Chapter 18 #2
Jason crept into my thoughts, although in truth he was never far from them these days. And usually, these moments when I thought of him were my guilty pleasure. Somehow, they offered me a freedom I didn’t find elsewhere.
But right now, all I felt was trapped.
Trapped in a world I’d never fully been part of.
I sprinkled some lavender-scented salts into the hot water and the sweet steam filled the bathroom.
Maybe the combination of the aroma and the temperature of the water would soothe me—I never liked my bath merely hot.
It had to almost scald me. If my skin didn’t threaten to peel off and run away, it wasn’t right.
I sank into the water and breathed out as my body pinked in the heat.
It was no good, though. It didn’t relax me.
My conversation with Conri ran through my head like I had my own personal audio recording.
It had been hard enough to declare my dream and my need to leave, but now Conri was actively distancing me by removing my duties. He was pushing me away.
And when I turned my thoughts from Conri, all I had was Jason on the other side. Concerned for my safety. Worried for me. But why? Hope was a dangerous beast and it hurt. And I didn’t dare hope.
So the question remained.
Did he care for me? The pull between us was on fire. At least for me. But what if it was only for me? What if only I might get burned here?
I shouldn’t even have been thinking about a vampire like this… Or giving him more.
Wanting more. So much more.
And things were cloudy. I couldn’t sort my thoughts. With Jason, there was a true feeling of safety. Like I’d somehow come home. Something that was missing even here, on pack lads.
It was like he was my next chapter. My future.
Later, I lay in my bed, the darkness of the room oppressive.
Not even a hint of moonlight filtered through the partly open curtains, and Conri hadn’t returned home yet.
I’d been listening out for the scrape of his key in the lock and the heavy tread of his footsteps on the stairs, but I hadn’t heard either.
I rolled over, bouncing the mattress with the force of my exasperation, and I flipped my pillow to find a cool spot. My brother’s actions were still raking my nerves. I understood he was alpha and could give out the commands he wanted, but that didn’t mean I had to like them.
I could still help Conri. I’d been of help to him in the past. Fuck it all, I’d helped him just now with Jason and the vampires’ contracts and land deed. I’d liaised with them and shown him he could depend on me, right?
So why didn’t he want me now? Did he think he didn’t need me anymore?
Did he think he was too big and clever to need my help now?
Stupid brothers. I thumped my pillow a little, trying to reshape it.
Conri usually saw me, not my limitations.
The way Jason saw me now, too… Jason. His name was like a siren in my head.
I hadn’t hesitated to run with him when we heard that explosion earlier.
Being at his side, running into danger… It was natural.
I couldn’t have left him. I couldn’t have done anything else but be with him.
I sat up in my bed, some of the shadows in my room darker than others as I sensed rather than saw my furniture in its usual places.
Jason hadn’t pushed me away. He’d let me run into that danger with him. Okay, so he’d prevented me from putting both of us into more danger, and he’d sent me home with Conri, but he’d allowed me to stay by his side. In the action as it was happening.
And that was only fitting. Because I was the vampire liaison.
So if Conri didn’t need me now, and Conri was pretty fucking sure he didn’t need me now, perhaps the vampires did? As liaison, it would be correct etiquette for me to offer my help.
In fact, I shouldn’t do anything else, really. If I could be of any help to the current vampire reign in New Orleans, it was my duty as their shifter pack contact to offer that help. Yeah, that all sounded pretty official.
And because my role flowed both ways, I could offer my help and bring any information back here for the pack to use. Then Conri couldn’t fail to see how helpful I could be. I could keep everyone on the same page so we were all working together. It was really no less than my role demanded.
And maybe I’d get to see Jason, too. I pushed the thought aside. It didn’t matter if I saw him. Well, in a professional sense, it was important, but nothing more.
I climbed out of bed and sneaked around my room, putting my clothes on. It didn’t matter how loud I was. Conri still wasn’t here, but there was something about planning to leave in the dead of night that lent itself to creeping around.
