Amber Fire (8 page)

“What?!” Amber exclaimed.

Evelyn's eyes were watering. “He has a team of Hunters headed here now.”

“Now, as in when?” Jareth asked quickly.

“Within the hour,” she said.

Amber grabbed his arm. “We have to leave.”

Jareth didn't move, his attention fixed on Evelyn. “Why would you warn us?”

Tears rolled down her cheeks, her eyes seeking out Amber's. “Mike has a copy of two letters your mother wrote before she died. One to you and one to your father. Both dated to be opened on your twenty-seventh birthday.”

“The first fertile year of a female Yaguara,” Jareth said, explaining the relevance to Amber.

“But I never received a letter from my mother.”

“All I know is Mike has them—he has the letters,” she said. “I saw it. He showed me because”—her voice cracked—“be-cause he plans to kill you, Amber . . . and I was fighting with him to save you. Your mother was Yaguara. She said so in your letter. And the things she wrote about her people—about you and your future . . . I have no doubt that is why your father stopped hunting. But once Mike knew about your mother, he wanted you dead. The only reason he let you live was that lockbox of journals your father left you. He fears there is information in there that the Yaguara would use to turn the tables, to hunt the Hunters. That's why he's been trying to get close to you again. To be your replacement father.”

“To use me and then murder me.” Amber pressed her hand to her head. “I can't believe this.”

Jareth fought the urge to comfort her. He had to stay focused on Evelyn and any approaching threat.

Evelyn continued, “I thought Yaguara were monsters.” She wiped tears from her eyes. “But you aren't a monster, Amber. You're my baby girl. You are like a daughter to me. And . . . and the letter from your mother. It wasn't written by a monster either.”

“I need those letters,” Amber whispered.

Suddenly, a warning jolted through Jareth, his senses shooting to red alert, hair standing up on the back of his neck. The threat of danger ripped through him with such intensity he barely contained the urge to shift, the beast in him rising up to protect his mate.

Jareth shoved aside the urge, lunging forward and grabbing Evelyn. He thrust her toward Amber. “Go to the bathroom and lock the door!”

A second later, the door imploded, bursting off the hinges. An armed Hunter charged into the room wearing a ski mask to hide his identity. Jareth was ready, snatching the weapon and tossing the man across the room. Jareth recovered as a tranquilizer dart skimmed past his ear, barely missing him. That was the Hunters' way—tranq the Yaguara and then take them somewhere to kill them and burn the bodies. No evidence. No chance for screwups.

The guy he'd tossed aside charged at him again. Jareth lifted the gun and shot a tranq into the guy. He turned back to the door. No one else came at him, but he wasn't assuming this was over. Evelyn had said a team of Hunters was on the way. He stepped toward the door, preparing to scan outside when Amber's voice froze him in place.

“Jareth.” Her voice was strained, stiff.

He brought her into focus, his gut clenching, an icy chill of dread in him at the sight of Evelyn pointing a gun at her head. “They're real bullets,” Evelyn informed him. “She's part human. If they don't kill her, they'll do plenty of damage. I'm sorry. Really, I am. I did come here to save her, but I'm not going to get out of here alive without killing her or taking her hostage—not now that Mike has arrived.”

Her scent said she wasn't bluffing, and Jareth would be damned if he was going to lose his mate. He didn't hesitate, didn't give himself time to doubt. He raised his weapon and planted a tranquilizer dart in Evelyn's weapon hand. She stiffened and started falling. Amber gasped and eased her to the ground.

“I won't be so easy to get rid of.” It was Mike. In the doorway, holding a machine gun. He hadn't bothered with a mask. The man had a reputation for believing he was invincible. “No tranqs in this baby,” he said, giving the gun a tiny lift. His chin motioned to Amber. “Amber, darlin',” he said. “You're going to be helping me get into your father's lockbox.”

“Never,” Amber hissed vehemently. “I won't give you anything.”

He grimaced, hatred in his face. “I killed your father for being so damn obstinate. I'll damn sure kill your animal lover and do so while you watch.”

“You killed my father?” Amber gasped.

Jareth almost doubled over from the rush of pain and anguish rolling off his mate. It was all he could do not to lunge forward. “You bastard,” he growled.

“How could you?” Amber demanded. “My father was like a brother to you.”

“No brother of mine would marry a filthy Yaguara,” he said. “And that's what your mother was. Even she knew it. I read it in her letters. She was so damn afraid of her own kind, she wouldn't go back to them for help with her pregnancy. After she died, your father was a killing machine. He hated your kind. Then, something changed. He started hiding secrets. And now I know it was because he went soft. Because you made him soft. He was protecting you. But your kind doesn't want you any more than he did. You were a burden to him and an outcast to Yaguara.”

