“We need to hurry,” he said quietly.
I didn’t disagree with him, but we didn’t have any clue how to remove the cuff other than doing what Chase asked and hoping he kept his word. “Short of cutting off my arm or taking out this Malphi guy, I’m not sure what to do.”
No response.
“This is insane,” I said with a sigh. “Will you please talk to me? What did Sadie say?”
“Pull over.” The chill in his voice froze the air in my lungs.
“Jax?”
“Pull over!” The words boomed through the small space. I slammed the brake and cut the wheel, bringing the car to a jerky stop in the gravel on the side of the road.
“It needs to come off, Sammy. It needs to come off now,” he said, back to that quiet-yet-furious voice. He punched a fist against the roof of the car, ripping the fabric and denting the metal upward.
“Okay,” I said, twisting in the seat. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Do you need to fee—”
“You’re not hearing me!” he roared. “Don’t you see it?”
I jumped and took a deep breath. His eyes were rimmed with black, and every inch of him screamed tension. “See what? What did Sadie say?”
“The longer that cuff is on, the more damage it does,” he replied.
I shook my head. He was borderline, at that point where slipping over the edge would take nothing more than the shifting of the breeze. If what he felt through the link was anything remotely close to what I felt, he’d know every word I said was bullshit. “We have time.”
He raised his head, gaze meeting mine, and it was hard not to move away. There was anger in his eyes. Anger that, for the first time I could remember, was obviously directed at me.
“That thing is affecting you,” he said, his tone as close to demonic as I’d ever heard. The black ring around his irises grew a little wider.
“It’s not—”
“Don’t!” he bellowed, and I jumped. The entire car shook at the sound of his voice as the darkness took over. His eyes changed, becoming pools of midnight. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing. Don’t tell me you’re fine. I can feel it.” His fist crashed against the dash. At this rate he was going to take the car apart before we got where we were going. “Don’t you think I can fucking feel it? See it? Christ, Sammy. You’re not right.”
“What do you mean, not right?”
“The way you were pushing me back at the house, and how you were looking at Sadie. Fucking hell. You just got finished telling me that I had to deal with the fact that you were going to die! Even your colors are wrong. They’ve been that way since Chase slapped that cuff on you.”
I’d been thinking it, but hearing him say it out loud felt like a tsunami rolling over my head. It meant it wasn’t just my overactive imagination.
“We don’t know anything yet,” I said, trying to reason with him. I realized, though, his anger was totally justified. I sucked in a breath. “Yes. I feel…different.”
I blinked, and suddenly he was touching me, hands gripping either side of my face with a savage ferocity that gave me chills. “I can’t have you, but I won’t lose you.”
Gently I laid my hands over his and let my head fall forward until our foreheads touched. He was so close. So warm. Jax had been my comfort in times of stress and heartbreak when I was younger. I needed that now. To feel safe. To feel something. All I would have to do to taste him was tilt my head…
“You were looking for me?”
I jumped. Lounging across the backseat was Heckle, dressed in a ski jacket and boots, and holding a ski pole.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Jax snapped.
Heckle, as usual, was unaffected. “I wasn’t aware that I needed to report to you when I went out of town.” His gaze swung in my direction. His eyebrows rose slightly, and his lips melted into a grim line. “Is there a shortage of space in the car?”
I pulled away guiltily.
“We didn’t do anything,” Jax said tightly.
Heckle kept his eyes on mine. “But you were going to—which is part of the reason I’m here.”
This was nothing compared to what we’d been doing in the basement at the Viking. Or in my room. He couldn’t have chosen then to pop in?
I’ll admit it. The guy creeped me out sometimes—and not because I knew who he really was.
My aunt Kelly raised me after my parents died, and she’d never been an overly religious woman. We went to church on the holidays. Your typical fair-weather Catholics. But I knew the story of Cain and Abel. Cain killed his brother Abel out of jealousy, bringing darkness to the world. What the Church doesn’t tell you is that after his untimely death, Abel went on to bigger and better things.
Oh, and he’d changed his name.
To Bel Heckle.
Heckle waggled a finger between Jax and me, narrowing his eyes. “Have you figured out how to break the link?”
“No,” I said, trying hard to keep my tone even. Heckle might play the part of the wise-cracking, quirky bartender at the Inferno, but I’d seen the power he could control with a simple snap of his fingers. I didn’t even want to think about what he could do to a smart-mouthed girl who was pissy because she and her boyfriend couldn’t get freaky. “I’m working on it.”
Ever since I’d unknowingly linked Jax and me, Heckle had been on my ass about breaking it. He hadn’t told me why, or more importantly, how, but never failed to harp on it every chance he got.
“Well, work harder. You—” He leaned over the seat and seized my hand. His eyes widened. “Why are you wearing a Fakori cuff?”
“A gift from my brother,” Jax said coolly.
His grip around my wrist tightened, and I bit back a yelp. “Chase is here?”
“He came to the Viking last night.” I yanked my hand from his, cradling it to my chest protectively. “Gave us an ultimatum.”
“What kind of ultimatum?”
“Apparently there’s a big bad demon trolling the town. He said if we took it down, he would remove the cuff.” I peered at Jax from the corner of my eye. “He said something else, too.”
