Authors: Nicola R. White
Not waiting for an answer from Jackson, Nora joined us in the kitchen. Alex jumped up to give her a hug, not even pretending she hadn’t been eavesdropping. “She likes us, she really likes us,” Alex said, wiping fake tears from the corner of her eye with a manicured nail. Despite the joke, I knew she was really touched by the way Nora had stood up to Jackson.
“I do like you.” Nora hugged her back. “But more importantly, I think you’re the good guys. And that’s what matters where Ruby’s concerned.”
“Hear that?” I couldn’t resist saying to Jackson as he followed Nora into the room at last. “We’re the good guys.”
He didn’t say anything, just looked back at me, sizing me up. His gaze was long and assessing, and I became suddenly conscious of the tangles in my hair and the dried blood on my cheeks. I grabbed a clean dishtowel, wet it under the tap, and turned away to scrub at my face. I dropped the cloth and my stomach let out another long, loud, insistent growl. I realized self-consciously just how ravenous I was. Unable to help myself, I grabbed the first thing in the refrigerator that came to hand and downed half a carton of milk.
Jackson was still staring when I lowered the carton from my mouth.
“What?” I demanded. “Haven’t you ever seen someone drink out of the carton before?” I felt the telltale heat of a blush creep up my neck and remembered the way I’d babbled at Jackson on Nora’s front steps. I was developing a real talent for embarrassing myself in front of him. Alecto snickered in the back of my mind.
Shut it
, I snapped at her,
or we’re not getting revenge on anyone again until I’m eighty. We’ll see how scary you are when I’m wearing pastel tracksuits and using a walker
.
After being body-snatched, I was in no mood for her attitude.
“Um, Tara? You’re lactose-intolerant,” Rachel pointed out.
Oh. Yeah. I’d been so hungry I hadn’t even stopped to think before I’d reached for the carton. I waited for the onslaught of cramping that should have ensued after pouring such a huge amount of dairy into my digestive system.
But nothing happened. “I guess…I’m not anymore.”
I ignored Jackson’s eyes still on me and grabbed some lunchmeat, mayo, cheese and bread and started to build a sandwich. I wasn’t comfortable with his appraisal of my lumberjack appetite, but a girl’s gotta eat. Especially when she’s got a newly acquired, supernaturally amped metabolism.
“Interesting,” Rachel said, watching me.
“What?” Alex asked. “Alecto has somehow cured her lactose intolerance? That’s a nice side effect, but it’s not really the big picture here.”
“Actually, it kind of is. Partly, anyway.” Rachel pointed at the sandwich I was about to bite into. “Tara’s also a vegetarian.”
I stopped and looked at what I was doing. She was right—I was a vegetarian. Or I had been until about thirty seconds ago. A sick feeling crept into my stomach, brought on not by the couple liters of milk I’d downed, but the realization of just how much I was changing. I hadn’t eaten meat in years—was disgusted by it, actually. But I’d grabbed it from the refrigerator without thinking. Without even
noticing
. I tried to tell myself I had been temporarily blinded by my overwhelming hunger, but I was still dying to eat the turkey sandwich I’d made.
Instead, I made myself step away and grab a banana from the bowl of fruit on the counter. I was changing so fast, I could hardly keep track, and I was determined not to give in to this new craving. What if every change I accepted meant I was becoming less and less myself? What other parts of the old me would Alecto force me to give up?
“Did you say Fury back there?” Jackson asked as I ate.
“She’s snaky, whatever she is,” Alex confided to Jackson. “Did you see that hair? Total snake nest.”
“Aside from the increased speed and stamina, as well as the freakier stuff that happens when the Fury comes out,” Rachel added, “it seems that—”
“The Fury does have a name,” I snapped.
I wasn’t thrilled I had to share my body, but it had been horrifying to be trapped inside it, and I could only imagine what it was like for Alecto to live that way all the time. I wasn’t willing to let her change my personality or my eating habits but if we were going to be stuck with each other, I might as well give her what consideration I could.
