“Always.” His mouth twisted in an effort to smile. “Usually, she’s invisible. I asked her to come and to appear so you could see her.”
“Would I see her if I wasn’t here with you?”
“You saw her when you were dying of that fever, querida, didn’t you?”
Ann nodded, so many more memories of that terrible night flooding her being. Throughout the last few days, more and more of that night had been coming back to her. Now she vividly recalled it in its entirety. “She was there with me…” Ann breathed raggedly.
“Yes,” Mike admitted, “I sent her ahead to help you, to stabilize you the best she could energetically, until I could reach you myself.”
“Then I wasn’t dreaming it! I saw her next to the bed while you were holding me in your arms. I was lying between your legs and you were holding me against you. I felt your heart, your breath in me…”
“And at that point, my guardian came over me and supplied the extra energy, the gift of life to you through me,” Mike said humbly. “That is the gift of the jaguar, Ann—life or death.”
She gripped his arms and closed her eyes, caught up in the entire sequence. Mike held her steady. “My God…then it really did happen. I didn’t dream it. I thought I was having hallucinations due to my high fever….”
“Nice medical explanation for the magic of possibility,” he told her wryly. Ann opened her eyes and he watched as her lips parted.
“That’s why they call you the jaguar god? It isn’t just a myth?”
Gently, Mike turned her and, placing his arm around her shoulders again, drew her against him. “Some of the stories being told are true, Ann. Some of them are gossip. The myth builds, changes and becomes ridiculous.”
“I heard Pablo say that you brought people back from the dead.”
Mike laughed, but the sound was strained. With a shake of his head, he said, “No, that’s something I can’t do. Only the Great Goddess could do that, and I’m afraid I’m only a terribly flawed human being. No…I can ask for intervention for someone who’s dying…and if it’s allowed, my guardian will help me pour my own energy and hers into that person to help save them.”
“And that’s how you saved me? You not only gave me your physical blood, but you gave me part of…you?” Ann searched his harsh face, his shadowed eyes. “A transfer of—what? Your life energy along with a blood transfusion?”
His hand tightened briefly on her shoulder. “Yes, exactly. I couldn’t do it if I didn’t…care for you, Ann,” he told her in a low tone. “There are two types of Jaguar Clan members—those belonging to the Sisterhood of Light and those belonging to the Brotherhood of Darkness. I chose the path of light, Ann. And in order to help someone who’s hurt or dying, I have to be in good stead with my heart and my emotions toward them.”
“And your friend Antonio? I saw the jaguar come over you that time in the airport.”
“Yes,” Mike admitted, “you did.”
“And he lived.”
“My jaguar spirit and I interceded on his behalf, Ann. And it wasn’t his time to go. The Goddess allowed him to survive. My guardian and I were only tools, if you will, for that life-giving energy to flow back into Antonio and save him. It’s not an unlimited source. If I give too much of my energy, I could die. It’s a delicate balance.”
She was very quiet, digesting his explanation. “And the same thing took place to save me?”
Mike held her steady, demanding gaze. “Yes.” He saw her wrestling with his explanations. She was honestly trying to accept them—and him. He felt it. There was one more test to go, and he felt the fear eat away at him.
“There’s one more thing I need to show you, Ann,” he told her. “You don’t know everything about me, and it wouldn’t be fair to you if I didn’t tell you the rest.”
She stood back as he began to unbutton his white, short-sleeved cotton shirt. Her mind reeled with possibilities, with confusion. “What are you talking about, Mike?”
He stripped out of the shirt, let it drop to the grass between them, then faced her. “When I finished my training, when I took my guardian as part of myself, something happened…My body became marked for life, to identify me as a member of the Jaguar Clan. It happened during the initiation when the exchange of spirits—of hers—” he pointed to the jaguar in the meadow “—and mine occurred.”
Ann tried not to stare at Mike as he stood barechested before her. This was the first time she’d seen him partially un-clad. He always wore cotton pajamas when they slept together. His chest was magnificent, the dark hair spread across the broad, well-muscled expanse. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, and when he moved, each set of muscles bunched with clear definition telling her how physically powerful he was.
