Diaries of an Urban Panther (36 page)

“I’m going to stain your jacket.”

“It’s okay.”

“It was your dad’s jacket,” I whispered as I slid my hand under the lapel.

“You can help me pick out a new one.”

I weakly pointed out where the car was parked and he carried me the whole way. Jessa rested her hand on my shoulder as we walked and I felt her cool energy running around us, helping me heal.

Carefully, he sat me against the edge of the car door and pulled away slowly to make sure that I was steady.

“I’m thinking we head to Iris’s,” Chaz started. “It’s quiet and safe.”

“I’m thinking that we head to my place because I have a doorman,” Jessa said, crossing her arms over her chest. Back to good ole Jessa.

“No,” I said softly. “We are going to my house.”

They didn’t argue. Jessa offered a hand to help me into her car.

“Miss Jordan.”

The cry for help froze the three of us in place. We turned around to see four men walking towards us. Chaz immediately went for his gun.

My borders were about as intact as my shoulder so I felt them coming. Their energy was low, docile, and as they got close, I could have sworn I recognized one of them. And as they got closer, I knew exactly who I smelled.

“Officer Briggs?”

His head ducked down and his energy was anxious. The men in the long black trench coats all hung their heads as they followed behind Briggs. He was a mongrel. The damn cop was one of those damn dogs. How did I miss that?

My entire body tensed in anger as I thought about the accident and the shoe and the fact that my supposed break-in was not actually a break-in.

“What do you want?” I managed to spit out as I held my arm close to my chest. The cat danced around my chest, angry still, and by the look in Briggs’s eyes, he knew that.

“We pledge our allegiance to you, Miss Jordan.”

“Oh god,” I moaned.

“You just tried to kill me!” Jessa’s anger flowed out from her as white hot needles, and I felt it in my side, like a foot coming back from being asleep.

“We were following orders,” he said, his eyes still on the cement.

I put my hand on Jessa’s arm and calmed her down.

“Guys, she’s really not in shape for anything right now,” Chaz started. “Give us a few days.”

“We don’t have a few days,” Briggs growled. “We are traitors to the pack, and without a strong leader, the pack will erupt in chaos and war.”

“Not my problem,” I muttered.

“It is, Prima Jordan.”

Chaz shouted. “She is not your Prima!”

Briggs hunkered down even further and if his ears could have done back, they would have.

I took in a long cool breath and licked my lips. “An hour ago, you were trying to rip my best friend to pieces. Why should we trust you?”

My eyes rose to his and I felt the cat settle, felt power in my own stare as I captured Briggs’s eyes and held his gaze in mine. There was a prickle down my spine and I knew that this was not my stare but that of the Haverty energy now coursing through my body.

“We betrayed our pack by following Spencer when he was banished. We have nowhere to go.”

Chaz flinched but I put a hand on his arm and pulled myself to a standing position. The muscles in my shoulders and back stretched and burned but were already healed.

“Why do you need somewhere to go? Why can’t you just be?”

“They are marked with Jovan. I can feel it,” Jessa’s teeth ground next to me.

I took in a deep breath, testing my own body, suddenly feeling stronger than it ever had before. My shoulder was fine, my head was fine.

“We are pack creatures,” Briggs said slowly. “We need a strong leader. You are strong.”

I shook my head. “Sure, I can kick some demon ass, but I’m not strong enough to be a leader.”

“But you . . .”

My finger flew up to silence him. “You will go. And if the pack retaliates, it will be fitting all the shitty things you did to me.”

Briggs’s eyes dropped to the ground and his shoulders dropped about seven inches in disappointment. He backed away and, in unison, the pack turned to go.

It was that damn shoulder drop that got me. Why am I such a sucker for a shoulder drop? “Wait.”

Everyone within earshot was as surprised as I was at the order. Briggs dared to look up at me. There was a glimmer of something there that I was too exhausted to analyze.

“There is a woman inside. Cristina. Go see if she is okay.”

“Yes, Prima.”

“Don’t call me that,” I snapped. My skin sizzled and I had to take a deep breath to calm down. “And clean up the mess inside. Burn it down if you have to. No one needs to know about tonight.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I grimaced. “I think I like Prima better.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

A
fter peeling off my suit, I went immediately to the shower. It was 6 a.m. and I was taking a shower after killing another human being.

I didn’t know why it didn’t hit me harder. I just felt empty. Maybe because I wrote about death every day, maybe because my head had strategized whole dark armies moving against one another in the night, taking out whole breeds of night creatures. I had written the monologues of the characters as they had made their first kills and I had been dead right about the guilt that comes afterwards and how eventually it became a part of the character to make her stronger.

But this had been me. This wasn’t a scripted sci-fi scene. I had killed a person—who was harming others. Did that make it right? Did that make it okay because some Power said Jessa was to be protected at all costs, that a reborn warrior must protect her no matter the loss of lives?

