Authors: Nancy Gideon
“Savoie may or may not have been compromised by whatever those bastards did to him. Until we know the degree of contamination, he stays put in that room. No one goes in there for any reason. Understood? There’s no telling whether he’s their eyes and ears now, so be careful what you say or do anywhere near him.”
“Won’t they be coming back for him?” Morris asked from the back of the group, eager to recover his standing amongst his peers now that LaRoche had shunned him. “Should we set up a perimeter?”
“Not a bad idea. Put together a rotation. They kicked our asses to the curb last time. They won’t find it so easy to do it again.” Bold words Philo wasn’t sure he could live up to, but his brother’s spirit still roamed restlessly, looking for retribution.
“Is he worth it?” asked another, voicing what they all were feeling. “Can he actually do any of the things he promised to? Why should we trust him? Do you?”
“I don’t trust Savoie,” Philo admitted. “I think all he’ll bring is trouble and the last thing I want are those monsters who killed Tito and our friends to come back to our city. But I do trust Jacques, and he believes in him. For him, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do.”
After a lengthy stop at the club, Jacques opened the door to his apartment, so weary he could barely stand. He drew a breath, tasting Susanna upon it, but the scent was old. She wasn’t here.
“Anna?”
He moved swiftly through the rooms. The bed was untouched. The clothes she’d worn were folded on a chair. There was cold coffee in the brewer and a recently purchased laptop sat in hibernation on the table. His panic quieted at that sight, but wasn’t totally erased.
He tried her cell but got voice mail. While he fretted over what to try next, his phone rang.
“Anna?”
“She’s with me,” Nica said.
Relief, then annoyance. “Where are you? What are you up to?”
“Girl stuff,” was her chipper response. “Don’t worry. She’s in good hands. You sound terrible. Get some sleep, then call my man. You two have lots to talk about.”
He stared at the silent phone, aggravation growling through him. He didn’t want to talk to MacCreedy. He wanted Susanna here with him. But if she was with Nica, at least she wasn’t escaping back to the North. So he might as well try to get a few minutes’ rest, if possible.
He took off his coat and lay back on the bed, kicking off his unlaced boots as he closed his eyes. He never heard them hit the floor.
“Now, we’re of one mind, one heart, one soul. Nothing will ever separate us again.”
Susanna’s words whispered through his dream, now as real as the soft mouth caressing his. He opened his eyes to find the room in darkness.
“Time’s it?” he mumbled, catching Susanna at the waist when she began to straighten.
“Eight o’clock. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Then you shoulda stayed in the other room.” He gave a slight tug that brought her sprawling across him. He lifted his head to plant a deep, thrusting kiss, then murmured, “You mean you didn’t want to wake me for that?” A quick roll and she was beneath him, the flex of his hips pressing his shaft into the grove between her thighs. “Or for that?”
Susanna reached between them for his zipper, purring, “Since you’re up . . .”
A bit of hurried tussling got them both naked below the waist, then he eased one of her legs up over the jut of his hipbone and settled in deep and sure. As she tightened around him in welcome, he
groaned, “You have absolutely no idea how good this feels,” easing back and sliding home again for emphasis.
She took his face between her palms. “No. But I know how good
you
feel.” She pulled him down for another kiss as he began a slow, pleasing rhythm, in no hurry to get to the satisfying release that finally left them replete in each other’s arms.
If only time could stop and let them linger.
Questions and worries seeped in, pushing for resolution.
What can I do to make her stay?
His restlessness returning, Jacques rolled out of bed, restored his clothing, and went into the kitchen to heat up the coffee in his microwave.
Susanna followed, trying to gauge his mood as she sat down at her keyboard, torn between the work she couldn’t wait to get to and the man who distracted her so easily from it.
“How’s Max?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t heard anything, so I guess there’s been no change.” He carried the heated cup to his balcony doors, sipping as he stared into the night. “You know more about those things than I do. Will he recover?”
“It depends on how far into the process he was. They empty the mind first, then imprint whatever they choose upon it. If they didn’t have time to repattern him—”
“I’m familiar with that outcome.”
