Chapter 19 #3
She’d forgotten Carpathians waved their hands and magic happened. The magic of a hot bath. She could get used to Carpathian ways. She tightened her arms around him and rubbed her face against his chest. “That sounds perfect. Thank you for thinking of it.”
She found it amazing that despite everything that had happened, he would remember her nighttime ritual of relaxing in a bathtub. It wasn’t something Carpathians did, she’d gleaned that much, yet it was important to him.
“You’re important to me,” Tomas said, nuzzling the nape of her neck as he entered the bathroom, which was set up like a spa. “I’m removing your clothes and setting you in the tub.”
She liked that he always warned her when he was about to do something different, something unfamiliar and maybe a little freaky to her but entirely normal to him. She found him thoughtful of her when she’d had it in her head after first meeting Luiz that Tomas would trample all over her.
“I shouldn’t have judged you so harshly, Tomas,” she admitted as she sank into the steaming water. The scent of lavender was soothing as it permeated the air, driving the stench of the bombs from her mind.
The moment she was settled in the tub, he had her hair in a messy knot on top of her head. “Lie back, close your eyes and relax.”
There was that voice, a mesmerizing dark velvet caress stroking over her skin.
She loved his voice. The water stirred, and she lifted her lashes just enough to see that Tomas had joined her, his back resting against the sloped wall of the tub opposite her.
He reached for her foot, drew it into his lap and began a mind-numbing massage that sent shivers of pleasure throughout her entire body.
She hadn’t known her arches hurt so much.
“Your hands should be insured,” she murmured, allowing her lashes to drift back down.
His laughter was soft, pouring into her mind and filling her with joy.
With peace. She had faced her worst nightmares with him and, in doing so, found that as she embraced her past, those memories unlocked more and more of her abilities.
Tomas had given her that. He’d given her so much in the years she had corresponded with him.
Now with him in person, she felt so much more empowered as a woman and partner. So much more seen.
“Sarika, I love that you believe those things of me. You have always been strong. Always intelligent. I did not give you those things. In our relationship, you will be giving up so much more than I am. My life will be forever enhanced and beautiful because you’re my lifemate, but the truth is it will remain the same.
My customs. My rituals. My language. My brothers.
You will have to conform to my way of life.
What you give to me is beyond any price, and I will never be able to balance the scales between us. ”
She could feel his sincerity. Tomas melted her heart. He’d slipped inside and was stamped deep into her bones when she hadn’t even been aware it was possible.
“People always say that a marriage or partnership should be fifty-fifty,” she murmured, not for a moment opening her eyes.
The water, his hands on her and the sounds of the rainforest created a perfect peace.
“It never really is. It never can be. Sometimes one person needs more than another. Sometimes they both do.”
“What do you think is a solution when both parties need seventy percent?”
“I think it’s important to communicate one’s needs and listen to what their partner needs. If you trust that your partner is always going to do their best to put you first, then, looking at any situation with that trust, you’re both going to come out better for it.”
Sarika did believe that communication was all-important. Not just listening but hearing what was said and processing it without bias and judgment.
“I think my lifemate is a very wise woman,” Tomas said and drew her other foot into his lap.
They both fell into a companionable silence that was soothing and peaceful.
He continued to massage her foot and calf, adding to the beauty and magic of the night.
The sound of the wind fluttering leaves in the trees.
The drone of the insects. The occasional flutter of wings.
It was a symphony of rainforest music lulling her to sleep while her man used his amazing skills to get out every single painful knotted muscle in her feet and calves.
As if in a dream, she had a hazy recollection of him carrying her to the bed and tucking the sheet around her.
He stretched out beside her, his body warm and relaxed, as he murmured softly to her.
She barely caught the words, ones of safeguards to keep away nightmares, to only have sweet dreams. To awaken when the sun went down the following rising.
She went completely under, feeling encompassed with what could only be love.
—
The small convoy trekking through the rainforest toward the ancient ruins of the jaguar temple consisted of Luiz, Lojos, Mataias, Tomas and Sarika.
