His Darkest Salvation (16 page)

“Did you fuck him?” he asked abruptly. He was hard and ground his erection against her belly, his hand loosening its grip on her shoulder as he slowly dragged his large palm downward against her butt and held her tight.

Her nostrils flared as she looked up into the glittering depths of his eyes. “Take your hands off my ass.” Her voice was low, the words precise.

His eyes narrowed, his lips were tight. “Did you?” he asked once more. “Spread your legs for that piece of filth?”

“What if I did?” she answered, her own anger rising to the fore.

He opened his mouth to answer when a cough, followed by another cough echoed into the small garden. They both froze.

Shit. They had company.

Jaden peered around Julian and spied both Finn and Declan. Finn looked away, but Declan grinned at her, winking as he did so.

Could this night get any worse?

“We were just . . .” she began. “I was just . . .” She bit back a curse. Her jumbled mind was making her sound like a freaking idiot. “Kragen needs to be taken to the hub for interrogation.”

Julian didn’t move, and for that, she was grateful. It was bad enough for one of her men to find her in such a ridiculous position, but damned if Declan O’Hara was going to get a peek at her naked bits.

Declan’s grin widened. “Where is he?”

Jaden frowned, not understanding. “What do you mean?” She looked up at Julian but his eyes were focused behind her, his expression thunderous.

She glanced back and hissed as she shook her head.

Kragen was gone.

“How in the hell?” The words slipped out of her and she winced at the stupidity they represented. “He was right here,” she finished lamely.

“Probably used a simple cloaking charm. If you two were”—Declan cleared his throat, obviously enjoying the show—“otherwise occupied, it would have been easy for him to sneak away unnoticed.”

Julian glared at her, his eyes flat, his lips pulled back in a snarl. He cocked his head to the side. “Can it, O’Hara.”

She looked away as silence fell between them all.

Awkward didn’t even come close to cutting it.

“Where’s Nico?” she asked hesitantly, but before anyone could answer, the warrior strode into the garden, his arms clasped around a dazed-looking Kragen Black.

His eyes swept over the scene, and he stopped abruptly.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked, his eyes flashing with accusatory zeal as they locked onto hers. “This is how you conduct an investigation?”

Julian turned though his body still blocked her nudity from the men. “Take the sorcerer down for interrogation.”

Nico blew out a hot breath, loudly. “You do not give me orders, Castille.”

“No, but I do.” Jaden spoke quietly. “Take him down, Nico. That is all.”

Nico glared at her, and though the hard lines of his face were set in stone, she saw the disappointment that shadowed his eyes. It cut her deep inside, and Jaden shook her head, hating the way Castille had managed to come between her and the team in only twenty-four hours.

She opened her mouth to speak, but Nico turned abruptly and left, dragging a protesting Kragen with him. Finn glanced her way, his eyes somber, and turned to follow in his wake.

Great. Now she felt like absolute shit.

Declan arched an eyebrow. “I’ll leave you two kids alone to, uh, do whatever it was you were doing.”

Jaden watched him disappear into the darkness.

She didn’t know what to say, how to feel. Nothing felt right. Her eyes shot bullets at Julian’s back. When it came to the jaguar, she didn’t know jack shit.

He turned abruptly, and the breath caught in the back of her throat at the feral look that haunted the golden depths. Slowly, her eyes swept across features carved from stone, lips that she knew from experience gave great pleasure, until she rested once more on the scars that marred the otherwise perfect flesh.

“This isn’t gonna work,” he said, and she looked up in surprise. “What the hell was I thinking?” His eyes flattened to that dull color she’d grown to dislike, and all expression fled his face. “I can barely stand to be around you.”

She’d like to say that his words meant nothing, but that would have been a lie. They cut her deeply, and she felt the prick of tears sting the backs of her eyes as she stood like an idiot, staring up at him.

Julian turned from her and slipped into the darkness, disappearing as quickly as he’d come.

She sniffled and gave herself a mental shake. Enough of this crap. It should have been
her
leaving after dropping a line like that.

Jaden clenched her teeth and spying her heels by the bench in the corner, grabbed them. She shivered as the damp air caressed her softness.

“
Azaiel is tied to the jaguars and eagles, you should know this stuff. It’s not my fault you’ve lost touch with your history, your culture.
”

The sorcerer’s words echoed inside her head, circling around and around as she flirted with the excitement they brought.

The bastard was right.

In order to hunt Azaiel and Cormac, she needed to understand every little detail about the portal and its connection to the fallen. She needed to go back to where it all began.

She left the garden and kept to the shadows, intent on grabbing a towel from the pool area before heading up to her suite.

There was only one place that she could find the answers she needed—The Temple of the Warriors.

Only problem was, it was buried under the ruins of Templo Mayor, guarded by ancient magick. Dark, powerful shit. The kind that wouldn’t take lightly to her poking around and disturbing history.

A thrill shot through her at the thought, and she smiled to herself. She felt like she had purpose again, like she wasn’t spinning her wheels.

Jaden slipped through the back entrance to her building. Tank didn’t flinch at her state of undress. Being a shifter, he understood. He moved aside and cleared his throat.

“Miss DaCosta,” he began, but Jaden shook her head and disappeared inside her private lift.

“Castille is a bastard. Just don’t let it happen again.” The door slid shut before the jaguar warrior could respond, but her mind was already moving forward toward a plan of action.

