Visions of Heat

CHAPTER 25

"Then I'll turn myself in to the Council." An intractable expression clouded her face. "I'll do it the first chance I get."

He knew she was stubborn enough to go through with the decision. "You've left me no choice." And the beast was angry at that, at her. But what enraged him most was having his hands tied. Judd had taken out the killer. Lucas and Sascha were meeting Nikita. He could do seemingly nothing to protect the one person he needed to protect. "Get on." He didn't want to speak any longer.

Faith didn't argue, letting him hoist her onto his back and then holding on as he raced through the forest, an animal on two legs, a jaguar caught tight in the grip of a trap that had no acceptable way out. Tonight he saw nothing of the beauty around him, felt no exhilaration, no joy. He was furious at everything and everyone. The Fates, the Psy who was his mate, and mostly, himself.

Ignoring the waves of tenderness coming down the mating bond, he poured himself into the forest and let the beast take over. Though he remained human in shape, his mind, his heart, his soul became jaguar. And the cat didn't allow human foolishness to color its thinking. It just was.

Vaughn didn't know how long he ran in that semishift state, but they were close to the car when his keen hearing picked up something very odd. He came to a complete stop. Faith clutched at him and he knew she was about to speak.

"Shh." He kept the sound extremely low.

But she'd heard. The second he released his grip on her legs, she slid down with utter quietness, allowing him to ease her down using his strength. Once there, she remained motionless. He scanned the surrounding area with his animal senses and felt every one of his instincts flare in warning.

Glancing over Faith's head, he looked back the way they'd come. The perfect tree stood almost directly in his line of sight. He turned his back to her and she jumped on. Moving with the catlike silence that was second nature to him, he retraced his steps to the large sequoia and began to climb, using his claws to dig into the wood. Faith held on tight and didn't say a word as he went ever higher. He was proud of her.

When he spotted what he was looking for, he shifted position so she could get off and sit down in the hiding place formed by the intersection of several branches. Only then did she whisper, "What did you hear?"

He made sure she'd be invisible from the ground. "Something that doesn't belong." Leaning in, he kissed her. His way. Hard, savage, and raw. "Don't leave this tree until I or one of the pack return for you. And don't try to telepath Sascha or use any other Psy sense."

The stars in her eyes were blotted out by blackness in an eyeblink. "They've come for me."

"Nobody will touch you." That wasn't even an option. "Do exactly what I told you. They might be able to track you if you try anything Psy." He wasn't Psy, but he was a soldier—he knew about strategy and drawing out a target.

"Let me help," she whispered.

"I'll tell you if I need you." He watched understanding spread across her face. The mating bond wasn't Psy, therefore the others wouldn't be able to intercept it.

"Be safe and come back to me."

He had every intention of doing that, but first, he had to get rid of some vermin. Going back down the tree took almost no time. He touched the ground with silent feet and started to determine and categorize what his senses were telling him. There was definitely more than one Psy out there.

That they'd gotten this far into DarkRiver territory without alerting anyone told him they were good. Very good. Vaughn had no intention of underestimating their skills. He also knew he had to get them before they realized he was hunting. Otherwise, they'd smash his mind with a blast of pure power.

Stripping off the jeans, he cached them a small way up the tree and went jaguar. The Psy might be good, but this was Vaughn's territory and in this territory, his paws were silent, his senses even keener, his savagery unparalleled. These Psy had broken the first rule when they'd come into an area off-limits to anyone but cats and wolves. They'd broken the second by lying in ambush for his mate.

The first was a mistake. The second, unforgivable.

Vaughn walked a ways on the ground before taking to the trees. His sense of smell was not as strong as his sight, but it was far better than an ordinary human's, sufficient to tell him that there was a Psy to the left of his position and within meters. He padded along a branch until he was directly on top of the male. Dressed in black, his face camouflaged with paint, the Psy lay flat on the ground, one eye pressed to the scope of what looked like a Series III Ramrod.

An illegal rifle meant for hunting big cats.

