A Jaguars Touch (14 page)

“Look at this,” he said, pointing to two lines on a graph.

One was toward the middle of the page. The other had huge surges, sending it spiking to the top of the page.

“Okay,” she said. “What is it?”

“This one is the hormone levels I had the first time I took a sample,” he said indicating the line in the middle. “This one is the one I took this morning.”

“Is it the fever? Are you going to be okay?” Her heart stopped as she remembered what Clara had said when Zane had the fever. Only a mate could save him. “We need to find your mate,” she whispered.

“I think I already have,” he told her.

And that was it. Her heart was breaking.

Then he cupped her chin and lifted her face to his. “I know you were adamant you aren’t my mate,” he said.

“You agreed,” she reminded him.

“I think we were both wrong.”

“What?” She stopped and gulped as her heart beat frantically in her chest. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, you’re my mate, Vic.”

Chapter Eleven

“I’m… I don’t… What?” Vic said, looking adorably cute and making him wonder how he hadn’t seen it from the beginning.

“I believe you’re my mate,” Gideon said again.

“I’m your mate,” she whispered, and it wasn’t disgust he saw in her eyes. Not yet, at least. But he had things to tell her.

He turned her around to face him and braced his hands beside her hips on the seat. He leaned in and closed his eyes, just breathing her in for a minute.
Mine
was the thought that flashed through his mind, and he felt the overwhelming urge to lean in the final few inches that were needed for him to sink his teeth deep and claim her. It was even harder to fight when she plunged those long fingers in his hair and tugged him closer. She seemed to have an obsession with his hair, and he loved it.

Their lips met in a kiss full of promise. He was an unworthy man, a killer, undeserving of a woman like Vic. He’d been more than willing to take what she offered, knowing she would move on to someone else after him, someone better. But now the thought of her with another man made his hands ache to kill again.

“Mine.” The claim rumbled from his chest as soon as their lips parted, and she smiled despite the way he made the claim sound.

“Am I?” she asked.

“You’re the only one who ever could be.”

“Why do you make it sound like a curse?”

“Because it is,” he whispered. “I’m not nearly good enough for you, but I’m not sure I can walk away from you like I planned.”

“Don’t,” she urged. “Stay, with me. Or I’ll go with you.”

It still blew him away that she was willing to leave and go with him.

“What I won’t do is let you mate me then walk away. I’ve seen what that does to a woman. I’ll break your legs before I go through that.”

“I’d never mate you then leave. If it happens then we’re together until the end. But there are things we need to discuss,” he said. “Things you need to know about me. I won’t mate you until you know everything, know the man you’ll be taking on.” He looked into her face, so perfect, so beautiful. “I’m not a good man. I’ve done things. Killed people.”

She shook her head. “You think I haven’t? You think any of us have clean hands? You don’t go to war and come home the same way you left. People die. Blood is spilled, and no one walks away unscathed.”

He glanced around the laboratory where anyone could walk in on them.

“Let’s go back to the room to have this talk,” he said and swept her up in his arms.

“You’re the first man who’s ever carried me like this,” she said, looping one arm behind his neck while the palm of her other hand caressed his chest.

“I’ll be the only man to ever carry you like this,” he said with a growl.

He waited until the door was closed and she was sitting on the bed before he began again. “I mentioned the labs to you. I told you they injected us and made us fight each other.” He paused not sure how to finish.

“You fought to the death,” Vic said, and his eyes flew up to hers in surprise. “Did you think we didn’t figure that out?”

“I…” He wasn’t sure what to say. “They all know?” And hadn’t kicked him out, yet?

“Suspect,” she corrected. “None of them will ask you about it. It’s yours to tell or not. More importantly, none of them will blame you for surviving. You were hunted, captured, tortured and forced to do things you didn’t want to in order to survive.”

“We weren’t tortured,” he said, thinking of how Michael had died, chained to a wall with stab wounds strategically placed so he wouldn’t survive. Thomas had relayed every detail Lydia had shared. It shouldn’t have happened. Michael shouldn’t have died, not like that. That was torture.

