Nyla glanced up quickly enough to see the pain in Jake’s eyes before he could hide it, knowing what it cost him to hear the small boy’s words, and know they hadn’t been able to protect the child’s innocence.
“We saved his life, Jake. A few nightmares are worth that.”
He nodded, taking a deep breath. “Take care of Seta then. I’ll take care of the women and . . . Bobby.”
“And yourself,” she reminded him, unclipping his cell phone from her waistband. “Your brother has been calling, but I didn’t answer. I was kind of busy.”
Jake nodded, taking the phone from her. It, too, was caked with blood splatters. “I’ll piece together the messages on the bodies of the girls they’ve killed. I think I know what the symbols are.”
“All right. But get cleaned up first,” she instructed, knowing she felt worse every second she felt the blood on her skin, and he was more caked with it than she. She also didn’t like the weird look in Jake’s eyes. It was as though he were shell-shocked, and that couldn’t be good. Removing the blood should help him to come out of it.
“Nyla?”
“Yes?”
He looked at her, hundreds of words seeming to flow from behind his eyes, but nothing came out of his mouth. Finally, he pulled her toward him and held her in an embrace, completely devoid of any sexual promise, shocking in its almost childlike manner. “Thank you,” he whispered before stepping back and quickly turning away, marching determinedly toward the truck he’d commandeered.
“For what?” Nyla wondered aloud as she watched him leave, feeling deep in her heart that something was terribly wrong.
Chapter Twenty
OVER AN HOUR later, tired, sore, and desperate enough to sell her soul for a hot shower, Nyla pulled Jake’s Malibu to a stop in front of the small motel. She’d hoped to find him fresh, clean and asleep in bed. Instead he was sitting in a plastic chair outside their room, still covered in enemy blood.
She stepped out of the car and rubbed her neck. Blood couldn’t have healed Seta instantly, but it went a long way in speeding up the process, and the vampire-witch had been in need of it. She’d gone far too long without feeding and had more than overexerted herself in order to help them. As far as Nyla was concerned, giving Seta her blood was the least she could have done for her since Seta had helped save their lives. She only hoped donating her blood to Seta wouldn’t spark her own hunger. She’d controlled her urges amazingly well, especially when she’d been in a bloodbath a few hours earlier and not once had the urge to taste the freely flowing blood.
As she approached Jake, he didn’t move or react to her presence in any way. He was leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees and his large, powerful hands clasped together. He didn’t look up as she stood over him. He kept his gaze on the ground a few feet before him, but she could tell he wasn’t seeing the dirt or the few stones scattered among the blades of grass.
“Jake?”
He remained still long enough that she was about to repeat his name when finally, he crooked his neck, turning his head just enough to offer her an empty glance. “Yeah?”
“What are you doing?”
“Sitting.”
“I can see that. How long have you been sitting out here?”
He shrugged, focusing his gaze on the far off distance, disturbingly nonchalant. Jake was never this mellow, and no one in his right mind would just calmly sit outside while other people’s blood dried on his skin and clothes.
“Bobby and his mom all right?” she asked.
“They’re in the next room with Marilee. Trust me, that girl will shoot anyone stupid enough to try and get in there with them.”
“That’s good,” Nyla commented. Seta had filled her in on who the girl was, and she didn’t doubt Jake’s statement. “Then you don’t need to be out here standing guard.”
“I’m not.”
“Get cleaned up, Jake.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re covered in blood,” she pointed out.
“So are you.”
“Yeah, and it’s about to come off. Come on.”
He glanced at her briefly, his eyes moist and weary, before shaking his head. “You go ahead and clean up. I’m going to sit out here a while longer.”
Nyla stared at him, trying to figure out what was going through his mind. She’d seen him after dozens of slayings. He’d always cleaned up immediately afterwards. For him it was just a job. Then he would talk to her in her cat form, or sometimes he’d pull her onto his lap and pet her until he fell asleep. He never dwelled on what had happened, so what was different this time? True, this particular incident had been a full-on battle in horror-flick proportions, but . . .
The answer slammed into her. This time he didn’t have Alley to help him deal with the aftermath. Damn.
“Come on.” Nyla grabbed his arm, pulling him out of the chair.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re in shock, Jake, and I’m not leaving you out here.”
“I’m not in—”
“Shut up.”
“Get off me.” He pulled away as she opened the door to their room, starting back for the chair, but she grabbed his wrist and forced him inside.
“You don’t know what’s best for you right now.”
“Woman, I said I’m fine. I have killed more bloodsuckers than this.”
“This many in the same night?”
“Leave me alone, Nyla!”
“Why, so you can sit outside in broad daylight, covered in dried blood, waiting for someone to see you and report you to the police? We have enough problems right now, thank you very much!”
“What police? They’re all dead. Peewee’s probably dead or a vampire right now too!” His voice almost cracked on the last word.
“Well, that’s all the more reason why you need to be in the right state of mind. The people in this town who’ve managed to avoid being changed over need somebody to protect them.”
