by A. C. Arthur
“Jewel’s upstairs in her room. Heavily guarded, if I’m not mistaken,” Bas said, looking over to Ezra who nodded his agreement.
He’d managed to release his hold on the chair and with slow, steady breathing was now feeling more like himself. With each steady breath the warrior within took over, leaving the conflict of the shaman’s teachings and the reality of facing the unknown behind.
“I thought you went to bail her out,” Priya continued. “What happened?”
“That’s what we’ve been trying to figure out,” Bas replied. “Things weren’t right from the moment we walked into that precinct. Then they had the audacity to go progressively downhill.”
Priya sighed. “That’s an understatement.”
“It knew we would come. It was waiting for us, for me,” Ezra said, his voice low, steady, deadly calm.
“You’re talking about that thing, that abomination Dyson thinks is a prototype called ADAM?” Jacques asked.
Ezra nodded, lifting his head until he could look squarely at the FL. “Whatever it is, its roots are in the Sierra Leone. I sensed it the moment we entered that building.”
“No,” Jacques interrupted. “That is not a Shadow Shifter,” he continued vehemently. “It’s not one of us!”
“You’re right,” Ezra replied. He stood straighter now, strength from his cat pouring into every crevice of the human body that had been momentarily weakened by the awakening of senses, feelings, memories that he’d thought he’d left far behind. “It’s not a Shadow, but it’s linked to us somehow.”
“How do you know all this? Did you find something at the lab?” Priya asked. “Is it something we can use in the press, something that might deflect this from the resort? Because the moment they mention that Jewel was being held in that precinct, they’re going to link her to Perryville. That’ll make two unexplained incidents connected to us in less than six months. And believe me, that’s not going to go over well.”
Ezra debated how much he should tell these people standing before him. He wondered how much of his and his twin’s past he could safely rehash without thrusting both of them into a tailspin. Going back to the Sierra Leone, even in his mind was dangerous enough for Ezra, dangerous for those around him when the memories hit, or when his senses were overrun by all that had been done to him, all that he’d learned. For his brother, that would be another story entirely. It would be nothing less than a disaster for Eli to ever go back there again, even if only in memory form.
“I spent two years in the Sierra Leone,” Ezra began.
“The Lioness Mountains,” Priya added.
Ezra nodded. “Patricio Salazar and his Serfins defected from the Gungi almost immediately after the Croesteriia, taking his pride to the tropical rain forests of the Sierra Leone. Teodoro Estevez followed behind them shortly, his Lormenian shifters fighting briefly with the Serfins in a battle for the right to reside in the mountainous region named for the Serfins’ lion descendants. Eli and I trained with both tribes, spending more time with the Lormenia, but getting a good idea of each of their fighting methods and general mentality. During that time I also had the pleasure of meeting a shaman named Dagar. He is the one that opened the connection.”
Bas only nodded, while Priya and Jacques looked at him as if he’d just spoken another language.
“We, meaning the FLs, had heard about the extra-sensory abilities you and Eli possessed. None of us had ever really understood what they were but when Rome sent you here to be the one to infiltrate Comastaz, I figured it was because of those very abilities.”
Ezra hadn’t realized the Assembly Leader had been thinking along those lines. Even though the moment he’d overheard Rome, Nick, and X talking about the e-mail message originating from Comastaz he’d known he would be on the next plane to Sedona, with or without official orders.
“Eli and I had no idea what the shaman had given us at the time, we only knew that it made us feel better. It wouldn’t make sense why until years later when Nick’s mate, Ary, arrived from the Gungi. She’s the one who told us about the damiana and its effects on shifters and humans,” Ezra continued.
“So, wait, you’re saying you know this thing is from the rain forest because you’re connected to it?” Jacques asked, coming closer to stand just a few feet away from Ezra.