With his apartment in ruins, though, where would Jason go? The regent’s house? I knew where that was. Of course, the simple resolution to finding Jason would be to call him, but… I checked my watch. Aside from anything else, calling him at this hour would just be rude.
And if I didn’t call him, at least he couldn’t say no. If I showed up, he’d do me the courtesy of at least listening to me about why I’d gone to be with him. That was definitely an explanation better given in person.
I unlocked my bedroom door and left the house, careful not to let the door bang closed behind me.
I didn’t need to alert any of the pack to my movements.
They’d be changing the guard shift soon, and that was when they were likely to be most distracted.
Leaving in a car was still a risk, but it was my best chance at getting out unseen.
Luckily, the guards on duty tonight were more lax than usual, and they took their time at shift change.
I was torn between flooring the gas pedal and creeping out, and I’d never been gladder to drive an electric vehicle, the strange space ship whir being almost silent compared to a gas-powered engine.
The road to New Orleans was dark and freeing. I’d never left pack lands and felt so unconstrained before. I always had the weight of responsibility, or Conri’s expectations. But this was different. This was my plan, my own steam, my way.
I was going to help.
It would probably be quite busy still in New Orleans itself, especially around the nightclub the regent ran, and I parked my car a couple of blocks away.
I didn’t have shifter speed, but I ran pretty fast for a human, and I didn’t fear any of the other humans who might be out and drunk at this time of night.
The self-defense moves Leon had taught me probably worked best of all against them, anyway.
As it was, trouble didn’t find me on the way to the regent’s house. But trouble lurked around the gate when I got there.
“Name?” a dark-haired guard barked at me as I skidded to a stop in front of him.
“Um…” I shoved my hair over my shoulder as I failed to answer the easiest question in the world. “I’m the shifter liaison. Here to see Jason Martin?” I cringed. Fuck. That should have sounded confident. I’d voiced it as a question, and now I didn’t sound sure at all.
The vampire laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Turn around and leave.”
“But I need to see him.” I hadn’t come this damn far to turn around and sneak my way back onto pack lands. Fuck that for a game of soldiers.
The vampire laughed. “Oh, yeah?” He sneered as he looked me up and down. “You and whose army? I don’t see no other dogs here to back you up.”
I shook my head. Dogs? “Have a little respect, blood-breath,” I muttered as I yanked my cell from my pocket and swiped to call Jason.
“What did you call me?”
The air in my chest left in a hurry as he whirled me around and slammed me into the gate. I made an oof noise like an old lady, then couldn’t say anything further. My cell phone dropped from my hand as he squeezed my wrist, but Jason’s voice crackled from at as it hit the ground.
“Ciara?”
I struggled to reply to him, but I just made a strangled noise.
“Where are you?” His question was urgent and fast. “Are you in trouble?”
A second guard approached me and although the first guard saw him, he didn’t relax his hold on me.
The second guy bent and picked up my phone. “Mr. Martin?”
Jason’s voice was muffled now.
“Are you Ciara?” The guy on my phone looked at me.
I nodded, and the vampire holding me loosened his grip a little.
“Yes, sir, she’s here at the gate.” He looked me over again before pulling the phone from his hear, the screen now dark and smashed. “Let her go. He’s on his way down.”
The first guy relaxed completely, but he didn’t step away from me. “Have some respect yourself,” he hissed.
Behind me, the gate started to open slowly inward, and I stepped backward, away from the unfriendly vampire.
“Ciara?” Jason caught my arm and turned me, pressing me against his chest, protecting me in his hold. “What the hell are you doing here?” His words were harsh but his presence brought me nothing but comfort.
This wasn’t the meeting I’d planned or the way I’d decided to tell him why I was here, though.
“Conri sent me.” The lie slipped both unexpectedly and easily from me.
“He thought the liaison had the best shot of getting information from you. He wants to know…” I paused.
What the hell would my brother want to know so urgently?
“He wants to know that your plans are on track for getting rid of the paper vampires.”
