His voice quieted into a deadly whisper, and his long fingers reached for the golden strands of hair that fell about her face. He grabbed hold of them and pulled her closer, inhaling her scent deeply as a growl rumbled from deep within his chest.
“I don’t care if you tell me where the shifter is or not. I didn’t come alone. Right now several of my men are out there,” he nodded toward the forest, “and they will hunt him down and bring him to me. I will kill him, as is my right.”
Libby gritted her teeth as his tongue licked along the edge of her jaw, her mind frantically looking for a way out.
“I can smell him all over you…inside of you. Even now his seed rests where mine should be.”
He lifted her up and threw her onto the counter. Libby yelped as her skull whacked the granite with such force that stars flashed before her eyes. Savagely, he yanked her head back, his eyes resting on her shaking lips, his voice deadly and full of intent.
“I will taste you. Have my fill of you. You will know what it feels like to mate with a DaCosta.” Black laughter trickled from even white teeth. “And then you will die.”
She tried to struggle, but he was just too strong, and she watched helplessly as his hands fell to his pants. Now, for the first time, she noticed tattoos and markings on his left arm, peeking up from beneath the neckline of the shirt he wore. They were so like Jaxon’s, yet different somehow. A small trickle of awareness slipped through her brain, and an image flashed in front of her.
And then another.
Realization hit her hard, and her lungs contracted painfully as she struggled to breathe. Agony coursed through her veins.
He had held her tightly while fat Frank had burned her flesh. He had carved his knife deep into her flesh. He had beaten her with his hands.
He had a name…Alexio. She remembered it with perfect clarity. He was a member of the DaCosta crime family.
He had tried to beat information from her, all in an effort to…
The canvas remained blank, and she cried out as she tried to remember.
His hands stilled and he grinned down at her. “You remember me now? He said the mind block would crumble once you started gaining memories.” He leaned closer to her, and Libby pushed back against him, but it only fed his enjoyment. “I’ll make sure Castille knows I was able to pleasure his woman before she died.”
Alexio moved back briefly, intent on loosening his pants, and Libby saw her chance. She kicked out as hard as she could, her aim strong and true as she connected with his groin area.
He roared as she rolled to the side, falling to the floor. She hissed as her side throbbed from the impact, but her eyes had already latched onto the knife that lay inches from her hands and she scrambled to grab it.
A loud crash echoed through the dark cabin, but Libby pushed aside the fear clawing at her as the furious roar rent the air. Her mind was moving in a chaotic mess, but the need to survive held strong, and she clenched her teeth together tightly, as her fingers closed around the handle of the knife.
Strong hands grabbed her legs and began to pull her back, but she bucked and kicked, twisting her body around until she was able to aim for his face. Alexio was furious beyond reason, and his eyes bulged with a fanatical madness as spittle gathered at the corners of his mouth.
Someone, or something, was there, just beyond her vision, but Alexio was so enraged his focus had not shifted from her. Resignation fell over Libby, but it was accompanied with determination and grit.
If this was to be her final moment, she would not die in vain.
She would take the fucking bastard with her.
Time slowed then, like in the movies.
She heard the roar once more, but the sound was muffled and seemed so far away. Everything, in fact, seemed hazy, condensed but amplified.
She saw Alexio lunge for her at the same time she brought the knife up, its steel shaft glinting in the moonlight as the arc carried it straight toward his chest. Sweat dripped from his forehead and she could feel the heat from his body as he fell upon her, his breath hot at her neck and his hands reaching out.
They grasped her, and she felt the long fingers dig deep into her flesh, but it was surreal, and for a moment Libby thought it was a dream. Pressure began to build, and she winced at the blackness that edged the broken remains of her mind.
Blackness that parted as the gates opened and a flood of memories washed over her. Jaxon, Ana, Declan…and Diego.
They were all there, jumbled into a mass of incoherent thoughts and feelings. All mixed up with the pain and anguish she’d endured over the last three years.
Her mind wandered back, further than she’d gone in ages, and the scream that flew from her lungs was like a cry to heaven. It was full of anger, hatred, and betrayal.
It was a cry for all things lost.
She felt her body liquefy and she let go, slumped beneath the heavy weight of Alexio atop of her.
When he was wrenched away and thrown to the side, she didn’t care.
When strong arms lifted her and gathered her close, she didn’t care.
When Jaxon grabbed her chin and forced her eyes to his, she felt a spark of something rush through her. It was hot, heavy, and full with the need for vengeance.
She drew her arm back and slapped his face as hard as she could, struggling to leave his embrace, feeling her flesh rail against his touch.
She had spent the last three years hating this man with every fiber of her being. Oh, how she had plotted and designed his demise. He might not have had a physical hand in her torture and subsequent captivity, but he was the only reason she’d been taken.
The reason she had lost so much.
Wicked pain shot through her breast and an ache settled around her heart as he lifted her. It was one she knew well, and she screamed again as anguish rolled over her, coming in waves and getting stronger as the seconds ticked by.
Her sorrow was heartbreaking.
