by D. Fischer
“Don’t!” one of the men yells. “You’re hurting her!” I recognize the voice – am dimly, curiously wondering why Cinder is here but does nothing. Why he isn’t racing toward me. Why he isn’t trying to help me.
My curiosity ebbs in favor of the nothingness that fills my thoughts. A sense of peace stifles the fear, and then, my consciousness fades.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jacob Trent
In the backseat of the pack’s van, Cinder’s silence is louder than if he’d yell. He’s pissed. Through the pack link, I can feel his wolf on the edge of hysteria while Cinder physically holds Jinx’s head in his lap. He doesn’t look at her though. I don’t think he can because if he does, it will remind him of what we just did: Kidnapped her. Instead, he stares straight out the window at the darkened sky.
A bag has been placed over her head per Damien’s request. If she wakes, we don’t want her to have any idea of where the pack’s compound is located. Ropes are secured around her wrists, tied by Rex who was watched closely by Cinder to make sure they weren’t too tight to cause any damage.
Cinder never wanted us to do this, and now, his anger is smothering the van, raising my own wolf’s hackles. I tug on Allie’s rubber band around my wrist. This is going to drive a wedge further between us. Not that it matters. I doubt Cinder and I will ever see eye to eye on things, especially after this little stunt.
I flick my gaze to Jinx. She had attacked my pack, skillfully so, and in the complete darkness too. Attacked, as if we were the enemy. With no light what-so-ever, without even seeing her opponents, she knew which moves to make and how to make them. I have no doubt she killed those men now. I’m just not sure how she did it. The rumor about her not having any magic is certainly true, or we’d be stuck to the bar ceiling via witch spelled vines.
Before the situation turned dangerous and we discovered how she manages to kill so savagely, I did the only thing I could do. I wrapped my arms around her neck and waited until she was unconscious. I make no apologies for that. If Cinder wants to fault me for it, so be it.
“We were right,” Damien murmurs within the van. “She was going to run.”
Cinder scoffs. “You have no proof of that.” Indeed, we don’t. She could have just as easily been going home, but all things considered, who would return to live in their home where they killed someone? A sick and twisted person, no doubt. I have to agree with Damien.
“What more did you want me to do?” I ask Cinder, swiveling once more in the seat to look at him. Rex is driving. Damien sits directly behind him, sneering out the window. The skin around his eye is turning a shade of purple where Jinx’s elbow had landed.
Slowly, Cinder looks at me. If looks could kill . . . “This didn’t have to happen this way,” he says.
I have half a mind to make this fucking car pull over so I can restore order where Cinder is concerned. His disobedience and blatant challenge to my authority won’t be tolerated much longer.
“You and I both know she’s dangerous,” I say as patiently as I can.
“We could have civilly talked with her,” Cinder grinds out.
Damien murmurs, “Says the man who is clearly in love with her.”
Cinder snarls at the back of his pack mate’s head. “I am not in love with her. I’m just the only person she has.”
“Besides her witch friend, you mean?” Damien peers at me meaningfully while he talks to him. “Besides her coven?”
Cinder’s top lip curls, and if it wasn’t for Jinx on his lap, I know he would have lunged for Damien.
I grimace at this. Again, I find Damien’s point to be more credible than Cinder’s, even with Damien’s prejudices against witches. Cinder is truly protective of her, and it doesn’t settle well with my wolf who’s been bristling since we hauled her in the van. This whole situation bucks against his fantasies of Jinx, of his curiosity and adoration toward her.
I’m surrounded by idiots. Emotional idiots. Except for Rex. I don’t think Rex could disappoint me if he tried.
“We’re here,” Rex says. “If you’re all done bickering over a tiny woman, we can take her inside.”
I face forward as we pull into the long stretch of the driveway, the compound nestled into a pocket of woods. The unwashed greyish brick is a warming color, and the many wide windows beaming the moon back to the sky make me breathe a sigh of relief.
Being gone from home too long makes me edgy. Amelia has theories about that, but I take it with a grain of salt every time she brings up the fact that I have PTSD from the Realms War. We had been waiting for Jinx to arrive, sitting in the dark for hours. That’s what had set my nerves on edge. Nothing more.
I tug on the rubber band once more.
Ever since that war, home is truly where my heart lies. Home and the shifters under my care. I have no wish to see any more of them die. None. If Amelia wants to call this PTSD, then fine. She can tell her worries to the dangerous, magicless witch who will probably care less than I do.
Everyone has problems. Mine just happens to be memories.
“You realize if her coven gets wind of this . . .” Rex whispers to me as he puts the car in park.
Cinder barks a laugh as if we should have thought of that from the beginning. I roll my eyes at it, fantasizing about shoving him into the van’s side once we’re out, and biting a chunk of skin from his neck. Maybe then he won’t be such an ass. He’ll be too busy controlling the bleeding.
Against Cinder’s protest, I had been the one who carried a still unconscious Jinx inside the compound. I hadn’t shoved him into the van like I wanted, choosing to let my head cool before I have a serious talk with him.