Vaughn didn't give the Psy any warning. He couldn't be allowed to send a telepathic signal to his team members, though the communications link clipped to his ear probably indicated they were maintaining mind-silence. They didn't want to tip off Faith. In that case, they were likely not scanning the area telepathically either, relying on their physical senses alone. Mistake number three—never go into a predator's territory thinking to beat him at his own game.

Slamming down on the male's back, Vaughn crushed his skull between powerful jaws before the Psy ever knew he'd been marked as prey. He'd broken the would-be assassin's back, and in all likelihood killed him, with the jump, but no one could rise after his brain had been caved in as this Psy's was.

One down.

Pain shot through the mating bond. He froze. Faith had experienced his kill. It had disturbed her. He waited to see what she'd do. And realized the pain was for him—for having to do this for her. The jaguar had no time for such foolishness. Of course he'd do this for her—she was his mate.

He took to the trees again, knowing she was with him now. That was good. She should see the other side of his nature, know that he wasn't human, wasn't civilized. Then he silenced that thinking part and became the predator again. West of the first Psy, he found the second. This one had a small gun in his hand. Not a weapon meant to kill, but to subdue. For Faith.

This Psy was more wary, scrutinizing the area around him with the trained eyes of a scout, looking up into the trees with every sweep. He knew what hunted him. But jaguars were patient—Vaughn simply waited until the male was scanning a different section, then dispatched him with the same efficient technique he'd used on the first male.

Two down.

The third was northwest of the second Psy. He saw their tactic at once. A half circle with his vehicle as the center point. Likely six armed Psy mercenaries. Now two were dead and the positions of the other four had become obvious. Mistake number four. He'd never have placed his men in such a predictable pattern. But, of course, the Psy thought of changelings as animals too stupid to reason.

Mistake number five.

Assassin number three was gone in a minute. Four followed. Five actually saw Vaughn coming and fired off a shot, but that was as far as he got. However, he'd warned number six. Instead of launching a psychic attack, the last Psy took off, zigzagging through the forest on an evasive path that would've eluded most humans. Unfortunately for him, Vaughn wasn't human. He could've let the Psy think he was getting away, could've tortured him by playing with him, but that wasn't who he was.

He stayed in the shadows as he ran down the sixth assassin, knowing the Psy couldn't attack him if he didn't know where he was. Changeling minds were tough. Psy had to aim and focus to destroy them—a diffuse hit would never penetrate his natural shields. In the end, taking the man out was almost an anticlimax. The Psy had no idea what hit him. One second he was running, the next he was dead.

The jaguar flipped him over onto his back and Vaughn shifted into human form to search the body for evidence of further plans. He found something in the left pants pocket. A small, flat, closed pad that he immediately identified as a long-distance remote. Flipping it open, he checked the computronic readout.

The car was rigged to blow.

If they hadn't been able to capture Faith, they'd had orders to destroy her. He growled. It was a good thing these men were already dead. Shifting again, he took the pad in his mouth and ran back to Faith. There was blood on his fur, which would translate to his skin when he changed forms. That couldn't be helped. But he was human and dressed in his jeans by the time he came to her.

"Are you alright?" Her eyes flicked over every inch of him. "You're bleeding!"

"It's not mine." He watched her expression for signs of disgust.

Instead, it was only relief that showed. "I got the sense that one of them got off a blast."

"He missed. Come on." He brought her down from the tree.

Her face remained white, strain lines at the corners of her mouth. "You had to kill for me."

"It's what mates do." He kissed her for several long minutes, grounding his beast in the feminine scent of her. By the time he drew away to pull the pad from his pocket, there was a healthy flush to her cheeks. "See this?"

She took the pad. "It looks like a remote of some kind." She placed it in the center of her palm, her curiosity apparently cutting through the residual shock. "Exceptionally compact and nothing that's on the market at this time. I'd say it's a prototype from Exogenesis Labs—they had me do some work last year."

"It's to blow up the car."