She scowled at her wandering thoughts. “Are you saying you and the jaguar experienced a transfusion of some kind?”
“Exactly. I hope—pray—that what I show you won’t scare you, Ann. It could—and…” He took a deep, ragged breath. “I’m going to turn around and I want you to look at my left shoulder blade….”
This was it. The final truth. Houston felt as if the guillotine was coming down on his exposed neck as he slowly turned around so that Ann could look at his back.
“Oh, my God!”
He froze. And he waited. His heart contracted in anguish over her terror-filled cry. Twisting to look over his shoulder, he saw Ann standing, her eyes huge, her hands pressed against her mouth to stop a scream as she stared wildly at him—at his shoulder.
“It’s real,” he soothed. “Just try and get a hold on yourself, Ann. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Believe me, there isn’t. How long have you known me? Have I ever done anything to make you think I’m not—Mike Houston? Not a man?”
As his words fragmented in her mind, Ann felt dizzy and she had to force herself to remain standing. She had to be hallucinating! She had to be! This was impossible! But Mike’s words were filled with urgency, with fear. She fought her own fear. Fear of what was real and what was not.
“My God, is that—this—real?” she asked, finally looking up into his blue eyes, which glittered with pain.
“As real as you and me, Ann. Touch it—me…and find out. Whatever you do, don’t run, okay? I’m not some kind of—of monster, I’m a man. The same man you knew before you saw this—this mark of initiation into the Jaguar Clan.”
Heart pounding, Ann tried to allow his pleading tone to soothe her fear. The mark on his body seemed impossible, and yet it was there. And it didn’t go away when she blinked her eyes. No, it wasn’t a hallucination. There was a moon-shaped patch the size of her palm that was covered with sleek dark gold fur with black crescents—the same fur as that of the jaguar that stood out in the meadow watching them. Ann wanted to reach out, to touch it to see if it was real.
“Touch me,” Houston demanded. “Touch me, not ‘it,’ Ann. Don’t separate the jaguar fur from me as a man, because you can’t. That fur is a part of my flesh. It’s not pasted on, like you’re thinking. The first time I saw fur on my body was during my near-death experience. On my arm. But that disappeared when my guardian’s energy left me. Then, when I took the initiation into the clan, this—happened. That’s why I never let you see my upper body naked before this. I was afraid that if you saw it, you’d run away from me. You’d—” his brows dipped “—you’d be scared of me….”
Ann allowed her hands to drop from her mouth. She took a step back. “This is a lot to handle, Mike. You have to admit.”
He turned to her. Grimly, he whispered, “Believe me, no one’s more aware of that than me. I don’t want to lose you…what we have, Ann. But I also know that I won’t keep secrets from you, either. If you care for me…then you have to know. I can’t live a lie. I never could.” He avoided her searching gaze.
“And your wife? Did she know—about this?”
“I met Maria here at the village,” he said wearily. “She was from Spain.”
“And she was…part of this Jaguar Clan, too?”
He slowly bent over and retrieved his shirt. “Yes. We met and fell in love with one another while I was here that year, in training. Grandmother Alaria married us. We took our vows and we left the village and went back to the ‘real world,’ Lima.”
“And she had that same…mark on her body?”
Grimly, he nodded. “Same mark, same place. Those who go through the initiation receive this mark.”
Ann watched him knot the white shirt in his fist as he stood there before her. The suffering in his eyes tore at her and she felt his fear of losing her. “And why didn’t it save her and the baby when Escovar murdered her?”
Houston looked up at the brilliant blue of the sky above them. “We have limits on our ability. We’re not all equal in skills. Some of it is genetic ancestry, the rest has to do with where we are as a human being on our own spiritual path. We can be killed just like any other human being. When Maria was murdered, I went insane with rage. Escovar…” Mike shook his head. “He’s pure evil. I don’t know why I’m caught up in this death spiral dance with him, but I am. I didn’t mean for his wife and children to die in that accident, but he believes I did it on purpose. I didn’t. He even killed the man I sent to persuade him that it was an accident.”
