Ruined

by Jus Accardo

  The demon shifted, anticipating violence. I pushed it down. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to check in on Rick. Plus, I got Sam’s voice mail. I knew she was here, figured I’d bring breakfast. What are you doing here? Is it such a good idea?”

  “She knows everything,” I said. “Our family. The demon. All of it.”

  Judging by the expression on Chase’s face, the confession threw him for a loop, but he recovered quickly and turned to Sam. “Even after finding out the truth, you’re still hanging around him? What the hell is wrong with you, Samantha?”

  “Careful, Chase. You sound a little jealous.” I came around the couch.

  Chase squared his shoulders. “Jealous of what? You?” He took a step forward. “You really don’t see how stupid that sounds?”

  I tensed. Azirak wanted to lunge at my brother, raging to feel bones snap beneath his fingers, but I resisted—barely—and flashed him a knowing smile. “You want her but she doesn’t want you. Burns your ass, doesn’t it?”

  “Okay,” Sam said, stepping between us. Leave it to her to play peacemaker. “Knock it off.”

  I ignored her and stepped forward. “Must really piss you the hell off that she’s, what, the one girl in Harlow who hasn’t blown you?”

  “Whoa,” Sam said as color fanned to life in her cheeks. “Could we please focus—”

  Chase laughed. “Putting a lot on assumption, big brother.” He leaned forward and winked. “Who says she hasn’t? Maybe I’ve been in those pants already.”

  Sam turned an impressive shade of red. “Oh my God. No one in this room has been in my damn pants but me.”

  We whirled around to stare at her.

  “Perverts.” She rolled her eyes and said to Chase, “Something happened at school.”

  “Sammy,” I warned, taking a step toward her. Involving my brother in this was a bad idea.

  She kept talking. “I was attacked.”

  Chase stared. Face pale, his eyes settled on me. “Attacked? By who?”

  “By what,” Sam corrected.

  Wonderful. Just what I needed. “It was a demon.”

  Chase’s face turned scarlet. He stalked the rest of the room, stopping inches from me. The accusation in his eyes was plain as day. “Why the hell would a demon attack her, Jax?”

  Azirak roared. It flashed a barrage of images. A million different ways that it could kill Chase right then and there. Snapping his neck. Hitting him at just the right angle to send fragments of his nose shooting into his brain. Grabbing the pen that sat inches away, on the coffee table, and jamming it into the hollow of his throat.

  I pushed the thoughts from my head. It would probably upset Sam if I ripped Chase to shreds right here on Kelly’s living room floor. “Back away from me before I rip your throat out.” Thankfully, he did as told. “As for why Sam was attacked, it was to get to me.”

  “Get to you? Why?”

  “Not really clear on that part, and really, it doesn’t matter.”

  Chase slammed a fist against the small table by the door.”Like hell it doesn’t—”

  “There are bigger issues to deal with. When she was attacked, this thing linked to her. If it gets hurt, she gets hurt. If it dies, she dies.”

  “Then we break this link.” Chase turned to Sam, and the expression on his face, unadulterated fear and concern, pissed me off. Suddenly the time he’d gotten to spend with her over the last three years was the only thing I could think about.

  “We’re working on that, but we don’t even know who the demon is,” I said as evenly as possible.

  “Assuming it matters?”

  I clenched his jaw and silently counted to ten. He was still looking at Sam. “It matters,” I said coolly.

  Chase was oblivious to my near meltdown. “The attack happened at Huntington, right? Let me do some poking around. I know a lot of people. Let me see what I can find out. Maybe someone saw something.”

  “Suit yourself.” It’s not like he’d find anything. Sam said the police were no help, and if everyone at the party had been drinking, the likelihood of someone having witnessed anything helpful was slim.

  Chase nodded and started toward the door. Stopping for a moment, he turned to me. “Keep her safe.”

  Sam had been trying to get me talking since we hit the interstate. While Chase was off chasing his tail, we decided to move on plan B. Sadie Gray. If we got Havat his stone, he’d tell us the name of the demon that’d fed off Sam.