“Damiana is an herb that grows in the rain forest. Once ingested or inhaled it magnifies whatever traits that person already possesses. The shaman used damiana in the medicinal cocktail he gave us, reducing it to a smoke that Eli and I inhaled. As a result it heightened our already acute senses.” And wreaked holy havoc on other not-so-attractive traits, such as a shifter’s natural sexual urges and Ezra’s innate anger. “So what I’m saying is that whatever that thing is, the rain forest is where it originated. And yes, there’s a strong connection between me and it so I’d say it has some damiana in it. I felt it the moment we entered that building. I saw it in its eyes. Even now, it’s lurking, something dark and destructive is definitely coming. And my guess is, it’s going to come right here to Perryville since we’re holding what it needs to proceed.”
Priya pulled out a chair at that moment and sat down heavily. Ezra felt bad because she was a human, and not too long ago she’d learned that shape-shifting men existed. Now, she was hearing about another nonhuman entity, another anomaly to the human mind and while it wasn’t her job to figure out what that anomaly was, her relationship with Bas and her paying job with the Stateside Assembly dictated that she be the one to figure out how to tell this story to the human people. It wouldn’t be easy, Ezra knew, and if they didn’t get off their asses and act pretty soon, whatever had created this dark entity was going to get the upper hand. And by that point the word “devastation” would have an entirely new meaning.
Chapter 10
The hot water had stung every pore of her body, almost to the point of burning. She’d turned the water up so high in hopes of ridding herself of the dirt, of the stain that had blanketed her life since the moment she’d first met Larry Crowe. Each moment of that time had replayed in her mind in the last few hours, the beginning right up until the disastrous yet liberating end.
And for a brief time after that, three years to be precise, Jewel had experienced peace. If it wasn’t total happiness, that was okay, she could deal with that because she hadn’t known fear, hadn’t felt disgust about who she was and what she’d had to do. Her father had been healthy and she’d been relatively sure that things were looking up for them.
How wrong that assumption had been.
Wrapping the towel tightly around her body, she walked to the bed and sat, lowering her head and closing her eyes. She thought about praying but remembered that hadn’t worked when her mother had become sick. She’d prayed on her hands and knees for endless hours each day and night and her mother had still died. No, prayer was not a resource Jewel planned to use, not this go-around. If help was going to come, she would have to figure it out on her own, just as she had before.
In the distance, Jewel heard the clicking of the locks at the door. She heard the padded steps over the carpet that led to the back bedroom where she was. And she didn’t move. There was nowhere to go for one, and two, she wondered if there wasn’t a reason this man was here at this particular time in her life. Because without having to look up, she knew it was Ezra Preston that had entered her bedroom.
She knew he stood in the doorway watching her, wondering if he should talk or not, if he should leave or stay. No, that had already been decided. He wouldn’t leave her. That, Jewel also knew instinctively. There was no rhyme or reason why, and truth be told, she didn’t really feel like questioning it. She simply knew that he would come here and he would not leave her alone.
And a part of her, a very distant and very confused part, didn’t want him to.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but I doubt whatever is going on with you and your situation is going to go away by remaining silent.”
; His voice sounded raspier than usual and a little less forceful.
“I was foolish to think it would go away at all,” she replied softly after a few more seconds of silence.
And that was the honest truth. She’d thought she could outrun it, outrun him and his incessant control. Just as she’d thought the grief of losing her mother and then having to care for her ailing father would somehow subside over time, amidst this gorgeous backdrop. She should have known better.
“No one can continue to hurt you unless you let them,” he said, his voice sounding closer, as if he’d left his perch in the doorway and now stood near the bed.
She couldn’t lift her head, couldn’t square her shoulders and act like nothing had happened, like all was absolutely as it was when she’d seen him early this morning. Everything had happened. The carefully planned identity, the new life she’d made for herself and for her father. It had all come crashing down and Ezra Preston had a front row seat to that devastation. Her heart thumped slowly, heavily, with the embarrassment.
