The crystal clear water in her cup was from a mountain stream right here on Mount Fuji—no magic involved except that of Mother Nature herself. It tasted better than any water she’d ever had before. She stared down at it as if answers to her multitude of problems might be hidden at the bottom of the cup.
Whiskey would have been better. She could usually find an answer or two at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. Even if they were the wrong answers, at least she had a place to start. The one thing she’d never, ever been good at was feeling helpless, and now she’d lived through six entire weeks of being completely and utterly unable to help Jack.
They’d rested. He’d healed from his physical injuries and eaten enough to clear out half of Japan’s livestock, probably. But human Jack—her Jack—still hadn’t put in an appearance, and it was looking less and less likely every day.
Jack looked briefly around the room and then dropped his head back down on her leg. The low bed sagged from the weight of five hundred pounds of tiger, but she wasn’t about to tell him to sleep on the floor. He’d voluntarily followed her into the room and up onto the bed, after ignoring her for the past week. She was glad and—maybe, just maybe—a little bit hopeful that he’d followed her at all.
She hesitantly put a hand on his head, and his eyes snapped open. Another mystery of the shape-shift: his eyes were green in human form and pure amber fire as a tiger. She stared into their depths, thinking of that saying about eyes being the windows to the soul. If it were true, then there was nobody home in Jack’s soul.
Nobody human.
Only a disturbingly feral intelligence peered out at her from behind that glowing amber. She steeled herself against the shudder trying to shake its way through her body and rubbed one silky ear between her fingers. Jack closed his eyes, and they sat there, two wounded warriors, heart-sore and silent, for several long minutes. Jack’s rumbling snore was hypnotic, and Quinn’s eyes started to close. Jack tensed and lifted his massive head a few seconds before she heard Alaric’s voice.
He’d been there for her, staying in the background and giving her the time and space she’d needed to rest and heal; the time she’d needed to try to help Jack recover his humanity. But during every minute of those long weeks, no matter how her heart filled with despair over Jack, Alaric had remained in her awareness. A solitary presence, brooding and watchful. He’d told her when Serai and Daniel had succeeded in their quest; he’d let her know that Riley and the baby were doing well. Other than that, he’d honored her request for time alone, but she could tell from the intensity of his emotion that his patience was coming to an end.
“Are you ready to talk to me yet?” he asked quietly, dividing his attention between her face and the tiger at her side.
“Where is that woman, or portal spirit, or whatever she is?” Quinn asked. She hadn’t had the energy to be curious about anything before now.
“Archelaus and his people are tending to her. As you know, this place is a sanctuary, for those with the most dire need. They are well prepared to care for lost souls.”
“Is that what we are? Is that why you brought us here?” She heard the bitterness in her voice but was too tired to try to disguise it. The fight had been too long. The losses too high. More than a decade of her life fighting for human independence from the vampires and shape-shifters who were taking over the country and the world, and she was no further along now than she’d been as a desperate teenager. Even with the Atlanteans on her side, it never felt like enough. Never felt like the rebels could win. Now there were even some humans joining Team Evil—black magic practitioners and, horribly, non-magical human collaborators who willingly served the bad guys, like sheep volunteering for the slaughter.
She shook her head. “Let them do it. Why do we even care? It’s social Darwinism.”
“What are you talking about?” Alaric crossed the room to her side and pulled her to her feet, and she caught her breath at the electricity that surged between their clasped hands. Even the lightest touch from him was like a roundhouse punch to her emotions. She didn’t need to be an emotional empath to know what he was feeling right now.
Burning need. Intense desire. A furnace of wanting seared between them, and she fought to maintain her balance. She put a hand on his chest to hold him at a distance, but the feel of his heartbeat under her fingers only made it worse.
“I need for you to put a damper on all the strong emotion, please,” she whispered. “I don’t have the reserves of strength right now to handle it. I’ve spent so much energy trying to convince Jack to come back—”
He brushed a kiss on her forehead, and her knees nearly gave out from the tidal wave of longing she felt from just that brief caress. But after that—nothing. It was as if a metal shield had slammed down between them. Suddenly, she couldn’t feel even a hint of his emotions.
Perversely, she hated the loss of them. She looked a question at him.
“I’ve had hundreds of years to learn to block my feelings, mi amara. Even a powerful aknasha such as yourself cannot penetrate my defenses,” he said calmly. Or at least he sounded calm. For all she could tell, he might have been boiling with suppressed emotion, but not an ounce of it leaked out.
His words finally registered in her tired mind, and she pulled away from him. “Don’t call me your beloved, when you know we can never be together, okay? Aknasha is fine; we all know I’m an empath. But I can’t be your amara.”
She turned away and whispered, almost to herself, “Even if I want to be.”
Jack, as if sensing the tension in the room, lifted his lips away from his fangs and growled at Alaric.
“I’d almost rather he had enough fight in him to attack you,” she said.
“Thank you,” Alaric replied dryly. “Your concern for my safety is touching.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not worried about you. I’ve seen you in action, remember?”
Jack turned those huge golden eyes to her and growled again, almost as if he understood her. He and Alaric had thrown enough testosterone at each other since they’d met that the Jack she knew—human Jack—would never have put up with her comment. The fact that tiger Jack didn’t seem to like it either gave her another moment of hope.
Archelaus appeared in the doorway and nodded to her. “My lady, you want your privacy, I know, but our guest wishes to speak with the two of you.”
Quinn had to think for a second or two before she remembered what guest he was talking about. By then, Alaric had caught her arm in a firm grasp, as if to prevent her from moving. She pointedly looked down at his hand and then up at him.
“No. I don’t trust her,” he commanded.
“Of course you’re not talking to me, are you? You would know better than to try to give me orders, Your Royal Priestliness, wouldn’t you?” she asked in a voice so sweet it made Alaric blink.
“You—”
She cut him off. “Stop it. As far as I know, I’m still the leader of the North American rebel alliance, even after this hiatus. I’m not a helpless woman who needs the big, strong Atlantean to tell her what to do. Let’s go see this woman.”
“But—”