Chapter 3 #3
“I understand you follow Brodrick’s ways, believing it is your right to take a female without her consent. To impregnate her and force her to have children you may or may not accept. If you don’t accept them, you slay them.”
Luiz said it so casually, without malice, his tone so matter-of-fact, it took a moment to sink in. Sarika couldn’t stop her audible gasp of horror.
They kill babies?
They wait until the child is old enough to shift. Unfortunately, not all jaguars reveal themselves early. Brodrick made many mistakes and killed young girls who might potentially have shifted had he not been so eager to kill.
Percy looked outraged. “I’ve never killed a child. Never.”
He’s telling the truth, Luiz informed her.
“But you were with Brodrick when he committed such crimes.” Luiz made it a statement.
“I was a teen,” Percy defended. “I couldn’t stop him; no one could.”
“A lot of good men tried,” Luiz pointed out.
“Yeah, and they’re all dead,” Percy snarled. “You should know—he killed everyone in your family.”
“I do have my cousin left,” Luiz said, his tone even softer.
“You were torn to shreds. No one knows how you survived.” Percy’s expression turned sly. “What did you do, Luiz? Lay under the dead and dying?”
“Stop,” Sarika whispered. “Don’t say any more.”
Luiz didn’t appear affected, but she saw the images in his mind.
Just for the briefest of moments, a terrible battle, his friends and family dead and dying, just as Percy said.
Then another battle, this one horrendous, Luiz trying to save a woman.
The memory was a flash and then gone. He dismissed them as if they didn’t matter, as if he couldn’t feel, but she felt that terrible grief for him.
“You took the name De La Cruz,” Percy declared with contempt, ignoring Sarika as if she hadn’t spoken. “You traded your life for servitude. Knowing you bow down to the De La Cruz brothers turns my stomach. You turned on your own kind just so you could live.”
“Is that what you believe? So I could live? Do you believe the De La Cruz brothers are alive? Do you think I am?” There was a trace of amusement in Luiz’s voice, but Sarika was in his mind.
He didn’t feel amused. He didn’t feel anything at all.
But she sensed he was even more deadly than he had been.
“I want to leave this place, Luiz,” she said. “There is no need to remain. I don’t wish to continue this ugly conversation.” She turned a cool gaze on the shifter. “We are not in the least compatible. In fact, the way you treat my cousin disgusts me.”
Percy’s eyes went a malevolent yellow. A dark flush rose beneath his skin as he took an aggressive step toward her. “You don’t know your cousin, but I do.”
Step back, Sarika, give me some fighting room. If I have to do this, look away.
Don’t. Please. Let’s just go. Get me out of here. He’s…slimy.
He’s more than slimy. He’s a vile man who believes it is his right to have you or any other woman if he desires her.
“Step back, Percy,” Luiz said.
“Or what?” Percy challenged. “Look at him. Ask him what his intentions are. Killing comes easy to him. He has quite the reputation. That’s what he’s threatening.
His answer is always to kill.” He leveled his malevolent gaze at Luiz.
“Do you have any idea how many of his own kind he’s murdered?
” His penetrating stare swung to Sarika. “You don’t know him at all.”
What he is saying is the truth, and yet not, Luiz whispered into her mind. There was no murder. I tracked any man who took a woman. Sometimes three or four shifters would be together. They didn’t give her up quietly, and yes, I took their lives, but they had their chance at killing me.
Again, she caught glimpses of brutal, vicious fights and massive wounds on Luiz before the memories disappeared, as if he weren’t aware of or affected by them.
She had no idea why he didn’t acknowledge his past, but his mind appeared totally calm.
Even knowing he could be in a fight to the death with Percy didn’t change his tranquility in the least.
“I am not going to get into a debate with you,” she said aloud. “I’m leaving with my cousin. I can’t say it’s been enjoyable meeting you. I am fiercely loyal to family, and hearing you deliberately try to turn me against him is upsetting.”
Percy’s demeanor changed instantly. “You misunderstand. I am doing my best to protect you. I’ve lived here my entire life and am dedicated to the welfare of all shifters despite what your cousin says about me.
Yes, as a teenager, I did follow Brodrick, but out of fear, not admiration.
If you intend to make your home here, there will be others attempting to make your acquaintance.
I believe if you give yourself a chance to know me, you’ll find I’ve made mistakes I readily admit to, but I’ve done my best to make up for them.
” He poured absolute sincerity into his voice.
“I traveled a long way to spend time with Luiz, and right now, I’m extremely tired from the journey. Luiz, I would like to go home, please.”
“Of course,” Luiz said.
“I will see you again,” Percy said firmly.
She didn’t respond, not wanting to encourage him. They both watched as the shifter faded into the deeper brush.
Is he going to follow us? Sarika found she’d been telling the truth—she was suddenly exhausted. She wanted to find a very comfortable chair and put her feet up.
Most shifters are aware of my home and know it is off-limits. He will not be able to keep up with us.
“I wasn’t lying when I told him I am tired. I don’t think I’m going to be moving very fast, Luiz,” she admitted.
“I am going to carry you. I have many things to discuss with you, and we will need the privacy of my home.” When I took the name De La Cruz, it was because I became a De La Cruz.
In one of the battles with shifters, I was wounded.
Mortally wounded. The De La Cruz family saved my life.
In doing so, they had to give me their blood.
Sarika thought Luiz meant the De La Cruz family had given him transfusions, but that wasn’t what she saw in his mind. What she saw there seemed to be something out of a fictional horror movie. She found herself backing away from him.