She was surprised that Jubal was also with them.
They had flown through the jungle, staying high above the canopy.
Tomas had carried her, and Luiz had taken Jubal.
That also surprised her, that her cousin was so clearly involved with the jaguars when he identified as a De La Cruz.
Having met Zacarias and his brother Riordan, she knew the bloodline had embraced Luiz, taken him as a true family member.
He wasn’t adopted. He wasn’t half. He was fully their true bloodline and as intimidating as hell, yet he carried Jubal as if Jubal were his family.
He was an enigma, one she doubted she would ever solve.
As they neared the ruins, she began to get uneasy, a feeling of dread filling her when she’d been comfortable and safe in Tomas’ arms.
We need to be on the forest floor, Luiz said, just as the exact same thought burst through her.
Something wasn’t right. They were very high, and no one should have been able to detect them, yet there seemed to be more danger to them above the canopy than inside the darkened interior. The uneasiness spread to the others.
It is impossible to see the ruins from the sky, Luiz told them. It is as if it is protected even from the latest technology. When others come to explore, they do not see the ruins of the temple. All jaguar know the way, but outsiders have not found it.
We know the way, Lojos said. We’re outsiders.
The temple recognizes Carpathians, Luiz said.
Sarika gasped, her hand sliding to her amulet. That was how Mitro had found her people centuries ago. He was Carpathian, and the temple regarded him as such.
Tomas set her feet gently on the forest floor. The interior was extremely dark, little light penetrating the thick canopy above. The moon was barely a sliver she could occasionally glimpse through the filter of leaves overhead. She relied on her night vision just as the others did.
The trek through the jungle carried a pall of gloom over it, a warning to turn back.
With every step they took, the dread grew.
The shadows moved ominously. There was no drone of insects or monkeys overhead.
The forest was utterly still and eerily silent, as if holding its breath.
No movement. No scurrying lizards or voles.
Sarika reached for the memories she kept locked away. Not all of them were nightmares, but she hadn’t separated the bad from the good until then.
“It is a safeguard, much like Carpathians weave,” Sarika said. “It was meant to allow the people to live in peace. That was all they wanted, to live out their lives in peace.”
“Is it your safeguard?” Jubal asked.
Sarika shook her head. “No, the people had established their village and constructed the temple before my time.”
“They called themselves Mayans?” Tomas asked. “Because as far as I know, Incas were in this rainforest but not Mayans.”
“We called them Mayans,” Jubal said. “Shifters did, because the ruins were close to the same type of structures the Mayans built.”
Sarika drew on the memories she had so carefully avoided. This time she chose to uncover the happier moments she’d spent with the gentle villagers. “The people never referred to themselves as Mayans,” Sarika confirmed.
“That makes much more sense,” Tomas agreed. “The little I’ve seen or heard makes me believe these people were separate from the Incas and the Mayans.”
Huge leaves like elephant ears flapped along the narrow path they trekked.
Hundreds of vines hung down, thick ropes of twisted wood covered with hair, making them feel as if the legs of spiders brushed their faces as they passed.
Long-stemmed liana, a woody vine rooted in soil, twisted into many alien shapes as it climbed the various trees.
They rounded a bend, pushing aside the overgrown abundance of leaves and brush to view ruins of more modern homes that had been burned to the ground.
The jungle had reclaimed most of the area.
That didn’t lessen the impact of sorrow, of blood spilled, a slaughter of men, women and children.
Sarika was so sensitive, she heard the cries, the screams, the sounds of the massacre.
Solange. She felt the woman’s energy all around her.
The terrible sorrow. The guilt of survival.
The horrific knowledge that she couldn’t prevent the slaughter of everyone she loved.
This was the site of Solange’s home before her father, Brodrick the Terrible, and his shifters had murdered every man, woman and child they deemed beneath them.
This was where he had tried to kill Solange when she was just a child but hadn’t succeeded.
“She comes here often,” Jubal said, his voice almost reverent. “Dominic makes it better for her, but the pain of that day has never left her.”