Moon Sworn (The Bound Series Book 1)

by JF Holland

  'Only because you're making it so, lighten up cat boy, live a little.'

  'Okay bossy boots, I'll try. I need to talk to him anyway," he informed her, turning back he locked up his bike. Then he unclipped his laptop and all the other bits he needed, and moved towards the door she'd disappeared through.

  "You're coming in?" Binks asked, hands in his slack pockets watching Jaden warily.

  "Yes, if she's here, so am I," he waited for him to say something but he just grinned and moved back to let him enter.

  Jaden, had to blink to adjust the bright light once the door was closed, he was expecting it to be pitch black inside the room.

  "Black out glass," Blinks informed him as he moved around his older brother and further into the room, they still had around 10-minutes before the shop opened for business.

  "Black out glass?" Jaden enquired as he looked around him, it was set up like most every coffee shop he'd ever been in. Tables and chairs set around in cosy little settings. Some that would just seat 2, and others would that sit a much larger group. Near the back of the store there was a bookshelf and a couple of sofas, the wall above the counter held a poster with the Wi-Fi password and near the window there was a few tables that held laptops.

  Jaden put his laptop on a wooden coffee table where he could watch Maya, but he also had full view of the room and who entered through the door. He watched as she moved about behind the counter, messing with the coffee machine, and setting things out, opening the fridges and checking through stock. He turned again to look towards Binks, sniffing the air and frowning, the smell of coffee was usually overpowering in places like this, but in here it didn't mess with his senses.

  "We have a powerful filter set up, it extracts most of the smell. Let's just say a lot of our customers, while they enjoy a coffee and a chat, aren't too overjoyed with strong smells." He turned his head to look through the front window. He had a good view of anything coming towards the shop, and over the counter he found a television screen that showed him the back entrance to the property.

  "We have to be prepared, I'd be shocked if you went into a business run by an immortal for immortals that didn’t have a similar set up to us." Jaden's eyes jumped to Binks again.

  "Explain." He watched the younger man, he heard a sigh in his head 'Sheesh cat boy say it, say brother. He's your brother.' There was no one in the shop yet so he turned his head towards the counter and watched Maya as she continued checking stock with her back to him.

  "Stay out of my head," he snapped, and heard her snort but she didn't turn around, but continued to work, but she did stop long enough to throw him the birdie over her shoulder. Binks grinned at this and he turned back to Jaden.

  "So you're enjoying that you've found your mate I take it?"

  "Yes a barrel of laughs, she's extremely biddable like our mother, sweet of nature and compliant." He told him dryly and Binks frowned and lowered his eyes.

  "I don't remember much of our parent's, I get flashes now and again but that is all." Jaden looked up to him again.

  "I tried to take you with me, I tried to get you out with me but you clung onto father's leg as he pushed me out of the door. I tried to get back in to help but he'd barred the door to stop me, I had to stand outside and listen to you crying and our Mother screaming. I still hear that maniacal laughter in the dark sometimes." He admitted his eyes lifting to the younger man, and found him watching him.

  "I don't blame you, I don't remember much just that I had a brother. I remember more about you than about our parents, you took me everywhere, you looked out for me." A tick started in Jaden's jaw and he looked away from the younger man.

  "It was my fault. I'd wanted to spend some time alone, I was eyeing up a local girl and didn't want you with me. If I'd taken you, you would have been safe, you would have been outside with me when they came. We wouldn't have been anywhere near the house and then maybe our parent's would have stood a chance against them." The younger man shook his head.

  "No, they would have just come back another time, if it hadn't been then it would have been another night, a night when we were all in bed and none of us would have survived." He told him quietly, "I am glad that I have found my brother, I thought you lost to me too. I count myself as lucky that Sam came across the scene and treated my wounds and took me with him. He was with others that were trying to stop the killings in the area, unfortunately the only one they managed to catch got away before they could even get a name. They'd shot him a few times and had thought they'd dropped him at least for an hour or two, but he was up within minutes and when they went to check on him he'd been gone, without a trace."

