“Well, you know how I feel about that Mayan business,” he began. “Now hang on,” he said as I opened my mouth to protest. “Hear me out. You know how I feel about it. But on the other hand, I feel like I kind of owe you one after how I acted when you told me about being a shifter. I should have been more supportive. So, yes, you can go. As long as you make up your school work.” He put on his most serious face.
“Really? I can go? That’s great, Dad! Thank you so much!” I ran over and gave him a hug.
“You’re welcome. Now good night.”
“Thanks again,” I said, heading for the door. But as soon as it clicked behind me, my smile faded, because I knew what he didn’t know. What I was going to Mexico for was far from a holiday.
When I woke up the next morning, Dad’s car was already gone. I took a shower, put on some jeans and a sweater, and ponytailed my hair. Not only was I happy to be able to wear my hair my favorite way again, but I also felt proud to show my mark. (Even though the rest of the world thought I was just super fond of tattooed trees when they saw it.) I had just started to put some things in my duffle bag, but when I picked up Grandma’s little incense stove I felt the familiar chill run down my back….
Grandma was walking outside on her land. She raised her camera and took several photos of some birds. She was backing up as she looked through the lens, trying to get the best angle she could. But she wasn’t looking where she was going. There was a hole in the ground behind her. Her back foot slipped and as she tried to get her balance, she fell in.
“Grandma!” I yelled. I ran to my bedside table, grabbed my phone, and hit the speed dial for Adriana’s number.
“Maya, what’s wrong?” she asked as soon as she picked up.
“It’s Grandma. I had a vision. She’s fallen or is about to fall in a huge hole on her land.”
“Maya, listen to me. I want you to stay where you are. I have shifters who can fly there quickly. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.” She hung up.
No, no, Grandma, I thought, gripping my phone for dear life. I rocked back and forth on my bed, tears flowing freely. Fifteen long minutes later, my phone rang in my hand. It was Adriana.
“Maya, we’ve got her. She’s going to be okay. It looks like she’s got a broken ankle and a bunch of scrapes and bruises.”
“Thank God. How did you get to her so fast?”
“We have a couple of shifters that phase into hawks.” She paused. “Listen, there’s something you need to know. The hole wasn’t a natural sink hole. It was dug out by shovel. There were several of them.”
“You…you mean this was done on purpose?”
“Toltec. Had to be. We’re taking her to Gila Regional. I’m sure you’ll want to see her. But with her age and injuries, I’m afraid she won’t be able to make the trip with us. I know it’s a blow. Stay strong now. I don’t think they intended to kill her. I think this was done purposely to rattle you. You can’t let them get to you.”
“Right now I just wanna see her.”
“Of course. But take Matt with you.”
What the hell was I going to do? What was happening to the people I loved? They were all being hurt just because of me. They were all in danger. Damn it! I heard the screen door slam.
“Maya?” Matt.
“I’m up here,” I called. “I’m coming.” I grabbed my bag and headed down the stairs.
“She’s okay,” he said, putting an arm around my shoulders as we walked to his car. “She’s gonna be fine.”
When we got to the hospital, it was all I could do not to race to her room.
“The doctor is still with her,” the pretty blond nurse in puppy dog scrubs said, “You’ll have to wait a few minutes.”
We sat down on some chairs in the hall. I sat with my legs over Matt’s, playing absently with the silver Figaro chain he always wore around his neck. He traced my mark with his finger. Neither of us spoke. When they finally told me I could see Grandma, I got nervous jelly legs. I’ve never particularly liked hospitals, and I didn’t want to see her hurt, lying helplessly in a hospital bed. I peeked around the corner of the door. Her eyes were closed. At first I thought she was asleep, but she caught me.
“Maya, baby, come in.”
“Hi, Grandma, how are you feeling?” God, she looked awful. She had cuts and bruises everywhere and they had her ankle elevated.
“I feel okay. They gave me something for the pain. Come over here and give me a hug.”