Tomorrow, she would head out and find The Temple of the Warriors, located deep within the ruins of Templo Mayor. She’d go alone. If this was a wild-goose chase, she didn’t want to waste her team’s time. There were a million and one things they needed to focus on.

More importantly, there was no way in hell she wanted Julian Castille along for the ride.

Chapter 12

H
ours later, as dawn’s welcoming rays split the darkened sky into fragments of light, a large jaguar emerged from the jungle. The rhythms of the earth had changed subtly, and the huge animal paused, its powerful body still as it scented the air. The cat barked once, its dark rosettes glistening against the golden coat as mist swept along the ground toward it.

The jaguar moved once more, its steps slow and precise as it disappeared into the fog, only to reappear several seconds later in human form.

Julian Castille was fatigued. He’d been running for what seemed like hours, and as he turned his face to the warmth of the sun’s first caress, he closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.

His thoughts, as always, turned to the one person who somehow managed to get under his skin in such a way that it drove him crazy.

Jaden made him lose focus. She resurrected feelings and emotions deep within that he hadn’t the strength or tools to deal with. Mass confusion rained down upon him when she was in the picture, tugging at the small thread of humanity that still existed within.

It was painful, and he didn’t like it one bit; nor did he have time for it.

His eyes flew open, and he moved toward the resort. He was done. He’d find Declan, and they’d cut and run. He didn’t need her to find the portal. What the hell had he been thinking?

He slid through the silent resort unnoticed, avoiding the odd tourist up in time to welcome the morning properly. He circled around back of the main building, growling softly as he passed the secret garden.

Minutes later, he took a run at the wall beside Jaden’s balcony and quickly leapt upward, his hands and feet gripping the side of the building as he began to climb. He made quick work of it, a soft sheen of sweat covering his frame as he swung over the railing and dropped into a crouch.

His muscles bunched tightly, but he held his hands loose, his stance rock solid and ready to take a hit.

But there was nothing. Only silence.

He exhaled, the breath whistling between his lips, surprised she’d not taken the opportunity to pounce, inflict some sort of damage.

He would have.

But, then, maybe he didn’t haunt her mind the way she did his. Maybe she didn’t give a rat’s ass whether he returned or not. Which was fine. After all, he was leaving.

His clothes were strewn where he’d left them, and he dressed quickly, the soft denim and cotton T-shirt damp from the early-morning dew. His shoes went on last, and he slipped into her suite, careful not to make a sound.

Julian paused and scented the air, his nostrils flaring as her subtle, exotic scent wafted through him.

Damn, but does
she have to smell so good?

He glanced down the hall toward her bedroom as he crossed to the elevator. Julian had no clue where the hub was, but he was pretty sure he’d be able to convince Tank to show him the way.

He clenched his hands at the thought and flexed his arms in anticipation. He pressed the button located beside the com unit, but once more his eyes turned back toward her bedroom.

Something didn’t feel right.

The doors slid open, rolling back silently, yet he didn’t take that step. His entire frame hummed with the need to act, but, instead, he turned and walked down the hall.

He cursed the voice of reason that echoed inside his head as he moved forward. The one that told him he needed to find the portal and not waste time on Jaden DaCosta.

And yet, he couldn’t help himself, even as the skin beneath his left pectoral burned relentlessly.

He ignored the pain and kept on.

He crept into her room and felt the air deflate from his lungs, an anticlimactic whoosh. He knew the place was empty before he saw the bed. It hadn’t been turned down and didn’t look as if she’d slept in it.

His thoughts turned to Nico. Was that where she’d fled? Julian frowned, not liking the thought of Jaden and the warrior together, but it was the most plausible scenario.

She’d been hot the night before, on the cusp of coming into heat. Her scent had been intoxicating. Even now he felt it, pulling deep in his gut—the need to take her, to mark her as his and plant his seed deep within.

Nico had felt it, too.

Hell, he was pretty sure every male who’d come in contact with her had felt the pull of her sexuality.

Julian shook his head savagely. He shouldn’t care. She should be able to tame the desire that lived inside her with whomever she chose. He turned from her bed.

He had more important things to worry about, like saving the world.
Saving his soul.

His eyes circled the room once more, and he moved toward the bed. Several photos were displayed on a side table and caught his attention. They were photos of Jaden with people he didn’t recognize. Some looked to be staff members, others were faces he didn’t know or care about.

His fingers ran along the top of the ebony surface and he slid the drawer open. He pushed aside papers, a brush, passport, and stilled as he felt the hard edges of another picture frame.

Carefully he withdrew the shot.

He blinked, then frowned. The picture was of a couple and their children. Jakobi he recognized instantly, and his breath caught at the woman in his arms. It was Jaden, yet not. Obviously, her mother.

They were younger, happy, and the five boys and small girl who stared up at them adoringly, were postcard perfect.

His finger caressed the moment snatched from time so long ago. What the hell had happened to the DaCosta family? How had they become splintered, distant, with a father who was nothing more than a sadistic son of a bitch and a mother who . . .

His eyebrows furled as he realized he had no clue of the whereabouts of Jaden’s mother.

The flickering light of a computer caught his eye, and he crossed to her desk quickly. He tapped the keypad, but he was locked out. She’d password protected the damn thing.

He should go, yet he stared at the blank screen, a frown furling his features. Quickly, he typed in the words,
DaCosta, Jaguar, Portal
, but nothing happened. His fingers hesitated, and he shrugged, typing in
Castille.
Again, nothing.

What the hell am I doing?
He typed
Julian
and smiled as the screen flickered and came to life.