She winced. These were the things she’d allowed to be done to him, the man she’d taken to be her mate.
“If they were blanking his mind,” Jacques speculated uneasily, “does that mean they already got what they wanted from him?”
She had no answer.
“I’m going to meet MacCreedy at the club. We need to get a plan together. Have you eaten yet? Do you want me to make something before we go?”
“I had a late lunch. I’ll just stay here and work.”
Susanna almost told him then about the fantastic discoveries she’d made that afternoon, about what they’d mean if her test results were even half as positive as she hoped they’d be. But she wasn’t sure yet, and she couldn’t give him false encouragement.
But soon everything would be different.
“Are you worried about your daughter?” Jacques’s sudden question surprised her. “He wouldn’t mistreat her, would he?”
“Damien? Not as long as he believes I’m here involuntarily. He knows as long as he has Pearl, I’ll come back.”
“Would it be so bad,” Jacques asked without turning toward her, “living here with me?”
She was too startled to respond, then a huge knot of emotion thickened in her throat. Bad? It would be
wonderful
.
He hurried on. “You could work here in New Orleans, set up a clinic, do your research. I was going
to use the extra room for an office, but your daughter could have it for her bedroom. There are other kids for her to play with. Max’s brother, Oscar. Amber’s little girl. She’d like it here.” A slight pause. “I’d like to have her here.”
When Susanna remained silent, Jacques took a breath.
Just ask her. Is she our daughter?
“You’d take in another man’s child as if she were your own?” she asked softly.
Another man’s child, not his.
Jacques’s eyes squeezed shut against the awful disappointment. But his voice was steady. “Did you think I wouldn’t? She’s a part of you. It would be a privilege to help raise her, to be a part of her life. Unless . . . unless you think it would be better for her to stay with her own kind. I don’t have the sophistication or education that her father has. She might not want to be around a laborer, an inferior.”
Susanna crossed to him and hugged her arms about his middle. “You’re exactly what she needs,” she told him. “And she’d love you. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
His hands caught hers, his so rough and strong, hers so soft and small. The contrast said everything about the different worlds they lived in. He released her and went to get his coat, slipping his arms into the sleeves as he came back into the room.
“You’ll be safe here. Charlotte’s on the next floor up if you need anything. I’ll have my phone on. Stay put. You’re not going to run away, are you?”
She smiled. “If I’d wanted to, I’d be long gone by now.”
His features were drawn with worry and a fatalistic sadness that broke her heart.
Have patience. Have faith in me, in us. Just a little more time and I can tell you everything you need to hear.
She went to him, reaching up to pull him down for a kiss.
“You be careful,” she told him. “I’ll miss you. No getting sidetracked for beer or gumbo.”
He smiled then, a broad flash of knee-weakening charm. “Why would I do that when I have everything I could possibly want right here?” And he was gone, engaging the complex locks behind him.
Susanna rubbed at her arms, missing his heat already. Then she turned to her laptop with determination.
Human, Shifter, Chosen. Ancient.
She’d uncovered the secret. The Shifters and Chosen weren’t two parts of one whole. They were two-thirds of it.
The other third was human.
The club was full of the curious. Rumors had quickly spread that Jacques LaRoche and Max’s tough human lover had gone North and snatched him out of Chosen hands. The ballsy act had the clan flushed with both exhilaration and fear. What a coup to claim against such a fierce enemy! What disastrous consequences would such an act carry? “A Gathering,” whispered between tables like the dread of a coming plague.
So when Jacques strode amongst them, they weren’t sure if he should be viewed as hero or bringer of their own destruction.
In fact, Jacques didn’t care how they saw him as he looked right past them in his search for Nica’s coolheaded mate. MacCreedy was leaning on the bar watching Nica work. When he saw Jacques he picked up a couple of bottles and carried them to an isolated table.
“You’ve had a busy few days,” he remarked. “You’ve become quite the folk legend. Nica and Amber want to start up a fan club. They think it would be good for business.”
Jacques snorted. “What would be good for business is getting back to business. What do you want me to do for you?”
