Jess was so wrapped up in the past, she didn’t notice Shane’s reaction. “I hadn’t gone to my dream aunt for awhile. See, when my mother first died I went to her every night. Then I started to deal with my mother’s death, and I avoided her. She and my mother were twins, and seeing the face of my mother every night just became too painful, emotionally. One night I was hurting so badly, bleeding from everywhere. I hadn’t done any martial arts for several months. I was in a new home away from the school and the parents that I knew. I went to Moira one night in my dream to tell her goodbye. I was sure I was dying, even looking forward to it.” She took another deep, jagged breath.
“Moira knew what was wrong with me. She told me about psychic overload, but she didn’t know how to help me deal with it. She assured me I could find a way to manage it, just like my mother had. She had such faith in me. She also knew about high iron. She has high iron too. She made me a special drink every night for a week. I began to recover. I still get that drink from her. I had it tonight when I fell asleep in the bath.” Shane had noticed the improvement of her coloring after her bath. He had simply attributed it to the steam, heat, and desire.
“Once I was stronger I began to find ways to keep my headaches and psychic overload at bay. Mostly I just became a loner, distancing myself from everyone as much as possible. I wanted to go back to martial arts, but the new parents wouldn’t allow it. Well, Steve the fath … man wouldn’t allow it.” She finished with a shudder.
Instead of her answering any of Shane’s questions, Jess was multiplying them with every word she spoke, but he remained silent and resumed rubbing her back lightly. She subtly pulled away from his touch. Rejected, he let his hand fall into his lap.
Tension radiated off of her. “I would sneak away to attend the Ryu, taking the bus as often as I could. Steve found out and was waiting for me when I got home one day. We were the only ones there. He pulled his belt from his pants, telling me I needed a spanking. He pulled down my jeans and panties, and bent me over the end of the table. He swung the belt, but instead of it striking me, he rubbed it across my bare butt like a caress. Then he told me to get dressed and get to my room. I was grounded, and he said I should thank him for deciding not to paddle me.” Her voice became steely and crisp. In her anger, Jess was drawing energy to herself. Incredible.
“That night after dinner I got really sleepy, so I went right to bed. Sometime in the night I woke up. I was naked, and Steve was on top of me trying to … penetrate me. I remember feeling a tearing sensation. It was that tearing that woke me up. I don’t remember the details very clearly. He had drugged my meal to make me compliant. The police report said I crushed his larynx and forced the particles of his nose. which I’d shattered, into his brain. They have no idea which of the injuries occurred first; both were fatal blows. I killed him. It was my fourteenth birthday.” She looked over her shoulder again. Shane was sure she was trying to gauge his reaction.
Shane let out a sigh. “So let me guess. The other two girls didn’t get away with their innocence.” He tried to remain as calm as possible after her confession. Tears sprang into her eyes and she shook her head. “Are you sorry you killed him?”
Again she shook her head. “I am,” Shane said. Jess lifted her chin in defiance. “I would have loved to kill the piece of shit myself,” he finished, and instantly the tension drained out of her. Her face became a mask of relief. The tears she been holding at bay began to fall down her cheeks, and a grateful smile touched her lips. What did she have to be grateful to him for? She was the amazing one.
“Whew.” A visible shiver went through her. “The juvenile Court ruled it self-defense. By the time that was determined, I had already spent eighteen months in a youth detention facility—juvie. Surprisingly, that didn’t turn out to be such a bad thing. When everything had happened, I was so afraid that Sensei would be disappointed in me for using his training to kill. For a while after I got locked up, I refused to do any martial arts. I just focused on school. I finished my freshman, sophomore, and most of my junior year of high school in that eighteen months.” Her voice had lightened. He was grateful that she had the worst of what she wanted to share over with.
