Jessica ran her finger over the scar above his lip. “How did you get this?”
His throat bobbed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me,” she urged.
A flash of darkness crossed his face, quickly hidden behind a mask of indifference on the subject. He took her hand and kissed her fingers. “Ask me another day.” He cut his gaze away. “Not now, when your father is about to be here.”
Obviously, that scar held a bad memory, and she wanted to know what it was. But she didn’t press. Not now. She sipped her coffee. “You don’t seem tired at all.” She hesitated. “Do you, uh, well, you know, people like you—” she lowered her voice despite the secluded corner location they held “—immortal and all—do you get tired?”
He laughed. “Of course I get tired.”
“So you sleep?” she asked, her voice back to her normal tone.
“Yes.” Now he was smiling, his dark mood gone and she was glad. “I eat. I breathe. I sleep. So do the other Knights. In fact, I plan to sleep on the flight as well.”
She bit her bottom lip. “You don’t get all Beast-like do you? You know. Big red eyes and all that.” Quickly she added, “Not that it matters! I just want to know.”
His expression darkened again. “No, Jessica. I don’t look like a Beast. I just feel like one.”
Well, that had not gone well. But she had him talking and she still had questions. “Do you age?”
He cast her a sideways look. “No.”
She swallowed. “And you’re how old now?”
After a moment of hesitation, he looked at her. “Ninety-nine.”
Her jaw dropped open. “Ninety-nine,” she repeated flatly, hoping she’d misunderstood. Des gave her a nod of agreement, confirming his age. She thought of Rinehart’s words in the van. Something about being nearly a hundred years old. She’d thought he was joking. Apparently not.
Okay, this could be a real problem. “In other words, when I’m old and gray you will look like you do now?”
“Jessica—”
Before he finished his sentence, her father walked through the doorway. Jessica waved him forward. He gave her a nod of acknowledgment but no smile. As he approached, she frowned, noting the way his khaki pants and polo shirt were a bit rumpled. Her father was always well pressed and pulled together.
His strides were long, rushed. Not at all the gentle pace he’d always favored. Jessica pushed to her feet and greeted him with a hug. He held her long and hard, as he had when he’d called her to his house that evening not so long ago.
“Hey,” she said, inspecting his features. His eyes were tired. No doubt he’d worried all night, fretting over her safety. “You okay, Dad?”
“It’s been a long night, but I’m fine.” Claiming the leather box-shaped chair directly beside their love seat, he offered Des a nod as he laid a long envelope on the rectangular cube-style table sitting between them.
“You found the maps?” Jessica asked.
“The map,” he said. “The only map you need.”
“What?” she asked, confused. “But I didn’t give you a specific location.”
“You don’t have to. Your mother did.”
“But I read her diaries. She had several possible cities listed.”
Her father laughed then. The kind of laugh someone uses when they think they are going crazy. “Trust me. This is the only map you need. It won’t give you the specifics that the journal would, but it’s the map that holds the answers you need.” He glanced at Jessica. “Your mother said to tell you she wrote all over the map and hopes you won’t have trouble deciphering her notes.”
Jessica blinked. “What? She told you to tell me when?”
He hesitated. “After you called this morning, I took a short nap. I…had a dream and…” He pressed his fingers to his temple, “I know this sounds insane, but your mother came to me in that dream.”
Reeling from his words, Jessica frowned. She was about to ask him to repeat himself when he spoke to Des. “And she told me I was an ass to you and should apologize. She’s right. I was, and I am, indeed, sorry.”
Jessica didn’t give Des time to respond. Her heart was about to explode in her chest. “Mom came to you in a dream?”
Her father reached out and took her hand. “It was as real as you are sitting here right now.”
Her mind went back to the times she’d thought her mother was near, urging her onward. Like that first dinner with Des at the museum, when she’d felt as if her mother was urging her to share her work with Des. Jessica turned to Des. “Is this possible?”
“I believe it is,” he said. “I’ve learned to keep an open mind.”
Her father spoke, pulling her attention back to him. “I still don’t want you to go chasing this journal, but your mother insists that you have to.” He glanced at Des. “And that Des will keep you safe.” He leveled a stare on Des. “You’re no anthropologist, geologist or anything of the sort, are you, son?”
“No, sir,” Des said. “But I do have a vested interest in protecting the journal.” He paused. “And your daughter.”
“So I hear,” he replied. “And for that reason I am trusting you with my most precious gift.” He raised Jessica’s hand. “Don’t make me sorry I did.”
An announcement sounded for their boarding group. Jessica made a frustrated sound. “I have questions.”
Des pushed to his feet. “I need to call our team with a specific destination.” His brows dipped. “We’re still going to Mexico, right?”
Jessica watched her father nod. “Tepecoacuilco.” He followed Des to his feet and offered him his hand. “God’s speed, son.”
Des’s expression didn’t change, but Jessica felt something pass between him and her father, and noticed how they shook hands a little longer than she would have expected.
Whatever her mother had said to her father, it had affected him profoundly. And whatever had passed between Des and her father had impacted Des just as much.