  She asked, “Will you still leave? After all this is over?”

  “For everyone’s sake, yeah.”

  I could see her face from the corner of my eye. Disappointed. Somewhere deep down I hated that she felt that way, but a larger part was glad. If she begged me to stay, there was a good chance I’d consider it. “Where will you go?”

  “Nowhere particular. I try not to stay in one place too long.”

  “So you move around a lot? Where have you been?”

  “All over, really. Most of the fifty states. Parts of Canada. Even Australia for a few months.”

  “Why? I mean, why bounce around?”

  “Is there a point to all this?” I snapped, gripping the wheel tighter. The more she talked, the more the deeper feelings fought for attention.

  “Just trying to make conversation.”

  “Well, don’t, okay? No point in making this harder on yourself than it has to be.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Why did she keep pushing? Why the hell would anyone in their right mind dig themselves in deeper with someone like me? “Pretty sure we went over this earlier and I’m not sure why you think it might have changed.”

  Her jaw dropped. In that moment, I was thankful to be behind the wheel instead of her.

  “Know what I think?”

  “No,” I responded, even though she’d tell me anyway.

  “I think you’re using this thing as an excuse to run away.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it, stunned. “Weren’t you listening when I told you what I wanted to do to my brother? Did you see what I did to those men in the field?”

  “They weren’t men, though.”

  Now she chose logic? Great fucking timing. “Your point?”

  “My point is, you’ve been in town for days now and you haven’t really hurt Chase. You haven’t hurt me. And as for the non-men, they were trying to hurt us. You didn’t just go out and randomly attack someone on the street.”

  “Actually,” I said. Either she was blocking out Gutierrez, or she had serious memory loss issues. “I did. You were there, or don’t you remember?”

  “Technically, you saved lives. Didn’t you tell me he was dangerous?” She kicked at the dash. “Jesus, Jax. You keep trying to make yourself out to be the devil, when really, you’re just a guy dealing with a shitty hand. Get over it.”

  Get over it? Was she fucking kidding? I was forced to live each day caught up in a storm of violence that there was no way to escape, and she tells me to get over it?

  I wanted to yell. At her. At life. At fate. Instead, I laughed. “There aren’t many people who would ever have the nerve to say that to me.”

  “Yeah, well I’ve seen you puke all over yourself. That’s bound to screw with your badass factor.”

  We were quiet for a few minutes. I knew I should keep it that way, but as usual, Sam’s nearness wreaked havoc on my common sense. She was like an electric current that shorted out all my damn fuses. “I’m sorry.”

  “For?”

  “What happened last night.” Even though my eyes were glued to the road, I could still see her stiffen. “At the house. With Azirak…”

  She didn’t respond.

  “I—we—” Fuck. Why the hell was this so damn hard? “The demon might have been in control, but I was there. I wouldn’t have let it hurt you.” I swallowed back the admission, but it came out anyway. “I liked it. I’m a fucking bastard, Sammy, but I liked it. It’s hard to be with you w
hen I’m me, but when the demon takes over, there’s no pain. I’m still there, and I can see and feel everything. I almost wanted to let it…”

  “To let it touch me,” she finished for me.

  “I told you,” I said darkly. “I’m a fucking monster. I wanted you so bad that I almost didn’t care how I got you.”

  “That’s what it meant,” she said, twisting in her seat. “When it said there was a way if you were willing.”

  I refused to answer. Refused to even think about it. There wasn’t any way it would ever happen. Not like that. “What the hell do you want from me, exactly?”

  “How about the truth?”

  That pissed me off. “Truth? I’ve never lied to you. Except for the demon, I’ve never lied to you. In fact, you’re the only person I’ve never lied to.”

  “You did,” she insisted. “You told me you loved me and that you would always have my back.”

  Of course I loved her. Loved her so much that it was in danger of killing me. It was in danger of killing us. But I’d never told her how I felt. Sure, she knew I cared, but the L-word had never been spoken out loud.

