Sweet Destiny (The Jessica Sweet Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  I thought about it another moment, trying to see her point of view. “Sorry, Piper. I don’t agree with you, as much as I want to. I think Raven knew exactly what he was doing, and just didn’t care. I think he had every intention of killing Malcolm, and that he was coming for me next.”

  “He would never hurt you like that, Jessica.” Piper stared at me as she took a large sip of her cocoa, unaffected by its blistering heat. “I think he was mad, and that…beast…thing you say he has going on? I think that was the problem. Raven would have come to his senses before he’d let anything happen to you.”

  “I’d like to think you were right about that, Piper, but I don’t know. You weren’t out there, you didn’t see the look in his eyes. It was murder he was after, plain and simple, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look past that.”

  Piper sighed, and raised her mug again, but stopped before it reached her lips. “Maybe you’re right, or maybe you’re not. What I do know is that this funk you’re in is as much to do with losing Raven as it is with losing Malcolm. You told me about Raven’s past, and that you’d seen him kill those Sorcerers, so I know it’s not the killing that has you all bent out of shape.”

  Were we really having this conversation? I mean, when had my life taken this preposterous turn where killing was just “something people do?”

  And I couldn’t believe Piper was being so cavalier about Malcolm’s death. She’d met the man, even lusted after him a little bit. It shocked me some that she could let this go, and I said as much.

  Piper shrugged, taking another sip of cocoa. “You and Raven belong together. I’d never say this around Alex, because we both know how crazy he gets where Raven is concerned, but there is something about the two of you together that just seems right.”

  I rolled my eyes and Piper frowned. “I know it’s not what you want to hear,” she said, trying hard to be sympathetic when it wasn’t her strong suit. “I just thought it needed to be said.” When I remained silent she added, “And I won’t mention it again—today.”

  I picked up my mug and blew on the top before taking a cautious sip. A few weeks ago, I would have agreed with her completely. But how does one come to terms with something like this? It’s one thing being told your boyfriend used to be the boogeyman. It’s another thing entirely when the boogeyman comes after you.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  N egotiations with the Clowder were tedious. Mason wasn’t surprised when they balked at the suggestion that Raven not serve his own sentence. It took far longer than it should have to convince them that by doing so, they would all be in danger. They insisted that he would be restrained, but they simply did not comprehend the strength of the beast Raven harbored within him. Tying him to a pole with super-duper cat ropes wasn’t going to cut it.

  Finally, after making several concessions of his own, they were able to come to an agreement.

  Come February, Nox would be turned over to the Clowder on the night of the full moon. As Shifters, they were not prisoners to the lunar pull, but they still considered it a reverential time, almost holy to hear Brandt speak of it. That they chose to begin the ceremony in the light of the full moon spoke volumes as to the seriousness with which they were approaching their ritual.

  That, however, did nothing to lessen Mason’s concern over the fate of his Warrior, or his Warrior’s twin, as the case may be. He’d insisted that there be Soldiers present to watch over the proceedings at all times. Trust was a sticky issue between the races at the moment. Though Brandt had given his word that Nox would obtain no permanent damage, one couldn’t be too careful.

  For his part, Nox was stoic, accepting his role in this Vindicta ritual as though it were his own. Mason couldn’t help but respect the male. Not only for the lengths he was going to protect his brother’s skin, but his mind as well. Nox knew better than any of them, if Raven were to set loose upon the cats, kill them as they all knew he would, he would never recover from it. He was far too disconnected to remain in control for the length of time required by the Shifters punishment, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t remember, regret.

  Mason knew this was their only option. Still he wished for a different solution, the indecision completely unlike him.

  A knock sounded and Mason looked up to find Nox standing in the open doorway, so much like Raven, and yet distinctly different. It hadn’t taken long for Mason to be able to differentiate between the two. While Raven wore a perpetual scowl, even prior to current events, Nox seemed to approach life from the opposite end of the spectrum. He walked the halls of the Main House as though his problems were minimal, like that character in Shawshank Redemption, who spent years in prison but refused to give up hope. Given his life with the Primeval, Nox had that guy beat by several centuries.

  Though no longer a prisoner, Nox was, in a sense, trapped at the Legion Compound, captive to the inner goings on of his brother’s fragile psyche. And yet, he walked when he could, whistled often, and had an air of gratitude about him that baffled Mason, given the male’s history.

  “Sit,” he said, and Nox strode into the room and planted himself in one of the visitors’ chairs in front of Mason’s work table.

  “I wanted to let you know, the date has been set for the Shifters’ ritual. February ninth, starting at midnight. You will be in their possession for five days, ending at dawn after the fifth night. Perry and Martin are working out a schedule for the Soldiers. There will be two of us with you at all times, including daywalkers when the sun is up. We’ll not let the cats renege on their promise not to kill you.”

  Nox said nothing, just nodded.

  “There is time to change your mind,” Mason said, still searching for an alternative to this plan.

  “And what would you do, Mason? Go to war with the Clowder? You know they wouldn’t last five minutes against your Legion Soldiers, and we won’t even talk about the Warriors you have stashed in this mansion. I’m the only hope we have of getting through this with both parties relatively intact. You know that, I know it and so does Raven.”