She hugged her father and noted the calmness that seemed to come over him, as if delivering that map had somehow taken away the frazzled state he’d been in since his arrival. But there was still worry in his eyes, worry born of a father’s love as he watched his daughter set off to conquer the unknown.
Jessica left him with a promise to call home soon, a promise to be safe. And as she walked toward the airline gate, Des by her side, she had a sense of everything falling into place. But she also felt a need for expedient action.
Her mother had spoken from the grave, and for that to happen, Jessica had to believe the stakes were high, the clock ticking.
They’d been on the runway for thirty minutes, another rash of thunderstorms passing through with fierce results. Des sat on the plane, edgy and ready to rip away the restraint of the seat belt as he waited for takeoff. The cabin was stuffy, the air stale, the stench of hot bodies wrenching his gut.
Des hated small spaces, and he most especially hated any form of confinement. It brought the demons of his past to life. Memories of being tied up and tortured. No matter how he tried to destroy those parts of his past, they haunted him.
Beside him, Jessica tried to study the oversize map by folding it in pieces. With a frustrated sound, she stuffed it back in the envelope. “This is useless. I can’t make out anything.” She sat next to the window, peering outside at the clouds above. “God. At this rate we are going to be sitting here for hours.”
Des hoped like hell she was wrong. “Try and rest,” he suggested, though he knew he wouldn’t. It was bad enough his past was pounding on him, but the present wasn’t being so gentle, either.
She gave him a scrutinizing look and her hand went to his. “Are you okay?”
Her touch rushed over him with warmth, and a sense of calm overcame him. The feeling was so distinct, so total, he could do nothing but stare at her. The rage of pain and emotion inside somehow lessened with a mere touch from Jessica.
He reached for
ward and brushed a strand of her raven hair from her eyes. She was lovely, pure. So unlike him. Could she ever love him? Could she deal with his world? Did she even have a choice?
“Des?”
“I’m not a fan of flying,” he said, refocusing on the moment. “I guess I prefer being in the driver’s seat.”
“It’s safe,” she said quite seriously and then whispered, “even for us mere mortals.”
God, how this immortal wanted her to join him for eternity. She calmed him in ways he didn’t think possible. Before she’d touched him, he’d been ready to climb out of his skin.
He laced her fingers with his. “I think I’ll hold onto your hand anyway. If that’s okay with you?”
“I have a better idea,” she said, leaning forward to slide the envelope with the map into the seat’s back pocket. She raised the armrest separating their chairs. Then she lifted his arm, snuggled beneath it and settled her head and hand on his chest.
She sighed, the sound full of satisfaction. A strand of her hair tickled his nose, and he rested his cheek on her head. If he had any chance of happiness in this world, Jessica was his slice of heaven. But what if he was her slice of hell?
His eyes slid shut, and he let himself imagine, if only for those few moments, that there was a way to merge their worlds. That the past and the present could come together—and so could he and Jessica.
With that peaceful thought, with his mate in his arms, Des allowed himself to fall asleep.
Des lingered at the edge of the woods, just beyond sight, taking in the beauty of Arabella’s profile as she waited on him. He was back in his human life, the day he’d been bitten by a Beast, the day that had changed him forever. She stood beneath an oak tree overlooking a pond. It was their tree, their pond, their place to escape. Here he wasn’t a slave to her rich father. For over a year now, this had been the solitude where they’d found each other, where they’d escaped the rest of the world.
A light breeze lifted her skirts slightly, her dark hair blowing with the wind. He inhaled, almost certain his nostrils caught the sweet scent of her.
Des stepped forward, eager to see the light in her eyes that she saved for him. But as he neared, she kept her face hidden, cast downward, and he knew something was wrong. His stride quickened, a sudden feeling of dread in his stomach.
“Arabella,” he called out, but still she did not look up.
Des stepped into the clearing beneath the tree, and out of nowhere it seemed, Spanish soldiers, her father’s men, circled Des, rifles pointed at his body.
Arabella turned to look at him then, and for an instant he saw guilt and pain, apology. But then her father’s voice blasted through the air, and with it, she stiffened, her expression going cold.
“Stay the hell away from my daughter.”
Des stiffened his spine as General Martinez, Arabella’s father, parted the circle of men and showed himself. A short, stocky man, he used brutality and money to intimidate and strike fear in those around him. Des fixed the general in a hard stare, refusing, as he always did, to show fear. He knew how much it infuriated the general but he didn’t care.
The general stopped directly in front of Des. “I should have you shot right here and now. What have you done to my daughter?”
Des had to look down on the general, who was a good five inches shorter than him. He’d often thought that bothered the man. Right now, he hoped it did. “Done?” Des asked, his gaze going to Arabella, who refused to look at him. “I’ve done nothing to her.”
The general punched Des in the gut. “Don’t dare even look at her. What threats did you make to force her to give herself to you? Tell me now or I might cut your tongue out, so you can never tell anyone else!”
Des straightened again. “I threatened nothing. I love her.” He looked at Arabella who stared at the ground. “She loves me.”
The general turned to his daughter. “What trash is this sorry slave talking?”