Her head jerked up. "They wanted you dead."

Suddenly, he knew she was right. Faith was too important to kill. "Wanted is the operative word. I assumed you could talk to Sascha—can you?"

"I'm not sure about 'pathing, but if the Web works the same way as the Net, I can try to do it that way."

"Tell her to give Lucas a message: We need a cleanup crew. Five cats to our location."

"How will they know where to come?"

"They know the general area where I left the car and they'll track us the rest of the way by smell."

Nodding, she closed her eyes. "Okay, I'm trying a telepathic page. She's not that far and I know her... there you go. She's receiving me." Silence for a few beats. "Lucas says they're on their way. One extra man to take me back to the aerie."

"Fine."

She opened her eyes. "Why do I have to go back?" Stubborn, her forehead furrowed with lines.

"Because you can't drag one of these bodies where it needs to go."

She swallowed but didn't admit defeat. "And where would that be?"

"Nikita Duncan has the bad luck to live closest to us."

"I see." She looked at her feet and then back up at him. "You felt no guilt at killing those men."

He waited, able to see her working something out in her head. Though he'd never admit it aloud, he was a little worried. She'd seen him at his most brutal. Now he waited for her reaction.

"And yet, it was clean. You didn't taunt them and you didn't get pleasure from it."

"I will when I take down animal prey." He wasn't going to lie.

"I think I can deal with that because it's natural." Ignoring the blood, she wrapped her arms around his waist, her fingers delicate points of heat where they brushed his skin. "I won't say I wasn't shocked by the way you dispatched the assassins so quickly, but I wasn't repulsed or horrified. This is who you are. And I love you."

The simple declaration brought him figuratively to his knees. Enclosing her in his arms, he let the tension seep out of him. This was who he was. And she loved him. It was all he'd ever wanted.

Faith followed Dorian along the path back to the alpha pair's lair, glancing over her shoulder to try to catch a last glimpse of Vaughn. But he was already gone, a blur in the forest. Five leopards and one jaguar. So much power. So much fury. For her.

"I could run with you," Dorian offered after ten minutes. "I'm latent, but I have the strength of a changeling."

"I'm sorry." Faith made her tone very polite, conscious that Dorian didn't like her. "I don't know what latent means in your world."

"I can't shift into leopard form." Said without any hint of self-pity.

She looked at him. With his sky-blue eyes and blond hair, he looked more like a college student than the merciless predator he was. "Thank you, but no. I'm not comfortable being that close to anyone but Vaughn."

He nodded and they kept going. She thought over his words, wondered if that was why he had such anger in his eyes. But that anger was directed at her and she'd had nothing to do with his latency. After almost half an hour of silence, she decided that the only way to know was to ask. He was family now.

"Why don't you like me?"

He didn't answer for several long minutes. "I don't know you, so I have no reason to dislike you as a person."

It didn't take her long. "My ability. That's it, isn't it? You think I could've prevented something."

"Not you. Foreseers as a whole."

"You're right. Maybe we could have." That they hadn't, was a tragedy. "But I don't think foreseers ever saw everything. If they had, then nobody would've ever been murdered, no great disaster would've ever killed millions." It was something she'd been thinking over. "So maybe we could've prevented whatever it was that happened to you, but maybe we couldn't."

"At least you could've tried if you'd been on the outside."

"Yes." That was an irrefutable truth. "Yes."

He didn't say another word for five more minutes. She spent the time thinking over her own statement. It was what she believed, but it was also a guess. She didn't know what past F-Psy had seen. Those records had been purged from the PsyNet, lost in the mysteries of time.

The knowing, when it came, was quiet, silent, like the male beside her. Dorian. Broken, shattered Dorian would one day be whole. And in a way not even he could imagine. She saw him clearly in her mind's eye, a beautiful leopard with dark facial markings and, in this form, eyes more green than blue.

