Claws (23 page)

He refused to give into the savagery he
felt to think of her with her mate. This rage he felt was his Alpha
tendencies coming out. He was too old to give into them. No, he
knew he couldn’t help his growing feelings for Vivvie, but he could
control his taking her to his bed in her dreamscape.

Vivvie didn’t understand yet how erotic
it could be to make love in such a place, each encounter highly
charged and electric, the sensations far more intense than physical
sex. He’d refrained from showing her that part of her gift. It
wasn’t his place, but her mate’s. Eli was trying to be a human
husband now to the hilt, thinking it was what his wife
wanted.

Jericho smiled as he thought of her
reaction should she ever come to him again. He would show her how
to control her dreamscape, form it to guide her own pleasure, open
that world to her. His eyes glowed to think of how she would react.
She would be stunned at what he could show her, marvel at the
beauty of her own gift.

Jericho felt his own excitement grow
and cursed himself for telling her to stay out of his dreams. He
wanted her, missed her, and hoped she ran true to form and ignored
everything he said.

~ ~ ~

Vivvie blew her husband a kiss as she
watched him return to his office as she reclaimed her class after
the long break. They were all back in class drawing pictures of
their families. Each child was busy drawing each member of their
family with crayon.

She collected them before the bell,
smiling as she looked at them. When she got to Elaina’s her smile
faded. She drew them all with impressive skill. She wasn’t
surprised Justice was absent from the family portrait.

Devon’s made her sad, seeing everyone
there but Justice too. She watched her students file out and put
the drawings away in her desk. She walked to the daycare center,
disturbed by how much nature played a role in so many things in her
life now. It was obvious being an animal gave one less choices and
less control over their environment.

Being both animal and human made it
impossible for her not to be hurt. She missed her son, felt lost
with one less child somehow. She appeared to be the only one who
even acknowledged he was missed at all.

She knew she wasn’t being fair. Eli saw
Justice every day. He made it a point to take his son out for a run
when he arrived at the compound to start work. She knew he was
devoted to their younger son even if he clearly showed his
preference to Devon. It was uncanny how the selection process was
so hinged on blood and so little on emotion.

Jericho walked out of the education
office and gestured to her. She followed him inside and he shut the
door. The elder looked pensive as he sat down.

“We need to do this tonight,” he said
as he looked at her. “Can you get away?”

Could she? Eli would wonder why she
went out so late to hunt but probably not question it.

“Yeah, I can get back here later. What
time?”

“Try for ten,” he told her and she
could see he was troubled.

“You’re worried aren’t you?”

“Conjuring demons doesn’t always turn
out well for one of our kind, Vivvie. They’ve not been the kindest
sponsor since our curse,” he admitted with a frown. “It won’t like
that we’ve gone over Tania’s head in this. You can expect it will
work it to its own advantage. Still, we have to try.”

“You don’t think it will deal fairly
with us?”

He laughed at that, a harsh sound,
looking at her like she was crazy. “These creatures can’t be
trusted. You can expect it will seek to trick us.”

“I’m telling Eli the truth,” she
informed him, her eyes meeting his and saw the sadness glimmer in
his yellow green stare. “I’ve tried to find some way around it and
I keep coming back to it. If he knows about Justice; she has no
hold over me.”

“If he knows, you can expect Justice
will never be welcome in your home again.”

Vivvie looked miserable at that but
there was no choice. “She can’t hold it over me anymore, Jericho.
He might learn of what I did, but she loses her
leverage.”

“When are you going to tell him?”
Jericho asked with a low chuckle. “I’d like to be back at the beach
when that happens.”

“After we deal with this demon, see
what it wants.”

“We know what it wants,” he argued.
“Vivvie, its owed tribute for the last three hundred years of our
existence. It won’t take gift cards now!”

She frowned, he was right. “I won’t
give it an innocent child to satisfy some debt that isn’t even mine
to pay.”

Jericho nodded sadly and his lips
tightened. “How was lunch?”

Vivvie could assume he smelled Eli on
her and felt bad for rubbing in the fact her and her mate frolicked
in the woods the last hour. He appeared casual in the asking, but
she knew him better. He was jealous! The oldest cat in the place,
nearly four hundred years of age, the most sought after Alpha of
them all, was jealous of her long lunch with her mate.

“It was good,” she said deliberately
recalling his return to man whore at the compound, a smile curving
her lips to see his eyes flare slightly, pleased he showed he
cared. “Eli was showing me an area of woodland he got zoned
recently to build a bigger school.”

“Why did you have Erin sent away,
Vivvie?” he asked her suddenly, his expression unreadable. The
question took her off guard.

“What do you mean? She wanted to go
back, I thought? It seemed the easiest answer to all our problems
right now with our lack of teachers for me to take over her class.”
Even to her ears she sounded like a manipulative shrew.

“That’s the answer you would give to
Eli,” he noted and raised a golden eyebrow. “What’s the real
answer?”

She fumed to know Jericho saw through
her. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It is when you pull rank on my
granddaughter for some other motive than the desire to teach,” he
countered with a mocking smile. “What was it, Vivvie? Was she too
pretty or was it that Eli noticed her?”

Vivvie flushed from his knowing look.
“Ty saw her future and warned me she and Eli would have slept
together.”

“So you got her out of here to keep it
from happening?”

Vivvie couldn’t meet his gaze. “I’m
trying to ward off more than evil spirits here, Jericho. Don’t
judge me.”

“I’m not judging, just letting you know
that you can’t control his nature any more than your own. Are you
going to send away every pretty woman he crosses paths with to keep
him faithful?”

