The Fallen One (Sons of the Dark Mother, Book One) (28 page)

She also had to face the fact that
she was expected to step into a place of royalty—the place of a
princess, a place where she would have never
wished
to go.

This had never been her
dream.

She hadn’t bargained on
that
in all the years
she had known Justice. She’d had
no
idea
that he came from royal blood. She
had not known he was a prince.

She reached the meadow and sat on a
log on the edge of the meadow.

Well, there could be no help for
it. She would take her place by Justice’s side. And she would learn
to adjust to all the changes in her life.

And she would be what her people
needed.

Peering out into the peaceful
sunshine, she relaxed into the lazy afternoon. A tree above her
provided some shade, and she sat looking at the way the sun peeked
through the leaves, dappling the ground with shadows and
light.

Jes loved shadows and
light.

Something about the patterns of
light, coming through the trees, made her want to capture it in
paint. She listened as the birds talked to one another in the
trees, and just let the smell of the sun-baked earth filled her
senses. And she gave in to the notion to lie upon the
grass.

Within moments, she was fast
asleep.

And while she slept—she dreamed.
She dreamed of her father standing before her. He was telling her
that she needed to realize the power of joining with the vampires.
He was telling her she needed to see the bigger picture.

He demanded that she hear their
side of the issue.

She had never seen him like this—so
arrogant—and so aggressive.

He demanded that she take her place
at his side—that she snap out of the childish innocence of the
Jaguar People, and realize that the humans were simply too full of
self-delusions to save the planet from the ruin they had plunged
Her headlong into.

Jes couldn’t imagine where all his
hate had come from. She shook her head, trying to remember any time
when he had acted with such hate.

He came at her, and she woke with a
start.

She lay there, groggy. She felt
drugged. She didn’t know what had taken place, but she knew it
wasn’t natural. She fought to get her heavy limbs up off the
ground—and half-stumbled toward the woods.

She peered up at the sun. She had
missed her hand-to-hand combat class. How was it that she had slept
so long?

She felt so heavy.

When she finally reached the
compound, she noticed that Justice was up on the wall, watching for
her return. She’d never been so happy to see him. He saw, right
away, that something was wrong, and ran toward the
stairs.

When he reached her, she collapsed
into his arms. She was amazed that she hadn’t collapsed sooner. It
had taken all her will to get back to the compound.

She woke sometime later to find
herself lying on their bed. She saw the worry in Justice’s eyes.
She had to work to turn her heavy head to where her sisters were.
Amar was there working over her, too.

She looked back to Justice.
Groggily, she realized how much she liked that he looked out for
her. It made her feel wanted. It made her feel special and safe.
She just hoped it wouldn’t one day start to make her feel
caged—like she had often felt whenever she’d tried to date other
men.

Drifting in and out, she realized
that she had always started out wanting to find that one special
man for herself—had always started out feeling as if it might work,
as if she might be able to build a life with a special guy in her
life—and had always wound up feeling as if she was strangling—like
no air was left in a place—where everyone, not just the guy, came
to expect that she’d make certain changes. She always behaved like
someone different than whom she really was, because of what that
man in her life expected from her.

Something told her that nothing
about Justice could make her feel that way.

Her last conscious thought was that
she would help to lead their people. She would do anything for her
people—especially with Justice by her side.

When she woke again, the sun was
streaming in the window. She was surprised to see her sisters, his
sisters, Justice, and even Dracon there in the room.

She stared at Dracon.

“
Do you realize it is broad
daylight?” she croaked.

Why did her throat feel so
bad?

Dracon laughed and slapped Justice
on the back, then directed everyone else out of the room to leave
Justice alone with her.

He knelt at the bedside. “You’ve
been out for several hours,” he told her.

She tried to look around, but it
hurt to do so. “What time is it?”

“
It’s nearly noon,” he
answered.

She frowned. How was that possible?
It had been nearly dark when she reached the compound.

“
The next day,” he appraised
her.

Now she really frowned. “What
happened?”

He kissed her knuckles. “Amar said
it was some magick your father had an old witch use on you. The
reason the spell was so powerful is that he apparently still had
something of yours to anchor it to.”

Now she was furious. She tried to
sit, but fell back. “Easy, love,” he whispered. “Amar said that you
will be right as rain by tomorrow.”

She was fuming. “And when I am,”
she whispered, “he’s going to regret he ever met me.”

He laughed. “Now there’s the
spirited girl I love.”

Chapter Thirty

Justice

Justice walked the wall.
Pacing was becoming a habit. He seemed to do his
best thinking while pacing. But tonight his pacing was born more of
anger than mere thinking. For several days he hadn’t been able to
put his finger on it, but he had been becoming impatient of late—as
if he were being warned. And now someone had attacked Jes—using
magick.

He knew that the rumors Conrad had
become privy to were right. He knew Jes’s father was heading their
way. And he had a pretty good idea of that that meant. What he
didn’t know—was whether her father worked alone, with his own
agenda—or if he worked with the one they didn’t name.