“One day during gym class, the officer in charge announced that we had a self-defense instructor coming to class. It was Jirou. He volunteered his time once a week for the rest of the time I was there. He told me what I did was exactly what I’d been trained for. He was proud of me. He even tried to petition the state to have me placed with him. Single men can only foster boys, so they denied him.” Her eyes shone with love and gratitude for her mentor. Shane could relate. He shared a similar love and respect for his mentor, Gilgamesh.
“Ellen, that’s Eric’s mom,” she clarified. “She worked at juvie. Her job was housekeeping and the meal hall mostly. They let the staff take the self-defense classes if they wanted to, so she did. That was how she met Jirou.” A sweet smile graced Jess’s face. “They fell in love. When I was released, she took me in. Shihan Yamamoto, Aymee’s dad, had gotten cancer. He died before I was released; Aymee inherited her father’s part of the business. Aymee and I have been friends since my first class. Once I had finished business school and secured a loan, I bought Jirou’s half. Ellen and Jirou married right after Eric turned eighteen. They are in Japan now, helping with Jirou’s aging father. I miss them.”
He couldn’t take the separation between them any longer. Grabbing her arm, he tugged her around and back into his arms. He wondered how many people, if any, she’d ever shared that with. Pretty damn sure it wasn’t many. As Jess cried softly against his chest, all he could do was hold her, making what he hoped were soothing words into her hair. When she was spent, he lifted her chin to peer into her eyes, letting her see his understanding. He didn’t give her pity. She didn’t need or want pity.
“Remind me to never piss you off,” he jested, trying to acknowledge her strength and determination without being patronizing. Pleased to see some of the shadows lift from her eyes, he returned her half smile.
“Never piss me off.” She leaned into him for a kiss, which he gave her without a moment’s hesitation. His blood began to heat, and he felt her hands exploring his chest and abs. A trail of fire burned everywhere she touched. She was working her way downward. Shane nearly exploded when her hand wrapped around his engorged shaft. The siren swallowed his groan with her kiss. He could tell she was feeling empowered. Lying back, he relinquished control of the encounter to her. After everything she’d told him, she needed this.
Gritting his teeth, holding the release she’d incited the second she touched him, he watched her. Rising, she straddled him and slid over him, hot and sweet. Her hands balanced on his chest, she rode him quick and hard. Their voices combined in pleasure.
****
Moira had stomped out her front door after Jess had ported away. She had been trying since Jess’s twenty-fifth birthday to find a way to talk to her about coming to visit for a long period of time. Maybe actually come to Italy and stay with her. The time just never seemed right. Either she had things that interfered, or Jess would talk about something coming up in her life. Inside she knew that was complete bullshit. She was afraid to tell Jess everything she needed to. Afraid that Jess would hate her once she found out Moira was the reason Marja was dead. She missed her sister so much. The tears again began to fall. She reminded herself to remain calm.
She had never told Jess she wasn’t a dream. Jess was too smart. She would demand to know why Moira hadn’t aged. Why hadn’t Moira come and gotten her when she was a child? Why hadn’t Moira helped her deal with her psychic overload? Those didn’t come close to the things she was afraid to explain. She’d tried to justify her reluctance with the idea that Marja wanted Jess to live a normal life for as long as she could. She had made that very clear.
That justification didn’t hold up once Jess turned twenty-five. At this age, Jess could Become or enter into her first estrus heat at any time. Oh, hell, what if that was happening right then? What if it was estrus in the presence of an Elven? Was Jess Becoming?
She had failed her sister. Kicking a bucket outside her door, she watched it fly three hundred yards to slam into the side of her greenhouse. It didn’t sooth her conscience in the least. She again reminded herself to STAY CALM. According to her sources, her time might have run out. Jess might have come to the attention of the Elven. If she was harmed, it would be all Moira’s fault. Again she was failing her sister. She was responsible for every terrible thing that had ever happened to her sister. Now her reluctance to face her culpability in the horrors her sister had to face in their life, not once but twice, might have resulted in the breaking of her final promise to Marja.