As she held me, I started shaking and I could feel the hot redness of my eyes threatening tears.
“Oh, Grandma, I’m so sorry,” I said.
“Sorry for what, ts’unu’un?”
“This is all my fault. Toltec is trying to get to me. If it wasn’t for me, this never would have happened.”
“Listen to me now,” she said, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “What you are doing is an extraordinary good. Toltec did this to me in their evil, not you. You can feel badly that this happened, but I will not have you take on guilt for something you are not responsible for. You do that far too often.”
“I’m scared,” I whispered.
“Of course you are! What you’re doing takes a tremendous amount of courage. But you can do this. Draw on the wisdom of the great women whose souls you share and on the strength of Balam. I believe in you. You were born to do this, ts’unu’un.”
“I wish you could come with me,” I said.
“I do too,” she said and hugged me tight again. “But my spirit will be with you.”
“I love you, Grandma.” I kissed her cheek and left the room before I turned into a puddle.
Matt took my hand and we walked out into the sunlight.
“You should have seen her,” I said, “She looked so little and frail. She had cuts and bruises everywhere and they have her leg up in this sling thing. I’ve never seen her look like that before.”
“Grandma Rosa has a ton of spirit, My. She’s like a force of nature. She’ll be okay.”
Matt dropped me off at home so that he could finish packing. I noticed that my car was back. The twins must have been by while we were at the hospital. Yep. There was a note on my windshield telling me that they knew about Grandma and that they would be visiting her that evening. Once I was finished with my packing, I started what would be the last dinner for my Dad and me, at least for a while. I decided to broil a steak. I usually tried to keep his red meat to a minimum, but this seemed like a special occasion. He might not have known it, but I did.
“It’s very generous of Rose to offer to take your friends down with you,” he said.
Oh, no. Dad had no idea about Grandma, and she was our cover!
“Yeah,” I said, “well … I think she thought it would be a really good experience for everyone. You know, the twins go down quite often, but this would give them a chance to see the Yucatan. And Matt’s never been at all.”
He cut another bite of steak. “This is delicious, sweetheart. You really went all out tonight. Any special reason?” Man, he was not making this easy.
“No, it’s just that I’m going to be away for a while, leaving you to your take-out and frozen dinners.” (Not that it mattered to him. He’d eat like a truck driver if I let him. Sheesh.)
Dad volunteered to do dish duty, so I headed up to my room and my phone so that I could text everyone a reminder that our parents could not know that Grandma was in the hospital. I also asked the twins to be sure to remind Grandma about it. Man, lying just sucks.
CHAPTER TEN
It turned out there were only six of us on the actual trip: Adriana and Richard, Matt and I, and the twins. It was nice to finally meet Richard. He was tall with very dark hair, pretty gray eyes, and the darkest lashes I had ever seen. He introduced himself quickly and then went on loading the SUV. He was definitely all business, that’s for sure. Damian and Matt helped him, and as soon as they were finished, we all packed into the Explorer. Richard drove, with Adriana riding shotgun, Matt
and I took the middle seats, and the twins were in the third row.
Our trip was a long one. Living in the middle of nowhere meant we couldn’t just hop on a plane and go to Mexico (or anywhere else). We had a long drive to get to any real airport. We also had to be sure that we weren’t followed. We couldn’t risk Toltec figuring out the location of the safe house in Mexico. The obvious route would be to leave from a major airport in New Mexico, but instead we drove a little over three hours to Tucson, where we boarded a private jet.
“Toltec aren’t the only ones with support and connections,” Adriana said, giving me a wink.
The long flight gave Adriana and Richard the opportunity to start working with me on energy exercises that would help me to recognize the k’ul inside of me and eventually control it.
“Should we start with becoming aware of energy?” she asked.
“Let’s just work on meditation and centering. I’m not sure having her work with energy on the plane is advisable,” Richard said.