The knowing drifted away and she wondered whether to share it with him. It hadn't been a true vision as such, had told her no specifics. But he'd been older. Not old, but at least two or three years older than he was now. What if she told him and then the future changed because of some act of his or another's? A false hope. She made the hard decision to keep the knowing to herself. Sometimes, Silence was the right choice. It was only when it wasn't a choice that it turned into a cage.

"I heard you lost your sister."

She'd gotten so used to his quietness that she was surprised into a soft gasp. "Marine. Her name was Marine."

"My sister's name was Kylie."

Their eyes met and she understood. He'd try to forgive her for being what she was, if she'd try to never let another sister die. "Yes."

Vaughn returned to Faith about three hours before dawn. From the coffee on the table and the alert expressions on their faces, he could see that neither she nor Sascha had slept. When he appeared, Faith stood and came to him. Nobody said a word as he took her hand and they exited the lair for the second time that night, leaving Lucas with his mate.

They covered the distance to the car in silence. It had been cleaned of explosives by Dorian, but Vaughn did another check before opening the passenger door for Faith. The cat continued to monitor the area for threats—he wouldn't breathe easy until they were back in his personal territory.

The drive took almost another hour, but neither of them was in any mood for sleep at the end of it. Faith didn't ask any questions, didn't demand any answers, just watched as he showered, then stripped and joined him under the flow of water. He felt her worry.

"It was done without any problems," he told her. "They never knew we were there."

"Nikita Duncan's residence?"

"And a few others connected to the Council at the highest levels." He'd had to fight the urge to go in and crush some more Psy skulls when he'd made his delivery.

"I could feel that you weren't hurt or in danger."

"Good." He wanted her to get used to the bond, had no problem with her utilizing it to see if he was okay. That's what mates did. He couldn't see the bond as she did, but he could feel it in a way that had no explanation—if she were ever hurt or in trouble, he'd know.

She went quiet again. He walked them out of the shower and dried them both. When he carried her to the bed, she didn't protest. And when he claimed her in the most physical way, she gave him her surrender. Afterward, they lay intertwined, watching dawn infiltrate the room on slender beams of light.

Faith moved to rest with her cheek against his chest, her hand over his heart. And then she cried. He stroked her hair and her back, not knowing how else to comfort her. But what he did know was that these hot, wet raindrops had nothing to do with him. He enclosed her in his arms and the jaguar spoke to her in rough, wordless murmurs.

Several long minutes later, she took a shuddering breath. "They came after me as if I were an animal to be tracked down and bagged."

He clenched his fist in her hair, but didn't interrupt.

"I thought—perhaps my father—of course not, he's Psy. He wanted his investment back. It didn't matter to him to find out the choices I'd made, that killing you would kill me, too."

"I'm not that easy to take out, Red."

"It's stupid, but I feel betrayed by Father, though he was never truly a father to me. How could he have allowed them to come after me like that?"

Vaughn had no answers to soothe that hurt. So he just held her, held her and told her that her worth to him was beyond any price. After a while, she slept. Secure in his home, a home no Psy could enter without setting off a hundred booby traps, he, too, went into the twilight.

Faith woke at nine. Her body didn't want to sleep in, despite having been deprived of rest. Her cat, on the other hand, complained when she moved and told her to lie still. Able to smile this morning, though the smile was a little fragile, she settled back against him, listened to the sound of the waterfall, and took in the sunlight pouring in through the ingenuity of Vaughn's vent designs.

The light swept through carefully placed pieces of colored glass to lay mosaic patterns on the carpets. Her Psy mind found them intricately beautiful. So organized but different with every minute, changing as the light changed. She was admiring them from the bed when the wall-mounted communication console chimed. Knowing there was no way Vaughn was going to budge, she wiggled out from under his arm and walked over to answer it. They really had to get something for the bedside, she thought, answering with audio only.

The voice that returned her greeting was so unexpected, she didn't reply for ten complete seconds. In those ten seconds, Vaughn was fully awake and by her side. She let him make the rest of the decisions. Because for her, the person on the other side of the communications hookup was akin to a ghost.