by Lisa Ladew
“I don’t know.” He groaned again. “He came out when I needed him, but he never told me,” Jaggar moaned. “‘Take me to church’ was nothing but a way for me to deny myself. I am an idiot.”
“You’re a survivor,” she said. “The catamount said so.” The words were automatic and they painted a picture in her mind, but she struggled to grasp what they meant. Jaggar seemed to be a key for her, but even when she clung to him, she could not think clearly and could not remember things she needed to remember. The more time she spent with him, the more grounded she felt, but still she didn’t know what he was saying. Maybe that she was good for him, too?
“Who is the catamount?” he asked her. Had he asked her the question before? She thought wildly, trying to remember, the clock looming in her mind, wanting her to touch it, to at least look at it. Silver light flooded everything. She tried to ignore it, thinking instead about Jaggar’s question. Did she even know who the catamount was? She did. An image of a jungle cat came to her, all powerful muscles and sharp teeth. The catamount lived in the meadow.
She moved her hands from his shoulders to his forearms, while she tried to think how to answer. Her eyes were open, that silver light swimming inside her own mind, obscuring her own vision, and she felt the light flash brighter, felt her energy raise to dangerous levels, as she considered. Jaggar let go of his head and grabbed her around the waist.
Her energy flared for just a second, and the clock shook, and she thought they were going to travel, but it stilled. She watched it in her mind and tried to speak. “The-she’s a-she’s like you, or like your mom, I guess.”
“A shifter?” he asked, his voice soft but delicious to her. He was so well-spoken, his voice so perfectly deep and masculine.
“No, just a big cat. A mountain lion.”
“A catamount,” he said plainly.
“Yes,” she said.
He didn’t speak for several moments, and when he did, his voice held strain. “Leilani, I-I don’t know what is going on.”
“Yes, you were… gone,” she said.
He dropped his head into her lap and she put her hands on his head, feeling the short, short hair there.
“I regret what I did to Harlan when he kissed you,” Jaggar said, his voice muffled by her lap.
“Kissed me!” she said. She pulled his head up, keeping her hands on him. “Are you joking?” She wished she could see his expression. But she could feel wetness on his cheek. He wasn’t joking, and it was tearing him up inside. “I never kissed Harlan,” she told him, shaking her head ‘no’.
But then she understood. “Eventine. Eventine was… she was in my body. She kissed Harlan. I was in the meadow.”
He didn’t speak for a long time. She held her breath, listening to his breathing. It was heavy, but halting. His shoulders trembled. Leilani cried silently, just a little. She couldn’t help it. He’d thought she had kissed Harlan? That’s why he’d done what he did? That’s why he’d left? Her heart both loosened and tightened and a voice spoke inside her mind. Not her voice. He’s not a human, Lele, you can’t hold him to human standards. Try to understand.
She nodded, not knowing why she was doing so, letting her heart open to him. “Do you know the meadow?” she asked him, wanting to get him talking, wanting to connect with him so bad it hurt.
“No,” he said too quickly. “Kind of,” he countered. “Do you mean where Crew spent time with Rhen?” His voice was tight, so tight, but it had nothing to do with her.
“Maybe.” She frowned. “It’s not totally clear to me right now. I know that sounds crazy, and I know I might be… crazy, but it’s hard to think about it…” She let go of him and put her hands on her own head, glad he had ahold of her so tightly.
“Crew is a wolf, right?” she said.
“Yes,” he answered. “He’s mated to Dahlia. Your sister.”
“Dahlia, yes, I’ve seen her. She’s sweet.”
“Yeah.” He smiled. She didn’t know how she knew he was smiling but she did. She reached out for his face, wishing she could see him.
“The catamount lives in the meadow,” she said, sure about that much, at least. “She says I have purpose. She says you’re dangerous.” The words spilled out of her, and she only knew what they were after she’d said them. “That scared me when she said it.”
“You’re scared of me?” he said, and she couldn’t read his tone, only that it was soft.