“Yeah, and I’m so good at that,” Jake muttered. “They took my cousin, my own flesh and blood!”
Nyla started to point out that he’d never really liked Peewee and had recently threatened to shoot him himself, but thought better of it. She didn’t know anything about familial love firsthand, but she knew enough from observing Jake’s family to realize he loved his cousin, even if he didn’t like him.
“You protected him the best you could, Jake. You were outnumbered, and instead of listening to you, Peewee stripped you of your weapons and locked you in a cell. It is not your fault he was taken.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No. I know you well enough to know the only thing that’ll make you feel better is getting the bad guy, and you’re not in any condition to do that right now. You need to get out of those disgusting clothes, shower, shave, eat something and sleep.”
She held up a hand when he started to argue and led him to the bathroom. She turned the shower on full blast and gestured for him to start taking off his clothes, but he stood still before the tub, gazing at the water raining down from the shower head.
“Oh, for crying out loud,” she muttered as she peeled the stiff T-shirt from his body and unsnapped his jeans. “I don’t know if this is some sort of subconscious punishment you’re putting yourself through, but I’m growing tired of it.”
“You said you loved me,” he said abruptly, grabbing her wrists before she could slide his jeans down. “Did you mean that?”
She forced herself to look him in the eyes, her face growing warm as she recalled blurting out those words to him a few hours earlier. She started to speak, but the fear, rage, guilt, and doubt she saw mingling together in his eyes silenced her. Tears welled in her eyes. She wanted to cry for him, knowing he’d never allow hi
mself that release.
“Nyla? Did you mean it? Is it the truth?”
His eyes were so full of anguish that she nearly choked on her own returned emotion. “Yes, Jake, it’s the truth. I love you.”
“How can you? How can anybody? If you could see what’s inside of me—”
She silenced him with a kiss, the pain in his voice becoming too much for her to bear. As their mouths met, she sensed the pain and confusion inside him diminishing and remembered what Seta had told her. She’d said that Nyla needed to take his anger and hurt away before it destroyed him. Why hadn’t she noticed her empathic ability before? She didn’t know. But now that it had been pointed out to her she found herself focusing on it, and let his emotions pour from his body into hers where she absorbed them, freeing Jake from the burden.
In need of air, she finally pulled away from the embrace, but she knew there were still too many mixed emotions coursing through Jake, hurting him worse than any weapon could.
“Come on,” she said softly, peeling off her own clothes. “We’ll both feel better when we’re clean.”
The Jacob Porter she’d known before would have tossed his cares to the wind if offered the chance to share a shower with a naked woman, but this version of the man seemed to crave affection more than sex. Sweet as it was, Nyla wasn’t used to this side of Jake, and she wasn’t sure how to handle him.
If there was anything she’d learned during her years spent under the pantherian queen’s rule, it was how to sexually satisfy a man. But as she washed the blood from Jake’s skin, watching the red streams escape down the drain, she found herself at a loss for how to cure his pain. He needed more than just physical pleasure. He needed someone to help him to slay his own demons. He needed a friend, she realized with sudden clarity.
She remembered the many times she’d been away from him over the years and somehow sensed he was in trouble. She’d come running back to him, always finding him engaged in battle with vampires or other creatures of the night. Foolishly, she’d thought all this time that he’d been in danger of his enemies, but he’d really been in danger of himself. After those fights, he would wash away the blood, the remnants of the cruel things he’d done, and he’d pour his heart out to her as she curled up on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. She now knew that she’d been absorbing his anger and sorrow. As Alley, she’d been the best friend to him she could be, but Alley had limits. Jake had never had anyone who could tell him the things he needed to hear.
“Do you feel better?” she asked as the water flowing toward the drain turned clear again.
“Yes,” he answered, his beautifully sculpted body free of any evidence that he’d mercilessly killed an army of vampires mere hours before. “Thank you, Nyla, for . . . Well, I guess I should say catching me.”
“You had me scared for a while there, Jakie.”
“Me too.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist, and she could feel the tension inside him giving up the last of its hold, but there was still a heart-wrenching need for companionship inside him. He’d always been a loner, a rogue hunter. She’d never realized it wasn’t by choice.
“I’ll leave you to shave, and then we can talk,” she said, giving his mouth a small, innocent peck before stepping out of the tub. She wrapped a towel around her body and stepped out of the tub and over the pile of ruined clothes.
Closing the bathroom door behind her, she let out a deep sigh, her heart aching for Jake. She’d thought she’d known everything about him, but in cat form there were so many things she hadn’t picked up on. She quickly dressed in underclothes and one of Jake’s many black T-shirts. It hung around her like a nightshirt, comforting her with his scent.
She had just crawled into the big, inviting bed and leaned back against the pillows lining the headboard when the bathroom door opened and Jake emerged, a towel slung low over his hips and his face freshly shaved.
“Ouch. That’s one heck of a shiner,” Nyla commented as she noticed the blue and purple marking spread across the left side of his face. She hadn’t noticed it before because the heavy beard stubble had camouflaged it.