“You’re right. Playing with energy in a small enclosed space….”
“Especially 30,000 feet up in the air,” I said.
“Technically,” Damian began, “Cruising altitude varies between 25,000 feet and—”
“Oh, whatever,” Lyssa said.
“Twenty-five thousand and what?” Adriana asked.
“Oh, no, see, it’s not good to encourage him,” I said.
“I know, right?” Lyssa giggled.
“Hey!” Damian protested. “I’m right here!”
“And here!” Lyssa pointed to her head. For some reason, that just busted everyone up. There had been so much tension over the past couple of days that I guess we just needed an excuse to finally let go. Everyone except Richard, who sat there grinning and shaking his head at us. (Seriously, I think for him that was letting go.)
And Matt slept through the whole thing. (I swear that guy could sleep anywhere.) While I sat in the lotus position on the floor of the plane and Richard played Yoda to my Luke, the twins worked on their telepathy.
When we arrived in Merida, Yucatan, it was night, but the city was wide awake. There were tons of people everywhere and a lot of traffic and noise. It took us a while to get through town in our unmarked van, but once we were out of town, everything went pitch black. There were no lights on either the highway or the road that ran alongside it.
“This drive normally takes under three hours in daylight,” Richard said, “but we really need the cover of darkness so our movements can’t be tracked.” He had to drive incredibly slowly to avoid hitting anything. We were all starting to drift off when a huge bang woke us up again.
“Sorry, everyone!” Richard said.
“Do we have a flat?” Matt asked.
“No, we hit a tope,” he answered.
Wha—?
“Speed bump,” Adriana said. “They’re all over out here. To keep traffic from speeding through the Mayan villages.”
“And, unfortunately, they’re impossible to see in the dark,” Richard added.
As we continued to drive, I finally managed to drift off. I didn’t wake up again until we stopped. We had made it to the safe house by first light. I looked at the villa-style white stucco home that stood before us. It was all one level and was quite large. It actually reminded me a lot of New Mexico. Beyond the house I could see a garden, and I also noticed that the house and land were totally surrounded by a tall, white stone wall that didn’t look original to the place. It must have been ten feet high. It reminded me that we weren’t here on vacation.
“Look, Maya!” Lyssa pointed across the yard.
Damian looked, too, and grinned. “Hey, it’s a ceiba tree. It looks just like your mark!”
“Yeah, it actually does,” I said.
“This used to be an inn before we acquired the property,” Adriana said. “Alma should be around here somewhere.”
We grabbed our bags and followed Richard into the house. The inside had an open floor plan with a large kitchen at its center. The living area and patio were at one end and a hallway with several rooms was on the other. The floor was all tile to help keep it cool on long, hot days.
Alma came down the hallway and greeted us with a warm smile. She was very petite, barely five feet tall, and had light mocha skin and short, cropped, dark hair. She looked like she was almost sixty. I noticed that she didn’t have a mark.
“Oh, you are here!” she said in accented English. She gave Richard and Adriana a hug.
“Where is everyone?” Richard asked.
“Oh, out prowling around.” She turned to the rest of us. “You must be the twins.” They babbled briefly with her in Spanish, then she directed them down the hall to their rooms.
“Alma, this is Maya Delaney,” Adriana said, “and this is Matt Caldwell, her mate.”
“It’s wonderful to meet you,” she said. “I gave you two the room with the blue door, across from the twins’ rooms. Why don’t you unpack and rest? I’ll have breakfast ready in half an hour. If you ever need anything, my daughter and I live in the little house next to this one.”
“Thanks, Alma,” I said, smiling.
Matt and I headed down the hallway. I looked across the hall into the twins’ rooms where Damian was listening to his iPod and Lyssa was unpacking. She wiggled her eyebrows at me when she saw me follow Matt into our room. I shut the door behind us. Man, she could be annoying.
“Uh,” I said, “slightly weird to be sharing a bedroom with my English teacher just down the hall.”