She chewed on her bottom lip. Tried to think about it. Was she still scared of him? Instead of answering, she leaned closer to him, pulled him in closer to her. Her heart beat madly before her mind ever knew what she intended.
She touched her lips to his.
Oh! His lips were firm and soft at the same time, warm and alive. Neither of them moved for a moment, they only pressed together. He melted under her touch, leaning into her, pulling her hips closer to him, a soul-deep sigh coming from him, like he couldn’t imagine anything better in the world. His head tilted one way and hers tilted the other. Oh, she liked it so much. His facial hair tickled her, rough and masculine and she ran her fingers over it while he pressed his lips against hers, so very gentle.
Her body was on fire, her mind completely clear for the first time in… ever. She knew who she was in that moment. She was a woman in the arms of a male who adored her. A tide broke inside her as she gave herself over to the feeling, letting it touch her in new places, letting it wake her up. Yes! his lips said. Good, his lips said. You are good, you are beautiful, and I want you to be mine, his being said as he got as close to her as he possibly could, pulling her against him. She gripped him with a sudden ferocity born from someplace deep inside her that she’d never encountered before. Yes.
The ferocity scared her and she broke the kiss, grief filling her immediately. She didn’t let him go, though. She couldn’t quite handle the kiss, but she would never let him go. She breathed hard and blushed. “My first kiss,” she said, embarrassed that it was. She was twenty-six years old.
“Mine, too,” he said, startling her.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s not possible.” She pulled back, but he held her close.
“It is, Lele. The beast-my animal, he doesn’t do well around females, never has. I’ve never trusted myself before. I always thought it would be different with my mate… but when our females died…” His voice trailed off and then his head dropped. “I gave up.”
Leilani considered that for a moment, her heart breaking for Jaggar. Outside, she heard voices call from far away. Smokey, a woman was calling. She glanced in the direction she knew the door to be, wondering if it was locked. She was glad she was alone with Jaggar and didn’t want anyone coming in on them. She wanted to know him.
“It’s locked,” he said, and she jumped.
“What about me?” she said. “Does your animal… do well around me?”
She could hear the smile in his voice. “You soothe him.” His voice hitched then, and he groaned, pulling one of his hands away from her. She moved her hands from his face to his shoulders, holding on tight, just in case he let go completely. She couldn’t afford to be separated from him right then. She needed him. Her heart was wide open and it just wasn’t safe to walk around like that without protection, without a buffer. Jaggar was her buffer. All at once, her fear of him fell away. He was dangerous. But not to her.
Jaggar groaned again.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered.
“I think he’s speaking to me,” Jaggar said. “And it hurts.” He took a deep breath. “But it’s letting up. I see this picture in my head of him. He’s big and he’s ugly, but he’s rolling over to show you his belly. Now he’s running around like a pup, chasing his tail, making his ears flop forward and back. Now he’s licking your face, doing anything he can to make you laugh. Now he’s running up a too-small tree, clutching the top of it with his legs until it cracks and spills him to the ground. He just rolled again, he’s on his back, all four feet in the air.”
Leilani smiled. She couldn’t help it. “He’s a… a goofball.”
“Only for you,” Jaggar whispered.
“That’s fine,” she whispered back fiercely. “That’s perfectly fine and you tell him so.” She moved her hands over Jaggar’s face and stared into his eyes with her sightless eyes, knowing he was looking back and the beast was, too. “You’re not a beast. You’re not an abomination. You’re good and you’re handsome and you’re special and I… I like you.”
Jaggar came in even closer to her, and just before his lips touched hers again, he whispered to her.
“I want to know you, too.”
Silver flashed.
22 – All Her Fault
The clock hands spun madly in Leilani’s mind. She grabbed at them with two imaginary hands, pinning it down, stopping it… where? She released the tension on her fingers slightly, testing it. It wasn’t trying to move anymore. She let up. 9:45. The past-9:45 had to mean the past, because every time they’d traveled to see Jaggar’s past, that’s what the clock had ended up on.
