The Walls of Jericho

Fated

Channing’s POV

The instant Jericho says the words, that strange life force inside the ring on her finger radiates the truth like a lighthouse’s beacon during a terrible storm. I can’t help my ecstatic reaction seeing it.

I was prepared to accept that she might not love me. Yet. Though I didn’t mean to confuse her, I understand now how she misinterpreted me walking other girls home past Esteban’s. When I thought I was projecting myself as a respectful and caring gentleman making certain girls got home safely, Jericho saw a playboy, flaunting his latest conquest. When I thought I was showing her how much I cared about her by eating that God-awful diner food and leaving her huge tips, I was only reinforcing her misconceptions of male entitlement and disrespect.

I understand I’ve been redefining my image with her. That’s not a quick process, no matter how much I want it to be. She's a lot more sensitive than she lets on. I was prepared to earn her love, to be patient and go at her pace. It’s a tremendous relief that much effort isn’t necessary. A relief to know we’re predestined—me to her, and her to me—and that as such, so many mistakes are made right. I can’t wait to celebrate that truth with a kiss.

I’m not prepared for the look of wild desperation on her face when I open my eyes. Nor for the tears that seep from the corners of her closed eyes and race in silvery streaks down her cheeks towards her gracile jaw. I had thought to seal this joyous covenant with a kiss, but seeing her expression, the tears on her face, I understand now what her admission, her confession of love, cost her.

Like the fabled Walls of Jericho, the walls my Jericho keeps are impressive in size and defenses. Fortunately, they’re no more stable than that of her namesake. Before my eyes, they’re collapsing violently, crumbling to the ground and leaving her more vulnerable than she’s likely ever felt before.

Before she can raise her fortress again, I pull her close and kiss her. It’s harder than I’d intended, but I can’t stem my enthusiasm. Her mouth is so sweet, and now sweeter still knowing there’s love behind her surrender to me. It’s so perfect, the way our bodies and lips tangle. So good, no matter what we’re doing—kissing like this, holding hands, mmm— s*x. Even just cuddling and talking, it doesn’t matter. Everything with Jericho has that predestined, meant for each other feel.

With one hand, I cup her nape. She’s so delicate, between my thumb and my middle finger, I’m almost collaring her and it turns me on to have so much physical power at my disposal to protect and pleasure. My arm tightens around her waist, my other hand creeping lower to grip her posterior and fit her hips in place against me. There’ll be no mistaking how much she turns me on, how much I adore her.

How much her admission means.

Against my steel frame, Jericho’s soft and flexible, so delightfully pliant. She feels so damn good. I can’t help myself, my mouth takes and takes more, stealing her breath with every plundering swipe of my tongue and nip of my teeth, and devouring every doubt she might every have with a kiss meant to consume her.

Her body’s still melded against mine, sealed there, when I lift my head and stare down at her. In the circle of my arms, Jericho swallows hard and gasps, breathing in pants with her pulse thready beneath my pressing fingertips in the hollows behind her collarbones.

I know I should say something, offer her some assurance, a promise, but I’m coming up short where coherent thought is concerned. It’s an embarrassingly constant state when I’m around her. Lacking verbal options, I settle for a non-verbal one. I duck my jaw beneath hers and catch the tender site of my mark upon her between my teeth.

My grip on her tightens unconsciously when she groans at the light pain and mingled pleasure, bucking her hips against me. Through the mate bond, a deluge of scorching heat floods out of me. Electrified with the excitement, my wolf teeth extend, razor sharp and piercing. My werewolf venom stings in the prickling gland.

Mine, mine, mine, the alpha in me crows. Take her, make her, the wolf inside demands and the dangerous temptation is overwhelming. Gone would be her human frailty, given in its stead, a wolf’s strength, speed and instinct, its accelerated healing and longevity. Gone would be her broken lineage, replaced with antecedents and family all over the globe to love and protect her.

Also gone would be her right to choose.

There’ll be no force between us. She'll consent if she wants. I won’t make a slave of her the way the dragon did.

The effort to retract my teeth leaves me shaking against her. “Jericho, I—.”

Her slender fingers stop the rest of my words. “Don’t. Doesn’t matter.”

It aches, bitterly, that she can love me so deeply, kiss and make love with me with such passion and urgency, then refuse me now with an ice cold calm. “It matters to me.”

“Please.” She rests her forehead against my sternum and takes a steadying breath. “Let it be enough.”

**

The Star of Fate beams again, twinkly, tingly, and when Channing’s lips meet mine, it bubbles with elation.

Idiot ring. You have no idea what you’ve done. What I’ve done.

The last people I told I loved them were my parents. Now, they’re dead.

Because of me.

Faced with that unsavory fact, the Star of Fate is remarkably quiet.