If Jason noticed that I cringed at such a weak explanation, he didn’t show it.
He led me toward the house and the gates started to swing closed behind us. “It’s dangerous for you to be here, Ciara. I thought Conri knew that?”
“He knows I can take care of myself.” I tried to keep my tone light rather than embroil myself and Conri further in my lie.
He made a humming noise. “After what I said to him earlier? And Conri has no warm fuzzies for vampires, right?”
I repeated his noncommittal humming noise. “He has a past with vampires. I guess we both do.”
Jason cut me a look. “Then the guy definitely wouldn’t send his sister into vampire territory when everything is already so dangerous here. He brought eight of them to collect you earlier and now he sends you down here alone?” He shook his head. “Not buying it.”
I pressed closer to him, unashamedly drawing more comfort into myself. “Let’s go inside. We should talk.”
He took hold of my hand as though to lead me into the house. Then he turned it so he could see the inside of my wrist, and I winced at the movement, a hissing noise escaped from between my teeth.
“What’s this?” He slid the pad of his thumb over a bruise that was forming. It was just visible as a dark shadow in the glow of the security lights.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” But my voice cracked a little at a sudden memory of the vampire guard squeezing my wrist. I wasn’t sure even the shifters were that nonchalant in their strength.
I tried to wave my hand to dismiss Jason’s concern, but he looked at the two guards, who’d been studying us with interest but were now looking at anything that wasn’t in our general direction.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Jason barked his question at one of the guards and held my wrist up like they needed to see for themselves.
“C’mon, man. She shouldn’t have been here. As far as I know the boss doesn’t want blood whores. Especially not shifter ones—even if they are virgins.” The guard who’d hurt me finished his sentence with a sneer, and I swallowed.
So it was true, then. They could sense virgins. I’d heard a rumor or two, but Jason had never… Made me want to slam my vagina door shut and throw away the key.
I folded myself closer to Jason, nestling against him. The guards felt like even more of a dangerous presence now.
But Jason stiffened. “What did you just say?” Each word was low, deadly.
The guard who’d spoken paled and stepped away, and the other one reached for me, pulling me against the wall as Jason leapt forward, wrapping his hand around the chatty guard’s throat, the blur of motion making it seem like everything was happening at once.
“Stand here.” The guard who’d whisked me out of the way muttered. “Don’t try to get between two vampires when they’re like this.”
“But they’re fighting.” I wrenched my arm away.
He clearly hadn’t even been trying to hold me, though, or I’d still have been in his grip. That made me feel a little better. I glanced at him, and he shrugged, his expression disinterested and with clear undertones of your funeral.
The punch Jason landed on the guard’s face he was fighting sounded wet and mushy, and I hurried forward.
“Jason?”
He didn’t lose focus, and the guard had stopped struggling now.
“Jason?” I reached out, my hesitation only slight. Something in me wasn’t at all scared of Jason—even when he was like this. I touched his upper arm, and he paused his movement.
The guard dangling from his grip groaned, and I moved my hand to Jason’s cheek.
“I think you can stop now.” Whatever the guard had done to me, it wasn’t worth this.
Jason growled and shook the man, who groaned again, before dropping him against the asphalt, where he lay motionless, his split skin already knitting back together, his swollen eyes reducing in size.
“Never again.” Jason stood over him, jabbing his forefinger toward him as though for emphasis.
“Never again. You leave what’s mine alone. ”
“Mine?” Confusion prompted me to speak. Jason using that word made no sense.
But he didn’t reply. Instead, he signaled to the guard who moved me from harm’s way. “Wade. Ensure Garter recovers and send replacements for your duties.”
The conscious guard, Wade nodded. “Yes, sir.” He hurried over and half lifted, half dragged Garter toward a small gate I hadn’t noticed before. “You dumb bastard,” I heard him say as the two moved out of sight.
Then Jason turned to me, and when he spoke, he sounded abrupt, but his touch was gentle. “We should go inside. You can tell me why you’re actually here.”