Slowly, she gathered her senses and her wits about her and tried to tune back in to her body. She was standing and Jaggar was next to her. She had a death grip on Jaggar’s elbow with both of her hands. He moved in front of her and pulled her farther into his chest with his spare arm, like he was shielding her from the world. She liked the feeling of comfort it gave her, and she took a moment to savor it. Because she knew that it would be over soon. If they had traveled back in time to her past, well, she did not remember much that was concrete about her childhood, but she knew one thing. Her mother was a monster who had committed her only child to a mental hospital for life. Leilani would never forgive her.
Leilani squeezed her eyes shut against the silver light behind her eyes, swimming, swimming, swimming. She clutched Jaggar harder, knowing she was acting completely helpless, and hating herself for it, but unable to stop it. Her senses told her they were in a house, standing on carpet. A doorbell rang.
“What do you see?” she asked Jaggar, pulling at his sleeve, trying to stay calm.
“We’re in a big house,” he whispered to her. “There’s no one here. I see a kitchen, some house plants, a floral couch covered in plastic. There’s a staircase up-”
He was interrupted by a woman’s voice calling down the stairs. “I’m coming!”
Leilani sucked in a breath. “My mother,” she said. She pulled at Jaggar. “My mom, she’s not… She never loved me. Our relationship was… complicated.” Oh God, not her mother. Leilani didn’t think she could handle seeing her mother in her past, and having Jaggar see her, too.
“Here she comes,” Jaggar said. “She looks ready for work. She’s dressed in a business suit. Wide shoulders, flats. Her hair is down. It’s long and dark and glossy. You look like her, Lele.”
Leilani shook her head. She didn’t want to look like her. Didn’t want to be like her or think like her or act like her. She would never, ever put her child away in an institution like her mother had done to her, no matter what.
She heard the sound of a door opening. She knew what house this was, knew where the door was. She blinked her eyes, wanting to see something, anything, but there was only silver. Silver and more silver, and that silver clock that wanted her to look at it. She stayed focused on Jaggar, instead.
A female voice at the door said, “Ms. Kaina, so nice to meet you.” Leilani startled. Had she really not known that was her last name? Had she really just… not even thought about who she was? She had to admit that was probably true, a side effect of the ‘medications’ she’d been on for so long. She was a mess. What Jaggar would discover about her here… she hated to think of it.
Her memories of herself and her childhood were dim and muddled. The time she’d spent in the Roosevelt, full of so many drugs she mostly just sat around staring at the TV or out the window, it had robbed her of most everything from her life, especially her sense of who she was. “My mom’s first name is Maile,” she whispered to Jaggar, desperate to hear him say something, anything.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” Maile said. Leilani’s throat closed as she listened to her mother invite the woman in and sit her on the couch. “The daycare is closed today but I have an important meeting at work, and I lost my keys yesterday, so I have a ton of errands to run before my day starts.”
Leilani clutched at Jaggar, forgetting for a moment she was the one with the power. “Oh no,” she whispered at him. “I know… I think I remember what happens here.”
“You lost your keys? How awful,” the woman said.
“Down a drainage ditch, if you can believe that.”
Leilani heard the quick, light run of the very young from upstairs. “Mommy, mommy,” she heard her own voice call. “I got them back for you.”
Leilani groaned and hid her face in Jaggar’s arm. She remembered this very clearly now. It was something she hadn’t thought about for years. Her younger self’s feet pounded down the stairs.
“Is that you?” Jaggar said, his voice telling her clearly that he was loving seeing her as a child. “You’re adorable. You’re running down the stairs, you’ve got this cute jumper on. You look like you are four or five years old. There’s a cat with you, it’s running behind you down the stairs. It’s white with blue eyes.”
Tink. Leilani pressed her face against his arm, panic settling around her gut at what was about to happen. She’d been four. She squeezed Jaggar harder, like she could stop him from leaving her.
Leilani heard keys jingle. “See, Mommy, I got them for you.”
Leilani’s mother gasped. The keys fell to the floor. “Leilani, I told you never, ever, to do that again.”
