And if she ran, it would be. Maybe not literally. Maybe if she took off, she wouldn't be tracked and killed. But her life would be over all the same. Her home in the Guard barracks lost to her. Her friends, her team, her purpose...all gone.
If she stayed and played Jag's game? Maybe she'd end up dead. But it wouldn't be at Jag's hands. If he were going to kill her, he'd have already done it. Unless, of course, she tried to hurt him or his.
If she could just get him to keep her secret a little longer. Long enough for her to help him catch that Daemon. Long enough for them to figure out what the Mage were up to and stop them.
Maybe long enough for her life to have a little more purpose. The pull of self-preservation was strong in all creatures, no less in her, but her father hadn't sacrificed everything for her to save herself. He'd given her a chance to make a difference.
Whether or not that had truly been his intent didn't matter. It was the way she'd always seen it. It was the only way she could accept that he'd let her live at his own peril, the only way she could live with it.
She'd never truly been able to use her gift to any great advantage simply because she'd always had to hide it.
With Jag, she didn't.
The realization hit her, filling her with a strange and profound relief. After so many years, she was no longer alone with her secret.
Jag released her arm, pulled out his cell phone, and snapped it open. "It's me," he said a moment later.
Olivia tensed.
"Found us a Daemon," he continued. "Did you know those bastards have venom in their claws?" He was silent a moment. "Olivia took a hit. It slowed her down, but didn't seem to do anything more. We also found us a nice little Mage pit complete with sorcerers, sentinels, and some of the biggest power orbs I've ever seen."
He was silent a moment. When he spoke again, his voice had turned warrior hard.
"Shit, yeah. They're definitely up to something. There's only one reason I can think of they'd want Daemon power." A pause. "You got it, Frosted Flakes. This is another attempt to free the Daemons."
Jag continued to hold the phone to his ear though he didn't say anything for a while.
Olivia could hear Tighe's voice through the receiver, but not clearly enough to make out what he was saying.
"Aye, aye," Jag drawled at last. "Call when you hit town." He snapped the phone closed and tossed it onto the dash. "The gang's coming for a visit."
Olivia eyed him. "All of them?"
"Tighe's team and Kougar's. They've been tracking two different Daemons, and both trails seem to be leading this way."
"As if the Mage are calling them."
"That's what I think, Red. And what I also think is the Mage are trying to use them to free Satanan. Tighe agrees that our mission just changed. Stopping whatever the Mage are up to takes priority over the Daemons. If we can take down both at once, all the better."
He turned into the parking lot of the motel. "The plan is for everyone to meet here at two this afternoon."
"We'll attack in broad daylight?"
Jag pulled into a parking spot, turned off the ignition, and turned to study her, his mouth kicking up on one side. "Well now, Sugar, you're the only one, other than us Ferals, who doesn't have to worry about the draden. With three Therians on the team, the logical choice is daylight."
He was back in full Jag persona. The man who'd quietly and gently asked her if she was all right had slipped back beneath the mask.
Jag opened his door and climbed out, and Olivia did the same. They grabbed their duffels out of the back of the Hummer, and she followed him up the outside stairs to their second-story room - a simple, but clean one, with two double beds.
Olivia set down her duffel beside the bed closest to the door, pulled back the bedspread, then shucked her boots and crawled beneath the covers. She was spent, physically, mentally, and emotionally, but as she closed her eyes, a thought had her jerking upright.
Her gaze shot to Jag as he pulled off his boots with less haste than she had. "I don't usually feed in my sleep, but I'm so tired, I may tonight. It won't hurt you. I sleep near others all the time, and they've never even been tired come morning, but you may feel it."
He paused in what he was doing, meeting her gaze, his thoughts impossible to read.
Then he pulled off his pants and T-shirt and lay down on the other bed on his side, propping his head on one hand. "When you feed hard, it's like needles. When you feed low, it's just a pleasant hum in my body. It shouldn't bother me."
She nodded. "That's good."
