by Jayla Kane
“Nope, that’s ruining it,” I said, shaking my head at him, and he bit his lip again. “You’re fucking it up.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, then surprised me by brightening up a bit. “I told her—I apologized to her.”
“When?” My eyes narrowed.
“This morning,” he said, watching me. “I was keeping an eye out for her last night. She—”
“Why?” I didn’t like how his gaze was flattening out again, as if he’d just realized he was about to say some things I wouldn’t like. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Where I was last night,” he said, face stony. “And what I was doing.”
“Okay, so?” I felt my heartrate pick up, suddenly remembering, all at once, that Raven—and Jake, for fuck’s sake—had signed that goddamn book. “Spill it, Hunter.” The image of the page I held in my hand raced through my mind, and I felt the sour taste of bile in the back of my throat. I was almost positive it was made of human skin. Pale, freckled. The Maiden, she’d said with a flourish, turning to the page with the flare of a TGIF server. Gross.
“Raven is something they call the Sineater—don’t ask me,” he said, cutting me off. “I don’t know anything—that bitch upstairs is telling you way more than she told me. Jake is something called the Master of Games—”
“Oh my god, talk about Fifty Shades of Bullshit—”
“But neither of them have… Symptoms like mine,” he said, unable to keep the tiniest traces of a smile off of his face even as his eyes became impossibly sad. That little flash of humor brought his guard down, and I saw immediately, with the painfully intense focus of a stalker, that he had frickin’ dimples. Dimples.
Hunter Black has dimples. Plural.
“I’ve never seen you laugh before,” I said, and he shrugged and looked away from me. “It’s a good one, right? Come on. You can admit it.”
“Charisma,” he muttered, but that little smile was more pronounced, the corners of his lips turned up at the ends. He had this habit of flattening them out, as if he was trying to hide how full they were. “Told you.”
“So you’re taking this opportunity created by my fantastic wit to what, gloat?” I raised my eyebrow and he shot me a quick, mischievous glance. “I mean, if that’s how you want to play it.”
“Baby…” The smile disappeared again, but his eyes were soft. “Are you flirting with me?”
Um, duh. “Yeah,” I told him, crossing my arms beneath the blanket.
“Why?” His question sounded sincere. And I had no idea how to answer him.
“You don’t want me to?”
He held so still I wasn’t sure if he heard me, although that seemed crazy, given the size of the room and the wolfishness and all. He was so quiet for so long that I shrugged and wrapped the blanket tighter around me, then let out a long sigh. “So. Raven?”
“She’s alright—she’s staying with Jake at the Warfield place.”
“No way,” I said, scowling at him. “You must have hit your head. She would never—”
“I dropped her off,” he said, shrugging again. He looked like he always did again, blank and smooth, but I was catching his edges now.
I liked making him smile. Shit. “Well, she hopefully walked home, then, and—” He stared down at the floor, stone still, then seemed surprised when I caught the shadow that crossed over his face. Blink, and you’d miss it. “What? What is it?”
“She’s not safe at home,” he said bluntly, then looked me in the eye. “And neither are you. When we get you out of here, I’m taking you to the same place. To be with her.”
“And Jake Warfield? I don’t fucking think so.”
“Not negotiating,” he said, his voice dropping another octave. “I’m the fucking kidnapper, remember? I’m not giving you options.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I snapped. “After this? Seriously?”
“I will never put you in danger again,” he snarled, his eyes dark. “That’s all there is to say.”
“You think I’d be safe there? Of all the stupid—”
“You can’t go home, Baby,” he growled. “And there’s almost nowhere that’s safe—they did something fucked up last night, left a dead mouse in the bed where Raven was sleeping. I didn’t even hear them, Baby. Not a fucking sound.” His eyes flickered again when he thought something he didn’t want to say, and it infuriated me even more.
“Because you haven’t slept in what, a week? Longer? You look like a corpse.” I stood up and shucked the blanket off, not caring, at the moment, if I smelled terrible. Screw him anyway. “If you weren’t tired you would… What were you even doing there?”
“Jake asked me to help her.” He shrugged again, but I was still trying to put it together, the stony look on his face no longer as blank as it used to be. There was still something he wasn’t telling me. “So she slept in his dorm and I stayed in the next room.” He gritted his teeth and I realized he was frustrated that he hadn’t been able to protect my sister; that seemed like a kind of hell for someone like Hunter, actually, and it cooled my temper considerably. That was basically his whole damn purpose in life: protect Molly. Protect me. Protect Raven?
Protect Jake.
“You’re not actually canine, you know,” I said quietly. “You don’t have to be everybody’s guard dog.”
“Thanks,” he said sarcastically, and part of me rallied at the quick roll of his eyes before he returned to his customary expression.
“I’m serious,” I said, pacing along the opposite wall of the cell. “That’s why you’re still here, right? You’re trying to help me, because you feel guilty. And scared for what’s going to happen to Molly if you—hey,” I said, turning to look at him. “How are you keeping an eye on Molly?”
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and flashed the screen at me; it was divided into quarters, grainy footage of a room and the exterior of a trailer in greyscale filling the screen. “Cameras. Lots of text messages. GPS.”
