Copula Chronicles: The Complete Collection: Origin, Descend, Ascend, Legacy

by Venessa Kimball

  It sounds pretty fucking believable, but I’m sweating bullets as I hold my mental block with Balthazar. The way Xander left, I’m not sure what the hell is going to happen with him. How the hell could he know how to block me out of his head like he did tonight? He doesn’t know anything about his gifts.

  “I need you Sam. Now more than ever. You left one of the lambs behind tonight.”

  The way Balthazar glances at me, I can tell I have let him down and I need to redeem myself by whatever means possible. “Jesca Sera. I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

  Balthazar interrupts, “The attempts to retrieve her in Georgia were also unsuccessful. Is this becoming your pattern?”

  I hold my tongue and my thoughts at bay, knowing what could happen if I defy him.”

  Balthazar seems satisfied with my silence and adds, “I’ll not over look the one lamb you were able to take. Corinna Cain. An instrumental tool in the Dobrian lineage. She isn’t Jesca Sera, but she’ll serve her purpose for us. I need you to groom Corinna Cain after her transformation.”

  “Will she remember me?”

  I can’t help but ask. God, I don’t want her to remember what happened. What I did to subdue her.

  Balthazar assures me, “She won’t have any recollection of her life or her lineage. She’ll only know what she’s fed once our Copula has been implanted. She’ll remember one thing. You’d saved her from the two men that tried to take her from the nightclub. Your men at Club Helion about an hour ago caught the suspects actually. The police and press were discretely alerted to the take down of two pharmaceutical pushing men drugging club goers. I’m sure the investigation of these two will have them running circles for a while.”

  Balthazar’s quick response on covering up messes never ceases to both impress and scare the shit out of me.

  Balthazar’s heavy stare into the fireplace is broken as he glances at me. “Someone is always watching, Sam. Someone’s always watching what we do.”

  ***

  Balthazar pushing me out of the lucid dream takes my breath away and the bounce back to reality sends my tumbler of bourbon crashing to the floor as I startle from the projection.

  CHAPTER 25: UNBREAKABLE LINK

  Jesca

  I let the shower run down along my sore arms as I hang my head under the stream of water letting it wash away all it can. It’s not enough. I slide my hand along my side and feel the tender spot right above my hipbone. I open my eyes and look down. A deep, purple, bulbous bruise runs from my hip up into my rib. Raising my arms sends another sharp pain shooting through my lower back. I angle to look down my back and see the gash filleted open, exposing the flesh beneath. Knife wound. I didn’t even know I’d been stabbed. I turn to let the falling water hit it. The sharp pain makes my body tremble, but only for a moment as I see the clotting blood fall from it.

  The blood.

  Corinna.

  I close my eyes and tilt my head back, feeling the knot in my throat returning with a vengeance.

  I place the gauze I find in the medicine cabinet, pull my nightshirt on and open the bathroom door expecting Ezra and Nate to be waiting for me. They haven’t left my side since Club Meridian. Even in the car ride when they thought I was catatonic or going into some mental break, I listened to them talk about me. Nate worried that I might try to escape to look for Corinna. They both decided that I needed to be watched closely until I snap out of it. As I step into the hall, I hear Nate’s voice in a distant room. “Yeah, I’ll watch her. Where are you going?”

  Ezra replies, “I need to get in touch with Sebastian and tell him about the Cain girl. Her family needs to know.”

  The way his tone of sensitivity wraps around his words ‘her family needs to know’, I wonder if her family is part of the fellowship.

  ***

  Nate’s knock on the door isn’t a surprise. But him coming straight in without being given the clear with a tray full of food feels invasive all of a sudden. “I could’ve been naked in here.”

  Nate rests the tray of food on the dresser and walks over to Jesca cautiously. “I knew you weren’t. Just like I know you’ve a knife wound to your lower back and a broken rib.

  I look away from him and stare at the steaming bowl of soup. “I’ve already bandaged it.”

  As I look up at him, his blue-green eyes stare down at me, all protective and shit. “I can handle this. I don’t need a babysitter.”

  I look away as quick as I can, not wanting to get wrapped up in the sentimental place looking into his eyes sends me. He sits down next to me on the bed and the slight shift, makes me tense then sends another sharp pain deep into my side. “Shit.”