He continued to watch her, as if studying her. "I've been wondering about something, Olivia. Why didn't you let me die out there tonight? As you said, it would have been so easy. And a simple matter of self-preservation. Your secret would have been safe."
There were so many answers to that question, more than she had the energy to sort through at the moment, so she gave him the first one that came to mind.
Pamela Palmer Rapture Untamed
"I want no more deaths on my conscience."
His mouth quirked up on one side, in a surprisingly self-deprecating smile. "Not even mine?"
"Especially not yours." She wasn't sure what made her say the last.
Jag stared at her, his gaze turning thick and intense, pulling her in. Then he scowled and flipped over onto his back and closed his eyes.
"Sleep, Red." His voice held a gruffness, not reflected in his words. "You won't hurt me without my knowing. We're both safe for now."
She watched him a moment more, then lay down and pulled the covers up to her chin.
Safe. An odd choice of words since she'd never felt less safe in her life. Yet she fell asleep without trouble, a certainty deep inside that if Jag said she was safe, he would let no harm come to her.
For now.
Jag blinked at the sight of the village square, his heart plummeting. A thousand times he'd watched Cordelia die, a million times he'd wished he could change what had happened that day. He didn't want to see it again!
A tiny, lucid part of his mind told him to turn away, that it was just a dream. But he was caught, trapped as always, forced to watch the nightmare play out yet again.
They dragged Cordelia across the village square, four big human males easily overpowering her Therian strength though she kicked and fought, demanding they free her. She'd always demanded. That had been Cordelia's way.
But the men ignored her, dragging her toward the thick, tarred pole standing black and ominous within the circle of the fire pit.
As the Jag of old watched with a conflicted blend of angry righteousness and dismay, they shoved her back against the thick wood, wrenching her arms behind her, clamping iron manacles around her wrists to hold her fast. One of the men secured a second iron shackle to her ankle, then staked it to the ground.
Sunshine glistened on Cordelia's brown hair, locks falling in rare disarray around her shoulders.
The villagers wasted no time. Before Jag comprehended what they were about, one lit the torch, then shoved it into the kindling with a single vicious thrust.
Cordelia's skirts caught almost immediately. Her gaze locked on his through the curling smoke, flaying him with sharp accusation as the flames devoured her. Fire caught at her hair, lighting the brown tips like candlewicks, racing up to engulf her face as the chant of the villagers filled the air.
"Witch! Witch! Witch!"
Cordelia threw back her head and screamed.
"No!" The strangled cry clawed at Jag's throat as he woke, bolting upright, his body drenched in sweat, burning as if he'd stood before that fire again in truth instead of only in dream.
He gripped his head with shaking hands as Cordelia's screams echoed over and over in his head, and the guilt raked at his chest like a wild animal struggling to claw its way out.
Fuck.
It had been years since he'd had the nightmare. Decades. He'd thought the memories had finally left him alone, but the events of the day had brought it all roaring back -
seeing that face beneath the tarp, and the bodies tied to the posts. If only the past would leave him alone.
If only...
How many times had he thought those words? Those useless, fucking words.
He forced himself to lie back down even as he flung an arm across his eyes, wishing he could block out the sight. Wishing he could forget what he'd done.
Wishing, as he had a million times, that he wasn't such a bastard.
Olivia woke fully alert as she always did, despite her eyelids feeling heavy and thick.
Daylight streamed in between the gap in the drapes, a gray light devoid of sun.
Raindrops pattered on the roof, a steady, windless rain. If they had to attack in broad daylight, a rainy day was best. Even the Mage would be tucked inside, working their evil.
Over the patter of the rain, she heard the evenness of Jag's breathing and remembered waking to the distraught sounds of his nightmare some hours ago. Over and over, he'd saidCordelia , the name filled with anguish.