“And then,” Ann whispered, “you met Tracy?”
“Yes. We fell in love. She worked as an intel officer at the American embassy in Lima.”
“And she was a member of your…clan?”
“No,” Mike said, studying Ann’s face. Did he dare approach her? Or would she back away from him, the fear he saw in her eyes multiplying. He ached to know if she cared for him enough to deal with this revelation, with him being more than a man in some ways, and in others, so terribly flawed and human.
“Did Tracy know about that?” She pointed toward his left shoulder.
He nodded. “About six months into our relationship, I showed it to her, and I told her the truth, like I’m telling you now.”
Ann nodded and rested her hand against her beating heart. “H-how did she react to it?”
“She was scared at first,” he admitted. “Like you are now. But she loved…trusted me enough to transcend her fear of the unknown, of something…different and unexplainable in her rational view of the world.”
With a shake of her head, Ann muttered, “Houston, you sure as hell know how to throw a woman a real curve.”
He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Translated, what does that mean?”
Ann dropped her hands. “I need time to think through this, Mike. All of it—my nearly dying, what I saw and felt. This is all just too incredible, and yet it happened. And it’s real or I wouldn’t be standing here today, alive, and I know it.” Moistening her lips, she gave him a beseeching look. “I want to be alone for a while.”
“You’ve got it.” Mike tried to control his fear. He knew Ann’s proclivity for cold, hard logic. She couldn’t be a psychotherapist without that left-brain ability. But would she try and explain all of this away with that powerful and intelligent mind of hers? “I just have one thing to say.” Opening his hand toward her, Mike rasped, “This one time, don’t let your head do all the talking and deciding for you. Let your heart have a say in this, too. That’s all I ask, Ann…just that…”
She wrapped her arms around herself and stood feeling very alone in that moment. Mike was suffering cruelly from her decision to separate from him in order to think all of this over, but it was the only thing she could do. “My heart is always involved in every decision I make,” she said gently.
He nodded. “I know it is. It’s just that…” Fear consumed him. He’d nearly said I love you…. The words froze in his mouth. His jaw ached because he so badly wanted to say them to her. “I know that it’s your decision and in your hands—and heart.” Mike tried to smile but didn’t succeed as he pulled the shirt back over his upper body. “I’ll move out of the hut for now. Whatever you decide, I’ll abide by it, Ann. If this is too much for you to accept, I’ll call Pablo and have him drive you back to Lima. You can catch the first flight going north, to the States, no questions asked. If you want to stay, on the other hand, I can’t guarantee it’s going to be a picnic. You know what’s happened to the other two women I loved.” Sadly, he whispered, “And I couldn’t protect them….”
“But you did me,” Ann said brokenly, tears welling into her eyes unexpectedly. Houston was terribly vulnerable right now. She’d never seen a man drop his guard with her as he had. He looked so lonely, so beaten down by life and its harshness, that in her heart, she knew he was a man of tremendous good. After all, she’d been privy to that side of him. He’d almost died giving her back her life.
Flattening his mouth, he rasped, “Yes, for once…”
“Maybe,” Ann said, hope in her tone, “that means something has changed—for the better? I don’t know, Mike. I have to think all this through.”
Taking in a deep breath, he nodded. “I’d give you anything you want, Ann. Come on, let’s go back. I’ll move my stuff out of the hut.”
Ann stepped aside as he walked over to her. Shamed by her reaction, she couldn’t meet his eyes. She felt the hurt radiating from Mike by her actions. She couldn’t help herself, but wanted to. Helplessly, she looked out at the meadow. The jaguar was gone! Quickly, Ann looked up at Houston. The agony she saw reflected in his eyes tore at her heart.
“I asked her to leave,” he told her apologetically. “You’ve had enough shocks for one day.”
