Chapter 7 #2
Tomas waited for Percy and Bacus to go to their fallen leader, pick him up and leap into the trees, the foliage hiding their retreat.
One of the brothers waited a moment, and then his body shimmered and disappeared altogether.
She knew that he followed the two men. She didn’t know for certain if Bacus was a good or bad guy, but she knew Percy wasn’t good.
And he wasn’t intelligent. She was afraid he would do something utterly ridiculous, such as return and try to challenge Tomas.
Once his brother had completely disappeared, Tomas crossed the uneven ground to Jasmine to carefully and gently transfer her daughter to her.
“Thank you, Tomas,” Jasmine said as she hugged Sandrine to her.
She looked over his shoulder to Sarika, who found herself edging away, back into the shadows.
“Sarika, I will never be able to repay you. If you hadn’t put yourself in jeopardy, I couldn’t have stopped Rud and the others.
I don’t know why you risked yourself for a complete stranger, but I will forever be grateful to you.
I hope you have Luiz bring you to my home to meet my husband.
Solange and Dominic will want to thank you in person as well.
There is Juliette and Riordan who will want to do the same. Please give us the opportunity.”
Tomas had half turned, his molten gaze finding her in the shadows. Her stomach did a strange flip at the burning intensity of his eyes.
She moistened her lips and called up every bit of courage she had.
“There’s no need to thank me, Jasmine. Truly.
I couldn’t let that horrid man take your daughter or you.
I knew Luiz would come at sunset, although he decided he wasn’t needed.
” She was going to have a few things to say to him.
“I don’t intend to be here long.” She was running as fast as she could.
Like right away. She was good with directions, and she could make her way to the river and get the hell out of the insanity that was this rainforest.
Tomas raised one eyebrow. The way he looked at her with such intensity freaked her out.
She wasn’t the type of woman to fall at the feet of an attractive man and say she wanted to have his babies, but if she was around him too long, that just might happen.
And she’d just seen him kill a man. Well, she hadn’t seen him do it.
It wasn’t like she could testify in court that she’d witnessed him killing someone.
She didn’t look at the blood on the ground. That just freaked her out even more. How could she be attracted to a man who could kill so casually and then look at her with such focused intensity? He terrified her. Her neck throbbed and burned, and her hand crept up to cover the artery protectively.
“Jasmine,” Tomas said without turning his head to look at her. He kept his gaze fixed on Sarika. “Mataias will escort you and Sandrine home. We wouldn’t want to take any chances that Percy or Bacus are waiting out there for you.”
The way he was looking at her, more predatory, hungry, made her heart thud out of control.
“Thank you, Tomas. I’ll let Jubal know to expect you.”
Since Tomas hadn’t said he was paying them a visit, Sarika thought that was very brave of Jasmine.
Jasmine sounded sweet, but the expectation was that Tomas would comply.
Sarika couldn’t imagine him doing anything a woman told him to do.
For that matter, he wasn’t going to listen to men, either. Tomas was a man to go his own way.
Sarika watched in horror as Jasmine turned away from them, Sandrine in her arms. Mataias, the other brother, reached over and took the child from Jasmine.
The little girl went willingly, displaying complete trust by putting her arms around his neck and laying her head on his shoulder.
She could tell Mataias was whispering to her. Sandrine’s giggle floated back to her.
There she was, suddenly alone with Tomas. She pressed her lips together, gathered her courage and forced a smile. “I’d like to add my thanks to Jasmine’s. You came at the exact perfect time, when we needed you desperately.”
He gave a slight bow. “Why do you fear me when it is apparent I aided you?”
It was the last thing she expected him to say, and it threw her off-balance.
She couldn’t tell him the truth—she didn’t even know what the truth was.
She allowed her gaze to drop to the blood on the ground.
It was her only out. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.
I’ve never seen anyone killed.” It was the truth, so if he could read lies in a voice, she would sound honest.
He studied her for too long, so long that she found herself squirming. Color began to creep up her neck into her face.
