Jacob's Ladder (String of Fate) Read Free

other side and quickly got the rotors moving. It didn’t take long, but it felt like an eternity before they were in the air.
    Gunfire followed them into the night, but Jake took the bird almost straight up, leaving Ria’s stomach momentarily far below. The sensation passed as adrenaline continued to pump through her system. She didn’t have time to feel sick at the dizzying speed at which he shot out of range of the guys on the ground with guns.
    He flew the helicopter up and outward, toward the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
     
    Jake felt triumphant. He had gotten there in time to save Ria. For once in his life, his visions had given him time to do something about the shit that was about to hit the fan. His gift was a fickle thing. It often showed him what was to come, but either it was too close to the actual event or too vague for him to be able to identify when and where.
    He had been seeing Ria in his visions of the future for more than a year now, though. He had been able to identify her at the wedding reception his sister had invited him to attend in Iceland. He still wasn’t sure why his newly-mated sister had thought to invite him to the wedding of the tiger-shifter king at his stronghold. Humans—and clairvoyants—didn’t usually mix with shifters. But his sister had married into the panther Clan when she’d mated with Cade.
    Oddly enough, Cade was Ria’s cousin. He had been a Royal Guard, protecting Ria, when he had crossed paths with Jake’s little sister, Ellie. He saved her life. She helped him keep Ria—the queen of his people—safe and Ellie and Cade had fallen in love and married soon after. Jake had been in Asia during that whole episode, freaking out that his sister was in danger and he was too far away to help her.
    That was one of the times his visions came too late to do any real good. He had tried to call and warn her, but communications had been very iffy where he’d been. When he had finally gotten through to leave a voicemail, it was after he’d already had another vision that showed everything working out okay. He had left that message but hadn’t been sure she’d gotten it until much, much later.
    Then Ellie’s childhood friend, Gina, had been revealed as a tiger shapeshifter. Jake had always known there was something a little different about Gina, but he had kept his mouth shut, knowing in his heart, Gina’s secret was nothing bad. Gina had a pure heart, and her parents were downright spooky on the mystical level. Jake had only met them once, but that one occasion had been memorable.
    Only now did he realize he had met the tiger king in exile. Gina was a tiger shifter princess and her new mate was the new king of all tiger shifters. His name was Mitch and he was also a former Royal Guard, like Cade. In fact, he had been Cade’s partner, in service to protect Ria, the pantera noir queen. Her title was Nyx. Just like they called the tiger king the Tig’Ra. There was a complicated societal structure behind all the big cat shifter Clans that Jake was beginning to learn about through his sister and her husband—or mate, which was the term the shifters used.
    Cade was only a cousin of the royal line, but if anything happened to Ria, he was in line to succeed as pantera noir monarch. Jake was certain that none of them wanted anything to happen to Ria. Being the queen of the black panther shifters was a heavy responsibility—even more so than Mitch’s role as leader of the tiger shifters. There was something mysterious and weighty about the role the Nyx played in this that Jake didn’t fully understand yet…but he would.
    The visions were leading him somewhere and he figured by the end of this whole episode, he would know all of Ria’s secrets.
    He piloted the helicopter out to sea, surprised by Ria’s silence. She had put on the headset that would allow them to communicate over the noise of the helicopter’s engine, but she hadn’t said a word since they left the