Arabella hesitated, hugging herself. “Father—”
He cut her off and grabbed her by the hair. Des fought to contain himself. The brutal bastard treated everyone like nothing more than his trash.
“You want him?” her father demanded.
She whimpered, crying. “I—”
He glared at her, the air crackling with his anger. “Do. You. Want. Him?” A shaky, heavy breath blew from his lips. “Think hard about your answer, daughter, because if you disgrace me, you may well die by this slave’s side.”
A sob filled the air and then silence, father and daughter staring at each other. Abruptly, Arabella shook her head, her voice firming. “I don’t know what he’s talking about, Father. I was afraid. I was…” She bowed her head. “I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”
Des felt the blow of her words before he felt the general’s fist pound into his gut, over and over. Des doubled at the waist as he heard the general order, “Tie him up.”
Des didn’t fight the soldiers who dragged him toward the tree. He never fought his beatings. Never feared the pain. Before finding love with Arabella, he’d often wished they’d hurt him enough to kill him.
Moments later, he found himself tied to the tree he’d considered special. Tied to that same tree, about to be beaten. The general held a knife in his hand as he approached Des. He shoved the knife to Des’s cheek. “Admit that you threatened her. I will not have my daughter disgraced by the likes of you.” The knife pinched into Des’s cheek and slid downward, biting into his upper lip. “You sorry Mexican bastard.”
Des ground his teeth against the pain, blood dripping down his face now. It had been years since he’d seen his Native American mother. Des had been sold to the general as a way to punish her for Des’s actions. Because Des had dared to defend her. To try to stop her beatings. And he had failed her; he’d been sent away where he could do nothing to protect her. Des didn’t even know if she was alive or dead.
“I’m no bastard. I not only knew my piece of shit Spaniard father, I knew him well. And like you, he cared for no one but himself.” He was angry now. Angry that Arabella had turned away from him. Angry at being called a bastard. Angry at being sent away from his mother. “You might as well face it. I might be Mexican, I might be a slave, but I am the man your daughter loves.”
“He didn’t threaten me, Father.” The general turned to Arabella. Her tears were gone. “It started as a game. I was just having fun with him. Teasing him a little. It was nothing more than that.”
Des’s heart kicked into double time. The way she said the words, her face devoid of sorrow, a smile hinting on her lush lips, Des almost believed her. Which had been real? The whimpering claims of love or this? Was she trying to save him or save herself?
The general let out a fierce noise and motioned to Des with the knife. “This is not a game.” He said this as if Des were a thing, not a person. He eyed a guard and shoved her at the man. “Lock her in the house and I will deal with her later.”
Returning to Des, the general stood in front of him, shoving the knife to his throat. “I’d kill you right now but that would be too good for you.” His chest rose and fell several times before he spit in Des’s face. “My daughter could never love an animal like you.”
He stepped backward and eyed one of his men. “Hurt him and then get rid of him.”
Des felt the butt of a rifle hit him in the gut, the first of many blows. But those blows didn’t cause him the pain Arabella had. Was it true? Had she been using him? Playing with him? Had she laughed behind his back at his foolishness? He imagined that laughter with each slap, each cut, each fist. And when the beating ended, his battered body standing only because ropes attached it to that tree, their tree—Des knew the truth. Arabella did not love him or she wouldn’t have allowed this to happen.
His head hung between his shoulders. He’d been a fool to believe their worlds could come together. His eyes drifted shut and he prayed they wouldn’t open again. He was…done.
Des’s lashes snapped
open. Disoriented, he stayed completely still, reaching for his location. He inhaled. Honeysuckle. He smelled honeysuckle, felt warmth, not pain. His gaze drifted downward, to the dark head resting against his chest. Jessica.
Glancing to the right, he noted the plane window, the clouds beyond. They were in the air and he’d had a nightmare. It had been years since he’d last dreamed of Arabella’s betrayal. Years of blocking out what he didn’t want to remember.
It had been later that day that the Beasts had come. Des had managed to free himself as the hell broke loose around him. Men and women running, screaming, fighting. He grabbed a gun from a soldier, running with all his might, desperate to get to her, to save her. But when he got to the house, to her room, the general was already in battle with a Beast. Des hesitated, part of him wanting the general to die. It was only an instant, one flash of thought, and then he acted. He battled the Beast to save the general, only to see another Beast burst through the doors and kill Arabella.
Her death devastated him and he stumbled in battle. A Beast grabbed him, biting his shoulder, sucking his soul out. He rose a Beast, hungry for one thing…. The general’s blood.
Salvador appeared then in a flash of glorious light, his hand going to Des’s chest, returning his soul. Des fell to his knees, devastated by the poison he’d felt in those beastly moments.
And he’d never forgotten that need for blood and vengeance. That feeling, he realized suddenly, had come closer and closer to the surface lately. What he saw as controlling his Beast was really the Beast controlling him. He lusted for battle in an impure way. It was the biggest fear of all the Knights that the Beast would somehow claim them again. It was the reason most of them suppressed their Beast as much as possible.
Yes, he feared Jessica’s rejection. Yes, he feared that she could not accept his life. But if she could, if they had found something special, a gift to be claimed, then there was far more to worry about.