slightest hint of accusation in his tone or face;
so why did she feel so badly?

“
You did not do this, Jes,” he
told her, shaking his head. “And I don’t tell you this to make you
feel guilty for something you had no control over. I tell you this
because Dracon was in your room, and I need you to understand
exactly
why
he is
so dangerous.”

She cocked her head, watching
him.

“
Dracon is a very angry customer.
They were training us as…,” he paused, “the right-hand men
of
the prophecy
.”
He looked up at her then.

She sensed something he wasn’t
saying.

He nodded, but didn’t enlighten
her. Well, she didn’t see the point in pressing. He wouldn’t tell
her until he was ready.

“
Anyway, your father killed his
sister.”

Jes sucked in her
breath.

“
Then why didn’t he kill me when
he had the chance?”

He looked down, tilted his cup. “I
haven’t the faintest clue. I would have thought that he would
have.”

“
That’s not very
reassuring.”

He pressed his lips into a grim
line, and brushed his hand through his hair. He looked exhausted.
That wasn’t an easy feat for one of the Jaguar People.

“
He went crazy when his sister
died. He swore he’d have revenge. He wanted nothing more to do with
the Alliance. It became one of the single most important things I
set about to do—to change his mind.”

She shook her head. “He’s your
enemy. He was in my room. You don’t even know why he didn’t kill
me. Why is it important to
change his
mind
?”

He looked at her. His eyes were
sad. “Because—without him—
there is no
Alliance
.”

Jes lay in her bed—she’d tossed and
turned the rest of the night. Now, she watched the sun rise and
light up her room, spilling warm, gentle fingers over her
blankets.

Try as she might—she hadn’t been
able to get Justice to explain what he’d meant by that cryptic
comment. He looked resigned, like the weight of it was almost
enough to do him in. Apparently, everything for which he had fought
for so long hinged on Dracon.

And Dracon did not look as if he
had any of intention of cooperating.

Why on Earth would any of this
hinge on the decision of a vamp, albeit a dangerous one?

She was out of bed and facing the
sun when it fully rose. She lit a candle and said a prayer. Then,
she wrote a spell on a piece of paper and lit it on fire from the
candle, setting it into a heat-proof dish.

She looked out at the sun, talking
with her mind and heart to the Great Mother, and her guides and
ancestors. She gave thanks that Justice and his sisters, her
sister—she smiled at the thought of it—and her grandparents were
all okay.

She thought about her mother, the
woman who she realized now had really been her sister, and how she
had been so gentle and kind. She had great courage to face Jes’s
father with what she knew—knowing that he was the head of this
powerful group—a group that was actively going up against the
Alliance.

She needed to speak to her
grandparents—or her parents. Jes resolved right then and there that
she was going to continue to think of them exactly as she always
had—as her grandparents—or she was going to lose her mind trying to
sort it all out every time. So they would remain her grandparents
until such time as her mind had sorted it all out for
itself.

Justice had promised he would not
disappear into the night last night.

Today she would get him to take her
to see them.

Justice did not want to take her to
see her grandparents. He did his best to talk her out of it, but in
the end he took her. He was quiet the entire way, other than to
tell her that it was more than a bit foolish to go without more of
the guards.

Her grandparents, however, were
overjoyed to see her—and even more happy to see him. They started
to ask him questions, but when he glanced at their granddaughter,
they held their silence.

How very odd
, she thought.

She broached the subject of her
mother with much trepidation, but her grandmother was quick to see
what she was leading up to. She watched her granddaughter with a
terrible sadness.

“
She is gone, Nanna,” Jes said
with tears in her eyes.

Justice stepped out of the room
while the three of them hugged and cried.

They talked for a long time about
her mother—about her gentle nature—about her gentle love. They
cried, and they talked.

This closure had been a long time
in coming.

And finally, her grandmother asked
of her—what she had been hoping she wouldn’t.

“
Who killed her, Jes?” Her
grandmother anchored her with a look, and Jes was powerless to stop
herself from answering.

Jes wavered, tears in her eyes,
over what they had lost—over the knowledge that these two people
were really her parents. They had given up so much to protect their
daughters.

Resolutely she straightened her
shoulders. She realized that she was not going to surprise them
this night with the knowledge that she knew they were really her
parents. “Dad,” Jes choked out, fresh tears pouring down her
face.

Her grandmother went to her knees,
keening, tearing the breath from Jes. She went down on her knees
and held her, rocking her. Her grandfather kneeled and held them
both.

Justice had come back into the room
at her cry. What he saw brought tears to his own eyes. And he
kneeled down and put his arms around them too.

It was a long time before any of
them moved. When they were spent, they slowly straightened and made
their way to the chairs. Her pappy pierced Justice with a hard
look. “I will have your word, son, that you will bring him before
the council.”

Justice hadn’t been in the room
when Jes had told her grandparents the truth of who had killed her
mother. He had hoped she wouldn’t reveal that information yet. Her
grandparents had a powerful influence over the council.