Ann walked back with him, down the well-trodden path. They had walked out here arm in arm, laughing and talking animatedly about so many things. Now, as they walked back, each was well aware of the space between them. She saw Mike fighting himself not to reach out and hold her hand. God knew, she wanted to hold his. She wanted to be held by him right now, but that wouldn’t make what she’d just seen or realized go away.
She stole a look up at his strong profile as they walked. Was he man or monster? A genetic freak? Something from Dr. Moreau’s Island? A scientific project gone insane? And yet, as her mind clipped along, going over a hundred different events that had involved Mike during the last three months she’d known him, she realized he’d always treated her with respect, and that she had blossomed like an unwilling orchid beneath the sunlight of his personality…and his very large, giving heart. No, it wasn’t fair to him to call him a monster. He’d be terribly wounded by that. He’d not acted like a monster toward her or anyone else she’d seen him interact with. If she didn’t know he carried the mark of the Jaguar Clan, she would have said he was a normal human being just like anyone else.
Why couldn’t she let herself see him for what he was? Maybe because he’d brought her in touch with a reality she’d never seen before—and understood very little about. Here at the village, everyone carried the mark, he said. And, the races and nations represented were as diverse and fascinating as any melting pot of human beings anywhere else she’d been on earth. She understood that hereditary Jaguar Clan blood had been shared around the world over the past millenium. It started in the Americas long ago and over time, due to inter-marriage, the genetic gift was passed on around the world, which explained the diversity of people who came to the village to receive their training. The people here were so uplifting, Ann had discovered. Everyone treated everyone else with such courtesy and genuine warmth and sincerity. There were never harsh words here. No, just the opposite, ever since she’d been here, harmony, beauty and an incredible peace had permeated her like a healing balm.
At the hut, she waited outside while Mike gathered up his few belongings. As he exited, she called, “Wait….”
Houston turned, his bag in his hands. Ann’s face was shadowed and thoughtful. He could feel her thoughts, her heart as he could his own, though he’d try to shield himself from most of what was going on inside her. And it took everything to hide his reaction to her wondering even whether he was some kind of monster. Some genetic freak.
“You saved my life,�
� Ann said.
“Yes,” he answered, not understanding where she was going with this.
“What do I owe you for that?”
His heart shattered. He tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “Not a thing, Ann. Why?”
“I don’t know,” she began with an effort. “How do you pay someone back for saving your life? I wouldn’t be standing here now if you hadn’t done what you did.”
He cocked his head, trying hard to understand her. There was such a quandary within her presently. “Listen very carefully to me, Ann,” he growled. “What I did for you was a gift from my heart to your heart. There are no strings attached to it. Do you understand? Don’t factor anything I did to save your life into whatever decision you might come to. That’s separate. It has to be. You owe me nothing.”
She regarded his narrowed eyes. “I owe you the truth.”
He raised his head and took in a deep, ragged breath. “Yes, that’s all. That’s enough….” And it was. His life hung in a real balance now. He could not share with her that she was his one true mate for this lifetime. Even though he possessed paranormal powers beyond most human beings, his life was led and dictated by the Sisterhood of Light code. That meant that he would never willingly force anyone into doing something he or she might not want to do. As fiercely as he loved Ann, he would never allow her to know she was his true mate until—and if—she decided to accept him—all of him—for the way he was.
Mike could taste his love for her. They had so much to explore, to share with one another—and yet he shielded Ann from all of that. It wouldn’t be fair to try and influence her like that. He knew he could probably persuade her, but at what cost? No, it wasn’t his way. Ann had to decide on her own, based on the experiences she’d already shared with him and the information he’d placed in her hands about himself. His hand tightened around the paramedic pack he held at his side.
“If you need anything, Moyra will be around. She’ll help you, okay?”
Ann almost took a step toward Mike. She wanted to reach out, touch him and tell him everything would be all right, but she didn’t know that. At least, not yet. The harsh mask was in place on his face. He was hiding a lot from her now.
Morgan’s Mercenaries: Heart of the Jaguar Page 22
