On Jason's Watch [Paladin Protection Agency 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) (14 page)

“Maybe. I’m not making any promises.”

Sin chuckled. “Oh, you will. Or I bet Jazz kicks your ass. I heard about the demonstration she put on yesterday in the training room. That is one tough little lady.”

“She is, but even with all those skills, she’s been living in fear. Can you imagine living your life terrified of what you could do to anyone if you let yourself lose control, even for a second? She’s never even been flying before, Sin. She’s been hiding away from the world in case she slipped and hurt someone.”

“Today was her first time flying? God, if I’d have known that, I’d have made sure she had a real pilot at the controls.”

“Very funny. You know I’m the best we’ve got.” Jase paused just outside the ops room door, his voice dropping slightly so they wouldn’t be overheard. “When this is over, I want to take her out and show her the world. I’m going to need to cash in some vacation time.”

Sin just nodded. “You got it.”

Jase opened the door and gestured for Sin to head in first. “So, what exactly is the plan for tonight? We do have a plan, right?”

“No, we’d figure we’d just wing it.” Sarcasm dripped from Sin’s every word, and several members of Division S looked up from their tasks to laugh.

“Nice of you to join us. How’d your date go?” Val asked with a snicker as she passed by, giving Jase a playful hip-bump in the process.

“Jealous?” he asked, knowing full well there was nothing but friendship between himself and Val.

“Not in the slightest. You’re like the annoying older brother I never wanted,” she shot back with a grin that faded with her next words. “Remington wants me to work with your girl. I hear she kicked some serious ass yesterday and our benevolent overlord is far from happy about it. I tried to point out she’s got some supernatural abilities on her side, but he didn’t much care. I don’t think he liked watching his people get beat up by a client.”

“They’re in the gym right now. Michelle stole her away from me for a training session with Tara and a few of the others.”

“Then I’m off to join them. Hopefully they haven’t finished getting all the juicy gossip out of her before I get there.”

“Oh god.” He groaned at the thought of his coworkers hearing about his love life.

“Welcome to my pain.” Sin was laughing as he slapped a hand down on Jase’s shoulder as they both watched Val exit the room. “Now, did you want to hear about our plans or not?”

* * * *

They had waited for a whole ten minutes before the questions had started. Where had Jase taken her for dinner? Did he behave himself? How had she survived his driving? Jazz had answered most of the questions with good humor and deflected the ones that felt too personal. There were only a handful of them in the training room, all women. It felt a bit like a hen party in the making, if hen parties had fewer cocktails and more sparring matches.

She was helping Michelle with her stance when the other woman spoke, softly enough no one else could hear her, “Will you see him again when this is all over?”

She answered without even considering it. “I hope so.”

“Good.” Michelle flashed an approving smile. “He needs someone to take him in hand.”

“That’s an understatement.”

Tara glanced over at them as they both burst into a fit of giggles that lasted until both of them were short of breath. As they managed to get themselves back under control, Tara crossed the mats and stopped just in front of them, a question in her hazel eyes.

“May I read you, Jazz?”

“Uh, yes, I guess you could.” She wasn’t sure what she’d just agreed to, but suddenly the other women went quiet.

Tara took her hand and held it lightly as she drew in a slow breath. Her eyes fluttered closed, and a gentle, steady pressure enclosed Jazz’s head. Her dark half stirred at the sensation, and she rushed to mentally soothe the creature. The full moon was coming, and the wolf was close to the surface.

“It’s all right.”
Tara’s voice was in her head, and she felt the woman exude a sense of calm that washed over her. The wolf grumbled once before fading into the background of her awareness. The strange pressure receded, and Tara’s eyes slowly opened. She had a look of awe on her face.

“Thank you. I’ve never touched a mind quite like yours before.”

“What did you do to the wolf?” Jazz wanted to know how she’d soothed it so easily.

“I just calmed you down a bit, that’s all.” Tara tipped her head to one side, and her eyes widened in understanding. “You think of it as its own separate entity?”

“Of course I do. That’s what it is. What I am. Two minds, one body.” She forgot they had an audience as she struggled to explain the nature of her affliction.

“Now I understand. I could sense the duality, but I didn’t realize what it meant.” Tara squeezed her hand and then let it go. “You’re wrong, though. You’re fighting yourself more than the wolf. It’s part of who you are.”

“That’s what Jase said, too. Sort of.”

“Then Jase is smarter than we gave him credit for.” Michelle’s voice was full of wry humor.

“It can’t be true, though. I know there’s a monster inside me. I can feel it!” Jazz insisted. Her hands were shaking, and she glanced around at the concerned faces standing near her. “That thing is the one that hurts people, not me.”

“I didn’t feel anything like that. It felt more like you were torn in two, fighting yourself.”

“I know how that is,” Val chimed in. “Good girls are not supposed to beat up the boys. They’re supposed to cook for them and keep their house clean. At least that’s what my parents kept telling me. I was always conflicted between what my family wanted and what I wanted for myself. “

“I think that’s it.” Tara nodded to herself. “What you call your wolf is really just human nature at its most primal level. Yours is stronger than most people’s, which isn’t surprising given what you are. It’s like the werewolf taps into your instincts and primitive mind. If you stopped fighting it, I bet it would be easier to control.”