  “How is your brother?”

  “Nervous, grumpy. Normal,” Nox said.

  “Is there any sign that he will be returning to himself in the near future?”

  “None that I can see.” Nox tented his hands in front of him, and Mason recognized the move as one of his own habits.

  “Would you be able to see when it happens?”

  “If it happens, I would probably have a sense of it, yes, but that would be through the familial bond, not anything special concerning my abilities. But Mason, you must understand, the only thing keeping Raven’s beast at bay is my influence. The news of Jessica’s infidelity was more than he could handle. He turned himself over to his other side to keep from feeling.

  “Personally, I think it was a cop out, but then I don’t have his history, nor do I know enough about it to be generalizing. In a word, he’s hurting, and if it weren’t for my ability to diminish his emotions, there is no telling what he would be doing right now.”

  Mason shifted in his big, leather chair and motioned for Nox to continue.

  “While I’m away, you will need to keep him restrained. Drug him if you can, knock him out if you must, but under no circumstance can you let him have enough control of himself to leave this Compound. My experiences will affect him and I expect it to be rather—unpleasant. But if you could have the Doctor monitor him closely with restraints and sedatives, we may all get out of this alive.”

  Mason sighed, then rubbed his temples. “About that,” he said.

  Nox arched an eyebrow. “Go on.”

  “The cats have one more demand.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “F uck you, Harrier.”

  Harrier shook his head. “You’re an idiot, Raven. So, she fucked the cat. So, what. You were on a break at the time, not to mention the fact that she thought you were an axe murderer. Can you blame her for trying to get a little normal back in her life?

  “
Ever since you crawled your bloody ass onto her porch, her world has been full of pain and misery. She thought you were killing people and she blamed herself. She was done with us—all of us—and she used Malcolm as a poor attempt at getting her life back.”

  “Fine,” Raven growled, “but why him? Why Malcolm? I could almost understand Alex or any other human, but that fucking furball? I’d almost rather it was you.”

  Harrier choked back the creepy feeling that comment elicited and glared at his nemesis. “I don’t believe that for a second,” he said. “There’s more to it than the cheating, which you know was justified, or at the very least understandable. Out with it.”

  “Why the hell should I tell you?” Raven snarled.

  Harrier shrugged. “Because I’ll beat the shit out of you if you don’t.”

  Raven crossed the room and sat on a weight bench, twisting his towel in his hands.

  “Fine.”

  “Fine?” Harrier gave the male his space and waited.

  “He’s given her something I never could.”

  “What, the baby?”

  “Yeah, the baby.” Raven rose again and resumed his pacing. “She’s human, Harrier, and even though she’s never mentioned it, I know what she would be giving up to be with me. I know if we’re together we will never have a family, never have children of our own.

  “At my worst times I think she did this on purpose, because she knew it would be the end of us. The baby is just a bonus for her, a seven-and-a-half-pound slap in my face. A giant banner flagged in front of me, telling me over and over again how in loving her I would be failing her.”

  Harrier stalked across the room and intercepted Raven, placing his large frame solidly in the other male’s path.

  “You need to talk to her,” Harrier said, coming short of putting hands on him.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “How can I?” Raven bellowed. “Every time I think of going near her I want to destroy her, and not just her, but that fucking life growing inside her. The child that will never be mine!”

  He emphasized the last word with a two-handed shove that came close to actually shifting Harrier from his feet.

  Harrier paused, making the point that Raven had no chance of forcibly moving him. He then took a step back, regarding the other male with new respect. In his own way, he was thinking about Jessica, about what she would want and need. The understanding that he, at least to his thinking, would never be able to give this to her was as much a reason to pull away from her as the cheating had been.

  Harrier started to say something cutting but thought better of it. The male had a right to know, but it wasn’t Harrier’s place to tell him. He almost felt sorry for the bastard.

  So instead of sarcasm, he left him with a bit of advice.

  “Talk to her, Raven. I can’t believe I’m saying this but talk to her. You’re not working with all the facts.”

  Harrier turned and stalked out of the room, leaving Raven to mull it over while he destroyed yet another heavy bag.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  A lex arrived shortly after seven o’clock. He’d even taken the time to wash up and change out of his grease-covered clothes before heading over.

  In record time, he and Piper had climbed into my disaster of an attic and pulled out half a dozen boxes of Christmas decorations. My heart gave a little flutter when they brought down the large box containing my mom’s favorite fiber optic tree, all seven feet of it. We spent some time pulling the branches down, taking care not to pull on the pretty white needles. These would burst with revolving colors once we’d shaped the tree up and plugged it in.

  Piper busied herself with hanging stockings, three fluffy red ones with white cotton tops, “Jessica,” “Mom,” and “Dad” spelled out in awkward glue-and-glitter letters. I remembered that little project, sitting with my mom at the kitchen table lined with newspaper, the bottle of Elmer’s glue, the little tubes of glitter. Mom had let me do the honors.