Her mind stilled as the images and memories finally stopped. But the emotions continued unabated, and she continued to struggle until he gently put her down.
Libby stumbled away from him, her legs wobbly and barely holding her upright.
She was covered in blood. Dully, she glanced down at the body of Alexio DaCosta, before returning to the dark eyes of her former lover. He too had sustained injuries, no doubt fighting the fellow shifters that DaCosta would have brought with him.
Pity they’d not done more damage.
Oh, yeah, Alexio was right. Her memories were fully intact.
Ana and Declan rushed into the cabin, both shouting in surprise at the carnage and stopping in their tracks at the sight of so much blood.
Libby ignored all three of them and limped toward the bathroom. She would clean herself up and then plan a course of action.
Jaxon reached for her as she passed him, and she hissed sharply, the deadly venom in her voice cutting through the air.
“Don’t touch me.” She couldn’t look at him as she continued on toward the hall.
No one would stop her this time.
She would make Jaxon Castille pay dearly for the wrongs he’d committed against her.
But first she needed to find her son.
Chapter 14
Jaxon’s heart felt about to burst, so great was the adrenaline rush that had fueled his run to the cabin. His chest heaved with the effort it took to control the fury that emanated off him in waves. His hands were coiled into tight balls of flesh, and he paced back and forth, so full of the need to act, to kill, that it was painful.
To think that someone had the balls to come after Libby, here, in a Castille home, for Christ sakes, made his blood boil. He roared once more, his anger reverberating through the cabin.
His eyes swept the floor, alighting on the still, bloody form that lay quiet in death’s repose on the cold tiles. He was upon the body in seconds, inhaling its scent, taking the trace odor deep into his lungs so he could confirm what his mind already knew.
He had killed three jaguars out in the forest. None were warriors, but they’d been deadly just the same. This one bore the tattoos of a jaguar warrior. Jaxon’s anger intensified as he recognized the markings on the skin, even before the scent signatures had cleared his olfactory glands.
DaCosta!
He trembled as impotent fury rode him hard, and snarling savagely, he threw the body away from him. He closed his eyes, trying to blot out the red haze that threatened to engulf him. He could not lose control now. He needed his wits about him.
With cold precision, Jaxon calmed his mind and body. He needed to be smart, calculating. Only then would he be able to sort out the puzzle.
Only then would he be able to begin the hunt.
As his body began to quiet and the last remnants of jaguar faded from his skin, Jaxon became aware of Ana and Declan. Covered in blood, he stood up quickly, unashamed of his nakedness. He glanced toward the hall that led to Libby, and turned quickly in the opposite direction.
“Go, Jax, we’ll take care of this piece of garbage. We’ve a lot to discuss.” Declan’s voice filtered through, and Jaxon acknowledged his words.
He didn’t trust his vocal cords just yet; his mind was a mess of thoughts and images. He stopped and looked back once more toward the bedrooms.
“Don’t worry about Libby. I’ll look in on her. You go and look after yourself.” Ana’s soft voice caressed his wounded soul, and without another thought, Jaxon headed out into the night.
The water from the lake called to him, and when its coolness rippled over his head, the hard shell around his heart cracked wide open. The pain he felt was immense. It ripped through every cell in his body, tearing deep through tissue and bone.
Had the DaCosta clan been responsible for Libby’s disappearance?
His mind moved at a savage pace as thoughts of Libby at their mercy bombarded his brain. It left him feeling helpless, which was something he was not used to feeling. He dove deep, the cold water somewhat alleviating the heat of his emotions, before finally coming up for air.
His long length moved forward quickly, the powerful arms slicing through water, carrying him to the other side of the lake and back. Jaxon repeated the process, again and again, and when he finally heaved his tired limbs from the lake, two hours had passed.
Physically, his body was spent, but his mind was still tortured, filled to the brim with questions that begged for answers he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear.
The DaCosta jaguar clan had been under PATU’s radar for years, but he knew personally how corrupt and evil the clan had become. Always on the fringes of jaguar society, they’d built an impressive empire that worked black market weapons and intel, all of it run by the patriarch, Jakobi.
The youngest DaCosta, a man by the name of Tomas, had been involved in the sale of illegal weapons, some of which had been altered with the use of dark arts. PATU had raided one of their strongholds in Texas. The operation was successful, but there had been several casualties on both sides, including the younger DaCosta.
Jaxon took a deep breath as these thoughts converged and began to make up small pieces of a larger puzzle, with Libby at the center of it.
Flashes of her marred skin flew past his mind, and he shuddered as a feeling of helplessness once more began to burn deep in his gut. Was it just a coincidence that the other jaguar clan had attacked him? Gone to all the trouble of hunting him to a cabin out in the middle of nowhere? Were they responsible for the attempt on his life two nights ago as well?
If so, then they definitely had a hand in Libby’s resurfacing. He snarled as his thoughts turned toward the frail blond. This meant they had a hand in her disappearance and torture.
He sighed harshly as his thoughts continued to center on Libby, then swore loudly as the crush of emotions continued to batter him relentlessly.