  "Sam was there that night, was he the one walking around in the forest with a lamp?"

  "That would be me," said the dark skinned man who'd been with Binks last night and he frowned.

  "How did you know we moved towards the house and not from behind?"

  "I was running through the forest trying to get away as they'd finished in the house and were on my trail. I could hear them behind me when I came to a break in the trees, I spotted lights in the distance ahead. I heard a gunshot behind me, so I presume that was the one you'd taken down?" Sam nodded his head.

  "I'm sorry Jaden, we never spotted you. How the hell did you manage to evade them?" Sam asked.

  "That I couldn't tell you, I'd not even gone through my first shift by then. All I know is I knew I had to survive I wanted the chance to avenge my family. I wanted those responsible to pay and as the moon appeared from behind the clouds my speed increased." He shrugged his shoulders. Sam looked at him thoughtfully.

  "I'm still amazed that you manged to outrun a shifter, especially one fully changed into his animal form. That we thought almost impossible especially for one still human."

  "I'm not sure they were all in animal form as I could still hear one laughing as he ran, he sounded like a hyena." Sam's head came up.

  "What do you mean his laughter sounded like a Hyena?"

  "I could hear them behind me and I could hear one of them laughing, he laughed a lot as he ran and he sounded like a Hyena."

  "Son of a bitch, all his time we've just been looking for Jaguar like us. It seems it's more than one kind of shifter involved, Hyena's can be tricky, not all of them, but if they go rogue, they are near impossible to track. They are crafty, fast and vicious. Maybe this is the key we need to help put all the pieces together. You weren't the only family hit, there were quite a few." Jaden looked up and found Maya watching them he raised a brow and she nodded her head.

  "Maya watched her mother die hard at the hands of her father, she's jaguar too. She's not a human paired with one of us she is one of us. Her father was shifted as he killed her mother after she wouldn't give up Maya's whereabouts." Jaden informed the other two.

  "Do you think he could somehow be part of what is going on?" 'Jaden, his brother, my uncle also killed his wife, he tried to get my cousin Lara too but she manged to escape. She was only 6 years old, they also had a friend called Jerry, short for Jeremiah. He had an awful laugh. He always reminded me of a Hyena, my mother also hid me from him if he came to the house.' Maya informed him through their link and his eyes lifted and met hers over the head of the other two men.

  'Is it possible that it's your father and uncle that are hunting you now?' Her mouth pursed and she nodded before turning back to the coffee machine. Jaden could tell she didn't like to think that it was her own parent that was hunting her but she already knew her father was a psychopath, she'd watched him kill her mother and then torch the house.

  "Sam who set our house on fire? When I came back a day or so later there was nothing left of the property. It had been torched, nothing left but a pile of rubble and ash."

  "It wasn't us, we buried your parent's. As you know if a shifter dies in human form there is nothing that would ever give us away as being anything but human. We moved them to the cemetery, it's not far from here. Balin will show you their graves. As for the house being torched I c
ouldn't tell you, but it wasn't one of us."

  'How can you be immortal if you can be killed that makes absolutely no sense?' Jaden looked up to find Maya standing behind the counter watching him. She was frowning and her teeth were tugging at her bottom lip, the lip he enjoyed nibbling on. Her hands were also twisting together on the counter in her agitation.

  'We are immortal, I don't have a clue how old the oldest shifter is but we are definitely immortal. The only thing that can kill us is if you remove our head or our heart, and I mean removed, not damage.' He sent the information into her head.

  'There's another way you can be killed, and it's to do with mates but you aren't letting me see, why?'

  'I can't, that is against our laws. Actually it's part of our nature that you will not be able to read and I can't tell you. It's not only forbidden, it's also impossible for me to either show or tell you the answer to that one. It's not that I don't want to, I'm incapable of doing so,' he shrugged his shoulders and felt her shuffling around in his head, he let her. He didn't block her from doing so and heard her growl and grinned.