I hesitated, and Heckle tapped his finger against the seat. “Well?”
“He told us you owed us, Heckle. What was he talking about?”
Heckle didn’t say anything. He was still staring at the cuff.
“Well?” Jax prompted. His patience was waning and I didn’t blame him.
Nothing.
“Heckle?” I tried, doing my best to keep the irritation from my voice.
“What demon did Chase tell you to kill?”
“A demon called Malphi,” Jax responded. “Any idea why?”
More silence. I wasn’t sure if it scared me or made me angrier. Considering the simmering vibes I was getting from Jax through the link, I was leaning toward pissed. “What’s a Pure?”
If I hadn’t been staring right at him, I would have missed it. A flash of surprise, there and gone, in his eyes.
“You have ten seconds to start answering questions.” There was ice in Jax’s voice, and if the twitching fingers and tense set of his jaw were any indication, he was fast approaching the point of no return. “Tell me how to get this thing off her.”
“You can’t.” Heckle finally lifted his gaze from the cuff and fixed his attention on me. “If Chase put it there, I’m fairly certain he’s the only one who can remove it. Personally, or by his death. Since killing him isn’t an option, you have one choice. Do as he says.”
“Because Chase is a man of his word, right?” I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. “Do either of you really believe he’s going to remove this thing if we hold up our end of the deal? This is a trap!”
Heckle sighed. “Yes. I imagine that it is.”
Jax took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, they were rimmed with black. “Enough of the cryptic bullshit.”
I grabbed his hand as he reached for Heckle. “Please. You have to give us something.” Desperatio
n found its way into my voice, and I dropped Jax’s hand in favor of Heckle’s. Squeezing tight, I said, “He told us you owed us. If that’s even a tiny bit true, then help us. Please.”
He pulled away, and with a sigh said, “Maintaining a balance between good and evil is not an easy task. There are millions of variables, and, of course, free will to contend with. I try my hardest, but the scales have been tipped, this time by my own foolish choices. I am truly sorry, Sam.”
“Sorry?” Jax slammed his hand against the dashboard. “Sorry about what? What are you not telling us?”
“When I agreed to bring you back after dying in order to sever the link with Chase, I didn’t know what would happen.”
An arctic chill invaded the car. I shivered. His words felt like the barrel of a gun, pointed right between my eyes. Fully loaded, safety off, and an itching finger caressing the trigger. “That what would happen?”
“I knew what you were. A Pure. I knew the rules—that once a Pure’s soul is separated from the body, its power becomes active. Claimable by anyone able to grasp their power. What I didn’t know was the ramifications of returning that soul to a body. I thought you would return to an inactive state, but you retained the power you gained in death. In fact it made you stronger and, much worse, visible to anyone with a supernatural eye.” He turned to Jax. “You must see it when you look at her. That she has sort of a glow?”
Jax turned his gaze on me. Squinting, he shrugged. “She’s always had a sort of glow. Nothing looks different to me.”
“Hmmm. I don’t understand that, but in truth, it’s not important.” Heckle’s lips pressed in a firm line and, with his eyes cast downward, he sighed. “I’m truly sorry, Sam. I’ve painted a permanent neon target on your head.”
Chapter Seven
Jax
“A target,” Sam repeated, shifting in the seat. I could taste her mounting anger—not fear of the danger she was in but rage, tangible fury over Heckle’s admission. “A target for who?”
“For everyone,” he replied. “Your kind is hidden for good reason, and I have jeopardized things.”
“Malphi knows about Sam,” I said, a small—very small—bit of last night’s chaos coming together. “Some of its demons came last night to deliver a message. It wants me to return to the clan with Sam.”
“Malphi is a force to be reckoned with. A major player. If it knows Sam is a Pure, it will stop at nothing to possess her. If you were to remove it from the playing field—”
“So you’re saying Chase is telling the truth?” I grimaced. “That we have no choice but do what he wants, because Malphi is a threat?”
“Technically. Unfortunately, there are complications.”
“Aren’t there always?” Sam mumbled. “What are we talking about now?”
“The demon cuff itself is one snag—a rather brilliant one at that. If you are unable to kill Malphi before the cuff reaches the end of its cycle, I have no doubt that Chase will use it as a bargaining chip.”
“Meaning?” Sam asked.
“My guess is that he’ll offer to remove the cuff in exchange for claiming you.”
“Because she’s a Pure,” I said. I saw Sam from the corner of my eye. She was tapping her foot and kneading both fists until the knuckles went white.
“Yes,” Heckle confirmed.
“Claiming me… What exactly does that mean?” Her voice was even, but her eyes… There was a flash of emptiness. How long would it be until she lost herself completely?
Heckle’s response was silence, and Sam had obviously reached her limit. A flash of red stood out against the haze. She jabbed the seat belt release and kicked open the driver’s side door, stomping past the gravel and into the grass. “I want answers,” she demanded. “I want to know what the fuck I am! Am I even human?”
A car passed, kicking up a blast of wind, and her hair flew in all directions, giving her a wild, feral look. Her emotions were charged, the smoke churning like a tornado around her entire body. The scent it gave off was heady. It enticed Azi closer to the surface, making the demon unsettled and hungry.