  “Trying to remember? Don’t bother.” She shifted back until she was facing forward. There was a cold edge to her voice. Hard and broken. It was almost enough to make me pull the car over. “It was the night before you left. The night before we kissed. We were in Rick’s living room, watching a movie. You were half-asleep.”

  I should have been surprised, but I wasn’t. I’d loved Sam from the moment we met. Holding a large umbrella over her head as the priest said kind words beside her parents’ graves. We’d never spoken. Hadn’t even been introduced. Rick had gone to support his friend and neighbor, Kelly Merrick, whose brother and sister-in-law died in a tragic home invasion.

  Standing beside Rick and Chase, I’d watched the girl with the long brown hair stand eerily still. She didn’t cry. Didn’t speak. Only stood there staring at the ground as her parents were lowered into the cold, wet earth. Even then, so early in my life, I saw pieces of myself mirrored in her eyes. Lost. Alone. Separated.

  Ruined.

  It was another one of those defining moments. I’d known, even then, that this girl would play a monumental role in my life. We’d grown up close. Inseparable, really. Friends. Partners in crime. It was that last step—love—that pushed me to leave her behind.

  There was no stopping it. The words came tumbling out. “The night I kissed you—I almost killed Chase. That’s why I left, Sammy. I knew I was too dangerous.” I kept my eyes front and center, afraid to see the expression on her face. “I think I knew even back then that you were a trigger. Being with you, it made me happy. The demon doesn’t do happy. It needs despair and rage.”

  “Jax—”

  I kept going. Had to get this out before I lost the nerve. “Kissing you…it was the most amazing thing, but it hurt. The pain was unlike anything you can imagine. Physical, mental, emotional… But I could have sucked it up. I would have. For you. But when I left you that night, the demon was going nuts. I ended up standing over my brother’s bed with a blade. Everything became so clear. You’ve seen enough violence and death in your life. I won’t be the one exposing you to more—especially when it’s all my life is now.”

  “You have no right to decide what I should and shouldn’t have in my life.”

  “Maybe not—but it doesn’t change things. It won’t ever change things. I am leaving when we clear things up. Everyone I care about is at risk when I’m here.”

  “Fine,” she snapped. “Then I’ll go with you. Not like you can stop me. I’ll just keep following you until you cave.”

  I shook my head. “You’d never be able to follow me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Sam

  We drove the rest of the way in silence, pulling up in front of the address we’d found for Sadie Gray just before noon. There was a part of me that dreaded what we were about to do. This woman wasn’t going to just give us what we wanted. Not without something in return. I didn’t have anything left to give.

  The house was a modest Victorian with a well-manicured lawn and a tire swing that hung from a sturdy-looking oak tree.

  “What’s the plan?” I unbuckled the seat belt as Jax killed the engine. “She’s not just going to cheerfully hand the stone over. If it was that easy, Havat wouldn’t need us.”

  “She’s going to give us the stone,” Jax said, getting out of the car. He slammed the door as I did the same. “Whether she wants to or not.”

  It was moment likes these, despite the deeper feelings between us, that I was truly afraid for Jax. There was no doubt he’d do whatever it took to get what we’d come for, and that worried me. I followed him up the walkway, cringing when he assaulted the door with enough force to rattle the windows.

  A woman appeared. Tall with wild raven hair and exotic features, dressed in a low-cut top and long, curve hugging skirt. “My, my, my,” she drawled with an accent I couldn’t place. One part Southern drawl, one part European—equal parts annoying. Her eyes skimmed Jax’s body from head to toe, lingering just below the waist of his jeans. Bitch! Obviously I had no official claim on the guy, but come on. A man shows up on your doorstep with a girl in tow and you proceed to drool rivers on him? “I didn’t realize Chippendales delivered.”

  “Sadie Gray?”Jax asked. If he noticed her appreciation, he was polite enough to ignore it.

  Sadie leaned against the doorframe, stretching like a cat on a couch and puffing out her chest. Admittedly, I was a little jealous. I couldn’t pull off sultry like that. With women like this throwing themselves at his feet, why the hell was Jax interested in me? Of course, that train of thought brought up how many others were there while he was gone? Which led to a round of mental flogging.

