Page 49 of Cruel Revenge (Jacky Leon #12)

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

T he last known threat was dead. But there were unknown threats.

Or were there? One of them had said Carey. One of them knew her.

That one stepped forward, and I couldn’t stop the snarl and warning step.

Mine.

But then I sniffed.

There was so much wolf in the room. So much of it. No witches. All gone. I inhaled again and could smell Carey. She was right there, and she smelled a little different than she once had, but she was still Carey. Just different now. But her scent was mingling now with others. So close to her. Them.

They complemented each other, those smells.

Then it snapped into place.

Father. Brother. Family.

Heath. Landon.

The realization rocked me. My expression must have changed enough for Heath to feel he could move again. Landon was faster, not coming toward me, but back toward the far door. He grabbed something and threw it. Heath caught it easily.

“Dirk, we’ve got her. We’ve got all of them,” Landon was saying, a finger to one of his ears. “Yeah, you can start sending everyone. We'll need medical, any healers we can get to check on people.”

Then metal creaked, and a door swung open on the cage.

Carey was free.

“DAD!” she cried out, the sob in her voice nearly breaking me. It was done. She was back with Heath.

She dove into her father’s arms, nearly knocking them both to the ground. He picked her up and swung her around.

I did it. She’s going to go home. Back to the place she belongs. Safe.

I was shaking. Landon got closer once again and squeezed his sister’s shoulder as she cried onto her father’s shoulder. She looked at him and removed an arm from Heath to wrap around Landon.

With that, Heath looked over her head at me.

I had no idea what I looked like. I did know it was bad. The blood was beginning to feel sticky. My hands hurt. So did my injuries.

Heath looked down at Carey and smiled.

“Carey, I think Jacky… I think your mother would like a hug, too,” he said softly.

My heart tightened and tears flooded my eyes as Carey turned around, letting them go. She didn’t see me as I stood there. She just knew it was me. She jumped, and I, unable to fail her in any way, opened my arms and caught her.

“Jacky!” she cried out.

I couldn’t stand anymore. I sank to my knees, sobbing as I held her.

“I’m so sorry for everything!” she cried. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, you have nothing to be sorry for,” I said, holding her head to my shoulder, cradling her, beginning to rock back and forth. “Nothing at all, sweetie. Nothing!”

We knelt there, crying together, holding each other, and for a long moment, nothing mattered.

Heath stepped forward again, and I looked up, wanting to thank him for giving me one last moment with Carey before it ended between us. He had seen everything now. I couldn’t hide this from him anymore, and there was no way someone could love me after it was seen. After what I had done here.

But when I met his eyes, I wasn’t greeted with the end of a relationship.

Something moved into place, and I was filled with love. It was more complicated than that. There was worry, happiness, exhaustion, and fear.

All of it from love.

His eyes went wide. Mine felt like they were going to pop out of my head.

We stared mystified for a moment as Landon shuffled around and unlocked the cages with the boys.

Arlo and Benjamin ran to each other, then grabbed Kody into the hug as well.

The boys crying together made Heath and me break our eye contact.

Landon trying to pat their heads like they were still young children made both of us chuckle.

I pulled Carey closer as she tried to bury herself closer to me, refusing to yield her now impressively strong grip. Heath looked at us, his expression soft and loving.

“We’re going to talk about this later,” he said softly, smiling because we knew what had just snapped into place.

I had begun to think it was impossible.

We had a mate bond.

I could feel it, a new limb that felt like it should have always been there. I could feel him.

“Talk about what?” Carey said, lifting her head from me, her eyes teary still.

“Nothing for you to worry about,” I promised her, running my hand over her hair and seeing it was back to normal. I looked at Heath, opening my mouth to ask.

“Later,” he mouthed. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I mouthed back to him, my cheek pressed hard into Carey’s hair. Then I groaned.

“Are you okay?” he asked out loud this time.

Carey pulled away, frowning.

“I smell blood,” she said, finally looking down at my body and seeing I was covered in it.

“There’s a lot of that. I’m sorry,” I said to my girl.