“You were held in fucking cages and injected with God only knows what just so they could make you act out the sick games they thought up,” Vic yelled. “That is the worst kind of torture. Physical wounds heal. The mental ones they inflicted have fucked with your mind for years. When you look at yourself, all you see is a man with blood on his hands, a man who killed those he should have fought to protect.”

“I should have protected them,” Gideon agreed.

“And what? Let them kill you, instead? Would that make it all better?” Vic demanded.

He blinked.

“You didn’t have a choice, Gideon. You were drugged and given two choices. Live or die. No one should blame you for choosing to live.”

“I ripped their throats out,” he confessed. “I used my claws to tear them to shreds. And when they begged me for mercy, I killed them anyway. I killed them.”

“And what would have happened to them if they’d lived?” Vic asked. “What would the people in those labs have done to them? To you? Because I’m betting it would have been far worse than death.”

“How do you know that?” he asked. “How could you possibly know?”

“Because I’m not stupid,” she said. “Because I’m a strategist. Because I grew up with a misogynist who believed whole-heartedly that the end justified the means. And I know there would have been consequences if either of you refused to do what they wanted.”

“Live dissection,” he finally admitted. “There was a man who refused to kill. They killed the other shifter anyway. Then they tied him down, split him open, and did whatever they wanted to him. He screamed and screamed.”

“Jesus,” Vic muttered, looking ill. “Why didn’t you shift? Why didn’t any of you shift?”

“They have an injection they give you. Every hunter has them. It prevents a shift. If we happen to already be in animal form, it forces us to shift back. Thomas and I tried to get our hands on some of that, but we were never able to.”

“So you escaped, managed to get away from them,” she said. “Then you went back. You allowed yourself to be captured again. How many times? How many times did you let them take you, knowing that could be the time you died?”

He shrugged. “I did what I needed to. I owed it to all the shifters I…killed. I owed it to them to make sure I did everything I could to protect others from the same fate. By trying to get my hands on the drugs being used against us and finding a way to block them from working.”

“Then don’t you think your time is better spent in the labs, now? Helping to do just that?” Vic asked

“We have no samples to work with,” he said. “I need live samples to test. Plus, everything Thomas and I had is gone. I managed to save a few notebooks, but the rest was destroyed. I’m pretty sure it was Dillon.”

“Tell me,” she urged.

“Ariel had gone off the rails again. She’s an angry woman. She has a right to be.” He shook his head at her questioning look. “It’s not my story to share. I don’t think she even realizes I know everything that happened. I’ll just say Ariel has seen the dark side of humans as well as shifters, and I think she might hate and distrust shifters more. She’s very selective on who she puts any faith in.”

“She trusts you,” Vic said.

Gideon swallowed and glanced away, blinking his eyes quickly. “She was…broken when Thomas found her. Body, mind, spirit. He brought her back with him. We did what we could medically to help her.” He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “She had night terrors for a long time. She’d wake up screaming, fighting anyone who tried to get to her.”

“But you went to her,” Vic guessed, and he liked that she already seemed to know him so well.

“I did. She’d scratch me up a bit, but once I had her wrapped in my arms, she’d slowly come back to the present. She’d beg me not to let them touch her again. Her eyes would be glassy, and she’d beg me. It broke my heart. Eventually, she’d wake up screaming my name. Then she’d just wake up.”

“I didn’t like her,” Vic said. “There was something about her that made me uneasy. Now… I…” She swallowed, and he could see the guilt on her face.

“She’s fierce in a fight,” he said. “Lethal. She asked me to train her, and I did. If she’s angry, there’s a reason for it.”

“So what does she do when she goes off the rails?” Vic asked.

“She hunts,” Gideon replied. “And she’s not always particular on what or who.”

“So you went after her.”

He nodded. “We all needed a break. We’d been working around the clock. Ariel hasn’t said anything, but it wouldn’t surprise me if her leaving had something to do with Dillon. There was animosity between them from the start. I should have paid more attention.”

“You were busy.”