Whoever Cordelia was, or had been, Olivia felt certain she was the source of Jag's pain. She remembered how he'd sat up as he'd wrenched himself from the dream, his back and shoulders bowed beneath the weight of the nightmare. If she'd known him better, if they'd been closer, she might have offered him comfort. At the very least, a warm hand to the shoulder. But instinct told her the Feral wouldn't have been pleased to know she'd seen him at his most vulnerable.
Lifting her arms high over her head, she yawned, stretching limbs that felt strong and free of Daemon venom, at last, as her mind turned to the future and the Mage battle to come. She had no qualms about taking Mage lives, for she would never forget, nor forgive, the Mage for burning the enclave of her birth to the ground, forcing them to flee into the hills that fateful, horrific night.
Especially now with the Mage losing their souls and aligning themselves with Satanan.
But the thought of going into battle filled her with equal parts excitement and trepidation. Battle posed problems for her that it didn't for her men because her unusual strength and speed came not from the deep animal nature that still lived like a shadow inside most Therians, but from the draden. From sucking the energy of her opponent, weakening him just enough that her skills overtook his.
In a large battle in close quarters, she had two options. One was to grab her opponent and hold on, sucking the life from him. Unfortunately, that was the only way she could direct her feeding, and grabbing hold of an opponent often proved difficult if not impossible.
Which left her second option - to draw her attackers away from the primary battle, away from her teammates, where she could feed openly without harming her own.
And the last thing she wanted to do was harm her men. Or the Ferals.
She glanced over to find Jag on his back on top of the bedspread. He'd flung one arm wide, his hand dangling over the edge of the bed. His other lay across his eyes, his armband gleaming in the muted light. Despite the abandoned way in which he slept, she sensed the coiled tension, like a living thing inside him that never slept. Tension, yes, and a deep misery she was becoming more and more convinced poisoned his life.
But, goddess, he was a fine-looking man.
Her gaze skimmed over his body with raw feminine admiration. His thick biceps, broad chest, and flat, hard abdomen. And his legs, as solid and sculpted as any she'd ever seen.
He was a difficult, antagonistic, mercurial man. But he was more than that, better than that, though he didn't seem to know it, and she found herself drawn to him far more than she should be. She'd be smart to steer clear of him, but circumstances had stolen that option. Either she ran away from her life, or she remained at Jag's mercy until she figured out what he planned to do about her.
For now, she was staying with Jag.
Hungry in a draden-kissed way, the hunger prickling along the surface of her skin, she sat up and opened herself to a slow, gentle feed.
Almost at once, Jag bolted upright with a growl, fangs erupting in his mouth, claws sprouting from his fingertips to rake holes in the sheets at his side.
Olivia jerked, startled, and slammed down the feeding as she instinctively reached for a knife. He swung his head at her, part man, part ferocious cat, staring at her as if ready to attack.
At least she knew he wouldn't sleep through her feeding.
Slowly, his fangs and claws retracted. "What thefuck ?"
She lifted an eyebrow, her heart pounding, but the bulk of her fear receded with his fangs and claws. "Time to get up."
He blinked, then impossibly, he began to laugh, that same wonderful rolling laugh that had pleased her senses so thoroughly when she'd found him with the puppy. A laugh that tugged and coaxed a smile of her own.
"A shit-ass way to wake up, Red. You're a woman after my own heart." In his eyes, she saw genuine amusement and a respect that surprised her.
In that moment, as they smiled at one another, she felt something unlatch inside her, opening. Reaching.
Her breath caught, her heart swelling in a strange and awkward way.
Even as Jag's smile began to fade, his gaze held her captive. He rose with the sinuous grace of a jungle cat and climbed onto the bed with her, his knee beside her hip. For one throbbing moment, he stared at her, his gaze dropping to her mouth, and she thought he was going to kiss her lips. Instead, his head dipped and he pressed a warm, damp kiss into the curve of her shoulder.
In an instant, the hunger that had pricked at her skin was obliterated by a hunger of an entirely different kind. Need thrummed through her body, lighting a million tiny fires.
Jag's tongue stroked the sensitive skin beneath her ear, sending delicious chills rippling through her body.