  Isabelle Sweet had been so artistic and, had she done them herself, the lettering would have been perfect. My childish scrawls were crooked, the letters flat in areas where I’d pressed the glue too firmly on the felt. I’d been so proud at the time, but that didn’t last. Every year my mom paraded them out with misplaced maternal pride. It became a joke between us as I grew older and realized how horrible they were. I begged her to throw them away, but she refused. “Someday you’ll be glad you have them,” she’d said, her contagious laughter pulling me out of my annual snit.

  Except for last year, of course. With Dad gone and Mom’s health deteriorating, I’d been forced to do the decorating on my own. Though I tried to engage my mom in the festivities, to bring a smile to her face by displaying the ugly stockings, her depression was too deep.

  I shook the memory from her mind and refocused on the task at hand.

  Eventually, Alex deemed the tree presentable, and we arranged it in front of the bow window, hooked up the adapter and plugged it in.

  Instant color filled the room. As the little wheel in the tree’s base turned, so did the colors, the fiber filaments shifting from blues to reds to greens to golds. My heart clenched with the beauty of it.

  Declaring the tree a success, Alex disappeared into the kitchen to pop some popcorn, the old-fashioned way on top of the stove. This corn would be for stringing, so we didn’t want all the buttery goodness of microwave popcorn going to waste. I went to the bathroom to scare up some needles and thread, and before long we were all sitting on the floor sliding fat, fluffy kernels onto long strings and arranging them on the tree.

  We were just hanging the last of my mother’s antique bulbs when an arch of headlights and a slamming car door told us we had company. I peeked around the tree and saw an extra-large form marching up the sidewalk toward the house.

  Handing a last bulb to Piper, I went to the kitchen to meet Harrier at the door.

  “What’s up?” I asked. I pushed the welcome mat toward him so he would step on it rather than tracking snow all over my kitchen floor. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “Who’s here?” he asked.

  “Alex and Piper,” I said. “Why?”

  “I need to talk to you about Raven.”

  “Privately?”

  “It would be best.”

  I poked my head into the living room and told my friends to carry on without me for a bit. I then led Harrier to the dining room on the other side of the house, where we sat looking at each other.

  Finally, Harrier said, “I just had a chat with him.”

  “You’ve been doing a lot of chatting in the last month or so.” Poor attempt at a joke, and knowing this, Harrier gave me an eye roll so as not to disappoint.

  “Yeah, well, you need to talk to him, Jess. He’s got a lot of shit to work through, but he can’t do that when he doesn’t have all the details.”

  “He killed Malcolm.”

  Harrier sighed. “Yes, you fucked the cat, Raven killed the cat. I’m all up on the particulars, despite what the two of you seem to think. But Jessica, he’s not getting any better.”

  “Not my fault,” I said, rising from my chair because sitting suddenly felt like having my foot caught in a bear trap.

  Alex poked his head in and said, “We’re ordering Perky’s pizza. You staying, Harrier?”

  Harrier looked at me, and I shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “Never been able to resist a Perky’s pie.”

  Alex nodded, and backed out, closing the door behind him.

  “You know there is a chance that baby is his,” Harrier said, getting right back to the point.

  “Allon said it was a very slight chance, due to my body being between species, and that the odds were astronomical. Even he said it was more likely that Malcolm was the father, and after the way Raven behaved? I would prefer to believe that the child I’m carrying is that of a kind and loving man rather than a blood thirsty Vampire. I’m sticking with the odds.”

&
nbsp; “So, you won’t talk to him?”

  “And risk getting my head ripped off, literally? No, thank you, Harrier.”

  My uncle looked unnaturally off-kilter. I wasn’t blind to the effort it took for him to speak on Raven’s behalf, and I loved and admired him for that.

  However, for me it was a moot point. There was no way I would ever drink Vampire blood again, thereby completing the awakening of my latent genes. Without that, it would be impossible for me to conceive a Vampire child. Allon was quite certain of it. So, talking to Raven would be a big fat waste of time, not to mention the aforementioned and probable loss of my head.

  “I’m sorry, Jessica,” Harrier said. “You know I want what’s best for you.”

  “I do know that,” I said and moved to stand behind him, resting my chin on his head. “But I’m so over the whole Vampire fad. If you weren’t family, I’d kick you to the curb, too.” I smiled when I said that and could feel the silent chuckle that shook his shoulders.

  “So, if we’re done with this, let’s go.” I said. “Christmas Vacation is on and the pizza will be here soon.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  M ason sat at his desk, looking through the schematics Merlin had provided with regard to the cats’ final demand for the Vindicta ritual. There was a lot to organize in a short period of time, but he understood where they were coming from. Would have been nice if they offered to cover some of the expenses, but apparently, they considered that part of the punishment.

  The office door banged open and Merlin strode in, laptop in hand. When the e-man deigned to glance up, Mason’s expression had him backing up to knock on the door frame. Mason sighed. The male was a genius on so many levels, but he had zero social graces.

  “Sorry,” Merlin said, “I thought you would want to see this right away.”

  “What have you got?”