“Yeah, you have a hell of a right hook,” Jake answered as he pulled a pair of boxers out of his duffel bag sitting on the table.
“Oh, sorry,” Nyla apologized, wincing slightly. “I forgot about that. Man, it’s been a long day, and night.”
“Yeah, it’s all running together.”
She couldn’t help watching as he stepped into the boxers, dropping the towel in the process. The Heat had been sated, but Jacob Porter did things to her body that were equally as bad. If not for his fatigued expression, she might have forced him into a chair so she could have her way with him again.
“Come on, Jakie. You need to sleep.”
He shook his head, but crawled into the bed anyway, laying close against her so she could wrap him in her arms. “We’ve got too much to do. There’s no time for sleep.”
“You have to sleep, you’re running on empty,” she advised, feeling the fatigue herself, and thanks to her therian blood, she had far more stamina than Jake. With Jake’s head resting against her breast, his back against her chest, she ran her fingers through his short hair, combing it away from his face, feeling the loneliness engulfing him. “Tell me about your friend.”
He stiffened instantly. “It was a long time ago, and it wasn’t like Peewee said.”
“I know that. Tell me about it. Tell me about your friend. Quit holding it all inside you.”
She felt him resist, but he finally took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She could feel a jumble of emotions inside him, warring with each other, and decided he wasn’t going to speak. Then he opened his mouth and started speaking. He started out slowly, but the words sped up as his story progressed. As he shared his most painful memories with her, she offered words of comfort, something she hadn’t been able to do as Alley.
“I pissed my pants and ran,” he said in disgust, balling his hands into fists.
“You were just a boy, Jake. And running that night saved your life.”
“But I left Bobby there to die,” he said, shaking his head. “I knew what was out there, I felt it, but I didn’t stop him.”
“You tried to, but he made the choice not to listen. You didn’t know vampires were real before that night. You didn’t understand what you felt until it was too late.” She leaned forward to kiss his temple. “What happened is not your fault. You need to let go of the guilt.”
“I can’t. I let my best friend die. He was just a kid!”
“And you were just a kid yourself. You weren’t physically equipped to do anything to help Bobby. But think of all the children and other people you have saved since then. Think of the boy next door who we protected tonight. I couldn’t have done it alone. You saved the day, and you need to acknowledge just how great you are.”
“Great?” He let out a derisive snort. “I’m a freak. Ask anyone who knows me. My own parents were ashamed of me, their weirdo-kid who believed in monsters. Bobby’s parents never forgave me, always wondering why I’d gotten away and their son didn’t. They knew I left him there.”
“Jake, don’t.”
“Don’t what? You wanted to know what happened, and I’m telling you. I’m a freak, Nyla. Everyone knows it. Even my brother didn’t believe me until he came across Seta and her son while working a case.”
“Your brother loves you.”
“Yeah, but he’s paid the price for it. As a kid, he got into fights all the time defending his baby brother. I was no good to anyone.”
“Don’t say that, Jake. Who cares that Bobby’s parents weren’t able to accept the truth or that your parents weren’t worth a damn? You were their son, and you’d been through a traumatic experience. They should have nurtured you, no matter what. To hell with them all. You hav
e me, and you have a brother. We love you, and people out there need you to protect them.”
“You shouldn’t love me, Nyla. I’m no good inside.”
The pain in his voice squeezed Nyla’s heart, threatening to crush it. “You are a good person, Jake. Don’t think that you aren’t.”
He let out a small strangled sound. “There’s nothing good about me. You were right earlier. I enjoyed killing those vamps. They were people once, and as you pointed out, they were most likely turned against their will. Still, I killed them without mercy. Hell, I set a woman on fire tonight because she had fangs. She could have been someone’s mother. Do you think I cared?”
“She would have killed you if you hadn’t killed her first. And I killed the father of the little boy in the next room tonight. Am I evil for doing that?”
“No, but you didn’t enjoy it either. You didn’t let your rage get out of control.”
Nyla held him tighter, wishing she knew the right words to say. “You’re a good person, Jake, but you can only face evil so many times before it starts to sink into you, to make you react the same way. But you’ve never killed anyone who you didn’t believe was evil, and those people tonight were ravenous. They would have killed anyone in their path. You saved many people by killing them. It’s a horrible job, but you’re good at it. And I know you can—and do—control your darkness.”
He turned in her arms, raising himself so they sat eye to eye. “Thank you for . . . everything,” he said, his voice a soft rumble as he leaned in to lightly kiss her mouth. “We can rest a bit, but then we need to get out of here.”
“What are you talking about? You want to leave?”
“Yes.”
“But what about—”
“It’s a trap, Nyla.”
“What’s a trap?”
“The markings on the bodies were warnings,” he explained, leaning back against the headboard, his shoulder touching hers. “After I saw the one on Chrissy’s body . . .” His voice trailed off at the mention of the girl, and his eyes clouded over in a mixture of emotions.
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