  “Sorry.”

  I hold my breath and close my eyes as I work through the pain when I hear him think, “Just let me heal you Jes.”

  Once I feel that I can speak without whimpering, I glance at him. “So much for you breaking our link. Guess it couldn’t hold.”

  Nate looks down at his feet. “Look, just let me heal you. You’re obviously in pain. Don’t be so damned stubborn. And I know you don’t need a fucking babysitter. So don’t pull that shit with me.”

  I sit there as stoic as I can, not wanting to give in to his offer. I’ll be fine. Just be out of commission for a few weeks. Huh, who knows it might save someone else from getting killed. Suddenly, the deep ache in my lower back festers reminding me that the next few weeks are going to be painful as shit. “Fine.”

  “Smart girl,” he says as he rises from the bed sending another stitch of excruciating pain into my side. I breathe through it as he apologizes. Nate kneels down in front of me and reaches for my nightshirt. As he grips the side, I grab hold of his hand and give him the dirtiest look I can.

  “I’m only wearing underwear damn it!”

  He rolls his eyes at me. “Jes, I’ve seen panties before. It’s no biggie. I’m trying to help for Christ’s sake.”

  Cautiously, he starts toward the shirt again then eyes me weighing my reaction is definitely apprehension, but not from fear. Sheer embarrassment and maybe something more.

  Nate lifts my shirt just enough to see the bruising on my side. I can’t help the heat that rushes to my cheeks as he stares at my skin. Anticipating both the pain and tension of Nate touching me brings goose bumps to the surface of my skin.

  As his warm palm comes to rest on my skin, I wince from the initial sting—

  Nate looks up at me briefly then whispers, “Sorry.”

  I close my eyes and nod, letting him know I forgive him.

  Feeling him lift the other side of my shirt, I open my eyes to see him peeling back the gauze bandage from my knife wound. “Ahhh.”

  I can’t contain my reaction to the burning pain him pulling the gauze produces.

  “Damn it, Jesca! This isn’t a small wound! If you would’ve waited—”

  My eyes snap open and I look down at him while he examines it. “Oh don’t you fucking start that shit! Ezra and I could’ve handled it. We didn’t need you showing up to try and save the day!”

  Nate looks up at me, all kinds of pissed. “Look, it’s not like I had a choice. Sebastian ordered it. It’s not like I had a pressing mission in Santa Barbara, like say Sondian abductions! We may have this fucking link, but you need to get it through your skull that I don’t take orders from you. Once you have that straight sweetheart, everything will be Kosher.”

  He looks back down at my wound then lays his hand on the open wound more firmly than he did earlier. I jump from the surge of pain and glare down at him. Fucker.

  “Kosher? Everything will be Kosher. I doubt that.”

  Nate breathes out a cleansing breath, and then peers up at me once again. “Just remember what we learned at the facility. We’re stronger together than we are on our own.”

  There’s no denying Nate and my abilities are stronger together. And w
ith him being here, I do feel the security I always felt in the facility deep down passed all of our bickering bullshit.

  Nate shifts on his knees and readies himself in front of me with his hands on both my bruise and my back wound. “Ready?”

  The way he searches my eyes is both comforting and disarming. I nod slowly, “Yeah.”

  Out of the blue Nate catches me off guard and winks at me. “I promise I won’t try anything. That is unless you want me to.”

  His seductive proposal should have me slapping his hands away, but instead I place mine on top of him. Holding my silken thoughts at bay, I carefully choose my words. “Try anything and I’ll kick you square in the balls.”

  He nods and grins. “Fair enough. Now close your eyes.”