“If I have to kick every female out of
here, I will!” she snapped and got up from his desk. “I’m not
discussing this with you.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of bad karma to talk
about it with the dude you’re cheating with,” he taunted. “Makes
you sound like a hypocrite, Vivvie.”

“It’s not cheating! We we’re just
together in the dreamscape!” she argued and tossed him a glare. “We
didn’t really do anything.”

“No, we only made a child,” he offered
with a shrug as she glared at him. “No biggie, right?”

“What do you want me to say?” Vivvie
asked tightly. “He will see that it wasn’t really
cheating.”

“He will see your nature brought you
back to my door time and time again over him. That is all he will
see, Vivvie. You need to think before you tell him anything,”
Jericho advised her. “Wait to see what we learn from this demon
before you put your foot in your mouth. You might not have to tell
on yourself.”

“And lie?” she raged and shook her
head. “I’m supposed to pretend none of this ever
happened?”

“According to you it wasn’t even real
and shouldn’t count. Why not?” he asked with an infuriating
smile.

Vivvie could see she was talked into a
corner; could see he very cleverly put her there. She could see her
continued assertion what they did wasn’t real wounded him. The
proof it was very real now lived with him; their child. She felt a
pang of misery to be without her son.

“What’s your point?” she asked and
avoided his all-too-knowing look.

“My point is that you console yourself
you didn’t really come to me when we both know you did,” he said
and his nostrils flared slightly. “You still would if I allowed it.
You continue to deny your nature, Vivvie. We’ve talked about this.
Eli will see that, and only that. Your desire to be with me is very
real, even if it was only in your dreams.”

“I won’t have this in my life,
Jericho,” she warned, eyes glowing. “I won’t go from male to male
as Tania once did. I’ve chosen Eli.”

“And Eli will give into his nature
whenever it arises, Vivvie,” Jericho interjected with a smirk.
“Your very human outlook of monogamy is going to trip you up
then.”

“It’s wrong!” she cried and looked at
him with a wounded expression. “I love Eli. I shouldn’t want anyone
else.”

“Welcome to the animal kingdom,
Vivvie,” he replied with a sad expression. “It is our way. We can’t
be faithful like humans. He refrains out of consideration to you,
but the desire is still there. He wanted my granddaughter and
offered her a job for that reason. Do you think he wouldn’t have
acted upon that desire had you not gotten her booted from
here?”

Vivvie was in conflict of what he told
her, seeing he was right. “What are you saying,
Jericho?”

“I think when you begin to accept what
you are at last; you won’t hold it against him for being as he
is.”

“You don’t think our kind can be with
only one mate, do you?” she asked with a note of misery in her
voice.

“After four hundred years; I question
everything, Vivvie,” he admitted sadly and met her devastated look
with a comforting smile. “It’s our nature to be free; unfettered to
explore. You cause your own anguish to deny it. Eli wouldn’t hold
such desires against you. He never denied his own.”

“He will still be angry over this,
won’t he?” she asked as she looked down at her clenched hands. “He
won’t understand.”

Jericho chuckled and shook his head.
“Knowing him, he’ll be furious. Even with a Newbreed; there is no
escaping what he is.”

“You think he seeks to escape what he
is with me?”

“I think he sees you as an ideal; a
symbol of rising above what we are. Your admission will make him
realize how wrong he is.”

“Why do you tell me this?” she asked,
her eyes meeting his with a new understanding.

“Because you needed to hear it,” he
told her and shrugged. “This human guilt you wear about has no
place in our world, Vivvie.”

“You don’t think I should tell him, do
you?” she asked.

“I don’t think you should burst his
bubble, no.”

“Why? Why live with this hanging over
our heads?”

“Because you don’t really want it to
end,” he said and she stiffened from his infuriating way of always
being right. “You want me in the flesh, Vivvie. You have the moment
you came to me. Admit it. Even now as sated as you are, you would
allow me to toss you on my desk and have you. I can smell the
answer, Vivvie. That’s why you shouldn’t tell him.”

“I won’t stray from my mate,” she
snarled as she met his challenging stare. “You can tease me all you
want. I won’t do that to him or myself.”

“A pity, I’d really like to bend you
over my desk and put us both out of our misery,” he said with a
throaty purr in his voice, sending shivers of lust over her to know
she wanted it to.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked
him, feeling a flush come over her, recognizing it as desire. “You
shut me out of your dreams, remember?”

“I want the real thing now, Vivvie. I
think that’s obvious,” he admitted with a carnal look that made her
tense.

“We can’t do this.”

“We already have. I’ve made love to you
dozens of times in that place you insist isn’t real. I’ve gone
there with you enough to know you want to cross over.”

“I can’t do this,” she said with a
trembling breath, her heart beating so fast she felt it would jump
out of her chest.

“It’s your nature, Vivvie,” he argued
with a look of anger. “Have you learned nothing yet?”

“I’ve learned I can fight it,” she
snapped and stood up, glaring at him. “I don’t have to give into
this; whatever it is! I can rise above it and I will.”

“The next time you come to my door you
better be awake,” was all he said before she stomped out of the
office, her body on fire from just the suggestions of his having
her on his desk.

She cringed with the dark images of
what she denied herself as she drove home. The obvious truth of
what he said replayed over and over again in her mind. She wanted
him. She wouldn’t be satisfied with just the dreams anymore. As
happy as she was with Eli, this savage need for more was there,
restless and wanting.

~ ~ ~

Eli was working late in his den. The
children all went down early. He nodded absently when she expressed
the desire to hunt ahead for tomorrow night’s dinner. She left the
yard at a dead run, knowing Jericho waited at the cave for
her.