“No, I smell yours !” she said, suddenly panicking. “Are you injured?”

“Okay, why don’t you back off and let me look?” Heath said, reaching down to haul Carey off me. I tried to stand, but I grew dizzy, and he had to catch me.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, she’s taken some shots,” Heath said, his hands going over me. I felt each one as he found them. “Fucking hell, Jacky.” His exasperation was clear in every way possible—the sound of his voice, the scent that surrounded me, and through the mate bond. His worry was the same.

“No! Jacky, you have to stay awake! We haven’t talked and?—”

“Talk and walk,” Heath said, trying to move me. My legs worked, but I was quickly running out of energy. He lifted me and started to carry me out, but Carey followed, a blanket wrapped around her. She stayed near us, trying to fall in step with her father and keep up.

“I love you,” I said to her, smiling. “More than anything.”

“Can I… can I call you Mom?”

“I would love that,” I said, leaning my head into Heath’s shoulder, knowing it was the only way to wipe my tears away. I looked back up and touched my heart. “I would be honored.”

“I would, too,” she said as we left the warehouse. “Then I can say that I love you, too, Mom.”

The words meant everything. To both of us.

“My sweet, brave, amazing girl,” I said softly. Carey’s eyes were once again filled with tears. I reached for her face, which forced her to try stepping in front of her father. I tried to wipe those tears away.

“Carey, I have to work on her injuries. Please.” Heath had no heat in him to tell Carey to move.

“I can help—” Carey’s plea fell on deaf ears, though.

“Carey, you have to give them space,” Landon said, suddenly there. He grabbed her shoulder and started to move her out of the way. “Come on. Pa can treat her.”

Carey nodded and allowed Landon to lead her to the side. I lost sight of her, but I trusted Landon to keep her safe. Heath took me to the bed of his truck and pulled down the tailgate. I was able to sit up once he put me on it.

“I think the Change’s healing abilities were active while you were running around,” he said quickly, not pulling my shirt off, but ripping it open. “Which is good. Some of these really look like they’ve already started healing. The bleeding stopped on most of them.”

“That’s good.”

“How do you feel?” He looked into my eyes. “And don’t try lying. I need to know what hurts.”

“I didn’t feel it until just a moment ago… but there’s pain. And I’m exhausted.”

“I bet,” he said, opening the first aid kit.

He was working, bandaging me up, stuffing holes, and even stitching up one.

As it happened, others arrived. Werewolves flooded the area, then humans from different organizations, locals and federal agents.

Because the humans got there, I saw one SUV that parked, but no one ever exited.

I knew my family would be in it. I waved at it, and a window rolled down slightly.

Gold eyes met mine across the asphalt. Hasan inclined his head in a small bow, then rolled the window back up.

Heath must have looked at what I was looking at and sighed.

“They’ll have to check on you more thoroughly at home, thanks to the chaos around us.”

“Yeah, they risk being seen by so many in broad daylight,” I agreed. “I look normal, right?”

“Except for being covered in blood that might take multiple showers to get off you… yeah, you look normal,” he said, leaning back and taking a long look at me.

I was almost embarrassed that he would use those eyes in the middle of a very public space. He caught that and smiled, leaning in to kiss me. When it was done, I was certainly pink, blushing as some people stared at us like we were crazy. He leaned in closer, his mouth at my ear.

“The moment Carey launched herself toward you, you started to go back to normal. I had a suspicion, and I knew I could trust you with her. It doesn’t matter what else is going on with you; I know I can trust you with her. Because you would never hurt her.”

I closed my eyes, washed in that truth. The ultimate faith. He had seen me as a monster and still knew I would never hurt Carey.

“And you still love me,” I whispered back. “Even after seeing…”

“Always.” He wrapped his arms around me and held me. I reached around and grabbed handfuls of his shirt, holding on tight. “I do need to say one thing.”

“Oh?” I worried immediately, but he only chuckled.

“ Our sweet, brave, amazing girl,” he said, then kissed my cheek. “Now, there’s a lot of work still to be done. You can pass out in my truck, or you can try helping. You’ll need a lot of painkillers, though.”