  “For you? I can be anyone you want,” Sadie purred.

  “Good,” he said, pushing her aside and stepping into the house. “I need you to be a witch.”

  With a wink, she said, “Whatever floats your boat, baby.”

  I snorted in disgust as Sadie attempted to let the door conveniently close in my face. “Do you moonlight as a prostitute, or are you just really skanky?”

  The witch’s lips twisted into a scowl. “Pissing me off isn’t the way to get what you want.”

  “Then what is?” Jax asked.

  She eyed him. “Depends. Tell me what it is you want.”

  “We were sent here by a demon named Havat Doyle. He said you have something he needs.”

  She threw back her head and laughed. “Are you blind, baby? I’ve got what every man needs.” Her eyes met mine and she winked. “Some women, too.”

  “Actually, this dude Havat is looking for something you stole from him. The stone of midnight. Ring any bells?”

  Sadie circled Jax, and said, “I can ring whatever bells you’d like.”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ,” I snapped. My patience with the porn-star princess routine was officially gone. The witch had done everything except strip and wiggle her ass in his face. “You have it or not?”

  “Maybe,” Sadie said, eyes growing as cold as her voice. “But I have no intention of giving it to that bastard, Havat—or you. I acquired it fair and square. Not my fault old Havat is a sore loser.”

  Jax was across the room in the blink of an eye. “I could make you give it to me,” he seethed, pinning her against the wall. “And I would enjoy every last second, I promise you.”

  I would, too, because something told me it would involve a serious hurt.

  For a woman facing down an extremely pissed-off demon, Sadie Gray wasn’t the least bit flustered. She chuckled and leaned in close. “I bet I would, too.” She did a little shimmy, laughing. If it weren’t for the fact that both our lives were on the line, I might have shot forward and yanked out all the woman’s hair. “Maybe we can work something out. It wouldn’t come cheap, though.”

  “Name your price,” he said, letting go.

  She backed away with a not-so-subtle
shake of her ass and crossed the room. There was an old chest in the corner. The wood was warped and the hinges were rusted. Pulling it open, she rummaged around for a moment before exclaiming, “Aha. This is what you’re looking for, yes?”

  When she turned back to him she held a small green stone in the palm of her hand. It didn’t look like much. No more than the size of peanut and the width of a marker. Sam expected something bigger and more impressive. Or, at the very least, black. Stone of midnight? Come on…

  Jax made a move to grab it, but Sadie closed her hand and jerked it away with a giggle. Chin thrust, she said, “Not so fast. There’s the matter of payment.”

  “Tell me what you want and give me the damn stone,” Jax growled.

  Sadie’s head tilted and a lock of raven hair fell across her shoulders. On first glance the woman was nothing more than a pretty, if not pushy, face. Petite and unassuming. On second glance, however, I saw a gleam of power in her eyes. She might be a witch, but she was also someone skilled at manipulation. In her own way, Sadie Gray was just as dangerous as any demon. “You will feed from me. Enough to link us.”

  Wow. I searched the woman’s face for signs that this was a joke, but there were none. Only the cold stare of determination. “Are you insane?” I snapped. I wanted to get rid of a link and this moron wanted to create one? “Why would anyone willingly ask for that?”

  Sadie’s expression was icy. “Being linked to a Tainted has its advantages.”

  Alarm bells started going off in my head. Neither one of us had said Jax was Tainted. “Such as?”

  “Long life, for one thing. I will live as long as he does.”

  “I live a violent life.” Jax said.”If something should happen and I die, you die as well. You’d still be fragile. Even injuries I sustained could kill you. Doesn’t seem like the best logic on your part.”

  Sadie giggled and let her hand rest on Jax’s chest. “Let’s just say I’m a betting woman, and I’m betting hard on you.”

  That was enough. I came forward and slapped the woman’s hand away. “Back off, bitch, and keep your paws to yourself.”