She had gotten the strength and speed of their kind, but Marja had received the psychic abilities, and because of that Moira’s hands were tied. She had no choice but to either wait for Jess to return, or do the one thing she had never wanted to do: reveal herself to her sources, see if they would be willing to help her make direct contact with Jess. Their involvement in making that contact would be very dangerous for Jess, Moira, and the sources.
Returning to her living room, she threw herself into the chair Jess had recently vacated, chewing on her thumbnail, a habit she had been unable to break after centuries of trying. She decided to wait one more day in hopes that Jess would come back in her sleep tonight. Maybe Jess was safe. Maybe Moira had it wrong. Maybe whatever medication it was that Jess was taking was the reason Jess had not been significantly affected by the class she’d taught today. Jess’s history, though, would indicate that this long of an exposure to that level of stimuli should have all but incapacitated her. That she “seemed fine” did not bode well.
She would not give Jess her CPT drink until after she had at least confessed that she was more than a dream. Nearly blinded by her own tears, Moira stumbled to her office. Opening the hermetically sealed cabinet, she ran her fingers lovingly across her grandmother’s diaries. Her decision was made. She would give them to Jess, together with a transcript.
Moira had hoped the Elven would never find out about Jess. If they had, however, Jess might need the help of her great grandmother’s contacts. If Jess refused to listen or believe what Moira needed to tell her, Moira would offer her the diaries to take with her so that at least Jess would have them and could read about her origins.
Firing up her satellite link, Moira logged onto her computer. She ran through her normal sweeps and scans, answered a few emails, and monitored a couple of support groups.
There was a new request for membership in her in-box. Pulling it up, she read through the post. The writer was asking for information on spiritualism. She’d had an out-of-body experience, yada yada. What peaked her interest to schedule a web interview herself was the girl’s age—twenty-four—and what wasn’t being said. No reference to this being a new experience, or that it was felt “all her life” either. Usually those inquiries ended up being simply a wannabe pagan, someone looking for an excuse to run around naked in the moonlight or have a séance.
There were many, however, who had need to be in groups, supporting each other while protected by the anonymity afforded them by Moira’s encryption skills. The sites were completely impenetrable to hackers and available by invitation only. An invitation that was only procured once Moira had full background checks and history.
There were Hulven, Elven/Human hybrids, within her network. Most members were Heredity, those humans whose immune system did not kill foreign species’ sperm. Only they could give birth to Hulven offspring. Both types of members were being hunted. Moira’s mission was to ensure that if any found a way to her, she would do anything she could to protect them. She managed underground networks, creating layers of identities and societies for the people to hide within, all from her little farm using her computer.
She was preoccupied with the one person whose protection was the most paramount. Where was Jess?
She sent out an auto-response to the inquirer with a time for an interview, allowing the virus inlaid into the response forty-eight hours to search for any flags within the recipient’s system. She added instructions for how to receive the transmission when the time came. Leaning back in her chair, she returned to chewing her thumbnail.
****
“We got it!” The shout came across the office from one of the many live feed monitors on the wall. Fualth looked up from the file he had been thumbing through to see the image of a Hulven male, located in the Haitian nest, air punching and bouncing like a prizefighter. A female was looking at the prizefighter’s computer screen. “I don’t friggin’ believe it. You portrayed yourself as female.” She looked over her shoulder at her partner. “Nice! You need to call it in.”
His attention captured, Fualth watched the male lift a receiver and glanced down to another screen to see the corresponding call connect to the Elven Leader in Haiti’s nest. The two spoke for several minutes while Fualth observed them from his office in Maine. There were hundreds of monitors on the walls, monitoring his organization all over the world. All of them had voice stress analyzers so that moments like this were brought to his attention instantly.
The leader clicked on his keyboard, setting remote view to the screen under discussion. He hung up, leaned back in his chair, and ran his hand through his hair before reaching into his pocket and coming up with a familiar sat phone. The corresponding phone seated on Fualth’s desk began ringing. Seven minutes had elapsed.