Diaries of an Urban Panther (33 page)

Chaz kissed me deeply. He lifted out of our embrace to look down at me, those golden eyes flashing. “Tell me again this isn’t real.”

With a grace I’d never experienced before, Chaz slid within me quickly, fully. Once joined, my hips rocked up to meet his, to pull him to me deeper. We stayed frozen together as if taking a moment to match our heartbeats, to swim in the pulsing need that swirled around and through us.

When he did move again, he tried to take his time, be in control as he slid away, but he could not. Chaz thrust within sharply, making both of us gasp. The cat still had her needs and so did I.

I ran kisses along his strong jaw and suckled at his ear. He moaned softly and his fingers on my shoulder dug in with pleasure, his face buried into the crook of my neck. Playfully, I grazed the fleshy lobe with my teeth and felt him grip me tighter.

It was no longer the cat orchestrating us; this was me finally taking something that I wanted. And I had wanted him like this from the first time he brought me coffee.

One raw thrust forced my back to arch, breaking our kiss. I dug my nails into his back. I bit my lower lips as I spun in the sensation of his hands caressing my side, my breast, before curling his hand around my hip to lift me close to him.

I had never been the type to come uncoaxed before, always the stubborn one. But the way Chaz thrust into me was just hard enough to compress that brilliant rose that burst at the slightest provocation. I began to tighten even more around him, feel the heat rising from my inside to sear his skin.

Chaz let out a thick moan as I whispered his name, the breath and words catching deep within my throat.

I spasmed beneath him, crying out softly as the orgasm hit me like bursting through a brick wall. I wrapped my legs around his waist and let him plunge into me as the waves of pleasure flooded my body, wracked my senses and possessed my muscles, making places tighten and surge I hadn’t thought had the ability. The spell woven around us had burst as well, evaporated in the pent-up heat now released between us.

Amidst all this, I could feel him, more than just his taut moist body against mine, more than his soft lips as they kissed my throat, my neck; I could feel his power glowing white hot in his chest. Its warmth surrounded me as I closed my eyes and bathed in the brilliance of his raw power.

Just as I was coming off my high, toes just beginning to uncurl, Chaz’s back hardened and I prepared myself as he rammed into me, harder than before, wildly uncontrolled as his body took over and he came. I could feel everything in my sensitized state, every spasm, every inch, every ounce of shuttered breath that escaped his lips onto my neck. It was like a second orgasm, my body exploding again with his.

Chaz’s coaster of ecstasy slowed, then stopped. He stayed inside me as he kissed up my neck, my ear, and found my still hungry, always hungry, mouth.

I had to be smiling a Cheshire smile. My head spun like a glass of champagne on an empty stomach. I didn’t want him to go as he slid away and rolled on the bed beside me. He laid his head down on the arm still around my shoulders and wrapped the other around my waist.

His eyes were soft, his dark lashes even darker in the moonlight that now streamed through my window. He looked over at me with flushed lips and silence.

I couldn’t bear to think, couldn’t bear to speak. But just let him cover the two of us with the edge of my lavender comforter and allowed him to pull me close to his moist frame. He kissed my ear one last time before sleep claimed us both.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A
s I slept, dreams came, blinding and bloody. Jessa’s reflection in a mirror. Blood on cement. Chaz crouched in the darkness. The sinister glint of a cat-like eye.

Even in my dreams, Jessa reached out to me scared and in pain. Overcome with roses and raindrops, I woke up and flew to a sitting poison. My hand slapped against bare flesh.

“Vi?”

“Jessa,” I whispered as I looked down at Chaz, my hand leaving a red mark on his flawless chest. “I had a dream.”

In that instant, he went from satisfied male model to hardened Guardian. It was a sight that drop-kicked my heart into my stomach. Chaz sat up and turned towards me.

“Like a prophecy?”

I bit my lower lip as I remembered everything from last night. Everything that the cat had called for, every line of his body and every curl of his hand around my hip. Everything that she needed and I wanted.

The mojo that possessed us was gone. My borders were back; my thoughts were my own. My heart, not so much anymore.

Chaz’s eyes flicked from my lips to my eyes to my ears, back to my lips. Just when I thought he was going to kiss me again, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and reached for his jeans on the floor. A clear set of nails marred his broad shoulders and though not bleeding, the marks were still very red.

Wow, go me.

He pulled on his pants and only allowed me the briefest of glimpses as he stood and slipped them up.

“Chaz?”

“We have to get Jessa.”

I pulled the sheet up to cover my chest. This was suddenly getting very déjà vu-ish.