“I’m always busy. There was a lot I missed. I didn’t see what was going on with Lydia. I didn’t see what was going on with Ariel, with Dillon or with Thomas. I was pissed when Ariel left. Mad as hell that I had to stop what I was doing and go after her. Griffin asked if he could come with me.” He snorted and shook his head again. “I think he was afraid I might take my anger out on Ariel.” He looked her in the eyes. “I wouldn’t. Never.”

“I know that,” she assured him. “I may not have known you long, but I think I know you pretty well.”

And she did, she seemed to sense things others never had. He wondered if it was a mate thing.

“So Griffin went with you,” she prompted.

“I told Thomas to take a break. Go for a run. He looked pretty haggard. For some reason, I took the last few journals I’d worked in with me. Just stuffed them in my backpack as if I’d have time to work on them later.”

“Instinct?” she suggested.

“Maybe, but I’d rather my instinct have saved Thomas. He was gone when I got back. The lab we used was fucking destroyed. Equipment broken and all our journals gone. Not that they’ll help whoever has them. I write all my stuff in my own shorthand code. It was something Thomas thought of. I’m glad he did.”

“What do you think happened to him?” she asked.

“I don’t know for sure. I don’t know if he was there when whoever did that came in or not. Most of the place was destroyed, not just our lab. All I found…” He stopped as it hit him. “My God. The only thing I found was a note with Clara’s name and coordinates for here. It was in Lydia’s handwriting.”

“She came here with Dillon, planning to kill Amia and Logan, as well, so she could take Clara back with her.”

“If that was her plan, why leave me the information of where to find her?” Gideon challenged. “What if it was a way to draw me here?”

“You think she was hoping you’d get here in time to stop whatever Dillon had planned or so she could kill you, too?”

“I may never know,” he said. “I got held up. Then it took us a few days to sort through stuff when we got back. I was desperately hoping some of our research would be salvageable.”

“I know you feel guilty for not noticing what Dillon was doing to her,” Vic said. “But I’m not sure she would have been able to leave you a note to draw you here, unless she was hoping to kill you. The Lydia who arrived here was a cut throat bitch.”

“She told me something before she died,” he admitted.

“What?”

“I’m not sure,” he said with grunt of frustration.

“You didn’t hear her?”

“No, I heard her. I’m just not sure what she meant. She said Thomas’ name then Dillon’s. Then she said betrayed.”

“Sounds like she was telling you Dillon betrayed Thomas. You suspected that.”

“I know. I just can’t shake this feeling in my gut that there’s more to it than that. I can’t explain it. I was so certain when I came here that Dillon was the one who left the mess. Now, I’m realizing I’ve been blind to so much around me.”

“And you’re wondering if you’ve missed something where Dillon is concerned?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a good guy, Gideon.”

He snorted.

“Murphy called and told Finn and I what was going on with Lydia,” Vic said, and her gaze was filled with…pride? Christ, was she proud of what he’d done?

“It was a good thing you did for them. We’re very lucky you were here.”

He shrugged, not comfortable with her praise. “I owed Lydia that much.”

“You have to stop thinking you need to spend your life making amends for things. Everything is not your fault. You’re one person. Why didn’t Thomas see what was going on? Or Ariel? Or Griffin? Should they be beating themselves up?”

She made a valid point. One he’d never considered. He was the type of person who took the blame on himself. He didn’t place it on others. That wasn’t the man he was.

“You have to learn to let some things go, Gideon. Learn to forgive yourself,” she said and patted the bed for him to join her. “If not for you, then for me, for your mate. I’m not a perfect person, either. I have ghosts and scars that cut deep. But with you… God, with you I feel complete. I feel awakened. I feel…” She blinked watery blue eyes at him. “More. I feel like I’m more than I’ve ever been.”

“I feel so unworthy of you,” he said as he crossed to sit in front of her.

She smiled softly, leaning in to cup his face and kiss him tenderly. “I feel the same way toward you,” she confessed. “So maybe together we can be worthy of each other.”

“I’m going to have to leave,” he said. “I need to search for Thomas.”

“So, I go with you,” she countered. “Or you come to Oklahoma just long enough for everyone to get settled, and we take a few others with us.”