“Jesus. If I didn’t know better that would be creepy as hell—nevermind, I do know better, and that’s still creepy as hell.”
“She’s my little sister,” he said, checking the screen. “She’s my responsibility.”
“How does she feel about you acting like her frickin’ warden?” I crossed my arms over my chest and raised my own eyebrow at him. “Not happy, I bet.”
“Why do you care?” That took me aback. I turned and continued pacing, studying the floor as I thought.
“She’s a good kid. She doesn’t need you to—”
“Stay in your lane,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically sharp. I thought about how many times I’d slapped him, how useless it was, how it hurt my hand afterward, and that barely talked me out of doing it again.
“Sorry if you don’t like to hear it,” I said, not sorry at all. “But maybe you wouldn’t be in this incredibly shitty position if you let other people make decisions about their own lives.”
His nostrils flared. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” I spun on my heel and glared at him, the blanket forgotten on the bed, my arms no longer crossed over my chest. “Am I still dreaming? I’m wearing fucking pajamas. I thought I woke up in this shithole but maybe the whole thing is in my head.” We were back to being adversaries. “Is it?”
He stared at me; I stared at him. “I told you I was sorry, miss.”
“And a fat lot of good it’s doing.”
“Baby, can we just—”
“You know what you could do?” I marched over to him, but this time he was ready. He spun away from the door so that if I got too close, he could jump. He wasn’t going to let me touch him. “You do,” I snarled. “You know exactly what you could do.”
“You told me yesterday you could find somebody else with a magic—”
“I did, didn’t I?” I threw my hands up in the air, sarcasm dripping from every bitter word. “Well there ya go, kidnapper. Get me the fu
ck out of here so I can go find a magic dick.”
And then something about it… I mean, it’s so stupid sounding. It sounds crazy.
And kind of funny. Right? Come on, that’s funny.
And I was really tired. I’d slept from sheer exhaustion, but my body was sweaty and sore and stiff from sleeping on straw, and I was like the poster child for anxiety compartmentalization by then. So I couldn’t help it. I… I giggled.
I hate that word. It’s so dumb sounding, it makes a laugh seem so frickin’ innocent and foolish and—and that’s exactly what I did. I giggled.
Hunter stared at me, and then, right on cue, he looked worried.
Which made me laugh out loud. “Hunter, come on! You’re so serious. Have you ever heard a more ridiculous sentence in your life? I need to go find a magic dick. That sounds like a line from a Rihanna song or something.”
And now he looked confused, which made me laugh even harder. “You’ve been down here too long,” he muttered, but there it was; the tiniest smile curved those lips as I collapsed back in my original position, sitting on the edge of the bed and rubbing my temples with my fingers. My nails were chipped now too. Great.
“Obviously. But all the same. That shit is funny.” I flopped back on the bed, spreading my arms out when I landed on my back and staring up at the ceiling. “Well, it is if I don’t think too hard about why it’s probably true.”
“What does that mean?” I guess she really hadn’t explained anything to him.
“The Rose said the Ashwood Society was founded in blood magic… How did she put it? Blood magic I couldn’t even imagine. She said sex and murder were my bloodline’s legacy.” I wasn’t laughing now. “I guess that’s our legacy—everyone related to the jerks that started this fucked up little club.”
“It explains some things,” he said darkly, and when I sat up and looked over at him he was staring at nothing, chewing on his lip.
“Hunter, it’s not your fault,” I said quietly, and he frowned at me. “I mean it. I think I’m tired of hating your guts—although, real talk? I am mad at you for at least seventy percent of the time we’re in the same room.” I sighed. “And ninety-nine percent of the time we’re apart.”
Now he smiles. This frickin’ guy. “I’ll take it.”
“Charming.” I flopped back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling again. “Anyway. So the spell that makes me more powerful requires sex because that’s how they built the Ashwood Society, I guess, which makes a twisted sort of sense—I mean, as much sense as anything else makes, right? It’s all a little too weird to be believed, but here we are, and… There’s no denying what you can do.”
“Nope,” Hunter said, but he didn’t sound happy about it. He sounded miserable.
“Is it really so bad?” I turned my head, still laying down, and watched him. He was leaning against the door again, less afraid that I was going to attack him, I guess. I was losing my mind a bit, to be honest, so his bet was a good one.
“Yeah,” he said quietly, still not looking back at me.
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” His eyebrows were low over his eyes, his mouth twisted; he was staring at the floor, his hands shoved in his pockets.
“Hunter, how can it be so bad to have power like this? I mean… Other people, people who hurt people, shouldn’t have that kind of juice. But you’re not like that. All you’ve done is try to take care of people since this thing happened—”
“Since I kidnapped you,” he clarified, and our eyes met.
“Yeah,” I said, but I’d been telling the truth; I was really tired of being pissed at him for it. Now I was pissed at him for refusing to have sex with me. Signing the book hadn’t done anything, and there was a good chance sex would accomplish more nothing… Unless you counted the fact that my entire body sang for him, and that had nothing to do with magic or anything else—it was just a wish, dressed up in an opportunity. An excuse. “Hunter, listen. I don’t understand why you’re ashamed, is all. You’re not going to kidnap anybody else, right?”