I parade through the halls by pure muscle memory than actually watching where I’m going. My attention is solely on the woman in my arms, her scent, and the way her braided hair tickles my arm. Each step causes it to sway. My wolf’s attention to her is even more keen. He observes the perfection of her flawless, tanned skin.
Once I reach my own room, I lay her in my bed. Damien suggests restraints, but surprisingly, Cinder and I both disagree. With all the shifters in this building, we shouldn’t need shackles. Hell, if someone has sex in this building, we all know about it because of our heightened senses. If she happens to be left unattended, I doubt she’d be able to sigh undetected.
“Why didn’t she use her magic at the bar?” Rex asks from the doorway.
“She easily could have,” Damien grumbles with disdain.
“Because she’s not dangerous!” Cinder barks. “How many times do I have to tell you that she doesn’t have magic?”
I snap a throw blanket free and drape it over Jinx. I had laid her on her side, head resting against the pillows. “She’s not dangerous to you,” I correct. “But I think you’re right, in a way. She doesn’t have normal magic, but she definitely has something. The shifters she left in the back of that alley would have to agree.”
Cinder crosses his arms and relaxes against the wall. “How do you know Sara wasn’t the one who killed them? You don’t even know if they were around when they . . . died.”
Damien snorts. “You say it like it was a casual death.” He points to Jinx. “She and her friend were the last ones to be seen going out to that alley. If they stumbled across dead bodies, they would have told you.”
I scrub my jaw. “And there wasn’t enough time between their departure and me following after them for someone else to have killed them. You need to face the facts, Cinder. The probability of this being the witch’s murder is pretty damn high. Besides, I’ve never seen a witch kill that way. Not even in the war.” He wouldn’t know. I had ordered him to guard the territory with Reese and Amelia when we left for The Tween. My voice turns snarly. “Everyone’s a little fucked up since that war.”
“Let’s not forget that these aren’t the first murders of late,” Rex says. “The others were killed in the same way.”
Thoroughly pissed and outmatched, Cinder storms from the room. He makes a poin
t to bump into Rex’s shoulder as he passes. Rex growls at him but lets him pass without further comment.
“You’re going to have to deal with that soon,” Rex says quietly. “He’s pushing his limits.”
“If you ask me, he’s attempting to challenge his alpha,” Damien adds.
“I will. Just . . . not tonight.”
I turn back to Jinx, my hand twitching to remove the strand of hair that’s strayed from her braid. It drapes over her brow.
“You sure about this, Jacob?” Rex asks softly.
I know why he’s asked. This could cause her mental harm. This could start a war between the witches and shifters. This is the tipping hat – the beginning of something bigger. He wants to know if I’m prepared for the consequences. Glenda’s lullaby begins to sound in my head like a siren, a warning to what might come.
“No,” I answer honestly. I whirl and march from the room. “Have Reese check her out and let me know when she starts to wake. Let Glenda know we have a guest.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jinx Whitethorn
My head pounds. For the second day in a row, a headache threatens to explode my brain. This is getting ridiculous. I groan, my hand reaching to press against the ache against my temples. What the hell happened?
“You were out for quite some time,” a deep voice says.
My eyes fly open, and I abruptly sit up in the bed. The room spins, but I spot the man sitting in an overly large cream leather chair. He fingers a rubber band around his wrist while he watches me with barely contained suspicious rage. The sun dances through the windows and splashes across the floor at his feet like puddles of gold.
“I imagine your head hurts quite a bit,” he adds, leaning to balance his elbows against his knees. Doing so exposes the voice-activated virtual assistant pod behind him. It sits on a podium meant to display a potted plant, and a soft repetitive blue light circles around the top ring. I’ve read about them, but I’ve never seen the technology firsthand. I don’t do technology. I don’t even own a cellphone.
My gaze moves to the other objects in the room. An electric fireplace sits below an ornate white mantel with a flat-screen TV on it. A digital thermostat dedicated to only this room alone tells the toasty temperature. A smart-touch light switch is embedded in the wall by the closed bedroom door, and Bluetooth speakers the size of my palm hang at every corner of the room. My word, everything that can be controlled by technology is in this room.
A white rug lies between the bed and the fireplace, vacuum lines sprawled across the fibers. Two well-oiled dressers stand against both walls, perpendicular to the bed. They’re made of real wood, though I don’t know which kind. I wasn’t a girl scout, and furniture was never in my short list of interests. Give me a bed and a suitcase. That’s all I need.
Left of the flickering fake fire, a door leads to a dark bathroom. I see the mirror from the bed, and my rumpled image peers back at me.
His scent – Cinder’s alpha’s scent – wafts around me. It clings to the walls, to the comforter. It’s the same scent I had smelled right before I was knocked out.
Knocked out. Kidnapped. My gaze snaps back to his, and anger roils in my gut.
“You,” I hiss, snarling. “You were the one who kidnapped me?”
I ball my fists into the blue blanket draped over my legs and wildly search for any exits. There’s only one door and three large windows. These are the sort of windows that would take me forever to figure out how to slide open.
“Yes,” he says calmly. “And I wouldn’t bother trying to run. You won’t get very far. Not here.”
“What the hell do you want? Why am I here?”
He quirks a dark brow. “Don’t play dumb with me. You know exactly why you’re here.”
