The Fallen One (Sons of the Dark Mother, Book One) (27 page)

Mira shook her head and
hugged her sister. “And until then,” she interjected, “We will go
on judging other relationships by our own inflated views of our own
strengths, and weaknesses, and believe ourselves
above it all
.”

Jes half laughed, and then
shook her head at the thought of it. Her eyes went wide. “How truly
sad we all are!”

Mira grinned, “Speak for
yourself.” She stuck her tongue out. She turned to her older
sister, who had opened the door, “Love well, dear sister. Because
in the end, all we can take to our graves—is how well we’ve
loved.”

Dara inclined her head. And
pulled the door shut behind her.

Chapter
Twenty-Eight

Jes and Justice

Jes had not been able to spend any
time alone
with Justice in several weeks.
She missed him. She had realized a long time ago why he’d had to
kill those kids. Her father had sent them to kill
him.
He’d been a
fourteen-year-old boy defending his sisters—and fighting off a
gang—alone.

She knew she would have had to do
the same—that any member of the Jaguar People would have been
forced to do the same—regardless of their age—regardless of their
strength and power—it was self-defense. And every single living
being—human or otherwise—had a right to protect himself or herself,
whichever the case may be.

Even a wild animal would do the
same. The instinct to live was strong in all life.

She loved him—had loved him since
they were children. And she was tired of
everything
that constantly prevented
them from being together.

She was tired of Dracon taking up
his nights, because the vamp was never out during the day—and he
still refused to stay at the Alliance during the day.

She was tired of not getting to
just
be
with
Justice—period.

She knew that her emotions stemmed
primarily from the impending war. Like everyone else, she wondered
how long the war would last. But she also knew that her sisters
were right when they had said that in the end, when we go, all
anyone ever really has—was how well they had loved.

She planned to love to the fullest
extent that her life would allow for her. Who knew what would be
left of their lives—when this war was over?

And it
was
war.

It wasn’t a war like some of those
that the humans had become used to in the past fifty years. It was
a war like the American civil war. This was
head-to-head—hand-to-hand—looking the enemy right in the eye while
he died. This was a war that would be in their backyard, not far
away in some distant country where they could pretend it wasn’t
happening.

Hand-to-hand, she mused, with vamps
that were either powerful because they were fledglings—or powerful
because they had lived much longer than most of the Jaguar People.
And if they were to lose, the humans would become like cattle to
these vamps.

Jes was afraid for them. She
couldn’t imagine a fate worse than that.

She was afraid for her people. She
was afraid for her sisters and his sisters—who had only
just
been
recently returned to her.

She was afraid they would be taken
from her once more.

But most of all, she was afraid to
lose Justice again, when
she’d only just
got him back
.

She decided to leave the compound
to go for a walk. She’d been doing that a lot of late—but only
during the day. She was too frustrated, too agitated, to do
anything else. She was supposed to start her hand-to-hand combat
training in an hour. And she didn’t know if she would be able to
see him before that.

He caught up with her before she
made it out of the gate.

He spun her around and kissed
her—hard. It only took her a moment to end up with her arms around
his neck—kissing him back. The men on the walls started hooting. He
broke it off, and she flushed slightly. He was smiling.

“
I’ve missed you,” he
said.

She gave him a tentative smile.
“I’ve missed you too,” she whispered. Her emotions—the love she
felt for him—were welling in her heart, making it impossible to say
any more than that.

“
Jes,” he started to
say.

She laid a finger across his lips.
“It’s okay. I know how important this is,” she broke in. “It just
gets—
hard
sometimes,” she whispered.

He nodded. “For me too.”

She looked up into his green-gold
gaze. He was wearing the glamour. It made him look like his
sisters. Remembering them, she said, “I’ve heard that your sisters
are heading here, now that they’re done at the main
temple.”

He nodded.

She smiled openly now. “I’m glad.
I’m hoping I’ll get to spend some time with them in between all of
this training. I’ve missed them terribly. And I really haven’t had
any time to spend with them—after all of these years of being
apart.”

He nodded again, and kissed her
lightly. “Me too.”

Even those few minutes with him had
made it easier for her to get through her day. She was actually
smiling when she entered her class.

He had that kind of effect on
her.

She wondered how she’d ever spent
all of those years without him.

Her training was grueling, and she
was in a full sweat by the time it ended. On her way to the
showers, she noticed Mia, Justice’s sister, was waiting for
her.

“
You made it,” she said, smiling
openly. “I’d hug you, but I don’t think you’d appreciate
it.”

Mia grinned. “Yeah—that’s okay,”
she teased. “We just got here. I came looking for you first
thing.”

“
Let me hit the shower, and I’ll
meet you at my apartment,” Jes told her.

A half hour later, Jes and Mia were
exchanging updates on what they’d both been up to. Jes wasn’t
surprised to learn that Mia and her sisters would be here now for
the battle.

They’d been training for this all
of their lives.

She was relieved to have them. Mia
and her sisters made an amazing team. They were dangerous in their
own right.

They spent the afternoon catching
up. Mia, like Mira, had spent a lot of time studying in the Land of
the Fae. She had, in fact, just come back from there. She
frequently went there to learn how to do some pretty amazing
things. She had just told Jes about the power of shimmering and
invisibility. Jes hadn’t believed her—until Mia showed
her.

