Page 50 of Cruel Revenge (Jacky Leon #12)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

I saw the bodies around the building as Heath and I walked to the nice office on the third floor.

I remembered it well enough, but most of what had happened was already a blur.

I remembered the kills. I didn’t remember the layout.

Driven by where people were and the order I killed them, the path was chaotic and devastating.

Heath got to see all of it now. All the while, there was nothing from the mate bond that said he found it disturbing or would love me less for it.

“You’re handling this well,” I said, looking over my shoulder at him as we went up the second flight of stairs. “The… carnage.”

“I was talking to Hasan last night, sitting in the Tribunal as Landon and I were realizing we could go home soon. Hasan came to see me, and I asked for advice on your mood with Courtney reaching out to Carey.” Heath stepped around me, putting his hands in his pockets.

“It was an informative conversation, telling me the feelings that bubble underneath your surface are something many werecats deal with. He also told me never to argue with a mother werecat when she needs to kill someone for hurting her baby.” Heath looked down at his shoes, then back up.

There was remorse and regret in the mate bond.

“And while I knew you and Carey loved each other as mother and daughter, it hadn’t…

become too real yet, being as unspoken as it was.

” He looked around. “I didn’t realize it matched the love I have for her as her father.

I should have known, should have paid closer attention to the bond you two forged over the years. ”

“And now?”

“Jacky, if you wanted to wipe a city off the map for her, I would believe you. And I love you even more for it.” He waved his hand at the bloody destroyed hall at the top of the stairs as I reached him.

“And this? Jacky, I had to hold myself back and apart from everything all night because if I lost control, I would take all the werewolves with me until someone could put me down. But you… you don’t have that risk.

A dark part of me loves that you can do this when I’m not allowed. ”

That fierce love burned through everything else in my mind. Through the best days and the worst, this man loved me, and I loved him, too.

“A dark part of you loves the dark part of me, then. I guess we really are a good match,” I said, sighing as I took his hand, entwining my fingers with his.

“We’re the best match,” he whispered as he lifted our hands and kissed the back of mine.

I pulled him with me, knowing we were almost at our destination. I stopped at the door, having left it ajar. I couldn’t see the ghost of the witch, but I could still smell magic.

“We’ll wait here,” I decided, wanting my sister and mother with me before I dared cross the threshold.

Hasan, Subira, and Zuri were there next, coming up the stairs after us.

“Daughter, we really need to talk about how to make clean kills,” Subira said, stepping over a loose limb.

“They deserved this,” Hasan growled.

“I’m with Father this time,” Zuri said, raising her nose at a corpse. “They deserved every second of it.” Zuri reached me first as Subira stopped further away. Zuri, though, as she approached the room, looked at the door I stood next to, her eyes going wide.

Hasan refused to move from the top of the stairs, his expression growing more feral and furious by the second.

“I killed the male witch who had two voices,” I explained. “And then I met a ghost. We should probably have Dirk pull all the security footage to review later. There are cameras. The ghost didn’t follow me far from the room, though.” I pointed up to the three in just this hallway alone.

“A ghost,” Hasan whispered.

“Mother and I don’t know how to deal with the dead, Jacky,” Zuri reminded me. “And if she’s capable of possession… I’m not sure Mother and I can… go anywhere near it.” Zuri took a few steps back, and Subira reached out, pulling her back further.

“I wanted your permission to reenter the room. With Heath as my backup.” I looked past them to Hasan. “And you if you’d like.”

“It’s probably safe if you enter, and we can handle any of you if one of you is possessed.” Subira’s unsaid words were clear.

None of us could handle her, and Zuri would be a problem as well.

“Thank you.” I went in, leaving them all in the hallway. Heath followed quickly. I heard slow footsteps from down the hall. Hasan was thinking about it.

I saw the body and could smell thick magic.

“Heath, will you help me examine the body?” I asked, leaning down stiffly to try rolling it over.

He did it for me and started searching the pockets.

Eventually, he had them emptied, and a pile was ready for me to look through.

I finally found an ID on the man, with a name.

His credit cards and everything matched it.

Whether it was his real name or just a well put-together alias was something we could only determine later.

Nothing else really mattered. As he and I looked at the body, Hasan hovered in the doorway, his feral fury mixing with his cautious fear.

Whatever this witch had done to my father, it had left one hell of a mark to still make him wary so many years later. It made his hate for witches and magic he wasn’t related to all the more reasonable. He had been deeply traumatized.

I was very much beginning to understand that trauma.

“Look at this,” Heath said softly. He revealed a tattoo on the man. It was on the bicep and wouldn’t be visible if he was wearing a shirt with his arms at his side. It wasn’t a design I recognized at all.

“Allow me,” Hasan said. He stepped forward, taking a picture with his phone, then walked back out of the room. A moment later, Subira hissed while Zuri growled, then stormed into the room.

“Old magic. They must have used this marking to bind her to the body, to force the possession. She probably left after the body died.”

“She lingered for a little while,” I said. “Taunted me, talked to me.”

“She’s a ghost, meaning she didn’t move on.

Lingering probably comes naturally to her,” Subira said.

Heath had to move out of the way quickly.