There was a crash and the sound of breaking glass. I grabbed my sheet and flew down the stairs. Chaz was on my heels. I stopped at the bottom stair and he ran into my bare back. Awash in his scent, I had to force myself to focus on the possible disaster ahead and not the one behind me.

Nothing was out of place. The front door was still closed; no windows were busted. There was the faint smell of coffee from a two-day-old pot in the kitchen.

I slowly moved towards the back of the house as Chaz moved for the front door. On my way, a stab of pain ran up my foot. “Ow,” I shrieked as I brought the foot up and hopped around to find what had stabbed me.

“What?” Chaz was at my side with super speed.

A sliver of silver was embedded in the ball of my foot. Where would that . . .

I looked up to the mirror, the mirror that linked Jessa’s house to my house. It wasn’t just cracked like Kurt said it would be. It was busted out, the pieces spread in a wide arch on the dining room floor.

“Crap,” I whispered and ran up the stairs, forgetting the sheet in the dining room.

I threw on what I could find and pulled my hair up in a ponytail. Chaz appeared in the doorway.

“I’m going to Jessa’s.”

“I’ll drive.”

“No, you’re going to hunt down Spencer. He’s been talking to a demon through a mirror. We need to destroy the mirror.” Hopping around, I pulled on my Chuck Taylors.

I spun around and headed back for the door. I descended the stairs at a speed that Chaz even had a hard time keeping up with. I snatched my keys from the bowl in the foyer and opened the front door.

“Violet,” he snapped.

My entire body flinched as I turned to face him. He’d only gotten his shirt on, not buttoned yet and his golden eyes met mine. Places tightened in ways I didn’t ever want to admit as he stared me down. My skin flushed as I licked my lips. More memories came flooding back of his lips around my throat, his hands clenched in mine.

“This is it, Chaz. This is D day. I can feel it. This is what I was made for.” I took a step forward and rested my hand on his bare chest. His heart pounded wildly beneath my long fingers. “This is what my mother died for, so that whatever is supposed to happen today doesn’t.”

I watched as goose bumps covered his strong chest. His dark lashes fluttered closed for a moment.

“Find Spencer and you’ll find the mirror,” I repeated.

I gave him a long slow kiss and then I was the one who left. This was just great. Save the world, lose the boy,

“J
essa.” I called out into Jessa’s apartment but nothing responded, just the echo of my voice back to me. She hadn’t answered her home phone the seventeen times I called her on the way over and she hadn’t answered her cell the fourteen times I had tried that number.

The door had been locked, but looking around, something was wrong. Things were slightly out of place. My eyes jumped to her matching mirror. It was in pieces on the floor.

I sniffed. And smelled dog. “That’s not . . .”

And I would have finished the sentence if it wasn’t for the blunt force trauma to the back of the head. I was really glad Jessa had sprung for the softest carpet on the market because my face hit the ground really hard.

Chapter Thirty

B
lacked out and not naked. A personal best. I pushed myself off the beige carpet and looked around at Jessa’s dark apartment. It was deep into the night already. I had been out too long.

Wiping dried blood from the already healed wound on the back of my head, I looked around. They had trashed the place after I was out of the picture. By the wound on the back of my head, these guys were a little heavy handed, but Jessa was no fragile girl. I stretched my neck from side to side. Blood had stiffened my T-shirt and run down my back, pooled in my clavicle.

Part of me panicked. But the other part, the furrier part of me, immediately knew what to do. The truth electrified my skin. This was it. There was no running from the prophecy, there was only standing up to it and kicking its ass.

I took off my jacket and walked back to the guest bedroom. I kicked off my shoes and went directly to the chest of drawers there. I pulled the entire drawer out of the dresser and threw it on the bed.

I had never wanted to have to use the clothes Jessa had charmed to shift with me, to prevent the ever-embarrassing nakedness that happened every time I shifted. I opened the pink tissue–papered parcel and held out the clothes before me. Bebe? Seriously? She had charmed a track suit from Bebe to shift with me? I rolled my eyes. Save the world one yard of stretchy black velour at a time.

I slid into the suit easily. It felt like a second skin, which is what it was supposed to be, a second skin that would be infected by the magic that surrounded me. The slow slung pants hugged all the right places, but it breathed and moved as silkily as I did. I zipped the jacket up and shook my head as I jammed my wallet and cell into the pockets. Even without her here, Jessa was making sure that I looked fabulous. Bless her pointed little head.

I strode through the apartment and headed back out to my Miata. Despite the cold weather, I pulled back the top. It was the first time since LA I’d had it down, but you can’t track someone’s scent with the roof up and you just don’t look as cool doing it.