  "I take it you can talk to her without any problem?" Sam asked dryly as he looked from Jaden to Maya's mulish look as she stood behind the counter.

  "Yes, she knows there is a further way to end out immortality and is not happy that she can't dig out the answer." Jaden informed Sam and his brother, it was getting a little easier to think it now. Weird, but easier, he'd spent so much time thinking he was alone.

  'Not alone. You've tormented me for nearly 5-years,' Maya told him dryly as the bell over the door tinkled and a woman walked in. Jaden turned away not interested in the least, then frowned over that one, surely his libido should be interested? He watched the woman walk across to the counter, hips swaying and dark hair that hung in loose waves sway as it nearly touched her bottom and felt zip, nothing. He looked up towards Maya and found her talking to the brunette, she smiled, her white teeth showing and there went his dick, and he nearly groaned at the discomfort as he sat with his legs stretched out in front of him.

  What the hell was it about her that he was attracted to?

  'I'm warning you Tiddles, you try it with another female and I find out I'll be cutting off that appendage you're so fond of.' She informed him, he looked up, but she'd not even looked in his direction as she carried on serving the other woman. She continued chatting to her as she turned and began preparing her order. Her t-shirt rose and gave him a tantalising glimpse of the skin above the waist band of her trousers and he actually jerked in his pants, he jiggled around trying to find a comfortable position when into his head came a picture of Maya on her knees between his spread thighs, mouth working him and he bit back an expletive looking towards her.

  She was still preparing the coffee, pushing down the beans, and pouring milk in to a cup, then sticking a thermometer into it as she moved back towards that monstrosity of a machine. He heard her laughter in his head.

  'You won't be able to laugh later when your mouth is full as I make good on what you just promised me, witch.' He felt her withdraw from his head and frowned. One minute she'd been teasing him the next she'd pulled away. What had he said that… Binks spoke beside him taking a seat?

  "So tell me about our parent's I'd like to know more about them, to me they are just shadowy figures. I have very little information on them, no pictures, nothing." He said looking towards Jaden and turning to look at Maya, who seemed to have withdrawn, her usual spark missing.

  "What's going on with you two, what have you said to upset her?" Binks asked looking back towards Jaden.

  "I don't know, one minute she was teasing me and then nothing. She withdrew from my head, I'm trying to figure out what it was I said that caused it. She's usually pretty resilient, gives as good as she gets, but something I've just called her she didn't like."

  "Dare I ask what it was?"

  "I called her a witch," Jaden informed him and watched the minute tensing of her shoulders as he repeated the word to Binks.

  'What gives Maya, what is it about that word that you don't like? You know I was only teasing why does that word upset you? I know you can hear me, answer me damn it or I'm coming over and I don't give a damn who watches me pull you over the counter.'

  'My father, the monster use to say that. He'd always ask my mother where she'd hidden the little witch from him this time. He never said it as if it was a nickname but as if it was an insult, I can't remember why though?' she looked up then, her eyes haunted and Jaden swore under his breath. 'Hang on I'll ask Binks if it's a derogatory term, don’t forget I'm nearly as ignorant of our world as you are' he told her and sent the feeling of brushing his hands through her hair. He wouldn't apologise, he still couldn’t bring himself to say the actual words.

  'You just did,' Maya whispered and turned to give him a tentative smile as she handed the coffee over to the woman at the counter. Her eyes meeting his briefly before they dropped, and she took the money offered to her, giving the woman a cheery smile as she tilled up her order and gave her change.

  Maya tried to ignore Jaden as he spoke to his brother, not the easiest thing to do when she was now so aware of him. She wasn't really paying attention to who she served, was just working on autopilot smiling and trying to serve without much thought.