“Well, number one, she’s not really your teacher. And you know it’s different with shifters. They don’t even think about it. You know, when Richard told me that he and Adriana had been together fifteen years, I asked him if they were married and he was, like, ‘why?’”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess it’s not really part of shifter culture.”
“It is part of Catholic culture, though.”
“Yep. We’ll definitely be getting married.” I dropped my bag on the bed.
“No doubt. I might be a foot taller than my mom, but she still scares the hell outta me!”
We plopped down on the bed to wait for breakfast, and I totally surprised myself by drifting off for twenty minutes. Then we heard a slight knock on the twins’ door, then on ours, and we knew it was time to eat. For breakfast, we had tortillas with scrambled eggs, black beans, and plantains, along with fresh orange juice to drink. We were all starving after the trip, and the food was delicious. No one said a word while we ate, and afterward everyone gave a quick nod as we headed back to our rooms to catch up on some much needed sleep.
“Do you need to use the bathroom?” I asked Matt.
“Nope.” He was already heading for the bed. I should have known. By the time I had washed my face and brushed my teeth, he was fast asleep. I crawled in beside him. Sadly, I was sharing a bed with my mate for the first time and I was hardly awake long enough to notice.
When I woke up late that afternoon, I could hear Matt in the shower, so I decided to go across the hall and see if the twins were awake yet. They were both in Lyssa’s room, already showered and dressed.
“Hey, look who’s up,” Damian said.
“How long have you guys been awake?” I asked.
“Not long. So…how’s your mate?” Alyssa asked.
“Oh, shut it.”
“Touchy, touchy.”
I had to change the subject. “So have you guys met any of the other shifters yet?”
“Alma said most of them will be around later to eat and change up guard duty.”
Change guard duty? I wondered how many of them there actually were. I was more than slightly uncomfortable about all of that. It should have made me feel safer, but for some reason it only seemed to reinforce the fact that there were some serious haters out there…somewhere.
Sometime after dinner, the shifters began to trickle in, a couple at a time. I was surprised to see that they weren’t all Mayan, or even Hispanic for t
hat matter. There seemed to be more or less equal numbers of men and women, maybe twenty or so, and they were all older than we were, with the exception of Ana, Alma’s daughter. She looked about twenty. She was very tall, taller than me, and I’m well over average height. It was kind of comical, seeing her next to her mom. She wore her dark hair in a chin length bob that was cut up in the back to show off her mark. It was a tribal mark of a snake. Her haircut was a really cool idea. Kinda made me wanna cut mine. Almost.
I loved the pride they all had in being shifters. Grandma had been right (as usual). Shifters were respected here. People looked up to them. No one here was hiding who they were. I could tell that it was definitely something that agreed with Matt, and I was so glad for him. Until….
“Matt, is it okay if you take the next watch with Chris and Sara?” asked a redhead named Liam. He had a cute brogue.
“Sure,” Matt said.
“Wait,” I said. “Whoa, you’re not going out there, are you?”
“Richard, could I speak to you for a moment?” Adriana said in a tone that made it clear she wasn’t really asking. They walked down the hallway that led to the bedrooms. A door closed.
“I told you this would happen.”
“He’s her mate, Adri. It’s natural instinct for him to want to protect her.”
“Well, I’m sorry if I’m less concerned with his manhood than I am about making sure that Maya is comfortable here.”
“She’ll be fine. I’ll just have him take one short watch a day, daylight only.”
“I can’t work with her and expect her to focus when she’s worried about Matt all the time. It’s just not gonna work. We’re all giving up things for this, Richard. He’s going to have to as well.”
I noticed Matt walking quickly toward me from across the room. I couldn’t imagine what my face must have looked like. I had just seen and heard everything that had happened between Adriana and Richard while they were a hundred feet away behind a closed door. What was happening to me?
Jaguar Sun (The Jaguar Sun Series) Page 9
