Nope. Nothing.
I grip the edge of the sink. So, if I can’t use the magic, then what’s the point?
In time, Alana … You’ll learn … how to … use … your … gift. My grandpa’s voice is feeble inside my head. I have to go for … a while … There’s too much … magic around … right … now.
A weighted exhale puffs from my lips. “There you go again with your cryptic messages and disappearing act. I wish you were just here. Then maybe I could have someone to talk to.”
For some reason, I expect him to materialize. He doesn’t.
Sighing, I comb my fingers through my hair and pull it into a side braid with an elastic that I find in one of the drawers. Then I return to living room where Jax is lounging on the sofa, fiddling with his phone.
“So, what do we do now?” I ask, plopping down on the sofa beside him. “What’s the plan for finding these vampires?”
“We aren’t doing anything.” He punches a few buttons on his phone. “I’m going to track down some vampires and make some arrests. I need to get a confession from one of them, though, because we can’t use what happened to you as evidence.”
“I should be able to help you.” I pick at the tab of my empty soda can. “This is Guardian business, and I’m a Guardian, too.” I crunch my soda can up and drop it on the table. “Besides, I can identify the vampire who killed Adaliya.” I crack my knuckles. “And, with the right amount of torture, I should be able to get a confession out of her along with a list of names of the other vampires who were there.”
His gaze cuts to me with a frown on his lips. “No one’s going to be torturing anyone. That’s not how we do things.”
“It might not be how we do things, but it’s definitely an easy way to get the truth out of someone,” I say. Since I really want to go with him, though, I tack on, “But if you don’t want me to torture anyone, I won’t.”
His phone buzzes in his hand, but he doesn’t glance at the screen. His eyes stay fastened on me, assessing me, while he contemplates what I said for a lengthy amount of time.
“First years aren’t supposed to go on arrests,” he says.
My lips part to entice him with more reasons he should take me, but he continues before I get an opportunity.
“However, you made a good point about being able to identify the vampire. This will go a lot more quickly if I have a single target to zero in on instead of spending days searching and asking around.”
I resist the urge to get too excited just yet. “So, I get to go?”
He surrenders with a sigh. “Yeah, you get to go.”
“Yes!” I fist pump the air. “Finally, some action work.” God, I’ve missed it.
“But,” he speaks loudly over my celebration, “you have to agree that you’ll listen to everything I say. If I tell you to do something, you do it.”
“Yes, sir,” I say with a grin and a salute.
He rubs his scruffy jawline. “You know, I’m really starting to like this whole sir thing.” His eyes suddenly glimmer mischievously, and his mouth opens to say something I’m pretty sure I won’t like. “Probably about as much as you like how I smell.”
And there we go. He lasted a whole hour.
“That was the enchantment talking,” I lie breezily. “Honestly, I kind of think you smell—”
“Yummy.” His goofy, arrogant grin makes me want to slap him.
Well, sort of. Truthfully, he kind of looks adorable enough to kiss.
I blink the thought from my head. Just stop, Alana. Don’t go there.
“Whatever.” I decide to own up to the truth. “I think you smell yummy, but I also think cookies smell yummy, too.”
Something about what I say makes his expression falter. It takes a second for me to figure out what might be wrong. Dash smells like cookies. Does he think I’m saying Dash smells yummy, too? Why would it matter? I mean, how can a guy who smells like cookies not smell yummy?
“We should probably get going.” He checks the time on his phone. “The sun’s about to go down, and then we have about eight hours to get this done before the vamps have to hole up underground and indoors again.” He starts to get up, but I catch his arm, stopping him.
“There’s one more thing I want to talk to you about while we’re here and can speak freely.” I let go of his sleeve and wait for him to sit back down before continuing. “The Dagger of Conspectu… What does it do exactly?”
A crease forms at his brows. “You don’t know?”
I shake my head. “I think I’ve heard of it, but not enough to know what it does.”
He rubs his hand across his forehead. “Well, legend has it that, if used right, it can steal the magical power out of any paranormal creature.”
“I don’t …” I breathe. “That’s …”
“Dangerous?” he says for me, and I nod. “It’s also next to impossible since no one’s ever figured out how to use it.”
I swallow hard, my heart an erratic mess. Jax’s worried expression mirrors mine, probably because he’s thinking the same thing.
If no one knows how to use the dagger, then why did my grandpa go through so much trouble to steal it from The Vault?
Chapter 14
“Where are we going exactly?” I ask Jax after we hit the road. The sky is tinted a pale pink as the sun descends and the moon and stars rise. My window is down, and a cool breeze blows into the cab, airing out the smell of greasy burgers and fries coming from the fast food we picked up a few minutes ago. “I know that particular clan hangs out near Virginia Beach, but do you know some of the locations they hang out at?”
Nodding, Jax punches in an address in his phone’s GPS. “But I need to make another stop before we get into that.”
I dunk a fry into a cup of ranch and pop it into my mouth. “Where?”
He balances his phone on the dashboard. “To a friend of mine.”
“You have another friend?” I say with mocking shock as I take out a burger from the brown paper bag.
