Jared (32 page)

“Vampires can’t get pregnant.”

“So we’re told.”

“Jared!” Allie came running—well, waddling—up with her
normal enthusiasm.

Her stomach reached him first. Jared steadied her with
his hands on her arms. “Careful of my nephew there, Allie.”

She waved away his concern. “The baby is fine. And
it’s going to be a niece.”

He leaned down so she could hug him, mentally checking
her energy to make sure the small collision hadn’t upset anything. Before he’d
completed his inventory, Allie was out of his arms and ducking around him.

“And who is this?”

“My wife.”

“Your wife?” She spun back and gave him another quick
hug before zeroing in on Raisa again. “I’m so happy for you.”

He heard a soft gasp and was in time to see Raisa’s
shock as Allie collided with her in an enthusiastic hug. She wasn’t looking at
Allie though. Her attention was on Caleb, tracking his progress as if tracking
the progress of a stalking cougar.

“At last, a bit more estrogen to balance out the
overload of testosterone around here.” Allie hugged her again.

Caleb came up beside him. “Think your wife is going to
survive the greeting?”

Jared chuckled. “Raisa will survive, but you might
want to get in there and save your son from a pancake head.”

Caleb grinned. “Allie insists a little jostling isn’t
going to hurt him.”

“The same way she insists it’s going to be a girl?”

Even the oldest vampire wouldn’t remember a vampire
girl being born to a couple.

“Pretty much.” Caleb studied him, his green eyes
serious. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Just a few scuffles, but nothing to write home
about.” Jared glanced over at the women. Allie was talking up a storm. Raisa
was just standing there with that peculiar expression on her face.

“Was Jace able to pick up the slack?”

“Yeah, but he just called in. It was a waste of time.”

“The meeting didn’t happen?”

“No. It looks like we were spoon-fed a bit of
deception.”

“Damn.” Jut what they needed. Another Sanctuary
mystery. “Where’s Jace now?”

“He’s on his way back. He should be in tomorrow or the
next night.”

“Good.”

Caleb glanced over at Raisa. “About the only thing
that came out of this whole trip is the woman you found.”

There was a note to Caleb’s voice that Jared didn’t
like. A frown on his face that boded ill.

“You might as well spit out whatever’s bothering you.”

Instead, Caleb tilted his head to the side and studied
Raisa with unnerving intensity. “Introduce me to your woman.”

The hairs prickled on the back of Jared’s neck. He
probed Caleb’s mind. It was closed, an event unusual enough to cause concern.
“Why?”

“Just do it.”

Jared stepped into Caleb’s field of vision. “Why?”

“I’m just interested in making the acquaintance of the
woman who’s managed to evade both Sanctuary and Renegade patrols this last
year.”

The hell that was it. There was something else going
on. The whole time he had been talking, Caleb hadn’t taken his eyes off Raisa.
And the whole time he’d been staring at Raisa, she’d been staring right back at
him, eyes wide, lip between her teeth, anxiety coming off her in waves.

“Come here, Rai,” Jared ordered.

She didn’t move, just stared at Caleb like he was the
Pied Piper from the storybooks. A strange energy arced between the two of them.
Jared checked. Caleb didn’t have her enthralled.

“What in hell are you doing?”

“I’m not doing a damn thing.”

“The hell you’re not.”

“Uh-huh.” Caleb held out his hand. “Allie?”

“What?”

“Come here.”

“I’m busy.”

Caleb shook his head, stepped around Jared, and took
Allie by the arm.

She looked up at him in confusion. “What are you
doing?”

Caleb didn’t give her any choice, just tugged her
three steps away. “I don’t think our guest is what you think she is.”

“Well, of course not. No one is. That’s part of the
experience of getting to know someone. Finding out who they are.”

Raisa reached out, her hand hovering between them a
split second before it dropped to her side.

Caleb shoved Allie behind him. “Derek?”

The big were came up immediately. “Take Allie inside.”

Allie dug in her heels. “Get macho on me, Derek, and
you’re going to be swallowing your balls.”

Derek smiled at the warning but didn’t haul Allie
away, more than likely for fear of hurting the baby than anything else. As
leader of the McClarens, he didn’t fear much, but he did have a were’s respect
for a pregnant woman.

“Now is not the time to get stubborn, Allie,” Caleb
advised, without looking at his wife. All his energy seemed to be projected at
Raisa.

Allie folded her arms across her chest above the mound
of her belly. “Too late. I passed stubborn three minutes ago.”

Jared moved to Raisa’s side. This close he could feel
her trembling. “What in hell are you doing, Caleb?”

“Do you know who this is, Jared?”

He put his arm around Raisa, absorbing the fine
trembling that shook her from head to toe. “My wife?”

Raisa shook her head and stepped to the side. Away
from his protection. Was she denying being his wife or denying whatever she was
afraid Caleb was going to say?

“Oh, she’s more than that. Aren’t you, Raisa?”

At that point Jared didn’t really damn well care.
“Back the hell off, Caleb.”

Caleb tipped his hat down, shifting right along with
Raisa, keeping himself in front of her, keeping his gaze locked with hers.
“No.”

A ripple of unease went through the onlookers.

Derek stepped between Allie and Caleb, taking her arm.
“You’d better come with me.”

“Not until I know what’s going on.”

“Caleb isn’t a man to overreact. If he feels Raisa’s a
threat, you need to trust him.”

“Do you think Raisa’s a threat?” Jared asked.

“What should I tell him, Raisa?” Caleb asked.

Around them, other weres stepped in, tightening the
circle. Jared sent out a wave of power, driving them back one step. He reached
for Raisa. She wasn’t there. He looked over his shoulder. She’d taken another
step back. Her anguished gaze met his. She shook her head helplessly, those
beautiful brown eyes awash in tears. “Caleb, if one of her fucking tears falls,
I’m going to rip you a new asshole.”