  As soon as I do, I hear Nate take a long, full breath in, then releasing it loud and long. The surge of warm current flows all of a sudden. It’s faster, stronger, than it was in the facility. He’s been practicing I guess. The steady and sure flow radiates straight to the source of pain, numbing it instantly. The current has me ebbing and flowing, my body shifting forward and back ever so slightly as the pulse of his electrically charged cure pulls and pushes my body to heal. My breath is taken away much faster and deeper than it used to. I hear my panting and become self-conscious until I hear his own gasping and heaving, then I become aware that this connection, this link, is uniting us in a way so intimate its bordering on something sexual. Suddenly, I feel Nate’s hand move from my bruise and wound and encircle me. I blink my eyes open, half-drunk on the rapturous connection, and look down at the top of his head as he rests it on my chest. As more of him touches me, my heart stutters and my soul soothes to the link pulling me in. As the warmth on my side and wound lessen, our breath starts to regulate. We don’t loosen our hold on each other. I don’t want to let go and break the spell. And while I’m too exhausted to read him, I don’t think he wants to either.

  “I asked to come here.”

  My eyes open as I listen to Nate.

  “Since the facility, I have felt numb Jes. Being here with you—”

  He pulls back and narrows in on me. “I know you don’t need a babysitter. But just maybe you need a partner.”

  I think about how I fucked up tonight. Corinna.

  Nate reads it and responds, “What happened to Corinna, it wasn’t your fault. Too many other factors were working against you. You were just caught off guard. Hell, we all were. Even that prick, Xander.”

  I hear the jealousy in Nate’s voice, but I let it go. This is about my responsibility and how I let pride cloud my judgment. “I shouldn’t have tried to prove myself.”

  I can’t keep the tears from welling up again as I recount every fucking thing that led to me and Corinna being in that club tonight. I wipe my eyes and shake my head. “This is too much to take in. Two months ago I was having nightmares and now I’m living them out.”

  Nate’s hand rests on my cheek as he brushes his thumb over a stray tear. “You’re not alone. Nick, Ang, me, we’re in this. Remember, back at the facility?”

  I breathe out deeply sending the emotions back down and nod. “Yeah.”

  “The facility. Us. The kiss.”

  As soon as the thought is out there in the universe, I watch Nate’s determined eyes soften before me. With his hand still on my tear-streaked face, his eyes move between my eyes and lips as he slowly moves closer. I should pull away, tell him to stop, but I don’t. God help me, I don’t. With my unspoken consent, he moves in and rests his soft, warm lips on mine. The tender touch is fleeting as the kiss deepens immediately. The force of his body pressing against mine pushes me back onto the bed, taking him with me. As our tongues intertwine and our bodies fuse together, a knock on the door pulls us apart.

  Ezra calls from the other side of the door. “Hey, Jes, did Nate bring you food?”

  Nate is already standing at the farthest side of the room where the now cold soup sits, just as Ezra opens the door. I push my nightshirt down over my panties as Ezra peeks around the door and looks between Nate and me. “Everything okay?”

  I nod quickly. “Yes, I mean. I’m better.”

  Leaning against the wall, trying to appear casual, Nate jumps too and points to the food, proceeding to look everywhere but at Ezra as he speaks. “Yeah, I brought her food and healed her. Nasty knife wound. Missed her kidney though, which was good. Anyway, she’s good as new.”

  I stare at Nate as he regurgitates what sounds like a fucking doctor’s check up. I want to laugh so badly at how nervous he looks under Ezra’s scrutiny, but I keep my laughter from surfacing, just as Nate glances at me, then heads for the door. “I’ll check on you later Jes,” are his parting words as he pulls the door shut behind him leaving Ezra and me alone in the room.

  “So. You and Nate okay?”

  Instantly, my cheeks get hot, I look down to hide my expression. “Uh yes. We’re much better now.”

  “Good. You and he share so much strength together. Once you’ve gotten the hang of it, the power you both will have will be—beyond anything I have seen. It’s all new right now.”

  Ezra looks down as he leans against the dresser and I feel the pangs of the apology I should offer. “I’m sorry. I let my pride get in the way.”

  Ezra doesn’t look at me as he responds. “I didn’t do my job completely.”

  I’m unsure of what he means. “You did everything to prepare me. Told me everything about who I am. I’m the one that chose wrong tonight.”

  Ezra glances up at me. “I haven’t told you everything Jesca.”

  He takes a deep breath as he crosses his arms over his chest. “Your biological mother, Anna. She’d become involved with a Sondian guardian. Son of Rein and Victoria Crest.”

  Crest?

  Ezra continues, “Samson Crest. Rein and Victoria were both Dobrian assets at one point in time, before the Sondians assassinated them when Sam was a teenager. Balthazar took him in.”