He is watching, little cousin. We have to walk the opposite way and get to the heavier brush, where he cannot observe us.
She found herself complying, although she didn’t know why. If she had any sense at all, she would have run.
The man you say saved your life appears to be a vampire. There. She said it. She thought it, and now she’d challenged him to tell her the truth. She was rather proud that she wasn’t screaming.
The De La Cruz brothers are legendary hunters of the vampire.
Great. Vampire. Male shifters trying to kidnap women, and now Luiz had to throw in vampires.
It wasn’t his first time. She didn’t want to believe him, but he was too matter-of-fact.
There were vampires. She continued walking along the narrow trail, averting her face so he couldn’t see her expression.
What she should do was get back to the river and summon a boat.
She didn’t belong in her cousin’s world.
Yes, you do.
She looked up at him. Not just that soft whisper in her mind, but the feeling he gave her was one of being adamant. Certain. As if he had no doubts about her.
She looked around them when he stopped abruptly. “What makes you think that?” She kept her voice low. Sound traveled at night, but the dense foliage would muffle her words.
“You didn’t run.”
“I thought about it.”
For the first time, he gave her what could have been a real smile.
“That shows you have good sense, little cousin.” He turned to face her, standing only a foot away from her.
He reached to take her hands. “I am fully Carpathian, Sarika. I have my jaguar, but being a male, when I converted, the ancestors of my family poured their knowledge into me. It is as if I am a true ancient. Not as if,” he corrected. “I am a true ancient.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“That is an explanation best left for the privacy of my home.” He hesitated. “We’re going to fly. I don’t want you to freak out on me.”
Her horrible sense of humor got the best of her. “Seriously? How can you claim to be ancient and use a term like ‘freak out’?” Humor was her go-to when she was nervous. She wanted him to be a little insane to think he could fly, but she feared he was capable. She just didn’t know how.
“I’ll shift into a large harpy eagle and carry you to the house. It is much deeper in the interior. Once you’re inside the walls, you’ll be totally safe, even from Percy or any other shifters should they become aware of your presence.”
“Won’t Percy tell them?” She was stalling. She could shift into a jaguar. It seemed Carpathians could shift into other species.
“He wouldn’t take a chance that you would connect with one of them or that they would kidnap you.”
There was no keeping him talking. Right before her eyes, Luiz shifted with lightning speed into a magnificent—and terrifying—harpy eagle.
The upper side of the enormous bird was covered in slate-black feathers, while the underside was mostly white.
Striped feathers covered the legs. The head of the harpy eagle was gray and crowned with an enormous double crest.
A normal-sized eagle had talons as big as a grizzly’s claws, but this predator looked as if it could easily take down a grown man.
The talons looked lethal. She couldn’t imagine being gripped by those.
Still, she held her ground. Running from a man as powerful as Luiz De La Cruz was ludicrous.
She might seem impetuous to him, but she weighed her decisions carefully.
The harpy eagle’s enormous wings fanned the air, creating a mini-windstorm, and then the bird rose into the air.
Her stomach dropped as it flew in a circle around her and then dove straight for her.
At the last moment, Sarika closed her eyes.
Tight. She even pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t scream.
The talons settled around her waist, snatching her as it flew.
Shockingly, he had cushioned her body to prevent the hooked yellow toes from penetrating her skin.
She had no idea how he managed to do that so quickly—or at all—but he’d protected her, and that made it easier to trust that he would keep her safe on the flight back… sort of.
You don’t have a nest full of chicks you intend to drop me into so they can feast, do you?
She clutched at the bird’s legs, trying to keep her grip as light as possible so she didn’t accidentally break one.
The harpy eagle had a black beak, wickedly hooked, and looked like it could eviscerate her in seconds.
She thought it prudent not to get on its bad side.
Did you know harpy eagles mate for life—just as Carpathians do? Luiz asked in his expressionless, casual way.
The same can’t be said of most shifters, Sarika answered, thinking it was insanity to have such a conversation while she was in a fantasy world of harpy eagles flying her through the rainforest at a dizzying speed.
That, sadly, is the truth, he agreed. As for harpy eagles, they won’t mate until they’re between four and six, and when they do, they produce two eggs.
After the first hatches, the other egg is neglected and as a rule doesn’t hatch.
They breed every two or three years, so that one eaglet is extremely important.
Laughter bubbled up. Are you saying you’re contemplating dropping me into the nest?
You’re small enough to fit. The harpies make their nest anywhere from fifty-two feet to one hundred forty-one feet aboveground. You certainly would fit. The nest can be four feet deep and over five feet wide.
I should have made a better friend of you, Sarika said.
Open your eyes.
How did you know I have them closed?
You’ve been fighting with yourself to open your eyes since I removed you from the ground. You’ve always wanted to fly.
Reality sometimes doesn’t live up to one’s dreams, she informed him. Cautiously, she lifted her lashes very slowly, just a tiny bit at a time.
Everything is moving too fast. She closed her eyes as tightly as possible, her stomach lurching. She wasn’t afraid of heights; at least, she didn’t think she was all that afraid. Her cousin seemed to be protecting her just as he said he would. She didn’t want to miss the experience.
I’ll slow down.
If Percy is watching, won’t he think this is crazy? Because I do. Very cautiously, she opened her eyes.
Luiz had slowed their progression, so the dizzy feeling abated.
He cannot see us. I’m shielding us from his sight.
Of course you are, because anyone can do that.
Any Carpathian can do that, he corrected.