  "Maya," she looked up puzzled at that tentative enquiry from the woman before her. She held her coffee to her chest and watched her expectantly, if not with a little trepidation.

  "I'm sorry, do I know you? You seem awfully familiar but I can't quite place you." She told her apologetically, she watched Jaden stop talking mid-sentence as he turned towards her, as did Binks, Sam stopped what he was doing with the bookshelf, and he also turned. The woman shuffled from foot to foot, her eyes going to the window and door then looked over her shoulder towards the men who were now watching her like a hawk, suspicion in their eyes.

  "It doesn't matter dear," she said and went to leave, but Maya leaned over the counter and put her hand on her arm. The woman froze and closed her eyes, and when she opened them again there was sorrow in their navy blue depths. Maya wracked her brain trying to think where she knew her from, she was only about her own age but there was something familiar about her, she just didn't understand how.

  'Jaden, I know her, I know I do. I just can't think from where?' Jaden moved then, he was pleased she'd turned to him yet again when she was unsure, and she was broadcasting her distress loud and clear at the moment. Binks got up and was on his heels, Sam moved over to the doorway and turned the sign to closed, as he locked and then stood before it, blocking her exit and covering them. Arms crossed and legs planted firmly in the floor, he looked intimidating with his dark eyes, presently observing what was going on around them.

  Maya felt better, she felt protected and cared for.

  'Always,' whispered through her mind and she looked up towards the towering wall of muscle that was making his way over to her. He'd stopped what he was doing to see to her comfort to offer her strength, and that confused her. He didn't know her well enough to be so in tune with her.

  "Maya," Jaden said as he made his way around the counter and to her side, he put an arm around his waist and pulled her into the shelter of his body.

  "How do you know her?" he asked, he wasn't as polite as Maya and had no problem asking questions that she didn't seem to want to.

  'There is definitely something familiar about her, I can't put my finger on it either,' he informed Maya as he pulled her in closer and looked towards his brother for help. What the hell was going on? Was this woman a threat to his mate, his brother? His heart rate remained steady, but he was beginning to worry that more than one person was out for his mate, he didn't want to lose her, or his brother now that he'd found him.

  The woman looked from Jaden to Maya and back again and her eyes slit. Her top lip lifted off her teeth and her hair seemed to glow, lift slightly as if in a breeze. Her eyes started to shimmer as if a fire had been lit deep within their depths. He hear
d Sam swear by the doorway as he began to move into the room. Maya and Jaden didn't know what the problem was but obviously Sam, and now Binks, seemed to as they moved closer towards them.

  "You're a shifter, show me your hand," the woman announced as she looked from Jaden to Maya and back again.

  "Maya, yours too, please." She looked towards them and lifted a brow as she waited for them to comply her mouth a flat line of displeasure as her eyes landed on Jaden.

  Maya tried to move, to stand before him and block him but Jaden grinned as he pulled her back and into his side.

  "Seriously Maya, I don't need you to protect me but thank you." He said as he dropped a kiss onto her hair and held his palm out.

  'Yours now honey, show her what she wants. Otherwise we may never get to the bottom of this and I feel this is important somehow' he told her.

  Maya wasn't happy, but she nodded and held out her own hand, showing the mirror image on her palm to Jaden's, the woman hissed and then put the Styrofoam cup back down on the counter and she seemed to crumble.

  "Too late, I'm too late, oh fate. I'm so sorry, I tried to get back. I tried so hard to stop this from happening. The words should have protected you, why didn't they do that? Why were you visible to him it should have worked, why didn't it? I'm going to go find her and take it out of her hide, I swear to all that is holy she will pay for her failure. It was all for naught, everything I did, I did to protect you and for what? Just so another bloody shifter could come along and claim you."

  "Lady, I don't have a clue what you are talking about, so you better explain and fast." Jaden told her leaning forward so she could see how serious he was. Maya went to move forward, but he put himself in front of her again.