  I can’t help but compare how Sam took in Xander in the same way as Balthazar took in Sam. I think of Sebastian. He must’ve known about this. “Sam’s parents, they were Dobrians. Why didn’t Sebastian try to save him? Why would he let him be captured?”

  Ezra pinches the bridge of his nose, showing his exhaustion. “He didn’t let it happen. Balthazar got to him before Sebastian could. Anna, your mother, went undercover. The deeper she went undercover as a Sondian, the more she lost herself. The line between which side was the right one began to blur as she became involved with Sam. Seeing Anna’s wavering patriotism and the potential temptation of a charming Sondian, Sebastian sent in a partner. Her life was in such great jeopardy. One slip of Sam or Balthazar discovering she was there to destroy the second generation Copula and Balthazar would’ve killed her without a second thought. This partner, he was able to get Anna refocused on the mission. In the same breath, Anna and her partner began to fall deeply in love. Sam, being a possessive and vengeful man, quickly discovered what was going on between this partner and Anna as well as who they were. One day, he followed her and caught her in the arms of her partner. Sam knew of the partner, knew he was a Dobrian.”

  Ezra shakes his head as he stares down at the ground in front of him. “Sam waited to approach her.”

  ***

  “Anna, can you walk with me for a minute? I have something important to ask you.”

  Anna is hesitant, but accepts Sam’s request. “Yes. Just for a moment. I have some things to do across town.”

  They’re walking on the north lawn of Sondian headquarters when Sam stops her from walking on. “Anna. I know this may be too soon, but time is so short. Will you marry me?”

  Anna is taken off guard by his proposal. “I don’t know that we’re ready for that step, Sam. I’m sorry; I just can’t make that decision right now. Maybe in time, once we’ve been together longer.”

  “Is it bec
ause of him? That Dobrian son of a bitch you were with yesterday.”

  Having been discovered in more ways than one, Anna turns and starts to walk away from him. Sam isn’t going to let her go that easily though. She pulls her gun from her purse and aims it at Sam. As she backs away, Sam is unmoved until she turns and starts running.

  Anna’s partner was meeting her a few blocks away. She just needed to get to him. Sam’s too quick. He grabs hold of her and knocks the gun from her hand tossing her to the ground in an alley between Sondian headquarters and an office building. Picking her up and pushing her up against the building wall, he commands her to tell him who she is.

  “Who the hell are you, Anna? Are you and he fucking spies?”

  Anna tries to plead with him, but he cuts her words off as he puts his hands around her neck and squeezes.

  Anna thinks quickly and kicks him in the groin, giving her time to run away. Just as she clears the alley, her partner pulls up and she gets in before Sam can get to her.

  ***

  Ezra’s retelling of my mother and her partner’s escape from the Sondians is stirring questions. But he isn’t done yet. “Anna and her partner needed to hide, go underground. Sebastian prepared everything to get them out of the country and within hours, they were on a flight to Nassau. Within months, the partner and she were married and pregnant with a child.”

  “Me.”

  He nods. “Yes, you.”

  The way he’s looking at me, gauging my reaction and trying to read my concealed thoughts I make it easy. “My father was the partner. What was his name?”

  “Your father’s name is Ezra Kahn, Jesca.”

  CHAPTER 26: CONFESSIONS

  Jesca

  “You.”

  Ezra nods and I see the wheels in his head spinning, calculating what level my emotions will rise to before I explode.

  I get up from the bed, holding my gaze on him as I approach. “No. Not hostile yet. But I’m getting there.”

  I fold my arms over my chest and as I step to him, he stands up straight no longer comfortable in his casual lean. I’m making him uncomfortable. Good! Because he just fucking made me very uncomfortable. I backtrack any moments I could’ve predicted this sudden confession. Maybe something I missed, overlooked, because I wasn’t expecting my father to be alive watching me from afar. Ezra ‘the asset’ sent to guard my parents in Georgia. Roan and Delilah confessing he was always close by. A professor at the university I chose to attend. Able to watch over me closely. “How can I believe you? How can I believe that my father was right under my nose my entire life and kept his distance?”