T
he scent of Jessa’s Aveda shampoo vanished outside the warehouse. The building was fairly nondescript in the streetlights, one of many antique shops along this line of Industrial Boulevard. I had to park a block away and jump a fence to approach the side of the building. But fences were nothing after climbing around in Iris’s barn for two months.

The scene was straight out of my TV show. A dark night with no stars, shadows jumping out of every corner, and the slight scraping of a bare tree against a brick wall somewhere. And I was just about to enter the lion’s den—well, technically the panther’s lair.

My cell phone began to vibrate in my jacket pocket. I plastered myself against the nearest wall as I flipped open the little black thing. I gulped when I saw the picture appear on the little screen.

He didn’t wait for a greeting. “Violet. He’s got Jessa.”

But I heard his words on the wind more than from the phone. I snapped it closed and followed the voice.

“Vi, Vi. Damn it, Violet,” he cursed as I rounded a corner.

He was crouching behind a tower of palates, swearing at his cell phone.

“How’d you find her?” I hissed as I came up behind him.

Chaz jumped and spun around quickly. “Why in the hell haven’t you been answering your phone?”

My body reacted to seeing his face again, warming and tightening, and my panther rolled in my chest. I turned quickly and flashed him the back of my neck that was still encrusted with blood. “I don’t know why, but they didn’t take me. Woke up about thirty minutes ago.”

Chaz’s furrow eased. “You okay?”

“Of course I am.”

He just looked me up and looked me down, speechless. Maybe Bebe should be my new best friend. “Yeah, I know.” I had to smile. “Tell me about the building, about the guys inside.”

Chaz gulped, smacking his lips as if his mouth had run dry.

“Um,” he whispered. “There’s six guys and Jessa. They’ve got her tied to a chair in the center of the room next to the mirror. I thought you said this was happening on the darkest night. We still have three days.”

“Maybe Cristina got her mojo crossed. But sure looks like they’re going to try to open a gateway to Neveranth.”

I looked around to see how high the windows were and where the entrance was. There weren’t any security cameras, not close enough for the neighbors to hear anything. Scenarios ran though my brain, some worked, some were crazy. Jumping in one of the windows was a little out of the question but there seemed to be only one door on the street side of the building and a loading dock in the back with us. And what the hell did I know about ambushes?

“You know this is just to get you here, with him?”

“No shit.”

“Violet,” he chided.

“I think I’m allowed to be a little jumpy. I’m the only one who can stop this.”

His entire body tensed as he quickly turned to focus on the building before us. I watched as his jaw muscles rippled and his fists clenched and then released at his sides.

“That’s not a bad idea,” I whispered.

“What? Frustrate them to death?” he grumbled.

My brain raced through plot lines. It just might work. Granted, I wasn’t a great actress but my panther could do most of the talking. And I already knew what the bad guy wanted, as much as I couldn’t believe it.

“He wants me, like
wants
me. What if I walked in there looking to play?”

“You can’t,” he protested. “It’s like walking into a lion’s den.”

I tried not to smile. He looked slightly confused until he got the joke too and chuckled.

I smiled. Somewhere in the sliver of moonlight, I looked at Chaz and finally knew what I wanted.

It only hardened my resolve that I was going to do whatever it took to keep that bastard from getting what he wanted because he was keeping me from getting what I wanted.

“I’ll get in there and then you can get Jessa out when they are distracted.”

“How are you going to distract them?”

I unzipped the front of my track suit and slid the jacket off. His pulse raced and his body warmed as I pulled off my tank top. He licked his lips and tried not to stare. “Whatcha thinking about right now?”

He just gulped and tried to keep his eyes up and on mine.

“Exactly. I’m hoping a plate of flattery and a side order of sex and he won’t pay attention to you sneaking Jessa out.” I slid the jacket back on but only zipped it up to my bra line. The pale lights from the surrounding street lamps made the girls look bigger and frankly they were a little perkier than usual thanks to the chilly night.

Chaz looked at me like he was looking at a stranger. He stuck his hand out between us. “I’m Chaz Garrett, and who the hell are you?”

“Funny,” I snarled as I adjusted the jacket a bit more. It was the dead of December and we were facing down what the forecasters were saying was going to be the coldest winter in years. And I was wearing a thin velour suit. No Kevlar, no combat gear. Just me.

I took in a deep breath of the cool night air and slipped my keys and cell in his jacket pockets. In this very close proximity, I had to force the blush out of my cheeks as I matched his hazel gaze. Had to force myself not to take one long, possibly last breath of him to remember.

“This is a crap plan.” His hand caught mine as I pulled my hands back to my sides. “You can’t sacrifice yourself,” he whispered as his forefinger began to caress my knuckles.