He didn’t answer me with words, but his eyes said a lot.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” I told him, sitting up again so I could get a better view of what was happening in that head of his.
“I know,” he said quietly. He must have memorized most of those patterns on the floor by now.
“Come sit by me,” I heard myself say, and his expression showed me he was surprised as I was.
And then he bit his lip, in that way he had, and I couldn’t stop myself from patting the bed beside me. “Baby, I can’t—”
“No, you won’t. But I’m not trying to pressure you right now. Just… Just come over here.”
He swallowed, and that same rush of emotion I didn’t fully understand swept through me as I stared into his dark eyes. “Is this about yesterday?”
“Maybe.” I shrugged, then sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t like how we left it.”
“I thought you were okay with… With it.” Yep. I had officially spent too much time staring at that face, listening to that voice, because I could tell that he was nervous. It was so strange to realize that the stony demeanor he showed the world could be carved up into these tiny movements that spoke volumes—much more than the actual words he allowed past those full lips.
“I was. I think that’s why we need to talk about it.”
“Well, talk then.”
“Okay, fine,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I just wanted to say… I don’t think you owe me sex. I am angry, and I’m trying to find a way to get out of this safely, and even with your reservations the best option we have is to out-gun these people. Okay? I understand that they got you coming and going and you really didn’t have a choice when it came between me and Molly.” And that, that right there, that little spark in his eyes? That was hope. I had no idea what that might mean for he and I, though. “The thing with Raven is actually harder for me to deal with.”
“She got it,” he said softly, and I shrugged.
“What is there to get? She’s brain-washed or something by Jake. She really loved him, you know. I remember when they were kids—”
“Right.” He was staring at me, and there was something about the set of his mouth that made me frown.
“Hunter? Why is Jake all lovey-dovey with her now? Why did she forgive him?”
“I don’t think she has,” he said carefully. “I think she’s working through it. I think he forgave her.”
“For what?” I stood up and walked over to him, but kept a careful distance between us. He wasn’t dodging this conversation—a much less sexy one than I’d intended to have, but here we were. Hunter looked genuinely confused.
“He knows she—Tristan is alive, so—”
“Okay, rewind. What? Start from the beginning.”
“I wasn’t there in the beginning,” he said, sounding just as confused as me. “Jake saw Raven with Tristan the day of the funeral, the day he disappeared. And she lied to him about it, and he put two and two together and realized she’d probably had something to do with it. But she wouldn’t tell him anything, and started…” He sighed, and I realized this was the longest speech I’d ever gotten out of him. Hunter didn’t seem like the kind of person comfortable with passing along the latest updates of any kind, but especially those about other peoples’ lives. “She made him suspicious, and he started fucking with her to… I guess to punish her, and maybe to provoke her in to telling him what really happened.”
“And how does that strategy look if she hadn’t done anything?”
“Well, I think that’s where they are now,” Hunter said slowly. “Although… Raven was sure she killed Tristan, Baby. She was hiding—”
“What the fuck did you just say?” I gaped at him, and he took a slow, deliberate breath before placing a heavy hand on my shoulder and pushing me back towards the bed. We sat down side by side.
“It doesn’t matter now, in the same way,” he told me, his tone
meant to be reassuring. “Raven didn’t kill Tristan. She thought she had, but she didn’t. And now they both know, and have to deal with the fact that Tristan is alive, Zelle was lying to everybody about it, and—”
“Wait, wait, wait—” I put my hands out in front of me as if I had something to hold onto, but there was nothing there. Hunter hesitated for a second, then grabbed them and twisted me so we were facing one another, my palms tucked inside of his, our knees brushing against one another.
“Tristan and Zelle… I don’t know what to tell you about that,” he said, and now he sounded very tired, as if talking wore him out more than jumping through time or growing claws. “But Tristan is alive. Raven is innocent. Jake knows that, and I guess he’s… Hopefully he’s trying to atone, because he’s always been in love with her.”
“No, he hasn’t,” I said, my voice ragged and harsh. “Hunter, the shit he did to her… That’s not love.”
“How would you know?” He didn’t say it meanly, though. Hunter spoke like he was weary—of love, of life. Of everything. “At any rate, that’s what they’re doing at the mansion. Figuring all that shit out.”
“And neither of them have powers either, after signing the book?” I gazed into his eyes, trying to see the answer, and he shook his head at me.
“I haven’t seen anything. But Jake was sick. Really fucking sick. And not like the flu or something—he couldn’t sleep for days, didn’t eat. I thought it was just this whole thing with Raven but…” He shrugged again, then furrowed his brow. “Something is different with her, too. I could feel it, the same way I can feel it around you.” His eyes slid over and met mine for a second before going back to the floor. “But you… You had magic before you signed the book, Baby. I didn’t realize that’s what it was. There’s something in the air, I can sense it now, but it’s impossible to describe.”
“I was magic before I signed the book?”
“Yeah,” he said, and I’d almost forgotten I ever hated him by then; I was having trouble imagining ever taking my hands out of his. “But I didn’t know. I didn’t know what it was.”
“And Raven is magic now.”