Then she felt his fingers on her bare shoulder. Light as a feather, even though she knew how big his hands were, how much strength emanated from them. Warmth spread like tiny tendrils throughout her shoulder and down her arm. She blinked but still did not lift her head to look at him. For endless moments he stood there, touching her lightly, not saying a word, not moving a muscle. Then, as if he’d finally had enough, he moved until she could see he stood right in front of her. He knelt, one hand on her right knee, the other using a finger to reach beneath her head and touch her chin. With a forceful but still light touch he lifted her head until she was staring into his eyes.
“They’re brown,” she said after a few seconds of blinking, knowing exactly what he saw. “My dad calls them hazel, with flecks of gold like the sunset.”
Jewel had no idea why she’d told him that. Clamping her lips shut she inhaled deeply, exhaling when there was nothing left for her to do.
“They’re much prettier than those contacts you were wearing,” was his reply.
“What? You think you’re the only one who can have green eyes?” She tried to chuckle, to lighten the mood, but it didn’t work. The smile instantly faded.
“I think you should be who you are and let others deal with that however they choose.”
“What if they choose that they don’t want to deal with it? What if they send me away because now they know the truth?” she asked, then shook her head, figuring he’d never understand the question.
“What if they already knew,” he replied.
She blinked then held his gaze. He was serious. He had known, or at least he’d thought he’d known. He surprised her, this stranger who had appeared at Perryville one day and haunted her dreams the next.
“What do you think you know?”
She was afraid of what his answer might be, but certain that whatever he knew, it wasn’t everything. Nobody knew that, nobody but her and Larry.
Both his hands were on her face now, cradling her cheeks as if she was somehow more precious than her past. A lump formed in her throat as she thought of just how impossible that actually was.
“I know that I was brought here for a purpose and that purpose has somehow led me to you. The pretty and intriguing Dawn Montgomery with eyes like a precious jewel.”
When she opened her mouth to say something, to refute what he’d just said, he moved one hand slightly so that his thumb lightly pressed against her lips.
“I also know that I will not let anything or anyone hurt you. Whatever is in your past, whoever is trying to find you, will have to go through me first.”
She shook her head. This was not the answer. These traitorous feelings rippling through her body at his touch, his intent gaze and his sweet words, it just wasn’t right. Not for this moment and definitely not for her. He nodded, determined, as she watched him moving closer, his face now only inches from hers.
“I’m not leaving you. I don’t care what you did or didn’t do, I’m not leaving, unless you tell me to,” he said, his breath whispering over her skin, spreading even more warmth throughout her body.
The tip of his nose rubbed against hers as he tilted his head.
“Tell me to leave if that’s what you want, Jewel.”
His lips brushed over hers as he talked, her mouth watering at the proximity, at the promise.
“Tell me to go and I will.”
Her heart hammered in her chest, her nipples hardening, center pulsating.
“Say the words, Jewel. Tell me you want me to go,” he insisted, this time his tongue snaking out to brush over the crease of her lips.
Jewel inhaled deeply, letting the breath out in one nervous whoosh, before throwing all caution to the wind and wrapping her arms tightly around his neck.
“Stay,” she mumbled before his lips took hers.
* * *
Ezra had kissed Jewel before. He’d felt the warmth of her lips, the sweet tangy taste of her tongue against his, and so he already knew he would have a reaction to her. But there was nothing to prepare him for the torrent of emotions that ripped through his body the moment their mouths collided this time.
Her arms around his neck gripped him so tightly, the cat inside pressed persistently against him and Ezra thought at any moment he might actually combust. Before that moment he’d wanted to experience every ounce of this pleasure, every second of her acquiescence. Yet it was so much more. As he pulled away to let her catch her breath, Ezra looked into her beautiful brown eyes once more. There was a bit of relief there, just a glimpse before she lowered her lashes and lifted her head for another kiss.
For one torturous instant something shifted inside and Ezra went completely still. His shoulders ached as he closed his eyes, inhaling slowly. He could smell the black smoke filtering through that damned hut, could feel the sting of it against his flared nostrils as it entered his system. Flash forward to the night he’d been so completely full of that same stench, that same sting through his nose and the death that had ensued.