I could feel my heart race in my throat, taste the beat of his in the hot air between us. In that moment, I could have fallen into his arms and let him take the lead, let him be the big hero. But it was sentimentalities like this I couldn’t have romping around in my brain if I was going to pull this off. I needed calm, I needed focus, and Chaz did neither of those for me.

Slipping my hand from his, I rocked back on my heels to take in a deep cool, un-Chaz-filled breath and explained what he needed to do. “Got a small knife?”

He quickly pulled a folding knife out of his jean pocket.

“I’m going to shift. When I do, hand me that,” I said glancing down at the little knife in his palm, still frozen between us. “Give me about three minutes to get their attention and then you focus on getting Jessa out of there. That’s your objective.”

I tugged at the edge of my jacket and pushed the sleeves up a little. Energy danced across my skin; nervous, anxious energy that I couldn’t control, didn’t want to control. I ripped out my ponytail holder and pulled my hair back again, catching some of the wispies that had escaped in the cool breeze.

“Violet, I . . .” Chaz tried to say but I didn’t let him. I didn’t need a confession right now.

“I’m going to distract them.” I slipped off my shoes and set them on a wooden stack of pallets. “Take out the mirror if you can. I don’t know how hairy it’s going to get in there.”

I took another step away from him and his warmth faded quickly from my skin.

“Can you do it?” his voice wavered. “Can you shift and stay Violet?”

“Jessa’s my best friend, Chaz. I’ll do what I need to do. Besides, this is bigger than just me, remember?”

He looked away, down the long dark street. The silence between us was worse than anything those men in there could do to me.

And I
was
pretty sure I could do this. If not, I could rely on the cat to get the job done. She hated Spencer as much as I did. It was all about timing. All I needed was five minutes to distract them. I had faith in Chaz to get job done.

I turned and stared at the path to the front door. “And if all else fails, you know what a well-placed silver slug can do.”

“Now who’s starting to talk like who?” he remarked.

I fought a smile. Look who became Action girl after all. But I didn’t let him see my amusement. Didn’t let him know that I was doing this for him. For Iris. For Devin. For everyone who wouldn’t have a chance against whatever beastie Spencer could pull from that mirror.

Rolling my shoulders, I took in a breath and felt for the static-like power in everything around me. I reached out and scooped it all to me, gathered the power that allowed me to change form, like gathering in a blanket to your chest.

“Ready?” I said as I looked over at him.

He was already loading his gun, checking the bullets in the chamber. “Always.”

I rolled my eyes.
God, that was cheesy
.

I closed my eyes and found the center of power within me and slid down into the inky blackness.

When I opened them again, my vantage point has shifted. I turned my head to see the gun in Chaz’s hand. I was me at panther height. I looked down at the large strong paws, the blue-black fur. I was me. As a Cat. No more than just a cat, a panther, a metaphysical beast only told of in legend.

I rock.

I sauntered in the front door of the warehouse and immediately saw the men Chaz described. Lit by the few electric lamps in the antique shop, they really were in a circle around the girl. The men smelled like stale creek water and chewed pig hoof. Good ole mongrels. Knew I hadn’t seen the last of them.

I recognized Spencer even in the dim lights; his blonde hair and his tailored clothes a striking contrast to the dingy wardrobe of the mongrels who stood patiently awaiting orders. Spencer was the target, the one who called out to me above all the others—even Jessa, who I tried desperately not to look at.

Jessa was bleeding and her borders were gone. I felt her roses and raindrops prickle across my skin. She sat limp in a high back chair. Her forearm was cut from elbow to wrist and bleeding freely into a silver basin on the floor by the chair.

There was one surprise that I didn’t expect. Cristina the psychic was standing next to Spencer with a thick black volume open in her petite hands. Her blood red skirt swished the floor as she turned around to greet the newcomer. Her eyes focused and then jumped wide with fear. Anger chilled my skin and I snarled at her. That bitch.

“Well, who’s this?” Spencer questioned, relaxed as I padded into their circle.

Two of the men immediately pulled guns and I could smell the gun powder on their greasy hands. They had pulled the trigger once already this evening and their energy danced around then like they were willing to do it again.

“I think the little kitty wants to play,” Spencer laughed, reaching out his hand to me.

I slinked under his long fingers and he ran his hand gingerly down my back. I slithered in and out of his legs for a moment and stopped next to him, leaning in against his leg.

“Spencer, no,” Christina warned as she put her hand on his arm.

Spencer pushed her hand away with a snarl. Cristina squeezed the book against her chest and backed away.

“Aren’t you beautiful,” he whispered as he ran his fingers down my head, around my ears and neck. It felt natural, him touching me like this, the strength of his panther interacting with mine.

“Why is she here?” one of the thugs growled.