“Don't listen to him, Amber,” Jareth said. “He's trying to manipulate you.”

“Like your mother,” Mike added. “Shunned for marrying a human. Outcast, without help.”

Jareth was about two seconds from shifting and ripping Mike's throat out—to hell with his gun and to hell with the populated area—but suddenly Mike jerked forward, his eyes rolling back in his head. An instant later, blood poured from his mouth and he collapsed into the room. Mike was dead. Evelyn had killed him.

“He was lying,” Evelyn whispered, dropping her gun and her barely raised head back to the ground. “The letter,” she whispered, barely audible. “In the duffel bag—his . . . car.”

Amber broke for the door, but Jareth snagged her arm. Sirens sounded in the distance, the human officials on their way. Chase would handle them. Jareth had not doubt Chase was the reason they hadn't been attacked again. “Wait, baby.” He sensed no imminent threat, but he wasn't taking any chances. Not with Amber. “Once I know it's safe out there, we'll get the letters. We'll find out the truth.” He thumbed away the dampness on her cheeks. “I promise. You're not alone in this. You'll never be alone again.”

She hesitated, and then buried her face in his chest. “Neither will you,” she vowed, wrapping him in warmth. He held her close, where he planned to keep her for the rest of her life. He would never let the Hunters, or anyone else, hurt her again.

C
offee and the Danishes that Amber adored in hand, Jareth returned to the London hotel room they'd been in for more than two weeks to find his mate lying on her stomach across the bed, in nothing but a pair of red panties and a matching bra, her perfect creamy white butt cheeks in full, perky display. In the three months he'd been given—or rather ordered to take by the council—to honeymoon, the woman had kept him in a perpetual state of erection that he would have acted on relieving again now, if not for the letter she was reading. Her mother's letter.

“Hi,” she said, sitting up and disposing of the letter on the nightstand. She rubbed her hands together. “Yum. You got them.” He sat down and opened the lid, displaying the chocolate-filled, flaky pastry. Her eyes lit and she reached for one. “I love these things so, so much.” She bent forward and kissed his cheek. “And I love you.”A smile filled him. He'd never get tired of how easily she said that to him.

She savored a bite of her pastry and then sighed. “Have I mentioned I'm really glad that being a Yaguara does not mean eating raw meat?”

He laughed. “Several times.”

“The whole die-in-childbirth thing is bad enough,” she said. “I'm just relieved the mating cycle for the men is once a year. But for the record, the raw meat would have really been the final straw. I might have left you.”

“Is that so?”

She nodded and ate another bite of her pastry. “Oh yes,” she teased. “Most definitely. I'll have to find a new pastry indulgence when we get back to Nevada.” She turned serious, abandoning her food. “The Sentinel duty thing does make me nervous. I think I might become the insanely protective mate, rather than you. I saw how crazy the Hunters are. How out for blood they are.”

“Is that what has you reading your mother's letter again?”

She nodded, flicking a bit of chocolate from her lip. “The tragedy of it all tears me up inside. My mother knowing she was going to die. She didn't want to go to her people. She knew she had the pregnancy sickness that had killed so many Yaguara before her. She didn't want my father to spend the entire nine months grieving. I can't imagine what he must have felt when he read her letter explaining it all. Even expressing regret that she wouldn't be around to teach me about my heritage. She loved her people and he had been hunting and killing them.”

“Your people too,” he reminded her. He slipped another letter in front of her.

Her brows dipped. “What's this?”

“Open it.”

Amber unsealed the envelope and read. Let out a little squeal. “Oh, my God! I'm going to publish my father's work!” They'd picked up all of his journals to take on the road, and she'd worked through them, weeding out what was safe to print and what was not, as Jareth had finished one of his novels. In a flash, Amber was on her knees, hugging his neck. “Thank you. Thank you so much for arranging this.”

He pulled her across his lap. “The proposal you did was brilliant or they wouldn't have offered.”

“Only because you helped me,” she said. “I didn't know how to put together a book proposal.”

“I'd do anything for you,” he said. “You know that, don't you?”

She gently caressed fingers down the side of his face and smiled a mischievous smile. “Anything?”

He arched a brow. “What did you have in mind?”

“I have a list.”

“Do you now?” he said. “What exactly is on this list?”

She tugged on his shirt. “Once you get out of your clothes, we'll start at the top. Or the bottom. No particular order.”

Keep reading for a taste of hot vampires from
Lisa Renee Jones in
Night Sins
, available now!

 

 

 

 

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