"I want the truth now," Sara said, looking first at her brother, then her mother. "From both of you."
After leaving the Paleo to the Impures to dismantle brick by brick, the entire family had flashed back to the Romans' compound. But only the three who had unfinished business remained outside to watch the sunrise.
Celestine didn't ask what information Sara did have. She just started from the beginning. "Your father and I met after I ran from my credenti and after I met the Romans." She smiled to herself as the memories made pictures in her mind. "He was a passionate male, an Impure bent on defeating the Order and their rule. Our relationship was taboo, as you know, but we hardly cared. We were very much in love. We ran away together and built a life, lived as humans. Jeremy worked in secret to bring about the uprising." She focused on Sara and Gray. "And then you two came along, and we had to make sure you weren't detected by the Order."
"How did you do that?" Sara asked.
"We fed you human blood."
Sara gasped.
"Everything we did was to protect you," Celestine said quickly. "You will know how that feels, Sara."
"But he was never able to see that uprising," said Gray, who had been relatively silent up until then.
"No." Celestine's shoulders drooped a little. "He was taken as Gray was today to the Paleo for castration."
"Oh God," Sara said, a sudden flash of fierceness within her blue eyes. "I pray the Order will never have this kind of power again."
"Your brother will see to it," Celestine said with a broad, proud smile. "It won't be easy, but it's a beginning-it's something."
"Tell us what happened after Dad was castrated," Gray prompted as the sun began to rise golden and shiny.
Celestine swallowed the memory. "Afterward, he returned home a changed male. He didn't want me, didn't want to be near me. It was very hard. As I said, we had started out very much in love."
As she watched her children process what she'd said, what it meant, how it brought things together in their minds, Celestine held her breath and prayed there would be no more questions, no more digging. She couldn't bear it.
"And that's it?" Sara said, looking sad and as though she missed her father.
Celestine nodded. She knew exactly what her daughter was feeling because she'd felt it too. More times than she could count.
"I'm so sorry we didn't tell you," Cellie said. "That I didn't tell you. It is the choice you make sometimes as a parent. Protection at the risk of losing trust from the ones you're protecting."
Gray's bruised and battered face studied hers for a moment, and then he leaned in and kissed her cheek.
Celestine felt as if the world had been removed from her shoulders in that moment. She'd borne the weight of her secrets for so long, and now that they were free-the brunt of them at any rate-and her children had seemed forgiving, she could finally be the mother to them that she had once been and wanted so much to be again.
And then Alexander, from wherever he stood inside his home, spoke within her mind.
"He had a painting of you, done after Sara and Gray were born. You looked as though you were in swell, Cellie. Were you? Shit, I pray not. I pray you didn't have a balas with that mad paven. If you did and I find out, I will have to tell my true mate. She will never forgive you. And perhaps neither will I."
She was veana.
She was jaguar too.
And, she mused, swimming toward him through the steam, she was his.
After a little Roman family feast of blood and seedcake, Dillon had flashed herself, her true mate, and the warriors back to the Impure credenti. It was going to be her home now. Because in her heart, the one Gray had given her-or maybe he had just helped her find the one that had been lost inside her, crushed by the weight of something so terrible-she knew that wherever he was, that's where she wanted to be.
Rock cave, Impure credenti, beneath the heated water of a hot spring-didn't matter as long as they were together.
Leaning back against one side of the bank, Gray opened his arms to her, and without hesitation, she swam into them. With her eyes locked on his and her legs wrapped around his waist, Dillon blew her veana's healing breath over his face until each bruise, each cut vanished.
"Thank you," he said, his steel-gray eyes triumphant and happy, the happiest she'd ever seen them.
"No," she said, inching herself closer. "Thank you."
A slow, easy smile touched his mouth, and he trailed one hand up her spine until he cupped her neck. Dillon shivered, every inch of her skin anxious for more. And it would come, she knew. She didn't have to beg for it or pretend it meant nothing, all to keep her sad, dusty unbeating heart protected. No. With this male she could be who she was, good or bad, veana or cat, and he would ever care for her with such tenderness, passion, and true love.
"Your head is full of thought," he said, studying her, his hand coming around to cup her face. "I wish I could hear."
She grinned playfully. "Then you'd know all my secrets."
His eyes grew suddenly serious at her words, and the scent of his regret met her nostrils. She breathed it in, trying to ease it, take it away.
But it held fast.
"D," he said, his eyes moving over her face, his mouth grim. "There's something I have to say to you, something I need to tell you. When I was inside Mondrar, in that cell with the Order veana attempting to bargain with me, telling me my mother had never been there and that you had betrayed me. There was a moment of doubt-" He shook his head, his hand dropping from her face. "Shit, this is hard."
She stopped him. "Of course there was."
His gaze lifted to hers.
