A Jaguar's Kiss

THIRTEEN

Saban stared at the mess four Council soldiers made as they bled out on the asphalt of the street outside the black panel van they had been attempting to get Natalie into.

The scientist was still alive, a little bit wounded, but he was breathing, and the EMTs seemed certain he would keep living. If it weren’t for the information they needed from him, Saban would have finished the job and put a bullet in his head.

Mike Claxton was sitting on the ground, his head in his hands, a bandage wrapped around one arm and another binding his ankle.

The bastard had been damned lucky. The fact that Natalie had managed to trip both of them had saved his life, taking him out of the line of fire when he, Jonas, and the other Breeds swarmed out of the mall into the parking lot.

Saban braced his hands on his hips and stared at the man and wanted to howl in rage. He could smell the weakness, both physically and mentally, that poured from Mike Claxton. He wasn’t a fitting mate for Natalie; hell, he hadn’t even managed to be a fitting husband to her, and yet she had run to him.

He couldn’t even find it in him to excuse her, to find a way to understand it. It simply came down to the fact that Claxton had meant more to her than her own life, than Saban’s life, had. And that broke his heart.

Shaking his head, he moved to the man, then hunched in front of him, his elbows resting on his knees, as he stared at Claxton’s bent head.

Mike’s head lifted. Miserable, damp blue eyes met Saban’s.

“You set this up.” They knew that. He had arranged with the scientist and the soldiers to take her.

Claxton sniffed back his tears. “They have a cure for her. Whatever you did to her, it made her leave me, divorce me. She loves me, Breed. Not you.”

The pain of that was like an open, gaping wound inside Saban’s soul.

“I didn’t meet her until the day you came to the house to find me there,” he told Claxton, striving for patience. “Until that day, Natalie had never so much as breathed air that I had passed through. How could I have harmed her or damaged your marriage?”

Claxton shook his head. “They saw you.”

“Did they have pictures? Video?”

The other man continued to shake his head.

“The Council records everything, Claxton. Every investigation, every move they make, one way or the other, is recorded. If they had no proof, then it didn’t happen.”

“You drugged her,” he bit out, his voice rising as he glared at Saban. “She divorced me.”

“You cheated on her with her assistant teacher,” Saban said cruelly. “You broke trust with her. You betrayed her. You refused to allow her to make her own decisions, to be herself, because you were too frightened she would learn the truth. And when she did, you blamed her.”

Saban had had the investigation done. His sister, Chimera, had sent the information via the eLink, carefully organized, brutally concise, days before.

“She would have forgiven me.” Claxton swallowed tightly, but his demeanor shifted slightly, lost the aggression and became pathetic rather than furious. “Eventually, she would have forgiven me.”

Saban shook his head. “Would you ever forgive her?”

The other man blinked back tears and looked down, shaking his head.

“You nearly died here today, Claxton.” Saban stared at the Council soldiers who had lost their lives instead. “But what would have happened to Natalie is beyond your worst nightmares. They would have cut her, studied her, and dissected her…while she lived. The horror she would have endured would have been more agony than you could ever imagine.”

He shook his head desperately. “They have a cure. You did something to her. She can’t even bear my touch.”

“Nothing is wrong with her,” Saban snarled, flashing his canines. “She was my woman, my lover. Why would she want the touch of one who had betrayed her? One who had fucked her assistant in her own bed? Why would she wish for your touch?”

Claxton flinched at each question, hunching his shoulders against the truth Saban laid at his feet.

“You didn’t just break the law today in your attempt to aid in her kidnapping, but you broke Breed law, Claxton.” He gave that a second to sink in, and as Mike’s face paled, he went on. “Attempting to kidnap the woman of a Breed is punishable by death. Your trial would be a Breed tribunal, not a jury of your peers. You don’t even have to be there.” He leaned forward. “Justice would be horrifying. Death by the most excruciating pain we could devise. The Council taught us how to cause pain, my friend. Pain like you cannot even imagine.”

Claxton’s face was white now.

“I wanted to save her.”

“You wanted to fucking own her,” Saban snarled. “Now, here is what you are going to do. You are going to your hotel, you will pack, and you will leave before night falls. If at any time you are found to be in Buffalo Gap or if you attempt to contact Natalie without her permission, then Breed law will come down on you.”

Surprise reflected on Claxton’s face. “You’re going to let me go?”

“I have never killed over a woman, Claxton.” Saban let a growl enter his voice for effect. “But over Natalie, I will rip your guts from your navel and strangle you with them. Do you understand me?”

Claxton nodded slowly. Saban held his gaze, staring back at him, letting him see the savagery, the need for blood rising inside him.

“Why are you letting me go?” Claxton asked timidly, almost hopefully.

“You heaped enough guilt on her head during your marriage.” Saban rose to his feet and stared down at him coldly. “I won’t let you guilt her with your death.”

The hope left his eyes. Claxton nodded again then dragged himself to his feet and stared at the dead soldiers now being bagged, the disabled van that would have taken Natalie away.

“I was trying to help her,” he finally said roughly. “I thought…I thought she was in danger.”

“As long as I live she will be safe,” Saban snapped. “Can we say the same for you?” Saban looked at the bloody scene again and then back to Mike.