“You’re working with them, aren’t you?” Panic rises in my chest, threatening a bubbling scream.
“Who?”
He knows damn well who. “What do you want? Why are you after me?”
His nostrils flare to my rising adrenaline, and then he blinks, confused. “What are you?”
“I’m not going to tell you a damn thing until you tell me what you want!”
“I want to know why you killed those shifters.” He tilts back in his chair and crosses his arms, completely at ease. “I want to know what you are, why you’re killing them, and how you did it. Clever, you know, to make it look like another shifter attack. Did your witch friend help with that? Is this a coven’s vendetta?”
My fingers clutch the quilt tightly. “Leave my coven out of this,” I whisper. My breathing hitches, and he picks up on it, smirking. With this change in expression, I know deep in my bones that he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know who those branded shifters are. Sure, he might be faking it, but my instincts are telling me otherwise.
Just like humans, not all creature species get along. Could it be that he and his pack have nothing to do with the branded shifters who’ve been trying to kill me?
“If I tell you what I am, will you let me go?” It’s a stupid question. I know he won’t let me go.
He only shrugs.
I bite my bottom lip and stare at him, working like hell to control my breathing - to control my panic and fear. Nothing good ever comes of it.
“Your friends –” I begin, testing, but he cuts me off.
“Not my friends.”
I swallow hard. “It’s not the first time shifters have attacked me.”
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know. It’s the same people though,” I wave a shaky hand in the air. “The same group of shifters. Same branded welt, same intent. The welt is like a diamond inside a diamond. Something tribal.”
He squints, and his top lip twitches. “They’re trying to kill you?”
I snort. “Yes, captain obvious. Yes, they’re trying to kill me.”
“And you –” he gestures to me in a sneering sort of way. “You alone managed to kill them? Two shifters against one witch?”
I glare at him. “What was I supposed to do? Ask them over for a cup of coffee and a lecture about safe conflict resolution?”
He grins at this, a slow-spreading smile. “You’re lying.”
“Okay,” I say sarcastically. “You’re right. Every night I go out into the streets and hunt down shifters with a freakish diamond welt. I’ve been thinking about adopting a superhero name. Any ideas?”
His grin widens, brightening his dark skin. “Witty. That doesn’t help you here.”
“Nothing will help me here. You’re going to kill me anyway.”
The smile fades, and he leans toward me. “You killed a total of three shifters. At least, that’s all we know about. The first one is on the route from the gym you frequent. There are others. We have the reports, but we can’t immediately connect you to them. Don’t you dare try to imply your innocence.”
I look away, furious. “I didn’t want to.”
“Oh?”
“No, but it was me or them.”
He’s silent long enough to where my curiosity overrides my need for self-preservation and to prove my innocence. I look back at him. His jaw is ticking as he surveys me, his eyes glowing green to that of the wolf who dwells inside him. Fear spikes, and my breathing becomes harsh once more.
“I’m not going to kill you,” he utters. “But the nature of their deaths . . . as far as I know, a witch doesn’t have a spell that rips open the throats of another shifter. From what I’ve been told, you don’t have magic. How did you do it?”
Cinder and I will have a nice long chat if I make it out of this alive. He’s spilled every secret I’ve told him. It makes me glad I’ve kept the rest of my life private in our conversations. Loyalties to his pack and people be damned. I’m going to kick his ass.
“I don’t remember how,” I answer honestly.
“How do you not remember how?” Jacob barks.
I lurch forward, lashing with my next words like a striking snake. “Because I wasn’t conscious for it!”<
br />
He blinks rapidly at this – either to the news of it or my outburst. I ease back to my previous position and move my gaze to the fireplace.
“What are you?” the alpha asks softly. Though I’m not a shifter, I can feel the demand in it.
“I’m not going to tell you that.”
“Why?” he spits.
“Because right now, it’s the only information that will ensure I stay alive.” I’m surprised at my honesty, but I mask my face to a neutral expression. It truly is the only bargaining chip I have, and hopefully, his curiosity about what I am will ensure my safety long enough to find a way out of this mess. I need to try to escape. I don’t know how, but I should find a way out of this place.
“But you’re not a witch,” he says confidently. “Will you deny that?”
I say nothing, and unfortunately, this confirms his suspicions. Cinder already told him I was born to a witch and then told him I was magicless. He’s right. Just because I’m born into the long line of witches doesn’t make me one if I can’t produce a single spell. Besides, witches don’t become what I can become. They don’t kill the way I do. They aren’t murderers.
“I won’t kill you, Jinx. I make it a habit not to kill people. I give you my word.”
I chew this over, gnawing at the inside of my cheek. Do I trust the word of a complete stranger?
“I promise,” he adds quietly, reading the expression on my saddening face.
Murderer. Freak. Beast.
“If you don’t tell me, others will come looking for answers. I can’t protect you.”
“Why would you protect me? I don’t know you, and you don’t know me.”
“Cinder knows you,” he says with measured calmness. “Cinder has repeatedly told me you’re not a threat.” I snort, and he continues. “I believe him.”
I whip my gaze back to his.
“And I believe you.”