No one had a right to make his sunbeam cry.

“Don’t you find it strange, Jared, that on the way to
a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to end this civil war, you come upon an
unclaimed woman?”

“No.”

He heard Raisa take another step back. “Come here,
Raisa.”

He didn’t know what was going on with Caleb, but he
wanted Raisa near enough to protect, if necessary. Raisa didn’t obey any better
than Allie had.

“And don’t you find it interesting,” Caleb continued
in that same speculative tone, underlain with menace, “that this same woman
just happens to be your mate, guaranteeing you’d bring her here at a time when
we’re keeping the biggest secret we’ve ever had?”

“Caleb, that’s just ridiculous!” Allie exclaimed, from
where Derek had placed her. “Raisa’s aura is as pure as it gets.”

Jared backed toward Raisa. The folded-up picture of
Raisa in his pocket crinkled a quiet rasp of suspicion. Inside, a trickle of
unease stirred. He met Caleb’s gaze. “No.”

“I do.” Caleb cast a quick glance over his shoulder at
Allie. “No disrespect to your assessment of her aura.” He motioned to the
weres. “That being the case, she needs to be confined.”

“No.” Jared spun around and threw himself at the
closest were, blocking him with his body, shoving Raisa to the side.

Stay.

She didn’t. With one wide-eyed look of horror at the
men bearing down on her, she took off running like her feet had wings, toward
the woods on the other side of the square-set lab. Two weres sprinted in
pursuit. She looked over her shoulder, screamed, and ran harder.

The scream lingered in Jared’s mind. While he knew the
weres wouldn’t hurt her, Raisa didn’t. With a thrust of his elbow, Jared
knocked aside the next were that came at him. He threw up his hands and didn’t
reengage. In wolf culture one man did not come between another and his mate.
Bloodlust rose as Rai’s terror exploded out toward him in a panicked prayer.

Oh God! Don’t let them get me. Don’t let them get me.

The muscles in his face ached as he morphed. Caleb
came into his field of vision. Fangs extended, Jared snarled at him, “Don’t.”

It was all the warning that he wasn’t in control, that
he was capable of.

Raisa disappeared behind the lab, the two weres, now
in wolf form, loped right behind. They’d catch her soon. The thought of them
bringing her down, pinning her, scaring her, hurting her, drove reason from his
mind. He reached for her and ran into a wall. She’d closed off her mind.

“Stop it.” Allie hollered. Out of the corner of his
eye he could see her straining against Derek’s hold, one hand on her stomach,
the other swinging at the blonde man. Caleb didn’t blink. “Think on it, Jared.
How convenient has it been? How sudden?”

The men circled, waiting for an order. “Mating can’t
be faked.”

“The Sanctuary has managed to fake a hell of a lot
more complex things than need.”

“Bullshit.” He knew what he felt for Raisa.

Do you?

Fuck. How had Caleb managed to get past his guard?

Because it’s weaker came the immediate response.

Hell!

A scream carried across the yard. It ended abruptly.
The energy Jared threw out whiplashed back so fast it made his head spin,
blocked way before it reached its destination. The questions was—by whom?

Allie’s frustrated scream came hot on the heels of
Raisa’s. Derek’s curse echoed in his ears. Caleb grabbed his arm, yanking him
back. Spinning with the move, Jared threw a punch. Blood sprayed from Caleb’s
nose as the blow landed. Jared snarled. “She thinks they’re going to kill her, damn
you.”

Caleb stumbled back and cursed, but he didn’t let go,
just hung on, letting his blood soak the bond between them, reminding him of
the promises they had made each other.

“She’s a threat.”

“She’s my wife.” And she needed him. Instinct taking a
tighter hold, obliterating reason, he wrenched his arm free. He had to get to
Raisa. Allie took a step forward, nothing more to him in that moment than a
potential threat. He bared his fangs and snarled. She gasped as he lunged.
Through the red haze of his rage he felt the tendril of energy coming off her.
Soft, sweet, gentle. Compassionate. No threat.

Figures moved in his periphery, circling him. He spun
around, ready.

“No. Let him go.”

Caleb’s voice. Caleb’s order. Jared snarled at him.
Caleb was the reason Raisa thought she was running for her life. The men fell
back. And then there was nothing between him and the glowing path of Raisa’s
energy.

Hold on, sunbeam.

The lack of response made him howl inside as he raced
after her. He’d kill them. Rip their throats out and feed them alive to the
Sanctuary carrion if one hair on her head was disturbed. Jared rounded the edge
of the lab. A faint pulse of Raisa’s energy reached him. Around her flowed the
energy of two weres and a vampire. Only the vampire’s energy was strong and
vibrating with tension.

Slade. And he was wrapped around Raisa.

With a roar Jared sprang the last few feet, clearing
the shed before stopping dead. The two weres who had been chasing Raisa were on
the ground, in human form now, rubbing their jaws, looking at Raisa, frowns on
their faces. At the edge of the woods beside them, Slade knelt with Raisa in
his arms, the skeletal array of winter-kill branches a sparse backdrop for the
violence strewn about him. Dirt spattered his lab coat and his features were
still morphed with vampire rage.

Slade looked up at Jared as he approached, his fingers
resting against the side of Raisa’s head.

“Yours?” Slade asked.

“Yes.” Completely. Forever. Until hell froze over and
he gave up his immortal soul to the higher power who had created it. Jared took
Raisa’s slight weight against him. Her head lolled against his arm.

“She panicked when those two got close, slipped, and
hit her head,” Slade explained, getting to his feet.

Jared looked at the fallen weres and then at Slade.
Sometimes he forgot how much hard-fisted outlaw still lived in the man beneath
that lab coat.

“Thank you.”