The Fallen One (Sons of the Dark Mother, Book One) (4 page)

Peace had definitely been elusive
since that fateful day. The only thing he usually felt was a
never-ending, relentless rage.

He again tried to force back the
memories as the deep anger swept through him. As usual, he wasn’t
successful.

He saw it all again—their dark-red
blood on the clean, white snow.

He knew the anger was the left-over
remnants of that boy, remaining because he felt helpless to change
a thing.

The anger took him to his knees
like a blow to his midsection—stealing all the air from his lungs.
He’d done a lot of things since that day, but none of the other
memories took him down like this—not like his memories of
that
day—the day when
everything good had been stolen from his life.

The day he’d first let the monster
loose.

He wanted to beg the heavens to
release him—to let him go. He wished the gentle rains could wash
him clean like they had washed away the blood that covered him that
day.

But nothing would ever make him
clean again. Nothing could take it back. Nothing could stop the
fact—that he’d
murdered
all of those boys.

Sure they were gang members—but
they were
boys.
Yes. It was true that they, themselves, had killed before—but
that was because of others who had preyed on them—the same way they
had been taught to prey upon him.

He dragged himself off the floor.
Such thoughts weren’t doing anyone any good. The only thing that
would—was fulfilling
the
prophecy
.

And getting Jes back.

Resolutely, he finished getting
ready. He even fixed himself a cup of coffee from his single-cup
coffee maker.

He was ready to head out the door
before the sun broke the horizon. He was hot on a trail, and he
wasn’t letting up. He had his hand on the doorknob when his phone
rang. Snarling, he reached into his pocket, grabbed his cell, and
flipped it open without missing a beat. He had again placed his
hand on the doorknob when his sister’s words stopped him
cold.

“
What
?!”
His sister started to repeat herself, but he stopped her. “No. I
heard you the first time. Did she say anything else?” He listened.
All thoughts of going out the door were now gone. Four words kept
drumming though his head.
Jes had found
him
.

Well
, he
thought,
it is finally
here
.

“
She left her card?” he repeated,
going numb. What kind of cop leaves a calling card for a
murderer?

“
It will be all right,” he
reassured his sister. “I’m heading over there now. We’ll sort this
all out when I get there.”

Though his thoughts churned, he
didn’t speed. He didn’t believe emotions warranted such behavior,
although he understood the impulse. It was just that, for him
anyway, he felt all things should be well thought out and executed
precisely. He wasn’t given to doing anything in the heat of the
moment.

So, during his hour-long drive to
his sister’s house, through the bumper-to-bumper traffic, Justice
planned. And by the time he got to his sister’s house, he had
formulated a plan—a contingency plan for the one that Jes had
unwittingly blown for him.

He parked in front of the house,
which was sandwiched in between all the others—with hardly a yard
in the front or the back—and only a sidewalk and a very tall fence
in between it and the next house.

For a fleeting moment he wondered
how many more plans she would blow for him. He stopped, with his
hand on the door.

Jes.

She was what kept him moving
forward—well, Jes… and his sisters.

And Jes hated him.

She hadn’t known him since they
were kids—but she still hated him for what he had done to those
kids in the alley.

Memories broke through, though he
tried to fight them back. He’d never become used to the monster
inside of him.

And he was pretty sure he never
would.

When he walked in, it was to find
all three of his sisters gathered in the kitchen. One of them was
cooking something that smelled delicious. All three were muttering
something about the fact that they knew they shouldn’t have come
back here.

But that wasn’t what they’d been
saying when they convinced him to return. Well, and it had
been
time
to
return, and they had simply known this.

But they’d been gone all this time.
How could she have found him so quickly?

When he walked through the door,
Mia handed him a plate—and Ophelia handed him the card.

“
She left it with the maid,” she
told him. “If one of us had been the one who had opened that
door….” She let the rest go unsaid.

He stared down at it, then looked
up at all three of his sisters. “It wouldn’t have mattered. It’s
time to have a talk with her,” he told her.

Jasmine gave him a quivering smile.
They were all afraid for him.

“
We’re not going anywhere,” he
told the three of them. His eyes glittered. He knew they did,
because his sisters withdrew slightly. He made a conscious effort
to soften his demeanor. “We’ve come home to stay,” he said, now in
a softer tone. “It is time. Everything is in place.” The ring in
his voice was final. He looked at them. “We’ve been training all
this time for this. Hell, we’ve been training all of our lives for
this. This is a battle we have been waiting for—the one that
everyone has been waiting for. They are all just waiting for us to
give the word.” Three heads nodded in unison.

Jasmine came around the counter and
hugged her brother. Next to his petite sisters, he seemed like a
giant. He was tall, and naturally muscle-bound. The stout, young
man of his youth had taken on his promised size. People usually
gave him a wide berth when they saw him. Some even did so just
because of his size.

Others kept their distance due to
the look in his eyes—and the ever-present rage that seemed to boil
off of him.

He wasn’t a patient man. And his
sisters usually didn’t argue with him. But he still had a big
heart. He would have laid down his life to protect them, as they
all had witnessed many times, first-hand. They chalked his
impatience up to his need to protect them, and the constant
danger.