“I know the language tattooed into the pattern. Babylonian. Hasan, Zuri, and Jabari know it better than me, since I learned it from them. She must have developed this for this usage.” Subira grabbed the arm and leaned down, sniffing deeply. “There’s bone in the ink.”

“You can… smell that?” I asked, frowning.

“It’s her bone,” Hasan said

“It must be,” Subira said, dropping the arm.

“And if you want to know, the spell says exactly what it does. This soul was bound to the body, but won’t die with it.

It’ll go back to its current resting point.

So… if they needed her bone to make the tattoo, that means her bones are out there.

We’re going to need Kushim to show us where he buried her. ”

“I’ll go with him,” Zuri called out.

“So will I,” Hasan said softly.

“Not you.” She pointed at Hasan, but didn’t look at him. “I need to keep you safe.”

“She also said this body was beginning to fail…”

“I will look into all of this. I want this body.” Subira now looked at Hasan, who sighed.

“I would give you the world and a throne to rule it, and you want a corpse,” he muttered. “Fine. I’ll make sure it’s transported through the Tribunal to our home. It doesn’t stay in the house.”

“It’s my house,” Subira growled.

“It can be in the house, or I can be. Not both,” Hasan said, his jaw clenching. “I often bend the knee to you, Subira. Please don’t do that to me.”

“Fine.” She gave up the fight quickly. She looked at me and reached out, touching my cheek.

It took me a minute to register that it was in the exact spot that the ghost had touched me.

“How dare she touch my daughter,” Subira whispered, her eyes narrowing. I could smell her fury, then it was gone. She stood up slowly, then lifted the body with ease. “You may have the room to yourselves. It’s safe to be in. Zuri, help me with this.”

“I need Hasan!” I said quickly, then turned to Heath. “Can you help her get the body to the Tribunal at least?”

“Easy enough,” Heath said, looking cautiously at me, then going with Subira, who nodded at the man I had sent to her.

“That works. He works. Come, Heath.”

Through the mate bond, I caught the humor of the Alpha werewolf being ordered to follow by a tiny ancient woman.

When I knew they were gone, I looked at my father. He finally entered the room, closing the door behind him.

“What is it?”

“Everything about… all of this is kind of blurry to me, but I remember exactly what she said… and I could wait to talk to you about it, but I think I need to talk to you here, now. Where neither of us feel like the one in charge or in power.”

“Both of us are off balance here,” Hasan said, humming thoughtfully. He started fiddling with things on the desk in the room. “You’re smarter than you give yourself credit… smarter than I have given credit for as well. What did she say?”

I took a deep breath, wanting to quote it exactly, word for word.

“‘Those beautifully cursed eyes. I’ve always loved them. He must hate you, having to see these all the time. The eyes of the monster that made him.’”

Hasan paused his fiddling with things on the nearby desk. He turned to me, his gold eyes staring down mine.

“I see.” Hasan closed his eyes and sighed.

“They’re not cursed. Yes, they are the same color as the original werecat, Subira’s father.

Yes, that sometimes makes me hate myself .

” He opened his eyes once more and walked toward me.

A deep, terrible pain was in his eyes now.

“But not you. In fact… when you opened your eyes for the first time after the Change, it was the first time I ever agreed with Subira when she called them beautiful . Never think that I look at you and see him. I see a young woman who doesn’t deserve the legacy she carries, so I wanted to spare you from it.

I know you’ll have more questions about it, but…

I would be much more willing to talk freely about this on my island. ”

“Not in her territory?”

“I picked my island for a reason. I love your mother beyond life itself, but I have never had a territory with her because I have never felt safe in Africa… and she will never leave it. To discuss this… I’d like to feel safe.”

I didn’t argue. I nodded my head, and he lowered his in thanks.

After a quiet moment, I looked around.

“Since I cleared the building, I have first pick of whatever is inside of it, right?” There were old laws. Old supernaturals loved them. Hasan and Jabari were two of those old supernaturals.

“Yes. You don’t have to share if you don’t want to, but it would be useful for everyone else to have a look as well.”

“I’ll be right out. We’ll make a date on when you want to talk,” I said, gesturing that he could leave.

“Wife wants a corpse, youngest daughter dismisses me like I’m the child,” Hasan muttered. “What is my life coming to?”

He didn’t sound upset; he sounded humored by it all.

I started looking around, my mind spinning with an idea that I knew I had to keep to myself.

There was still an insanity lurking in me.

It wasn’t really gone, and now that I was back in this office, it had started to try coming.

I wasn’t actually done with what I started.

I had dealt with the body, but I hadn’t dealt with the dead.

I planned to.

I took everything I could, stealing a briefcase from the office to hold everything I wanted.

There were some good things. Things that would prove really useful if I gave them to Davor, but I wanted them first. Once I stuffed the briefcase full, I walked out.

It was time to get out of this hell on earth of my own creation.

I met Hasan in the hall, and he gave me a curious look.

I decided to tell him the one good piece of news from the day I hadn’t told anyone else.

“Heath and I have a mate bond now,” I said with a smile.

He looked like someone had hit him upside the head for a second, then nodded.

“I’m happy for you,” he finally said. “Everyone deserves to have someone they can share everything with.”

There was still a lot to talk about between him and me, but at least it was never going to be about Heath and me ever again.