“Yeah, good idea.” Jackson crossed his arms. “Let’s name your psychotic delusion. That’ll help.”
I gave him the evil eye.
“Can we focus here?” Rachel asked. “First of all, Jackson, you know this isn’t a delusion. You saw it with your own eyes. So let’s just deal and move on, OK? Now, as I was saying, Tara’s body is clearly changing to accommodate Alecto’s consciousness merging with hers.”
“Meaning?” I pressed.
“Meaning the normal human body can’t meet the demands put on it by Alecto’s manifestation. Essentially, you have a snake with higher consciousness living inside of you. Your basic bodily functions are going to have to change.”
“So the fact that I’m eating for two proves I’m becoming a snake woman?”
“That, and your newfound desire to eat animal products. I’m guessing your appetite will skew increasingly carnivorous as time goes on. Based on snake physiology, we can guess what type of changes you can expect to see, but with the mythological elements thrown in, there’s no way to predict exactly what will happen.”
“This is ridiculous,” Jackson said.
“Then how do you explain what you just saw? And what I did to Miller and Priest?” I asked. “Like Rachel said, I’m way stronger and faster than I should be.”
“And that just automatically makes you a Fury? Yeah, right.”
“It’s not just that. I can do…other things.”
“What other things?”
“When you came into the room at the Stardust, you smelled pepper spray, right?”
“Yeah. So?”
“The reason it didn’t affect me was because of Alecto. I can hold my breath, like, forever now. And she told me to do this thing with my eyes so the pepper spray wouldn’t bother me.”
“What thing?” Rachel demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
“I forgot about it. Just chill for a second and I’ll show you.” I closed my eyes, remembering the flex of tiny muscles, then opened them again and blinked the thin membrane into place.
“So creepy,” Alex whispered. I knew she was thrilled.
Jackson gawked and went pale. “You…have a brille.”
“What’s a brille, why do you think I have one, and how do you even know what it is?” I asked. Who’d have thought there was a name for what I’d just done, much less that Jackson would be the one to identify it?
“Snakes have no eyelids, right?” he said.
I shrugged. “If you say so.”
“They have this thing called a brille instead, an ocular scale that covers the eyes to protect them. It’s clear, so you can’t see it most of the time, but it gets cloudy when they’re getting ready to molt.”
Shed my skin? I pictured a discarded Tara-skin crumpled on my bedroom floor and immediately wished I hadn’t. I was not OK with where this was going.
Alex, however, clearly didn’t share my concern. “Check out Encyclopedia Brown over here!” She whistled in approval and I heard Ruby stir in the other room.
Jackson shrugged. “I was really into reptiles as a kid.”
Nora shook her head. “Ugh. The stories I could tell you about him.”
“Why didn’t the pepper spray lingering in the air at the motel bother you?” Rachel asked Jackson.
Ruby’s voice answered her from the doorway. “Uncle Jackson went to special army school. He learned how to be tough and kill bad guys, like G.I. Joe.”
Funny, I hadn’t heard her little feet approaching. Maybe ninja skills ran in the family, like Jackson’s nerves of steel when I’d sneaked up behind him.
Ruby padded over to her mother and raised her arms to be picked up. “Uncle Jackson had to go away lots to take care of all the seals. That’s where he was when Daddy died.”
“Seals?” I turned to Jackson. “As in, Coast Guard?”
“SEALs as in Navy,” he said shortly. Then he turned to Nora. “I might have been deployed when Cash was killed, but I’m here now and I’m not about to let anything happen to you and Ruby. Which is why we’re leaving—now. Whatever’s going on here, you and Ruby are having no part in it.”
“Ruby is already part of it,” Nora said. “She’s been part of it for years.” She pressed her cheek against her daughter’s dark hair. “Cash died to protect her, Jackson. They made it look like a home invasion, but somebody was after her. And now they’ve found us again, whether you want to believe it or not. Tara is the only thing standing between Ruby and whoever is after her. Ruby saw it, and she’s never wrong.”