For if he worked with him—nothing
could be worse.

He could not think of another enemy
who would be more dangerous to them then Constantine. But
Constantine—with something as powerful as what had been named in
some vague rumors at Second Chances….

He could only hope the fates would
not be so cruel. He could only hope that these rumors, at least,
were
not true.

For if they
were—
Goddess help them.

Justice turned and paced the other
direction. Dracon was squatting against an outcropping in the wall,
where the rock had been placed for three more feet to provide those
on the wall with some added protection. He was watching Justice
pace, as he had many times in the past several days.

Justice scowled at him, which only
caused him to raise one dark brow at him. Dracon had lived
much
too long
to allow emotions to rule his head. Justice
looked forward to the day when he could master his.

But he was becoming more and more
concerned about what he was hearing—and now, he was
angry.

He was glad that Jes’s father—was
not really Jes’s father—or she would have wound up hating
him
again
—when he
killed him.

He didn’t know
how
he was supposed to maintain cool
and calculating—in the face of such rage.

He knew that the plans they had
begun to put together would seem as nothing if her father brought
something so powerful to Constantine—as what he now heard upon the
wind of whispers at Second Chances.

And now, her own father had
ambushed her—
using witchcraft.

As if he were laughing at the
power the sisters held as the
Sisters of
Three.

As if he were taunting
them—telling them that not even
their
power could stop
him.

They were going to have to go
further—much further—than they had ever imagined they would have to
go to defeat an enemy as powerful as Constantine—much further than
any of them had planned.

And if her father was tied to
Constantine—well, then they were laying plans for a different
assault altogether. An assault comprised of proportions and
possibilities the likes of which mankind, or any race upon Mother
Earth, had never seen before in all Her history.

One of which neither he nor Dracon
could see any hope of winning.

Justice and Dracon both spotted the
dark sedan before it had even entered the compound. Justice knew it
was Lucius. He could feel it. And he had someone with
him.

They exited the vehicle at the
door, and Justice noticed the other men with him were Micah, Roman
and Caesar. Three of the men immediately looked up past the wall at
Justice and Dracon, as though they sensed them there. Caesar,
however, immediately began to inspect the wall itself.

Now
this
was a military man he’d like to
speak with.

Dracon seemed to think so, too,
because he quickly got up from the wall and went down the stairs to
greet the men—with Justice right behind him.

When they approached the men, they
all shook hands. They hadn’t planned on them all meeting so soon.
But he could sense the curled anticipation in each of the
men.

Justice was,
by far,
the youngest soldier there.
But not one of the men treated him any differently.

Still, he couldn’t imagine having
lived as long as these men.

The thought actually made him
tired.

He didn’t know how he felt about
living that long.

Tonight they would talk about war.
Justice was ready. He felt his blood quicken—as it started
somewhere in his chest. He was tense with the need to move forward.
He was anxious to finally be doing something—after waiting for all
of these years.

But now even more so with this
direct attack on Jes.

He had not sought out this war. He
had never been glad for war.

But after seeing Jes lying
there—unconscious—he was glad to go out and meet it.

This war had been determined to
come to him from the moment he had been born. Destiny had been
whispering about him greeting this war on the winds of time long
before he had suckled upon his mother’s breast, and long before he
had stretched his abilities, learning to be a man, when his only
thought had been to protect his sisters from the threat of street
gangs.

Justice was glad he was doing
something. Preparing for imminent battle was far more proactive
than waiting.

It would be a good
night.

The men cleared a room where they
could have some privacy—and settled down to business. Justice knew
that he wouldn’t see Jes tonight. And, as usual, it couldn’t be
helped. But it didn’t make it any easier—especially after the
attack she had suffered at the witch’s hands.

At first the men exchanged some
superficial stories that were kept light-hearted, stories that
didn’t hold the
weight
of the war at hand. They just enjoyed the night and
camaraderie for a bit, but eventually they got down to the
inevitable business of war—and the ever-present danger that was
pushing in on them and threatening to force them to take a stand
unlike any stand that any of them could remember in human
history—
save what had happened at
Atlantis
.

And that war had sunk an entire
city
into the sea.

Many of the humans could no longer
recall Atlantis Herself, much less what had taken place there—and
the supernatural forces that had been used, both in the fall of the
city—and as the means used to
save
Mother Earth.

But somehow, if they were facing
what it was rumored they were facing, even the fall of Atlantis
paled in comparison.

They sat down and caught the rest
of the men up on what had been going on, and what their plans were
for the upcoming battle.

Every man was quiet for several
moments, contemplating the enormity of what strength this kind of
power would bring to Constantine.

He had, by himself, proven a
threat, the likes of which none of them had ever faced before. With
this power—he would be unstoppable.

With this power—he would see
himself
as a god.

They laid out maps of the city and
the outlying suburbs, and they followed Constantine’s path:
everywhere he had been for the past two years, and exactly what
they could recall he had been doing during that time.