Jason's Salvation (6 page)

“I had heard the rumor that you lived in Anchorage for while.”

“I did for a few years. Hated it, but I didn’t have a choice.”

There was nothing but honesty shining in his friend’s gaze. Jason wanted to ask for what reason, but he knew Gabe would not talk to him about it. Hell, he was pretty sure the bear didn’t even tell his family about it.

“So, I have seen those who have slipped over and I can usually spot them a mile away by scent. It’s putrid, and I’ve smelled it around here.” He smiled. “You don’t smell, other than your disgusting wolf scent stanking up my house.”

“They have a different scent?”

He nodded. “It’s like their chemistry is all fucked up or something.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I don’t know for sure why it does, but I would sense it in a second. Now, I really need you to leave or I will have to hurt you. Run back to your little Eve.”

Without another word, he left Jason in the kitchen staring after him. He chuckled to himself as he headed out the door, shutting it behind him. The winter had lasted a long time and he knew bears did a lot of sleeping this time of year to ready for the summer.

He was walking along the path, ever aware of his surroundings as he thought of what Gabe had said. He had been worried about what was going on in his dreams, but with Gabe’s reassurances, Jason felt better. Of course, he thought, it just dawned on him that Gabe knew more about their situation than he had let on for several months now. Noah would not be happy about that. He would have to tell his Alpha, but…that also meant he needed to tell the pack about his issues. And Eve.

He stopped for a moment and drew in a deep breath. With it came that strange scent he had smelled before, as all of them had and what Gabe talked about. He looked around, his body already on alert for an attack.

But there was nothing he could sense. The scent dissolved and Jason realized it might have been the change in the wind direction that had caused that. For all he knew, the bastard could be miles away. With a sense of urgency, he decided to hurry home. It might be time for a family meeting with his cousins, brothers, and Eve.

* * * *

He watched from a distance through a telescope as Jason Dillon hurried back to the pack’s home. Frustration tore at him, a need that he could not control anymore. He needed to kill but he wanted Dillon blood.

“Still wanting something you can’t have, dear boy?” the woman asked from behind him. He hated the fact that he was half cat, that the bitch of a mother he had made him into a freak of nature. It also irritated him that most of the best of both species hadn’t seemed to come to him. Instead, he had the hearing ability of a white house cat, along with the horrible sight of a wolf.

He turned to face his aunt. “I will have it, just as my mother said.”

The mention of his mother had his biological aunt curling her lip. “Marianna was crazy, as was my brother for what they did.”

“True, but that doesn’t mean she was wrong. This is my land. My blood is in both lines, and I should rule.”

Her cool green eyes assessed him. She was a tall, slender woman with long black hair that reached her waist. Most men…especially cats, would find her attractive. But, he had nothing but disgust for her.

“I have a feeling you might succeed, especially since they seem to have no idea what or who you are. Unless someone tells them.”

He cocked his head. Simone was a woman who always tried to barter her silence. She had tried once or twice with him, but had failed. He had a feeling she was about to step it up a notch.

“What is it you want, Simone?”

She stepped closer and the scent of her tickled his nostrils. “I have told you before what I want.”

She slid her hand up his arm, and it took all his power not to lose his breakfast. Yes, the woman had no morals, and for some reason, she wanted him. Her brother had been his father, and the slut wanted to fuck him. It would not take much for him to kill her. She was tiny. When he was a wolf, the way he let most of the other shifters see him, he would not have stood a chance. Even though wolves were more powerful. But now, he was in his true form, and every time he was, she would come on to him. It was a nuisance he wasn’t in the mood for anymore.

“I told you before, Simone, I do not want to have anything to do with you. For God’s sake, I am your nephew, and besides, you are too old for me.”

She dropped her hand as her smile faded. “Truly, you think I am too old for you? I am five years younger than that bitch of a mother, and I know what she liked to do with you.”

Anger surged and he felt the need to hurt. He fought it back. He needed to control himself before he lost it all and killed her.

“You know nothing of my mother and I.”

She laughed, and the sound of it was so close to his mother’s, it chilled him to the bone. “You keep telling yourself. My own brother caught you once, when you were just fifteen, right? Isn’t that why he left her? Your mother was a tramp from the time she could spread her legs. She would do any kind of creature, human or otherwise.”

Rage filled him and he stepped closer to her. He grabbed her around the neck and pulled her up off the ground. It was easy to do, since he was over six five and she was barely five and a half feet tall.

“I grow sick of your threats and the way you disparage my mother. You are not worth the trouble.”

He held her there, watching the life drain out of her, and felt his power surge. She struggled for only a few more moments, grabbing at his hands, before she finally, slowly, went limp. He tossed her onto the snow. It was not enough to satisfy his need for the kill. He needed something more, something more painful.

He turned his back to her for a moment and looked through his binoculars. Dillon was a speck on the landscape, probably going back to that bitch they all sniffed after.

He faced Simone, and felt nothing. Nothing but the need for blood, for carnage, but she would not be enough. He was sure of that.

But he would use her and then leave the rest for scavengers. It was what the bitch deserved.

The silence that followed Jason’s explanation was almost deafening. He couldn’t read anyone’s face. His cousins and brothers were being their usual stoic selves. What bothered him was Eve’s reaction. Over the last year he had gotten to know her well enough that she usually showed every emotion on her face. Now, there was nothing. Her expression was as blank as a doll’s.