I leaned against the now-warm tiles and let the water wash away the blood from the wounds. The physical injuries were healed but the rest of me would still need mending. I looked down to see a flawless midsection and a small red line where the stab wound had been. With a burger in the morning for some needed protein, I should be back to perfection in a day.

After getting out of the shower, I peeked in on Jessa who was already asleep in my bed. It was the most comfortable and the most defendable. And this was my life now.

I put on a soft nightgown and wrapped up in my purple fuzzy robe. The scent of Chaz still lingered and my body twinged as I thought about him downstairs, pacing madly, making phone calls, double-checking the new sliding glass door.

As I walked downstairs, I could smell cinnamon coffee. I looked around and he had cleaned again, cleaned up the broken mirror, picked up some coffee mugs I’d left around the place. Who knew that he would be the type to stress-clean? It was almost as attractive a quality as his washboard abs.

“I smell coffee,” I said from the kitchen doorway, jamming my hands into the robe’s pockets.

“Thought you might like some after the night we had.”

“Love some.”

We sat across from each other at my kitchen table like we had before but, this time, I didn’t have anything witty to say. Just looking at him made my chest ache. He looked exhausted and he was the one who did this on a regular basis. He had all the answers for all the tough questions that I needed to ask. Finally, after what seemed like an hour, I was able to speak.

“Have you ever killed someone?” I already knew the answer but I needed to hear him say it.

“Yeah.”

“How did you feel after your first time?”

He pursed his lips and leaned forward, looking out the kitchen window where it was annoyingly sunny outside. “Empty for a while, I guess,” he said with that warm soft tone he had first used when speaking of my new lifestyle. “Unworthy of having that much power.”

“And how did you get over it?”

“My dad explained it to me. It’s part of the deal. To live like we do, with the gifts that we have, it’s all part of the package.”

“Live hard, die young, type of thing?”

“No,” he chuckled softly. “Not quite. More like we’ve been given these gifts because we have the strength to do what needs to be done and taking lives to protect others is part of that burden.”

“But I didn’t ask for it.”

“Not yours for the asking. Remember you were made this way.”

Couldn’t really argue with him there.

“And you were incredible last night. The way you moved. Like . . .”

“Something out of the movies?” I filled in, taking my last swig of cooled coffee.

“I was going to say like you finally know who you are.”

I flinched as the reality behind his words struck me. I stood and moved to the sink, closer to the window as I looked out at my perfect little courtyard in my perfect little neighborhood and sighed.

I heard Chaz stand and set his coffee mug on the table. His arms slid around me gently and I rested my head back on his shoulder.

“Anything else you want to talk about?”

I knew what he wanted to talk about. What happened between us less than thirty-six hours ago. “Not right now.”

“Then you need to sleep.”

“I can’t. I’ve got so much crap running around in my head right now. I’m not going to sleep for a week.” I turned around in his arms and looked up at him. “That, and you just gave me a full blend Ethiopian.”

He smiled and pulled away, taking my hand to pull me into the living room and stopped at the base of the stairs.

“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he ordered.

“Go upstairs and take a shower.”

Chaz pulled me to him and placed his lips on my forehead. I closed my eyes and felt him again, more this time than I ever had before. He’d dropped the cement borders around him and I reveled in his golden light for a moment. And then I pushed him away.

“Seriously, you smell.”

O
nce there was a warrior in a time of peace. He and his group of men wandered the countryside without meaning. They got into trouble, fought for money to eat, and created havoc in their wake because that’s what they did. That’s all they were ever told they could do.

The band of brothers came into a small village rebuilding from the war that had ravaged the houses and stables. The villagers were wary as they watched the warriors ride in on their war horses.

“We need room and board and stables for our horses,” the warrior told the innkeeper.

The innkeeper wrung his hands. His daughter, a strong-willed girl, stepped forward. “Then you’ll have to build it yourself. Your war has destroyed half our village.”

“I’m a knight, not a carpenter.”

“Well I’m an innkeeper’s daughter, but that doesn’t prevent me from being the baker as well. If you want to stay here, you’ll have to pick up a hammer.”

The warrior was aghast at the young girl’s willfulness. But he looked at his tired men and sighed, then looked back at the girl. “What do you need?”

In the days to follow, the warrior and his brothers helped the town rebuild their stables.

“See, you can do something other than warmonger,” the innkeeper’s daughter smiled as she delivered their lunches.

The warrior watched as his men laughed and ate, healthy and happy under the guidance of this new general.

“The inn needs some work as well,” she mentioned the next day as she delivered their lunches.

“Yes, ma’am.”

My mother stopped her story there.

“Go on,” I prompted.

“I can’t. There’s no more story to tell.”

“Why not?”

“You haven’t written it yet.”