"I'm surprised there was only a moment." She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself closer, her gaze clinging to his. "Ever since that horrible day when I was a young veana...I have been running-from everything, everyone, and God, especially from feeling anything remotely close to emotional connection." She gave a little smile then. "When you came along, back when we were lying across from each other in those sickbeds in the Romans' house"-she watched as he caught the memory too and smiled-"something inside me sparked to life. It scared the shit out of me, Gray. I didn't know what it was, but I sure didn't want to feel it. I guess I didn't want to want someone like that. And I did everything I could to push you away." Her throat tightened then. She tilted her head. "But you never gave up. You got mad, you got frustrated and dictatorial-you told me I was being an idiot." She laughed. "But you never gave up. On us. On me."
A deep and unshakable yearning crossed his features. "Fool in love."
"No," she said vehemently. "I was the fool. You had the love." She shook her head. "And even with all of that offered to me, I kept running away. So I get why you had a moment of doubt." She shrugged gently. "Why would you think that this last one was any different?"
"Because you loved me enough to not only tell me so, but to show me," he said simply.
Tears welled in her eyes and this time she didn't swipe them away. She wasn't a pussy for feeling. She was healed.
He leaned toward her until his mouth was an inch away from hers. "Even through your fear, you trusted me to keep you safe, your heart safe." He gave her a kiss, then found her gaze again. "Your eyes on mine the whole time, remember?"
How could she ever forget? It was the moment of her rebirth. She nodded, one renegade tear making its way down her cheek.
"So, no more running?" he asked, catching that tear with the pad of his thumb and easing it away.
She shook her head, titled her chin, and brushed her lips against his. "Not unless you're by my side."
He growled softly. "I like that. Don't know if I can keep up with the jag though."
She laughed. "Oh, you can keep up, Male. In fact, I'll let you take the lead. After all, you're so good at it. And you're going to need the practice for your new job." She shook her head. "Oh my God, Gray. You on the Order. I can't imagine it."
"I can't either," he agreed, pulling back so he could find her gaze. "That's why I'm not taking the job."
Dillon couldn't control her shock. "What?"
As the mist rose around them and the November sun played hide-and-seek in the sky, Gray explained. "I belong inside the fight, D, using my mind and my fists. My blades. And trust me when I say that there is much fight ahead. I will lead on the ground."
"Then who?"
"I think Rio will do well as Order." He started to laugh. "They'll despise it quickly and fear him in their way." Then he caught her gaze and his grin widened. "Between him and you, the Impures and the mutore will gain equality and respect slowly but steadily."
Dillon froze. "Wait, what?"
He cleared his throat. "Order Member Dillon." Then he inclined his head and whispered, "Can I kiss you?"
"No!" she shouted. "Hell no!"
"I can't kiss you?" he said with a mocking smile.
"I'm not serving on the Order!"
He pulled her in and kissed her neck. "Of course you are, baby. It utilizes your skill set. Arguing, quick thinking, bossing people around. You'll rule that table of eleven before long."
His kisses to her neck were growing hungry and her insides were heating up, but she managed to mutter a terse, "I would rather eat my own eyeballs than sit at the table with those bastards."
His lips moved to her ear. "The jaguar loves the idea."
Without thought, she started to purr. Goddamn it. It was as if the animal was ruled by him. "That's because she has the possibility of biting heads off at work."
"Exactly," he whispered, raking his fangs down her neck. "Dream job."
Her belly clenched with heat, and an ache of need spread down over her pelvic bone and into her cunt.
"So, in this scenario you've dreamed up in your head," she murmured as he gripped her backside and pressed her closer. "You go off to fight and rescue and all that shit, and I go to work all day with the red-fanged asshole committee. Then we come home..."
"And make babies."
Her eyes popped.
"All day, all night," he whispered huskily.
"Slow down, true mate of mine."
"Fine, fine. We'll start with one and see how we do." With a possessive growl, he lifted her up and placed her down on his shaft.
Dillon gasped at the delectable feeling of being filled by the male she loved more than anything. She gripped his shoulders and started to move. "Oh, shit, that's all I need. Little jaguars running around."
Gray groaned as his hands raked up her back and into her hair. "Sounds like heaven on earth. You, me, and a litter make three."
Dillon leaned in and nipped at his lower lip.
He pulled in a breath and she felt his cock pulse inside her. "You'll never truly be a good little kitty cat, right, D?" he asked.
Grinning, she shook her head.
"Oh, thank God," he uttered.
He moved inside her then, slow and easy and languid until her breathing changed, until she could barely keep a thought in her head.
But there was one she had to hold on to, one she had to share before she sank under the delectable waves of orgasm and drowned in his touch.
"I know why your gift was deaf to me," she said, heat coursing through her.
His brows came together. "What do you mean?"
"You never needed to hear my thoughts, Gray, because you always listened to my heart."
His eyes locked on hers and his expression grew tense with emotion, just as his body grew tense with nearly debilitating desire. Then he started to thrust, deeper and deeper into her, marking her and her jaguar with his seed, with his heart, and with his undying love.