“I—don’t—hurt—people.” She stressed each word carefully. “The wolf is the dangerous one, not me.”

“Says the woman who has earned a black belt,” Val pointed out with a lopsided grin.

“Yeah, okay. So I’m not helpless.” Her head was whirling so she sat down on the floor. “But I learned to defend myself as a human so I wouldn’t ever need to turn into the monster. And the mental discipline helps me with my focus. It’s hard to even consider the idea, that
thing
and I are one and the same. Two days ago, my world was nice and simple. Me good, wolf bad.” She sighed and scrubbed a hand over her face. “If you’re right, and I’m not saying you are, what do I do about it?”

Val chimed in, “Well, for starters, we could rename the monster something like Fluffy. That should pull some of its teeth.” The room filled with soft guffaws, and she realized that none of them really understood.

“I think maybe you all need to see something.” She got to her feet and nodded toward the door. “Does that door lock?”

Michelle arched a brow in query as she crossed the floor and snapped the lock into place. “What do we need to see?”

“I showed Jase last night because I wanted him to understand what I really am. If you’re going to be protecting me, you need to understand it, too. None of you seem to realize how serious this is. What exactly you’ll be facing out there. I’m just like the ones that are after me. We’re dangerous, terrible monsters and no nickname is going to change that.”

Jazz tore off her top before she could talk herself out of it, determined to make her point. She took in one short breath and braced herself for the pain as she dropped the shields that kept the creature caged inside her. She channeled her focus into the right form, willing the wolf to appear and not the hybrid. The change came on fast, faster than she could remember any voluntary transformation ever happening. Despite the speed, the pain was intense. Liquid fire coursed through her as her body tore itself apart and reformed as something else. Beyond her own soft sounds of pain, she heard the gasps of the others, but her newly formed nose could not scent a trace of fear.
Why aren’t they afraid of me? They should be.

As the riptide of pain receded, she got to her feet and shook herself, working out the last kinks in her radically altered body. Something bound her back legs, and she realized she hadn’t taken the time to strip completely. She swung her head around to bite at the waistband and heard Val laughing.

“Hey, Fluffy, need a hand?” Val crouched down beside her and started working at her somewhat mangled wardrobe. The others joined in, and soon she was free of the last of her clothing, standing there waiting for one of them to react as she had expected.

“So, can you talk?” Michelle asked.

Jazz shook her head and growled slightly.

“I guess not.”

Hands stroked down her flank, and she turned to stare at Tara, who just smiled back at her. “You have the softest fur. I couldn’t resist.”

Jazz uttered another rumbling growl and chuffed at Tara. This wasn’t the reaction she had expected. They had to understand she was a dangerous monster and not something to be petted.

“So what did Jase do when you wolfed out on him?” Val asked and then groaned. “Right, you can’t answer me. Well, that’s something to remember tonight. The guys hunting you won’t be able to communicate with each other when they’re not in human form.”

Tara’s voice sounded inside her mind, startling her.
“Can you hear me when you’re like this? I can send, but not receive. So if you can hear me, bark once.”

Jazz yipped once, and Tara beamed.

“Cool.”

This wasn’t going the way it was supposed to. She snarled with frustration and was met with nothing but smiles and laughter.

“Give it up already. We’re not going to run screaming, Jazz. We know it’s still you in there.” Michelle’s comment struck a chord, and Jazz realized they really were accepting her, fur, fangs, and all. She sighed heavily, drawing another round of laughter from them all.

“So, while we’ve got you in this form, why don’t you show us what we might be facing tonight?” Val stood up and walked over to another set of mats. “C’mon, girl, show me what you’ve got.”

Yes!
This was something she could do. A way she could help them. Jazz threw herself at Val without warning, using all her speed. She knew she’d be nothing but a blur to anyone watching. She could show them the dangers, help them prepare. If they were going to fight monsters for her, at least they’d understand what the monsters were capable of.

She hit Val square in the chest with her forelegs, her weight and momentum sending them both to the mat, Val pinned squarely beneath her.

“Holy shit.” Tara breathed the curse softly as the others stared and Val tried to suck some air back into her newly emptied lungs.

Jazz opened her jaws and gently lay her teeth on either side of Val’s throat in a pointed gesture that none of them missed. Then she stepped off Val and laid a paw on the woman’s arm and whined, the closest she could come to an apology while in this form.

“Someone make a note,” Val wheezed and sat up with a rueful grin for Jazz. “Anyone working Jazz’s protection detail wears body armor.”

“Are they all that fast?” someone asked.

It was Michelle who answered, “According to Jazz, the others are faster, and stronger, too.”

“Then is going to be fun.” Val got to her feet and looked at Jazz. “What else you got, Fluffy?”

They were still at it when a heavy knock at the door finally reminded them they’d locked themselves in.

“They’re probably dying to know what we’re up to in here,” Michelle quipped as she unlocked the door and opened it just enough to peek out.

“Why’s the door locked?” Jase’s voice was strained, and Jazz felt a pang of guilt.
How long had they been sparring?

“Because the entire staff didn’t need to see us practicing werewolf maneuvers, Jase.”

“What!” His voice pitched to a roar, and he pushed the door out of her hands and stormed past her.

“Jasmine Masters, what the
hell
do you think you’re doing?”

“Oh wow, he’s got it bad,” Tara whispered to Val, and they both snickered.