Since he’s a werewolf, the long scar across Channing’s back where the dragon’s spiked tail raked him is now a pale white line. I can barely feel it beneath my fingertips, but it’s there. A permanent reminder, a deathly serious warning of what it costs to be loved by me.

Because if the dragon can’t have me, no one will.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. Channing already took me as mate. Whether I understood what he was doing at the time or not, he was doomed from that moment when I answered in kind. To escape the dragon already cost me one life. To knock him out of the sky caused some serious pain and it was only dumb luck it didn’t kill me again. If I’m actually going to take that scaly monster out, my life will likely be the price, which means my sweet hunky werewolf dies too.

Tears stream down my cheeks even harder.

No one should have to die. Not for me. Never for me. Not like this. 

“You said we had another appointment,” I whisper. “Let’s get some lunch and go.”

Channing’s broad chest inflates and he breathes a heavy sigh. “Okay,” he replies, but it’s a long time before he moves. Almost as if his arms were tentacles suction cupped to my body, he unwraps from around me slowly, then slides his hand into mine again.

I tow along in his wake in a state of shock, appalled at what I’ve done. I’ve leveled all kinds of judgements against him he never deserved. I spent years thinking badly of him because of rumors he was in a gang. I spent years thinking badly of him because I assumed he was a playboy and a philanderer. I let him give me a vow that was tantamount to a death sentence to satisfy my insecurities. Now, I’ve reeled him in further because I’ve fallen in love with him and the stupid Star of Fate—the engagement ring he’s serious about giving me—ratted me out.

Pulling on my helmet mechanically, I mount the Ducati in front of him and feel the warmth of his body curl around me protectively. I’ve never felt more miserable in my life.

Not even sleeping with Eric the park bench, as low as those times had been.

I’m deep in the process of my private pity party when a saving grace inspiration hits me unexpectedly. As soon as it does, I know this is the only path I can choose.

It happens as Channing pulls the Ducati around a corner on route to the taco stand and the KDS tower comes into view on the horizon. Suddenly, I understand I’ve been thinking about things all wrong.

KDS’ Heritage project has access to the largest DNA profile repository in the world. In fact, for all I know, KDS might have access to other DNA profile repositories besides Heritage. And if werewolves are hidden in plain sight inside it, then I’d bet good money that dragons are too.

Her Royal Rudeness, Rebecca of the paleontology PhD. must know something about dinosaur DNA. And it can’t be that much different than dragon DNA. After all, one scaly gigantic lizard is the same as any other scaly gigantic lizard, right?

Why else would a dragon be here? Crossroads is big, but it’s not that big. Definitely not the kind of wealth here that would keep a dragon hanging around. Especially not when he could be in Monaco or Luxembourg. Or faking a sweet life as an oil-rich Sheik in Saudi. No, Rebecca had said, ‘courting a mate or guarding a nest’.

But what if it’s neither?

To have a nest, one would have to have a mate.

To have a mate, one would have to have found her.

I rifle through everything I can recall about KDS and Heritage and how that contract had originated. There’s not much in my memory beyond that KDS had pursued the project. Someone in a position of power would have to have driven it—especially, after it started losing millions. No typical publicly traded business could afford that.

But a dragon could.

He has to be in there, inside KDS—a Board member, someone in the C-suite with stock options, even a venture capitalist backing the project.

And if the dragon is inside KDS, then that’s where I have to go too. I have to find him or find his mate before him. I have to get rid of them, I have to send them away.

I have to do it so that Channing doesn’t get hurt, and neither do I.

**

My stomach gives a noisy lurch as soon as we come within sniffing distance. The taco ‘restaurant’ Channing was referring to is nothing more than a food truck, parked in the lot of an abandoned gas station about halfway between the Crossroads diamond district and the KDS building close to the coast.

“I knew you were hungry,” he says through the helmet’s connected audio as his own stomach rumbles so hard I can feel it against my back. “You’ll love this place.”

“It’s been years since I had tacos,” I admit. “At one of my foster homes, we used to have tacos about once a week. Esteban has them on the menu naturally, if you care to ruin them for personal consumption forever and take chances with your life—.”

“Which you don’t,” he chuckles, parking the motorcycle off to one side.

“—which I don’t,” I agree.

“Aw, come on. A little mystery meat never killed anyone.”

"Bet it's made a bunch of folks sick enough to wish it had." As soon as he kills the engine, I’ve got my helmet off and hang it by the chin strap off one of the handles. “Gamble with your own life.”

Though he’s put the kickstand down, he’s still balancing the bike between his powerful legs planted firmly on either side. I swing one leg over the front of the bike, so they’re both on the same side, but I don’t get off. Instead, as Channing is messing with the chinstrap on his helmet, I pull my knee upward and twist towards him. With some awkward finagling, I’m facing him, backwards on the bike, by the time he pulls his helmet off.