I pushed through the passenger’s side door and rounded the car, the sight of her stopping me in my tracks. Sam was no church mouse, but the level of rage that bled into the air was unlike her.
It was like me.
“I promise you, Sam,” Heckle said, his voice soothing as he extracted himself from the backseat. “You are one hundred percent human. However, right now I need you to calm yourself.”
“I’m human? That tells me absolutely nothing,” she spat, and in a move that left me stunned, flew at him. Heckle didn’t try to move. She crashed into him with impressive force, knocking them back against the car. “I want answers!”
“Some people are born different,” he replied, speaking with complete calm. She had him pinned to the hood, but he made no move to dislodge her. “Special. The kind of special you are is rare. It’s valuable.”
She grabbed a handful of his jacket and shook. “Valuable? To who?”
“Everyone,” was Heckle’s reply.
“But why?”
“As you already know, some acts leave a hideous stain on the souls of our offspring, as with the Tainted. Other acts—good ones—cleanse them. They become purified.” Heckle frowned. He gently placed his hands over top of Sam’s and pried them loose. “A Pure is a rare thing. Acts of true benevolence are not something you see often, especially in this day and age.”
The swirling, muddied miasma around Sam swallowed some of the red. She let go of him and backed away. “So, I’m the opposite of Jax?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.” He nodded. “As with the Tainted, the purified piece of the soul gets passed from parent to child, possibly going for centuries, depending on the act that initiated it. You have no idea how much energy a Pure human soul holds. It’s unimaginable, and it can be harnessed for either good or evil. Whichever side controls the soul would tip the balance.”
“But if that’s the case, why didn’t Chase try to take me?”
“The energy in a Pure can, under normal circumstances, be claimed after death. If an otherworldly being, say a demon, should spot the soul as it ascends to heaven, it is able to take that soul. To claim it. Unfortunately we’ve meddled in fate. I believe, as I’m sure others will, that because the energy within you is now active, that you will have to willingly agree to hand it over.” Heckle frowned. “I’m sure Chase knows you would never willingly allow him to gain the power to destroy his brother. My guess is that he believes you won’t be able to take down Malphi, which will enable him to bargain for removal of the cuff.”
Just like my brother to assume victory before the battle even began. My gaze fell to Sam’s wrist. The cuff looked slightly different than it had before. It was tighter, and the color darker. The symbols were lighter. “What will that thing do to her?”
Heckle’s expression was grim. “All demon cuffs are different. This particular one will siphon her life force until there’s nothing left—and in Sam’s case, it will work quickly. My best guess is that unless you can find a way to break that link between the two of you, the cuff will kill you in a matter of days. If you could break the link—”
“The link?” I started for him, but Sam beat me to it. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
Heckle didn’t struggle. “Why do you think I told you to calm down? The higher your emotions get, the faster the siphon works.”
“And that has what to do with the link?”
“You’re tied to a demon, Sam,” Heckle said with a roll of his eyes. He gently pushed her away as a car passed by, the driver leaning on his horn. “And not just any demon, but a Tainted. A Son of Cain. That comes with some hefty drawbacks.”
“Drawbacks?” I was instantly alert. If he knew that the link was dangerous, why the hell was he just saying something now? “What kind of drawbacks are we talking here?”
“As far as demon infested humans go, you’re not
a bad guy, but at the end of the day, you’re still you. And you have some significant darkness. She can feel your emotions through the link whether she realizes it or not. Since the cuff heightens her emotional state, the stronger the intensity, the faster the decline. It’s like you’re polluting her.”
“Polluting her?”
“Stand too close to a fire and you’ll get burned. Rub up against a muddy car and you’ll get dirty. It’s inevitable.” Heckle frowned. “You’re rubbing off on her, Jax. Literally. She’s feeding on your emotions through the link, which in turn, is amplifying the speed at which the cuff works. You need to keep a level head, or you’re going to drive her right into the grave.”
Was he fucking serious? “I have a demon buried inside me. How the hell do you suggest I keep a level head?” I yelled over the passing traffic.
In response, Sam cursed behind me and the scent of anger in the air intensified. Shit. In the back of my mind, a voice whispered, “I told you so,” over and over. I was essentially poisoning the person she was. This was why I’d left Harlow to begin with—to avoid destroying her by simply being myself.
“As for what you were doing when I arrived…” Heckle held up his hand. “Obviously the deal you made can’t squelch your feelings for each other. A little tongue action here and there isn’t going to bring the world crashing down. But that’s as far as it can go for now.”
“We haven’t—” Except we had. We’d been toeing the line for weeks now, taking things farther and farther, unconcerned by the possible ramifications.
“I’m serious.” His lips pressed into a hard line. “It must not go too far. The consequences would be far more damaging than you can imagine.”
“What does that mean? If I kiss her my dick falls off?”
“That would be a bit dramatic.” He laughed. “And as I said, a little smooch here and there won’t end the world, but don’t go farther than that.”
Sam’s eyes grew wide. “Wait. ‘Don’t go farther than that,’ meaning we could?”