Mike didn’t say another word. He limped across the street to his car and dragged himself slowly inside it. The bloody battle, the knowledge that his death had been so close, and that Saban would do more than kill him, did what nothing else could have. Right now, in shock, Claxton had taken in the truth of what had happened. He had nearly destroyed Natalie rather than saving her, and whether he had known it before or not, right now, he knew this was his last chance to live.

“We weren’t trained to have mercy, Brother.”

Saban turned to meet eyes identical to his own in a face so delicate, so sweetly curved that at times he couldn’t believe she was one of the highly trained, merciless Breed Enforcers the Bureau of Breed Affairs prized so highly.

Long, black hair was braided into a thick plait and fell to the middle of her back, while her slender, doelike body radiated confidence and strength.

“We weren’t trained to have it, yet we do.” He shrugged carelessly.

“I’ll keep an eye on him for a while. Make sure he gets home safe. We’d hate for him to have an accident between here and there.” Her smile was cold, hard, her eyes like chips of green ice.

“I gave him his life; take it at your own risk, Chimera,” he warned her.

“You’re going to spoil her,” she stated.

Saban shrugged again.

No, he wasn’t spoiling her, he was letting her go. She would keep the job; that had nothing to do with him. Whether she stayed, left, or allowed Claxton back into her life was her choice.

“Tell Jonas to have Natalie escorted home and assign her a new bodyguard,” he told his sister as he fought the pain building in his chest. “I’ll follow up with the scientist we captured and see to his transport to Sanctuary.”

He had to force the words past his lips.

“And if he sends a male with her?” Chimera asked.

Saban just shook his head and moved away from her, knowing she would do exactly as he asked. She had never failed him, not once, not before their escape, not after. And if, as she asked, Jonas sent another male to guard his mate?

God, such pain shouldn’t be possible without an open wound. How could his heart still beat in his chest when it felt as though it were ripped from his body?

Love. God, he had waited for this, dreamed of it, from the moment he had learned that Breeds mated, that their one and only would be their natural one and only, he had waited and he had hoped.

And this was what he had hoped for? A woman who, though she may care for him, loved another.

He had to force himself not to look back at the mall, to the doors where he had left her. He had to force himself to the van where the scientist was confined, restrained and awaiting transport.

Saban stepped to the opened back doors and smiled. A slow, cold smile that showed his canines and bore little resemblance to a civilized being. He didn’t feel so civilized right now.

“Well now, Dr. Amburg.” He greeted the aging scientist with a growl. “How nice to see you here today. I trust you’re doing well?”

Beldon Amburg. He had tortured, murdered, experimented on, and destroyed more lives than Saban could count. His file was extensive; the proof of the atrocities committed at the lab he headed was stored in boxes rather than files.

“You’ve forgotten who your masters are, animal,” Amburg sneered. “One day, you’ll bow before us again, and we’ll know no mercy.”

“Oh, you knew mercy before?” Saban widened his eyes in surprise. “Well now, you’ll have to jus’ tell me ’bout dat lil’ thing,” he announced sarcastically as he stepped into the van and wrapped his fingers brutally around the thin neck of the scientist known as Bloody Amburg. “Right this way, Doctor. We have a nice little cell just waiting for you.”

The scientist gasped for air, but he put up little struggle. Saban dragged him from the bullet-ridden van to the secured security van that pulled up alongside it.

The back doors opened, revealing two Breeds, weapons held ready. The restraints locked into the floor of the van were lifted by a third Breed. And that one, Saban knew, would never leave Amburg alive if he had the chance. Mercury had more reason than most to see this particular scientist dead.

“Mercury, ride up front.” Saban pulled his captive in and took the ends of the restraints himself. Snapping them on, he felt the Breed behind him move to the side.

“I’ll let him live.” The voice was a demon’s growl, causing Amburg to collapse onto the wide metal seat bolted to the wall behind him.

“I’m just going to make sure.” Saban shook his head. “Ride up front. I’ll ride back here with Lawe and Rule.”

He took his seat, another metal bench facing Amburg.

Mercury snarled but moved from the van, allowing the other two Breeds to jump inside before securing the doors.

“We have two escorts front and back to Sanctuary,” Lawe announced. “Seems there’s a report there could be more Council soldiers in the vicinity. Jonas is expecting trouble.”

Saban kept his eyes on Amburg. “If they attack, put a bullet in his head. He’s not worth dying for.”

Amburg swallowed tightly, terror flashing in his cold, pale blue eyes.

Terror was a good thing, Saban thought, because right now, he was just enraged enough to kill for the simple hell of it. His mate was back at the mall, alone, without him, without the ex-husband she had risked her life to save.

And here he was, guarding a fucking Council doctor. Hell, today just sucked.

As Lawe moved to close the doors to the van, Saban looked out, his gaze moving instinctively to where he left Natalie. There, between the entrances to the mall she stood, one hand pressed to the glass door, her cheeks wet with tears. Her eyes were dark, too dark in her pale face, anguished, filled with pain. With sorrow.

As he watched, her lips moved, whispered his name, and he felt his soul shatter.

Lawe slammed the doors closed and secured, but nothing could erase the sight of her pain from his soul.

How the fuck could he ever live without her?