His eyes flew open then, latching onto hers and focusing for more endless seconds. This was not Acacia. He was no longer in the jungle.
And this was just sex. It was basic, yet urgent. The need to be slaked, he insisted.
He came over her then, moving until she was lying back on the bed, his knee between hers as he lowered to kiss her once more. This kiss was different. It went deeper, touching places long since left silent in him, awakening, just as Dagar had predicted.
The cat hissed against that thought, reaching out for something more and Ezra obliged. His hands went to the rim of the towel, pulling it apart until all he could feel was bare skin. Gloriously soft and warm skin. Her breasts were full, overflowing as his large hands cupped one, squeezed, and then he moaned as spikes of pleasure shot straight to his dick. He continued to knead the soft mound, pressing his hips deeper into her center, hating the layers of clothing preventing him from the heated skin-on-skin contact.
She lifted a leg, her inner thigh rubbing along his outer one. He absolutely despised the clothes he wore then. But his hands followed the bare skin, moving down her bottom, to the back of her knees where he lifted her leg higher, tucking it around his waist. This allowed him to press even farther into her center, to pull her even closer to him. When he was barely able to tear his lips from hers, to bite along the line of her jaw, going down the line of her neck, her hands flattened against the back of his head, guiding him slowly down, down. Until his tongue flattened over her puckered nipple.
She gasped at the same time that his cat hissed. Her back arched and his mouth opened wider over the succulent mound. She was so soft, the lavender scented soap she’d used in the shower an intriguing contrast to her usual intoxicating aroma. His hand covered that mound as his mouth moved to its twin, suckling so deep he felt like he could actually devour her. Again, her hands tightened on the back of his head, driving the hunger stabbing at him with sharp pleasurable tinges until the next step
was all but inevitable.
Going even lower Ezra inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, as his hands glided along her torso. He loved her scent, welcomed it over all others and, he reluctantly admitted to himself, craved it like an addict. She was soft here also, the small curve of her stomach a welcome contrast to the females of slighter build he’d been with. From here her hips flared into what—if he were indulging in a rear view—he knew was a delectably plump ass. From the front it was the closely shaved V of her juncture, the thickness of her thighs that he parted with a ragged moan.
The scent of her arousal coating the plump folds drifted up to his nose first, the sight of her opening like a precious flower, wet and enticing, actually had him wavering. Ezra Preston never wavered. His mouth watered and he closed his eyes to whatever dark thoughts were forming in his mind. He could pull away, he could get up off this bed and walk out on this female and nothing would happen to him, nothing would be lacking in him.
The cat felt differently and before the human could form a valid argument, Ezra was lowering his head, his tongue extended, licking drops of her arousal from the plump folds as it coated her. He growled, low and deep, and licked her again and again. When he suckled a soft vulva lip into his mouth his shoulders tensed, the cat pressing harder to break free and find its release, both equally persistent needs. She released her hold on his head, her fingers clutching the sheets beneath them instead and he sucked again, licked, then sucked, then licked some more.
Her body began to tremble slightly and Ezra continued his relentless assault, cupping her ass cheeks in his palms and lifting her up off the bed, closer to his mouth like a delectable feast. She gasped and moaned lightly, her hips pumping against his mouth. She tasted like warm honey, drizzling over his tongue in steady rivulets. Never really one for sweet treats, Ezra found himself wanting more and more. When he speared his tongue into her heated entrance, she bolted up off the bed so fast he almost lost his hold on her. But she wasn’t there yet, she hadn’t come into his mouth as he’d been so impatiently waiting for her to do. There had never been a time when Ezra had craved a female’s release more than he’d craved the act of sex alone. Sure, he was experienced enough to pleasure each of his lovers thoroughly, but that was more like an item on the to-do list for him, sex more like a necessity that gnawed at him with vengeful clarity.