“What is she doing?” Jaggar said, and his voice had tightened. “She knocked the keys out of your hand. Now she’s got you by the upper arms. She looks like she’s about to shake you.”
Leilani groaned. The clock in her mind swelled and surged into her vision like it knew just what she needed.
Before they flipped out of there for good, she heard her mother say to the babysitter. “You’d better go. My daughter is very sick, and I have to take her to the doctor.”
***
The hands on the clock were harder to stop this time. She had to press down hard, mentally, to even slow them. Leilani’s mind was rebelling against itself. Her eyes hurt, her head hurt, and she didn’t know where to go or how to get there.
“Home,” she whispered. “Home, Trevor and Ella’s place. That’s where I want to go.” She cranked down on the clock hands in her mind, willing to hurt herself if that’s what it took. Again, when they finally stopped under her hands, both hands were pointed to the left. 9:45.
They arrived somewhere, and she almost knew where just by the feel of it…
Jaggar had ahold of her tightly, her arm folded into the crook of his elbow, his other hand folded on top of it. He pulled her closer and rearranged them so his arm was around her, almost draping his presence over her.
“We’re still in the past,” he said, and his voice was dark. “We’re in a different house. A small room. The paint is peeling on the walls and the ceiling is stained and the carpet is worn. I can see you, Lele. Now you’re older. Maybe eleven or twelve? You’re on the couch. You’re staring out the window…”
He didn’t say anymore and Leilani’s mind unfurled with all the possibilities. Twelve was when she’d been put in the Roosevelt, but she barely remembered it. Her mom had already had her on medications for years. He’d said she was looking out the window, but was that it? Was her hair dirty? Her clothes? Was she drooling, maybe? Was she itching? Or fidgeting constantly? The drugs had made her itch and twitch, like her nervous system was on fire all the time. She didn’t want him to see her like that. Out of all the people in the world, this was the man she least wanted to see her like that.
She pulled at him, wanting him to look away from her younger self until she could get them out of there. But the doorbell rang.<
br />
“Your mom just came in from another room. She’s dressed in jeans and a plain cotton sweater. Her hair is pulled back. She looks… harried and sad.” Jaggar’s voice dropped an octave. He was almost whispering.
Leilani heard the door open. Jaggar growled and lunged forward. Leilani caught him just in time with a word. “Jaggar, no. Stay with me, please, I need you.”
The growling idled, lowering, then stopping as he spoke to her, his voice almost frantic. “I’m sorry. It’s… do you know who Grey is?”
“Grey?” She almost did. Her mind felt hot and too big for her head. She hated all of this, wanted to be somewhere cool and quiet, where nothing was happening, where no one was doing anything to her, where no one was even talking to her. She wanted to be anywhere, or anywhen but where and when she was. Silver flooded her vision, flaring, making her hope they would leave. The clock hands weren’t moving yet. She imagined them straight up, 12:00, home, but Jaggar’s next words stopped her cold.
“He’s a wolfen. He’s part of all of this, fighting on the side of Khain for some reason. It’s complicated and makes no sense, but we think he’s in love with Rhen and it has driven him out of his mind.” He didn’t speak for a moment, and his next word was a whisper. “Truly moonstruck.”
“Thank you for coming,” Maile said.
“Of course,” Grey said. His voice was tight and conciliatory, like he needed Maile to like him.
Jaggar growled, his hold on her tightening. “If I could kill him right now, I would,” Jaggar said. “Killing him would stop all of what he did later.”
“No!” Leilani held him tighter. “Please…”
Jaggar squeezed her. “I’m here, Lele, I’m not going anywhere.” He pulled at her. “Your mom and Grey are going in the other room, come on.” Leilani didn’t want to go, but she let Jaggar usher her into the next room. The dining room. “They are sitting at a table,” Jaggar said.
Her mom was speaking. “You saw her. I’m worried because I have to tell her that her cat died. It got run over by a car yesterday. I had to clean it up with a shovel.”
“Can she hear us?” Grey asked.
