Aryck’s control over his emotions nearly slipped. To keep the Jaguar from capitalizing on the weakness and taking over to challenge the alpha, Aryck launched a verbal argument.
“I spoke with Nahuatl. If the ancestors are willing to allow Rebekka to come before them, then there is no justification for banning me from her presence. Without a chance to speak together, how can she make a decision about undergoing the trial so she can join the pack and become my mate?”
Koren’s hands opened and closed as if he fought himself. The father whose love and fear had put the edict in place versus the alpha, who knew there were no stories told by the Jaguar elders of another human being allowed the chance to go through the rite.
To stand in the way of whatever destiny waited for Rebekka and, because of her, Aryck, was to risk offending and enraging the ancestors.
A muscle spasmed in Koren’s cheek like a final protest before he said, “Follow her into Lion lands if you must. Ensure whatever knowledge she hasn’t shared with Phaedra is passed on to the Lion healer. But unless she is willing to turn herself over to Nahuatl and begin the three-day fast, she is not to step foot in Jaguar territory again. She can remain with the Lions if they allow it or return to Oakland with the outcast. The Wolves can see her safely through their lands as they’ve already agreed to do.”
Twenty-four
THE Jaguar seethed and writhed in fury, barely controllable by the time Aryck tracked Rebekka to a building that smelled of the outcast and those related to him. Phantom claws raked through his belly and chest. If he found them together, limbs entwined, there would be no stopping a shift in form and an attack.
Cyrin roared from his lounging place above the doorway of the dwelling, as much of a greeting as a warning. He jumped down, barring Aryck’s path for an instant before turning and serving as a guide through the maze of rooms.
Aryck’s fingers flexed and unflexed as he heard low murmurs coming from deeper in the pride home. Jealousy built with each step as over and over again the image his father had shown him played through his mind, Rebekka in Levi’s arms, crying in joy at being reunited with the outcast.
He reached a doorway and saw her sitting cross-legged, the journal in her hands, her head bent as she studied it. The Jaguar stilled as it drank in the sight of its mate. The man grew more furious when she refused to look up, refused to acknowledge his presence even after Caius, who sat at her side with Canino serving as a backrest, yelled, “Aryck!”
He managed a smile for the cub. A polite nod to the older woman also sitting in the cozy circle. Growled, “We need to talk,” to Rebekka, the Jaguar’s calm ebbing in equal measure to the man’s rising temper at being ignored.
It was all he could do not to stalk over and jerk Rebekka to her feet, to make her look at him before he carried her out of the dwelling if she refused to go willingly.
Neither he nor the Jaguar liked the way the Lion outcast was sitting close to her. It was almost too much when Levi leaned into her and murmured, “If you want to speak privately with him, you can use my room. If you don’t, I’ll see him out.”
“Try it,” Aryck said. He’d take great satisfaction in beating Levi in a fight and clearly demonstrating to Rebekka who was the better choice.
He bared his teeth in warning and fury when she reached over and touched the outcast’s forearm. Managed not to attack only because she said, “I’ll talk to him. Between what I’ve already read to Phaedra and your grandmother, there’s not much of the journal left to share. Will you finish reading the last of it? And help Caius with his letters and words?”
Lion gold eyes sent their own challenge to Aryck. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” she said, handing him the journal and ruffling the cub’s hair before standing.
Rebekka glanced at Aryck then, and the pain in her eyes was like a lance through his heart. She turned her back and walked away without a word to him, bringing a renewed surge of anger, only this time it joined a churning mass of confusion and worry and doubt.
He had only one cure for it. The moment she stopped, signaling they’d reached their destination, his hand curled around her arm, forcing her to face him.
His lips slammed onto hers in a fierce claiming. And when she went rigid, refusing to open her mouth, he didn’t relent, didn’t let her deny the heat between them.
His hands swept over her back, her sides. Around to cup her breasts. His tongue battered at the seam of her lips, demanding entry until they parted willingly and she softened against him.
No! Rebekka screamed silently, but her body betrayed her with the desperation of a junkie getting a fix.
Despite the pain he’d caused her she grew flushed and ready, felt need coiling in her belly and sliding downward, desire filling her breasts so they thrust in invitation against his palms, chafed at the clothing separating them from the feel of his skin against hers.
When he started unbuttoning her shirt, she dredged up the image of Melina standing in the doorway of his cabin, forced herself to remember the Jaguar female’s hateful words.
“No!” Rebekka said, jerking out of Aryck’s arms and stumbling backward, away from him.
He snarled and came after her, trapping her against the smooth adobe wall. His body vibrated fury. “Forget him, Rebekka. If the Lion outcast was right for you, then the two of you would already be a mated pair. You’re mine. The Jaguar chose you the day you healed me and I agree with the choice.”
His declaration cleared Rebekka’s mind. She searched his face and saw possessiveness there.
A part of her wanted to believe it meant something, but she steeled herself against false hopes and additional betrayal. No doubt the married men who frequented the brothels looked at their wives the same way, expecting them to remain faithful even as they broke their vows.
“And Melina?” Rebekka spat, putting her hands against Aryck’s chest and pushing with all her might.
He didn’t budge.
“What about her? She means nothing to me.”
He lied. Or maybe he told the truth. Maybe he cared only about having what seemed unattainable.
The misery she’d experienced since he left her the day before returned in a rush. She battled it with a fury matching his earlier anger.
“I won’t be used by you or made part of some game of jealousy you play with Melina. She wanted me to find you bathing in the stream after you’d been with her. She—”
“What are you talking about?” Aryck interrupted, voice harsh with demand.
Fury blazed in his eyes, and his body was rigid with it. “It’s been years since I touched Melina other than to warn her away from me. I regret ever having been with her in the first place. Even then it was casual between us. If she told you otherwise, she lied.”
His hands curled around her upper arms, yet despite the iron in his grip he wasn’t hurting her. “Now tell me what you’re talking about,” he demanded again, outrage battering against her empathetic senses. Confusion. Frustration.
Was she a fool to think his emotions were genuine? To give him a chance to convince her that what she’d seen and heard was a lie?
Part of her wanted to cringe away from anything that would cause additional pain. She refused to allow it. She hadn’t cowered when Abijah caught up to her. She hadn’t taken up her mother’s faith when she learned her father was a demon.
“I went to your cabin to tell you I was leaving with the Lions. Melina was there, naked and looking like . . .”
Aryck’s eyes darkened with deadly savagery. “She must have known you were on your way there and set out to drive a wedge between us. She’s my father’s choice of a mate for me, not mine. I haven’t been to my cabin since you left me outside the alpha’s home. I’ve been gone from camp on pack business.”