“
How on Earth do you do that?” Jes
exclaimed. “I can see you, but it’s like you—blend with whatever’s
around you!”

Mia laughed. “Isn’t it great?” She
came fully back into the room. “I’ve been teaching my sisters. I
think it will come in handy when we’re fighting.”

Jes was amazed. She had learned
some pretty powerful things herself from the Fae, but this one took
the cake. “I don’t understand how you
do
that
!” she stated again.

“
Well,” Mia said, “It’s like
everything else with your spells, you have to believe. A good
example would be one of Roman’s doorways. Everything we believe is
an illusion. You have to stop seeing everything in—what we think of
as our reality, and start seeing them—how
they really are
.”

Jes nodded. She couldn’t help but
be excited. “I know, but I can’t seem to let go. That’s something I
was working on in the Land of the Fae. I have to let go of what
I
believe
is my
reality. I have to let go of what I
think
is
my reality—and let myself truly feel
it. But it’s just so hard!”

“
Here,” Mia said, “let me walk you
through with some guided imagery.”

They sat there practicing like that
for the next couple of hours, and by the time Justice and his other
two sisters walked in that evening Jes had managed to start fading
out. Still every time she was nearly there, she’d panic and come
fully back into the room, which frustrated and impeded her
progress.

Justice happened to see her when
she was halfway there, and his other two sisters exclaimed, “Jes,
you’re doing it.”

Their voices startled Jes out of
her trance, causing her to come fully back into the
room.

“
What are you teaching her?”
Justice nearly growled. “What if she gets stuck like
that?”

Jes laughed and shook her head at
him. He was always a little concerned with some of her magick too:
probably just being a bit protective. “I don’t think there’s any
fear of that. I seem to have the opposite problem.”

His other two sisters sat down in
two of the other various chairs. He joined Jes on the couch, and
they caught each other up. His sisters talked about the rumors
they’d heard about Constantine. And Justice told them about what
had been happening down at Second Chances. After awhile, they were
joined by Mira and Dara, and later still, they went to eat and were
joined by Dracon.

They were sitting around the table,
laughing and joking around, when Jes realized how long it had been
since they were last together like this. Back then they’d just been
kids, without a care in the world—all except for Dracon, who had
taken Justice under his wing.

Jes hadn’t understood why he’d
done this—not then. But now she did. He had been helping him to
prepare for
the
prophecy
—and his position as the Prince of
Fire.

She couldn’t help but to wonder if
they would ever again be carefree.

Chapter
Twenty-Nine

Jes

Jes wasn’t taking no for an
answer.
She was getting out of the manor
and going for a walk. She was going stir-crazy, locked up on this
compound. She was used to being out. She was used to doing her
police work, having some independence. Now, her work was gone—her
life completely changed.

Constantine had changed all of
that.

The fact that she was destined to
marry a
prince
of
her people had changed all of that.

And the fact that she would have
to take a similar position—
had changed all
of that.

Justice, himself, had changed all
of that—when he’d easily proven to her that there didn’t exist a
future—that didn’t include them living together—sharing their lives
as one.

It wasn’t just
the prophecy
that united them this
way. It wasn’t just
the prophecy
that held the bond for them.

It was the depths of the emotions
she felt, every single time he did something as simple as putting
his arms around her.

She frequently had to take these
walks. Justice didn’t like it, she could see that by the look in
his eyes, but he didn’t stop her. He didn’t act as though he
thought he had the right to control her—just because they were
bonded together, and she was his woman.

He just didn’t like her to go by
herself, especially if it was getting close to turning dark. He had
asked that she not risk her safety in being out close to
dark.

But right now, her watch still
showed an early hour of the day. She ran little risk of getting
caught out after dark. They all knew they didn’t run as much risk
in going out during the day, so that was when everyone got out and
did the things that resembled normalcy.

It was hard to remember what normal
felt like any more.

It all came crashing down on
her—all the permanent changes to her life.

Loving someone wasn’t easy.
Everyone seemed to think that when you fall in love, everything is
supposed to happen like magick. But love didn’t work that way.
Falling in love was just the beginning—the easy part. The rest of
it was hard work. After the falling in love part had
happened—everything else either went uphill—or downhill. It kept
you on an emotional roller-coaster ride.

Jes was always either missing
him—or looking for a way to see him. And she wasn’t used to feeling
that way. She couldn’t remember when her life had felt normal, a
time when she hadn’t spent every spare moment—thinking about
Justice. Now, she couldn’t imagine her life without him
again.

And they had this tremendous war
heading their way.

How did everyone else handle all of
these changes at once?

It was one thing to wake up one
day, and have to leave all the humans she’d just spent the last
several years with—people who had become her family. It was another
thing when she was thrust into all of this training. Not just
because she had to get up every morning and go from Jaguar, and
National, politics to hand-to-hand combat classes.

It was also the fact that she no
longer had the freedom she was used to having. She couldn’t go
anywhere, other than these walks, without armed guards by her side
at every moment—even if she just needed to go to the
store.