“So, you thought you might be a killer but you said nothing to us?” Max asked.

Well, now that he said it like that, it sounded stupid. Of course, it did. They would never see him that way, even if he were a killer. He nodded, feeling like a fool.

“Of all the jackass things to do,” Rand said. “Didn’t you think that if you were a killer, you were putting us all at risk? If you were not in control of yourself, being here in the house with us and with Eve put us at risk.”

Then, everyone started to talk. Eve was sitting beside Noah. They, along with Jason, were the only ones not talking. Finally, Noah stood and walked over to him.

“You were always too smart for your own good. Your own father said you think too much, and again he’s right.”

He smacked Jason on the back of the head.

“It’s time you snap out of it. There is no way you are killing wolves. We would know.”

He studied his cousin, his Alpha. “You knew I was out running by myself.”

It wasn’t a question, and everyone seemed to hold their breath, waiting to hear Noah’s response.

“You think I didn’t know you were out running. Of course I knew. I took care of you. I had others following you, making sure you were safe. My one worry was you were out there by yourself. You were not killing.”

“Then why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

Noah’s eyes widened slightly, and there was an uneasy silence in the room. They often debated, but they never questioned the Alpha of the pack. It just wasn’t done.

Noah shook his head. “Honestly, Jason, I thought you knew. I didn’t know you were doing it in your sleep. You looked like you were awake. The watchers I put on you would have told me if you had become a homicidal maniac.”

Noah said it so seriously that it caused a few of the others to snicker. Jason glanced around at them but avoided making eye contact with Eve.

“What do you think it is?” he asked.

“That we will leave to Eve and Ethan, but I have a feeling that it just might be a minor problem. You did sleepwalk a lot as a kid. Maybe it just came back. And there may be no explaining it. It might be that the incident brought it back up. The added stress of what is going on, well, that might just have caused it. But you are not killing wolves. We would smell it on you, right, Ethan?”

Ethan nodded. “It would make us all sick like it does when we find them. Add in that it would be in a confined area and what we consider our den, well…we would know, cuz. I can’t believe you were thinking this for weeks and said nothing to any of us.”

He opened his mouth to explain, but Eve stood and stomped out of the room.

“She’s upset with you,” Max said.

“I guess you could say that,” he said, trying to rub away the way his stomach was turning over and over. He had a really sick feeling as if he were going to throw up.

Noah set a hand on his shoulder. “Feeling like shit?”

Surprised, Jason looked at him. “Yeah.” And it was getting worse by the minute.

“You better clear things with her. Her empathy with us is a two-way street. She’s upset and sick, and you will be, too.”

“She’s going to be more upset you didn’t go to her,” Ethan said. “She’s been very worried about you.”

“So in other words, I have to go sort it all out.”

“Well, not sure if you are going to sort it out, but begging helps,” Rand said.

“Begging?” Jason asked, the idea of it already causing the contents of his stomach to curdle. “I don’t know about that.”

Max laughed. “I have a feeling you don’t have choice here, bro.”

“Shit.”

“You said a mouthful, Jason,” Ethan said with a smile.

* * * *

Eve sat on the bed wondering what the hell Jason had been thinking. Why would he hide what he had been going through? It confused her on so many levels. The scientist was furious. She and Ethan could have explained all of this away. Instead, he had festered over it for weeks, allowing it to worry him to the point he pulled away.

Her phone rang and she looked down at it.
Her mother
. Just what she needed. Eve thought about ignoring the ring. Her mother would just keep calling.

She clicked on her phone. “Yes, mother.”

“Is that any way to answer the phone?” she asked without raising her voice. It was the tone Eve heard when she placed in anything but first place for any competition. It brought up all the irritation, the feelings of failure, her mother had heaped on her.

“It’s the way I answer the phone.”

There was a pause, and Eve felt a small sense of satisfaction that her mother was speechless. It was probably the first time in Eve’s life she had done that. The victory was short-lived.

“I assume that you are finishing up your research and packing to come home.”

Home. What was that? She had thought she was starting to make…well, something in Passion. Right at the moment, she wasn’t too sure. But she knew one thing. She would not be back to work with her parents.

“No, I’m not.”

Another pause.

“What do you mean?” her mother asked. Her voice was bored as if she had something better to do. She started thinking of the Dillons’ matriarchs and the way they acted toward their children…and Eve. Never in her life had she heard that tone from her mother. But the shifter mothers would not eat their young. Eve wasn’t too sure her mother could be put in that category.

“I mean I am going to resign my post.”

The moment she said it, she knew it was true. She didn’t like the job she had, the things that she had been doing. She loved this, loved working with wolves. And while she might not be in Passion, it would be somewhere. She could afford to build her own preserve, thanks to money her grandmother left her. She had fallen in love with the area and the wolves.

“I have already put out feelers to several organizations.”

“This is something we can discuss later.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“No. I am not going to change my mind.”

Silence. She heard the clicking of her mother’s fingers on the desk. “I’m going to call your father. We will meet you in Anchorage.”

She held the phone out from her ear and looked at it, then she brought it back. “Mother, did you hear me?”

“I heard you. I just chose to ignore you. You obviously don’t understand. Your father and I will explain it to you. You cannot understand the importance of this.”

The importance of this
. It was a phrase she had used more than once. She remembered it was what her mother said the day they had dropped her off at college. Eve had been sixteen.