“But you didn’t see it. I made certain that you, Sandrine and Jasmine were protected.”
He made the announcement like it was a good thing that he could somehow make all three of the females look away at the precise moment he took Rud’s life.
How was that possible? Luiz had explained about taking blood and being able to reach her at any time.
She suspected he was able to do far more than that—such as control her like a puppet.
But this man…He hadn’t taken her blood, yet he had forced her to blink.
To miss the action. The idea that he had that kind of power was terrifying.
“You made me look away?”
“I protected you,” he corrected, his voice low and compelling. Like velvet brushing over her skin. He gestured toward the thick grove of trees to her right. “Let’s get you somewhere safe. Luiz will want to talk with us.”
Stubbornly, she shook her head. “I’m not going back to my cousin’s place. I was going to head for the river so I could catch a ride on a boat.”
“I think it best if we go talk to your cousin. We’ll need to explain things to his satisfaction.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. Luiz had already indicated he wasn’t happy with her choices.
“I am going to the river,” she declared decisively.
“Sarika.” His voice gentled even more. “Boats have regularly scheduled arrival times in other places. Not around here. They only come here if someone has hired them to bring them or pick them up.”
That wasn’t good at all. Now she had nowhere to go but to Luiz. She didn’t want to be in the company of two Carpathians. What if they both wanted her blood?
“I can make my way to my cousin’s,” she said. “There’s no need for you to be put out.”
“I think we both know if I left you alone in this forest with Percy and Bacus on the loose, I would be answering to your cousin. He’s a De La Cruz. You might think Silva, but he was reborn into the De La Cruz family, and they are…unique.”
She gave him her best scowl. “I will not believe for one moment that Luiz, or anyone else, can take you to task successfully for any decision you make.”
Luiz was intimidating, but Tomas was equally so. Both men were very sure of themselves. And Tomas might have an advantage in that he had two brothers traveling with him. They seemed, to her, to act as one unit.
Tomas gave her a gift…and she knew it was a gift…
the briefest of smiles, but it was genuine, and for a moment those brilliant eyes lit up, looking for all the world like bluish-green diamonds.
The bottom dropped out of her stomach. It was insane how susceptible she was to him.
The knowledge that he didn’t give others a genuine smile came out of nowhere, but she knew it was true.
She couldn’t stop herself from taking a step back, once more covering her neck with her hand.
She didn’t like or trust her reaction to him.
“You have no reason to fear me, Sarika. If there is one person on this planet safe from me, it is you. I give you my word of honor I will escort you safely to your cousin’s home. I will need to have a few words with him.”
“I’ve found that having words with Luiz isn’t a very good idea,” she warned. She didn’t even know why she warned him, other than she didn’t want the two men to argue over her. And she believed, for some reason, they would.
“I apologize for allowing you to see the body and the amount of blood. I could have hidden it from your eyes. I didn’t realize it would affect you so negatively.”
Her teeth bit down on her lower lip. She didn’t like lies, even if she told them for self-preservation.
“It didn’t bother me as much as it should have.
I believe he intended to kill Sandrine in front of Jasmine.
I could feel his hatred of her. He smoldered with it.
That’s the best way I can describe it.” By giving him the truth, she didn’t realize what she’d revealed to him.
Not until he cocked his head to one side and studied her carefully with those piercing eyes. Eyes that saw far too much.
“If it isn’t the fact that I killed Rud, what is it about me that frightens you?”
He queried her gently. So softly, his voice pitched low, and again, she had the sensation of velvet brushing over her skin.
For a moment she was so caught up in the strange sensation she almost didn’t hear his question.
When it finally registered, she felt heat rush under her skin.
She despised the fact that she blushed. Did other jaguar shifters blush?
It seemed childish. Teenagey. A dead giveaway.
She took a breath, common sense telling her to avoid answering, but her weird reaction to him demanded that she tell the truth. And that was it in a nutshell.