The nice thing about a guy like him, when he’s thinking—really single-mindedly—exactly everything he’s contemplating is written plain as day across his face. With one hand, he dangles his helmet off one side, but finding me facing him with my thighs spread around both him and the bike, his other makes a purely seductive trip from just above my knee up slowly towards the junction of my thigh with my body.

It’s a public place, and there are people milling around out front of the taco stand and driving along the street, so when he leans forward, arching me backwards over the Ducati’s engine, I’m instantly regretting my decision to engage him. I can feel the hot blush starting across my cheeks

Channing nuzzles the collar of my jacket aside, planting an open-mouthed kiss in his hollow behind my collarbone, then sucking and I’m positive I’m about to come unglued. I groan, a shiver racing over me as arcing electricity spikes both north and south along my spine.

“You’re lucky we’re where we are, Jericho,” he murmurs, hanging his helmet on the opposite handlebar from mine. “Otherwise I’d be eating tacos off that hot little body.”

I grimace, shaking strawberry blonde locks I still haven’t accepted are mine. “Ungh. Cheesy.” Wrapping my arms around his neck, I let him sit us back up. “Try again, beefcake.”

He's already standing though, grabbing me around the waist to pull me up with him. Then he picks me up and turning towards the lunch line, plunks me down lightly on my feet. For a few seconds, he eyes me speculatively, the ghost of a grin curling his lips.

There’s something about it—the way he stares. Like a cat deciding when to pounce on an unsuspecting mouse. It kicks my imagination into overdrive. My mind rushes through every possible sultry scenario Channing might take to assault my vulnerable self. Only, clearly, he isn’t taking any of them this instant, which is enough to drive me insane. He simply stands, staring admiringly.

Finally, finally, he reaches out and collects a thick lock of my hair. He bends, his eyes locked on mine as he inhales the fragrance from it, then he whispers, “Is there any brunette left on you?”

I arch a brow with a teasing smile. “I guess you’ll have to find out,” I purr as I slink around him. “What’s the best taco here, beefcake?”

“All of them,” he says with entire seriousness.

And much to my delight, he’s not wrong.

Each taco is a stupendous, multi-layer affair made with homemade flour and corn tortillas, both crispy and soft, filled with flavorful, well-seasoned meats all prepared over a mesquite grill. They’re topped perfectly with a host of different options—creamy refried beans, diced onions, chopped cilantro, or fresh guacamole, then doused in a house-made salsa roja and cotija cheese.

“This one,” I nod, taking a second bite off a soft taco filled with a rich, tender lamb barbacoa and capped with my topping picks, a zebra tomato pico de gallo and pineapple manzano pepper salsa. “This is the best taco I’ve ever eaten, period.”

We’re picnicking with our little feast spread out on top of the crushed paper sack it came in between us. There's a nice little park not far down the road from the taco truck and we're enjoying ourselves on the cool grass in the warm sunshine.

“Uh-uh.” Stuffing a last bite of an achiote spiced chicken taco filled with salted cabbage into his mouth, he shakes his head. “Two standouts,” he says, wiping his fingers on a napkin. “The al pastor-style pork with pineapples and the salted pork belly with mango-jalapeno salsa.”

“There’s nothing subtle about those,” I counter.

“That’s exactly why I’m addicted to them.”

“What were you thinking about when we were leaving the jewelry store?” I wipe a drip of cilantro-lime flavored pico from the corner of my mouth with one finger, then suck the flavor off my fingertip.

“Doesn’t matter,” Channing replies, shaking his head. “You kind of explained with the ring.”

I roll my eyes. “Oh brother. Star of Fate rides again.”

He grins. “What did you call it?”

“The saleslady—with the python smile—she said star sapphires are called star of fate.”

“Stones of fate,” he corrects.

“Whatever. It’s going to wind up with a nickname anyway. SOF- something. I haven’t decided yet what.” I give him a sly look. “It’s hard, now that ‘beefcake’ is taken.”

“You’ll pay for that,” he promises. “What did you mean by ‘rides again’?”

Shrugging, I lean back on the heels of my palms, crossing my ankles and letting my food settle. I glance back at the ring on my finger. “It’s a bossy little extrovert. The amber when I put it on, we had an instant rapport. This one too—I could feel it immediately—but almost as soon as it was on my finger it was throwing that nasty yellowy shade around all too freely.”

“Hmm.” He studies me quietly.

“That’s the same thing you did in the store. What does it mean?”

“Just—you’re surrounded with magic. It’s as if it comes at your call, like electricity.”

“If you’re referring to this thing,” I lift my left hand and waggle my ring finger, “I’m certain it’s not at my beck and call.”

“We’ll see,” he says flatly, then starts stuffing our mess into the bag to dispose of in the trash. Getting to his feet, he extends a hand to help me up. “One more stop before home. Ready?”

“Where next?”

“Your new home, Mrs. Stark.”