When he was a boy, he’d had immense
patience.

But the years had taken their toll
on him. He was constantly being pursued. Half the time they had no
idea who their enemy was—the other half they did. He had taken his
sisters outside the city, to the Alliance, after their parents had
disappeared. And he knew the gangbangers had not been the ones who
hunted them. He knew the main group who hunted him—who was, in
fact, still after him.

They had never stopped—and Justice
knew why. Too much was at stake. His destruction would ensure an
easy victory for the people. A people who had been slowly, ever so
slowly, taking small steps, putting small chess pieces into
place—all in the effort to take the power. It was a power that
would give them control over the world—with no one to stop
them.

Well, no one was in place to stop
them… until now.

Now, he had returned
home.

He looked around at his three
sisters. He would have been lucky enough to have one sister: he was
even more so to have three. The Jaguar People were not an immortal
race: they just lived so long that they appeared immortal to
shorter-lived humans. However, because of the hardships this placed
upon their bodies, the people didn’t have a lot of children.
Families were usually lucky to have one child. But somehow his
parents had been blessed enough to have four.

And yet, this had been
foretold.

The sisters didn’t live together,
but they had a good reason for this separation: they each had
several men living with them. Each of them had guards, and they
couldn’t exactly keep so many people in the one house. People would
talk. So, they lived in three different houses on the same street.
For their safety, they couldn’t live any farther apart than
that.

Justice was closest to Jasmine, and
he’d missed her the most when he was away. But they all had their
places—they all had their training.

And he had his hunting.

Until now, that is.

Now it was time: time for them to
return home. They had set everything into motion. They had put
everything carefully into place. It was a little sooner than any of
them had expected, but Jes had set that into motion by seeking him
out.

She had, unwittingly, accelerated
their plan’s launch when she started digging around and searching
for him. But that was okay. Nothing was lost by them coming home
sooner. They had all waited a long time for this. If anything, they
were all relieved to finally be doing something—instead of just
training for it.

All but Justice; he hadn’t been
sitting idle, even to train. He’d been busy—and so had all the men
whom he had trained.

None of them had been sitting—or
waiting—either.

They had all been very busy waging
their own brand of war. And they had gained the respect of an
entire nation for it.

It was his sisters who were itching
to start going forward. They had trained long and hard and hadn’t
had the privilege of doing anything that actually moved things
forward. So they were ready. They had been waiting a long time—and
they were ready.

The four of them looked at each
other. Anticipation heightened their senses. They were excited—but
not afraid. They had waited for this moment for far too long too be
afraid. It was likely that if anyone one else had to face what they
were about to face, that other person would have wanted to
run—would have been feeling more than just a little fear. But these
siblings had been trained for this practically from the time they
were born. They had been planning for this since the day someone
had tried to steal it all away from them that horrible day—fifteen
years before.

They were—the four of them—like
well-honed steel, born of fire and ash. They had planned for every
aspect of what was about to take place, and followed every plan
down its path—allowing for anything that could possibly go wrong in
order to make sure they had a contingency plan for every possible
situation. Save one.

They hadn’t completely figured out
the mystery surrounding the disappearance of their parents—that was
the one x-factor to their plan. Well, and another existed
too.

Her name was Jessica Kincaid—and
she was one contingency for which they
could not
plan.

She was also the one part of the
plan he had no intention of going without—ever again.

He hadn’t had a choice when he was
fourteen years’ old, and suddenly responsible for getting his
sisters to safety—and had therefore been forced to walk away from
Jes.

Ophelia had convinced him that he
would only put her in more danger. She had said that only her
grandparents could protect her now. Ophelia was the sage one,
always practical—and kind, even when she was a very young child.
But it was the most difficult thing he had ever done—to walk away
from her then.

He would never again walk away from
her—and now, she was the second x-factor.

Actually, she was more than just an
x-factor. She was the hinge to the swinging of the door—a door that
could swing wide open—or slam shut. Now, as the siblings looked at
each other, they could only see the one question in each other’s
eyes. Would that x-factor make their plan work—or destroy
it?

The biggest problem was—Jes hated
him. Not that he blamed her. But she was apt to do anything in her
hate—and she was as integral a part of their plan as any other
part. No contingency was available for the possibility that
she
couldn’t
be
brought around. They did not have any type of plan for
that.

She was important to all of
them—all three of his sisters—and especially himself. She was part
of their future—a part of what was about to happen. She was much
too important to their plan for him to fail to bring her around. He
couldn’t even consider it—he wouldn’t make a plan for
that.

And neither would his
sisters.

It was time—to bring forth
the prophecy
.

C
hapter Three

Second Chances

Jes was sitting at the bar,
sipping on a beer, and watching everyone who came
in the door of Second Chances. The bartender was glaring daggers at
her, but she ignored him. Not so easy to ignore—was her
partner.

She didn’t want to deal with him.
She wanted to deal with the young man who had haunted her dreams
every night. She’d played with him when she’d been just a little
girl—and he a little boy. She’d been drawn to him, like a moth to
the flame.