“I don’t want you to do anything for me.”
Before Jacques could bristle up in insult, MacCreedy hoisted his beer.
“I need you to work with me. I know books and ledgers and laws. I don’t know people. I’m not a leader. These men will never look to me the way they already do you, especially now that you’ve gone into hell and not only come back unsinged but with a rescued soul.”
Jacques smiled ruefully. “They may applaud me and buy me drinks, but that doesn’t mean they’ll follow me. I couldn’t even get them to cross a room to save my ass. You did that for me. Thanks again, by the way.”
“Will they come after him, do you think?”
“Depends on if they got what they wanted. Or if we pissed them off bad enough for them to want to prove something.”
“Nica said something about a Gathering. What’s that?”
“Last time we pissed them off, they came down here, killed every man and child they could find, and took all the women. That was almost three generations ago but it’s remembered like it was yesterday.”
“They’re afraid,” MacCreedy said.
“Who? The Chosen? Of us? That’s a laugh.”
“Rulers always fear the masses if there’s someone who can pull them together and make them into a threatening force.”
“And they think that someone is Savoie?”
“Don’t you?” MacCreedy took a drink, his shrewd eyes narrowing. “It’s not just this little pocket of outcasts here in New Orleans. It’s all of the clans, together. They’re afraid if the least of us can successfully strike out at them, the others will be encouraged to follow. Bad business for them. Possibly fatal business for us if we can’t get someone to stand with us.”
“So we should just crawl underground again on our bellies?”
“Or pretend to, while we gather our ranks. A few of us spat in their eye, but they believe the majority are cowards.”
“They could be right about that.”
MacCreedy ignored Jacques’s sour claim. “We have
to show them that we’re not a threat, that we’re not defying them. We do that by returning what we’ve taken from them, along with their arrogant pride.”
“You want to give them Max?” Jacques was stupefied.
“No. Susanna.”
Jacques came out of his chair so violently it crashed to the floor, startling the room into silence. “No way that’s gonna happen,” he growled menacingly.
“Sit down.”
“I’m not gonna listen to this.”
“Sit. Down. Now. Listen to me.”
Impressed by MacCreedy’s fierceness, Jacques righted the chair, noting Nica poised to intercede. On whose behalf, he had to wonder as she came from around the bar to place her hands upon his shoulders.
She leaned down. “Listen to him, boss. This is a time for cool heads, not angry hearts.”
He shrugged off her calming touch. “I’m listening.”
Nica gave his shoulders a squeeze, then went to stand behind MacCreedy.
“We need time to reach out to the others,” Silas began. “We’re not strong enough to repel an attack on our own, but if we had even a couple of the clans standing with us, they’d hesitate. We’re vulnerable because of our lack of affiliations. That’s why Max came to me; because of my connections. Give me time to use them. Nica knows this Damien Frost. He’ll move hell and earth to get Susanna back. Not because it’s personal. He’s nothing without her and he knows it. If
he doesn’t rattle their cages, things may quiet down on their own.”
“By sacrificing Susanna. I guess that would be a pretty easy choice for
you
to make.”
“We’re not going to take her from you,” MacCreedy said. “It would have to be your decision. Yours and hers.”
Everything inside Jacques rebelled against placing his mate in danger, against letting her out of his sight. He didn’t even want to think about the odds of seeing her again if he let her go back to them. So much could go wrong. The possibilities had him sick with dread.
“If our roles were reversed, and it was you who had to surrender your mate, would you be able to do it?”
The recoil of MacCreedy’s body, the instant objection in his eyes said as much as the way he possessively gripped the hand Nica had resting on his shoulder. And he considered his words carefully before answering.
“Yes. I would. I wouldn’t like it, but if our positions were reversed, I would. Because that’s what I promised Max I’d be willing to do, and because Nica knows nothing would ever keep me from coming for her.”
Nica leaned down to whisper something in Silas’s ear. Without a word, he rose and went to the bar for another couple of bottles. Nica settled into his seat.
“Ahh,” Jacques drawled, “the more attractive half of the double-team.”