Jackson scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair. His cheekbones, I noticed, were sexy as hell. I wondered what it would feel like to run my fingers through his messy hair. Now that the edge had been taken off my hunger, the lust I felt every time I was in close proximity to him came roaring back. Another hunger was tugging at me now, and I felt the deep pull of sexual desire.
Which was wrong for so many reasons. There was an audience, for one thing. And one of them was a kid.
Alecto stirred.
We want him,
she purred,
so let us have him
. For a snake, she sounded downright feline. My pulse quickened and the room felt suddenly crowded. I thought about the dream I’d had of Jackson naked underneath me and felt myself getting wet.
I had to get out of the kitchen. Immediately.
“I need some air,” I muttered, heading for the door leading to our backyard.
“Not so fast.” Jackson grabbed my arm as I tried to brush past. “If you really are the only thing standing between my niece and some psycho who’s out to get her, we need to talk.”
His hand on my skin was an electric shock running straight up my arm and I had to will myself not to moan out loud.
“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “Let’s talk. Alex, Rach, why don’t you take Nora and Ruby out for ice cream while Jackson and I have a little chat?”
There was no mistaking the tension in my voice, and I hoped it would be attributed to anger at Jackson’s demanding tone, rather than my urge to have his tongue in my mouth. I didn’t know if I was going to attack him or seduce him, but sparks were about to fly and I didn’t want any witnesses.
I pulled my arm from his grasp and went outside, knowing he would follow.
Chapter 11
“What was that?” Jackson demanded as he followed me outside. The screen door swung shut as he stepped out into the hot sun.
“What was what?” I snarled back, turning to look at him. Frustration at my traitor libido made me snappish.
His eyes burned into me. “What was that…spark back there in the kitchen? The way I am around you, the way you make me react—this isn’t natural.”
Despite the thick denim covering his erection, I could see the hard, visible proof of his arousal. Without thinking, I closed the distance between us and pressed myself against him, thankful for the board fence that separated our yard from Mrs. Hadley’s. Then I had his bottom lip between my teeth, and I couldn’t think of anything else.
I rested my hand on his fly. “Feels pretty natural to me.” I squeezed gently and he drew in a sharp breath, then hauled me closer.
“This is crazy,” he muttered against my mouth, but he didn’t stop.
I kissed his neck, salty with sweat. Taking my cue, he cupped my ass in his hands and lifted me against him. I wrapped my legs around his hips, locking him against me as he walked me backward a couple steps to the picnic table. I leaned back on the rough surface while he loomed over me, backlit by the sun like a cowboy Apollo. He ran calloused hands over my stomach, pushing my shirt up as he went. I raised my arms so he could slide it off over my head and he tossed it to the side, leaving me in my running shorts and sports bra.
“Now you,” I panted. I grabbed the hem of his shirt and dragged it up his body, dying to see his naked torso. He hauled the shirt off in a quick, smooth motion, and I sat up to lick the faint, dark dusting of hair leading to his navel. A set of dog tags on a thin, metal chain lay against the hard, muscular planes of his chest.
He groaned. “This is crazy,” he said again, his Southern drawl thick with arousal. “I’ve never felt anything like this.”
Good. Mine
.
Alecto stretched, flexed inside my head.
Ours,
she corrected. Her power coiled in my belly, lithe and powerful at the base of my spine.
Yes,
I agreed distractedly.
Ours
.
Jackson traced the column of my neck with his tongue and pulled me to the very edge of the table so he could grind his hard length against me. His touch against the sensitive skin of my throat triggered the same flashback that had come between us at the Stardust, and I pulled back in sudden fear, breathing heavily for a different reason now. Embarrassed and overwhelmed, I squirmed backward and looked away, but Jackson cupped my face gently in his hand and raised my eyes to his.
“I won’t hurt you,” he promised. “Won’t do anything you don’t like.” He was careful not to touch me anywhere else, though I could feel the heat and nearness of him. I let out a shuddering breath full of need and anxiety.