J
essa had to shake me hard from my sleep. I’d curled up in the front window where the sun still streamed in on my favorite reclining chair and I slept like the dead—or the should-be dead.

“What?” I snapped before I could see who it was and what they were doing.

“I need to go home,” Jessa said backing away from my curled up position on the chair. I had somehow managed to completely curl up on just the seat with my head on the arm.

“Do you want me to go with you?” I finally responded after I unfurled and sat up, rubbing my eyes and the pattern of the upholstery off my face.

“Nah, I think I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t be silly. Just let me get my clothes on.”

“No really, Violet,” she said her voice commanding my attention. “You need to sleep. You look terrible.”

“So you don’t want to be seen in public with me at the sake of your safety?”

Jessa sighed and walked back up to the chair and sat on the arm. She wrapped her left arm around me and leaned her head on mine. “I didn’t mean it that way. I meant that you need to sleep and I need my shower.”

I sighed and leaned back in my chair. “I’m fine.”

Jessa smacked me on the head and then squeezed me hard.

“Do you think life is going to be like this from now on? With all the almost dismemberment and danger?” I asked tentatively.

“Life is dangerous anyway, sacred destiny or not. That’s why you have to live every minute like it’s your last.”

“Wow. That was deep. You okay? Do you need to lie down or something?”

She hit me on the head again and huffed playfully as she walked across the room to grab her keys off the foyer table.

“I’m going to be fine,” she smiled as she reached for the knob.

“But if you smell an ounce of trouble you call us, okay?” I said with a wagging finger, something my mother used to do.

“Us? Stalker boy upstairs?”

“You think I looked bad. He still hasn’t slept.”

Jessa just giggled to herself as she opened the door, letting in the fresh air.

As I watched her walk to her car, I knew she would be fine, at least for today because the universe couldn’t be that evil.

The second thought in my head was that my bed was now open. I slowly climbed the stairs feeling much better after my catnap and leaped on the feather comforter, making the bed springs protest under my sudden weight.

I
was almost asleep when I heard the handle of my bedroom door turn. The door slowly opened and Chaz’s bare shoulder slid in first, followed by the rest of him. He was wrapped up in a towel. It was pretty.

“I need a favor.”

“Okay?” I smiled at the possibilities.

“I’m going to have to burn those clothes.”

“Yeah, bonfire later tonight. I’m thinking marshmallows.”

“Is there any way you could go to my car to get my duffle?”

“Seriously?”

“I think it would look less scandalous, you in your robe than me in a towel.”

He was right. Any more calls to the cops or questionable cars and my Homeowners’ Association was going to kick me out.

“Fine,” I said as I threw the covers off.

I tromped down the stairs making sure that my footsteps were enough of a protest and threw open the front door to my beautiful neighborhood.

His car was right outside and the duffle was in the backseat. I opened it up and picked up the black duffle. A gun slid out of the side pocket and onto the seat.

This is the life that chose me, I thought as I put the piece back into the side pocket and shouldered the bag. Side arms and sidekicks. Guns and guys.

As I stood back up to close up the car, I looked across the street to see four black dogs sitting there. Crap.

They didn’t move, just stayed across the street. But I could feel them, feel their anticipation, their need. They were dogs. They were waiting for orders. I could think of several things that I’d like to tell them to do, but then remembered how Briggs looked last night, lost and lonely.

“Go watch Jessa.”

The dogs turned in unison and took off down the street.

As I watched them run, I felt something brewing in the air. It quickened my trek back to the house. I slammed the door behind me and locked all the locks.

Chaz was behind me in four seconds, his towel still hung low on his hips. “Everything okay?”

I looked up at him and leaned against the door. “Mongrels were outside. Just hanging out.”

His jaw tightened as he took the bag from my shoulder.

“This is my life from now on, isn’t it? A full menagerie of problems.”

He nodded and shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Don’t sugarcoat it,” I pushed him away and went to pout on my couch.

He set the duffle on the ground and came to sit next to me. He smelled so much better now. “I can’t tell you what’s coming. I talked to Iris; she only knows so much. But we created a vacuum of power. There will be chaos.”

“Oh, god. Iris. Is she going to be okay?”

He put his arm around my shoulder and nodded. “She’s going to be just fine.”

I thought of Iris and Jessa and Devin. “Oh crap, Devin.”

“What about Devin?”

I hung my head. “He was there when I . . . and then we might have . . . Oh god, what am I going to do about that?”

Chaz didn’t attempt to answer. He just pulled me into his shoulder and I rest my head on his warm clean skin. “One crisis at a time.”

“So there’s the Prima thing. The Guardian thing. The power vacuum thing. I’m going to need a white board or something to keep it all straight.”

“And then there’s us.”

My entire body shivered when he said that. I pulled away and looked at him. Taking down a beastie the size of an Expedition, killing a man, becoming a Prima, and the only thing that still floored me was he loved me.