“I like that,” I said, kissing him back. “Our girl.” I kissed him again. “I’ll take the painkillers. I want to look around.”

“I’m not going to leave you alone,” he warned. “So, you’re not going to try to disappear, right?”

I groaned as I tried to move, but he held me in place, knowing more about my injuries than I did.

“Jacky.”

“I won’t try to leave you.” I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Not in any way. There was now something very permanent between us.

“Good.” He helped me down. I was focused on standing on my legs, but they no longer felt like jelly. He grabbed my hand and put several pills in it. “Human pills. You need a lot of them.”

I put all of them in my mouth, and like magic, the man had a water bottle.

I used that to wash the pills down. They would take some time to start kicking in, and it was a bit of a long shot that they worked at all since they were over the counter and not the strong stuff, but it was thought that counted.

“Perhaps we should clean you up some before we move around,” Heath said, once again looking me over, and this time I knew his worry was for me.

I looked around and saw different people staring at us, human and werewolf alike.

My hair was sticky with blood, my hands were covered, and it soaked my clothing. I could taste it on the pills.

I shook my head.

“No. Let them stare. There’s something more important you and I need to go see…” I lowered my voice. “And my family. They will need to be able to come in and see this.”

Heath studied me, then nodded.

“Landon, are you making sure the building is secure?” he asked loudly.

“I’ve posted werewolves on every external door.

No one has gone in yet. Wanted to wait for your call.

I loaded Carey in with Jacky’s family and put the boys in a car to go back to Niko, Dirk, and Ranger, with another pair of werewolves as protection.

Niko will stay there if Dirk and Ranger need to come assist, so they’ll be with a werecat willing to fight for them if anything happens. ”

“Good. Get rid of the humans. We don’t need them here. If they want to reach out to the BSA, they can. That’s the only organization I want wandering around right now.”

Landon turned on the humans who weren’t as close to the building.

“You fucking heard him!” Landon growled. “Move along.”

I proceeded to check out as Landon started arguing with someone, not allowing anyone to get close to Heath and me.

I looked back at the SUV with my family, then started walking that way, knowing I needed to tell them to find a way in.

That I would meet them inside. Clearly, someone would have to stay with Carey. They could decide on who.

Zuri rolled her window down for me as I approached, leaning out with a smile.

“Look at you . It’s a good look.”

“Oh, yeah?” I lifted my bloody arms, knowing the blood wasn’t really dry on my clothing yet, so some splattered onto the asphalt.

“You’ve never looked better,” she teased.

It made some eyebrows raise nearby.

“Thank you. I’m hoping I’m finally staying up with the trends, really in the season, you know? You know how much I care about those,” I retorted, grinning.

“Hunting is always in season,” she said, a devious twinkle in her eye as we knew we bothered the few humans hovering. A couple of werewolves did chuckle. Heath shooed all of them farther away, then came back to my side. Once there was space, Zuri’s smile faded.

“So, what do we need to see?” she asked.

“A body,” I answered. “Just one. Definitely you and Mother… and Father. Brother, can you stay with Carey?”

“I’m always willing to watch my niece. She’s currently sleeping in the back, so it won’t be hard,” he answered, smiling around Zuri. “And based on the location, I think we can park in the back, and they’ll be able to slip in through the garage area… the loading bay. Whatever it is.”

I thought of that spot, then nodded.

“Possible. Just… be careful where you step.” I stepped back. “Meet you inside. Heath is the only werewolf coming in until we’re done.”

“Interesting,” said a thoughtful Hasan in the backseat, out of sight.

I waved at them, then started hobbling my way to the building, Heath ever present at my side. I could feel his curiosity, but not smell it. Now, not even his Talent would ever hide how he felt from me.

He looked at me as we went inside, raising an eyebrow.

“I can feel you. Even with your Talent up.”

“Good. You’re the last person I should ever hide from. Now, why are we coming in? What do you need to show us?”

“A ghost,” I answered.