When the hell had it all gone so wrong?
Two weeks ago he’d been the cold, calculating bastard everyone either disliked or avoided. He had spent every waking minute, when not on a mission, tracking down leads, some that had led him to various parts of the globe, all in an effort to find and kill Libby Jamieson.
He’d been focused and deadly.
And now? Now he didn’t know what to think.
Was Libby just an innocent victim in this whole mess? Or was she partly responsible?
Did he even care at this point?
He closed his eyes, but that only made things worse. Images of Libby on top of him, moving with him, her body impaled on his hardness, hit him deep in the gut. The ache was intense, and he cursed himself and the weakness that lived in both parts of him.
Often the jaguar was at war with his humanity, the part of his soul that showed restraint and reined in the beast when it scratched too close to the surface. But when it came to Libby, the two halves that made him whole were in perfect harmony.
And that’s where things became complicated. It made it hard to fight, to do what he felt was right. Like keep his fucking hands off her until he knew what the hell had happened three years ago and what was in play at the moment.
It’s what stopped you from putting a bullet in her brain.
Jaxon winced as that thought slid through his mind, and guilt jumped in, to dance a rhythm inside of him with all the other shit he had going on.
Emotional soup, that’s what his insides had become.
It had been so much easier when he had thought of her as the enemy.
But now…now everything was upside down, and he’d spent the entire day out in the forest avoiding Libby, hating the fact that he still cared. That his body still craved her touch and smell. That the need to protect had awakened a deeper passion and fury he’d not known existed.
As his thoughts turned back to when he first realized he had enemies in the vicinity, he began to tremble again.
He’d felt ice cold terror at the thought of any harm coming to her. The thought of someone, anyone, touching Libby blinded him with rage.
It was then that he truly came to the realization that she still belonged to him.
She was the one. She completed him. He could either turn her away and live his life as a miserable son of a bitch, or he could fight for her…for the both of them.
The jaguar had erupted from him, with such a force and fury his transformation had been painful. Something he’d not experienced in years. Within seconds he’d become a lethal hunter, and killer the likes of which was rarely seen. It hadn’t taken him long to track all three jaguars, as none had his warrior strength and cunning. He’d made quick work of them, his powerful canines crushing through their skulls, piercing their brains and killing them instantly. He had left their mangled bodies on display, a macabre testament to his victory.
Once he dispatched them, the cold fear that had clawed at the back of his mind intensified, and he knew in that instant that Libby’s life was in danger.
In two days he’d gone from wanting to kill her on sight to a blinding need to protect what was his.
It was the way of his kind. He would claim her as his mate, and deal with the fallout as it came.
Jaxon turned quickly and headed toward the faint light that beckoned through the trees. Hopefully Ana and Declan had been successful in Washington, and had information for him. He needed all the intelligence he could gather before he started to plot his revenge.
It would be far reaching, and deadly. No one attacked a Castille jaguar and his mate without facing repercussions. They would be fast and they would be deadly.
Jaxon growled in anticipation of the fight that lay on the horizon, his ancient warrior blood singing through his veins as he moved quietly through the forest.
The smell of blood remained faint in the air as he silently entered the cabin a few minutes later. He’d sensed a protection ward as he neared the porch, a faint resistance in the air in the form of an invisible shield.
Declan’s charms were strong, and he felt better knowing no one would be able to cross unless their
body signatures had been woven into the spell.
Once inside, he frowned, not liking the odor that lingered here, among his people. His eyes scanned the room, and all traces of the violence that took place a few hours earlier had been erased.
The great room was empty, and he quickly moved toward the back of the cabin where the bedrooms were located. His eyes fell to the closed door at the end of the hall to his right, and he took a second, letting his senses drift on the air. His acute sense of smell located her scent, and his keen hearing homed in on the unmistakable beat of Libby’s heart. Even now it began to beat faster, and he growled softly at the response her body had to his. She knew he was back.
He turned on his heel and grabbed some extra clothes he’d stored in his brother’s room, before taking the stairs two at a time down toward the basement.
Declan was leaning over Ana, and they were both staring at a computer screen, but turned when he entered the large open area.
Ana pushed her chair back and they both stood there, uncertain of words or actions. She took a step toward him, but Jaxon spoke first, his voice curt.
“Did you check on Libby?”
“She had a shower, and she’s in her room. She wasn’t in the mood for conversation, but I think she will be all right.” Ana sighed and stretched her limbs as she turned back to the computer. “She’s been through a lot, but I think we’re all forgetting how strong Libby was, and when push comes to shove, still is.”
“I have a protection ward in place; she can’t leave unless I allow it. Don’t worry about her, Jax,” Declan cut in. “We have a lot to cover.”
Jaxon walked over to the two of them, his eyes scanning the computer screen. “What did you learn in Washington? Was Drake involved?”
Ana shook her head as she settled back into the seat. “I’ve confirmed he was attending a fund-raising event for some up-and-coming hotshot.” She made a face. “A political thing. I have video and a few witness reports that verify.”
His Darkest Hunger Page 15