A smile plays at the corners of his lips. “I do, actually. And this one is going to take a look at the photo that I took of the symbol.” He reaches to take the burger as I offer it to him. “Plus, they’re the person I was telling you about who can look at your phone, tell us who put the bug on it, and maybe help us debug it.”
“That’s good. I’m getting sick of lying to everyone who calls me.” I dig out another burger from the bag, unwrap it, and take a huge bite, feeling famished.
“Who’ve you been lying to?” He opens his mouth and dives into his burger, eating half of it in nearly one bite.
“My mom called me this morning.” I stir a fry around in the cup of ranch. “It’s not like I plan on telling her everything—I won’t risk her life like that. I’ve always been pretty honest with her, though, except for this morning. And I definitely didn’t like it.”
He picks a pickle off his burger and tosses it onto the wrapper spread across his lap. “It’s good you can be honest with her—I mean, under normal circumstances.”
I stuff a fry into my mouth and wipe my greasy fingers off on a napkin. “Are you close with your mom?”
He lifts a shoulder and shrugs. “Not really.”
I toss the napkin into the paper bag. “But you said your mom helped you after you told her you’d been turned into a wolf.”
“She did help me, but that doesn’t mean we’re close.” He reaches for the fries on my lap and steals a handful. “I’ve never really been close with either of my parents.”
“How come?” When he masks his expression, I add, “Never mind. You don’t have to tell me if it’s too personal.” I slip off my shoes and get comfortable as I nibble on a ranch-drenched fry. “My mom and Jayse have always told me I have no filter when it comes to asking questions.”
“They’re right,” he agrees with an exaggerated nod.
I chuck a fry at him, and it pegs him in the forehead. “Hey, you haven’t known me long enough to state that with su
ch confidence.”
“I may not have known you for very long, but I knew from the first time you opened your mouth that you had no filter.”
“Right back at ya, werewolf dude,” I say with a wicked smile. “You’re just as blunt as me.”
His burger oozes ketchup down his hand, and he licks it off. “I guess it’s a good thing we got paired up, then, huh?”
I take another bite of my burger. “I don’t know about that. We butt heads a lot.”
“Yeah, but we also work well together.” He finishes off his burger then chases it with a swig of his chocolate shake.
I raise my brows at him with doubt. “We do?”
He shrugs, crumpling the burger wrapper and discarding it into the bag. “This is the quickest I’ve ever solved a case.”
“Yeah, but I think that only happened because of my freaky tuning-into-a-dead-faerie’s-mind thing,” I say, reaching for my soda.
“That’s not the only reason.” He checks the GPS, flips on the blinker, and steers the car into the turning lane. “Although, I might retract my statement, depending on how tonight goes.”
“I promise I’ll be on my best behavior.” I draw an X over my heart. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
He tosses a wolfish grin in my direction. “How about just cross your heart? I don’t think you should be making any promises about dying when it comes to you being on your best behavior.”
I chuck another fry at him; only, he opens his mouth this time and catches it. Then he licks his lips and flashes me his pearly whites.
I shake my head and roll my eyes. “Show off.”
The lightness in his eyes dims as he turns into the parking lot of a two-story steel warehouse. He makes a half-loop around the building, parking in the back near a flight of stairs that leads to a rusted metal door.
“So, this is where your friend lives?” I ask, eyeballing the door.
“They’re not really a friend, just someone I go to sometimes when I need a favor.” He glances into the rearview mirror and tousles his fingers through his hair until they’re sticking up perfectly chaotically.
I suppress a smile. “Is this not-really-a-friend of the female gender by chance?”
He leans back from the mirror, his forehead furrowing. “Yeah. Why?”
I conceal my mouth behind my hand to stop myself from laughing. “Because you just turned into Mr. Primpy. Honestly, I thought you only had one level—Mr. Cocky, I Look Fantastic All the Time—but clearly, you’ve got more layers than I originally thought.”
He extends his arm toward me, his finger splaying across the back of my seat, right beside my head. “Again, you sound jealous.”
“And again, you falsely accuse me of being jealous.” I open the door to get out. “I know this is going to be hard to believe, but not everyone’s in love with you, Jax.”
His eyebrow arches up in infuriating confidence. “Who said you were in love with me? Being jealous wouldn’t mean you were in love with me. It’d just mean you’re attracted to me and maybe kind of like me, both of which, you do.” Grinning, he reaches for my face to do God knows what. I don’t wait to find out.
I shove open the door the rest of the way and just about fall out of the car. I manage to catch myself before I eat dust and get my feet planted underneath me. I spin around and bump the door shut, smothering the sound of Jax’s chuckling.
Moments later, he climbs out of the car with a confident smile on his face. “Ready to go in? Or do you want to fall out of the car again?”
“I didn’t fall out.” I round the car and walk past him, heading for the stairway. “I almost fell out. And that only happened because I was trying to get away from whatever you were about to do.”
He strides after me, walking so closely his breath dusts my ear when he speaks. “You were flustered. Admit it.” Our boots thud against the metal steps as we stomp up the stairs. “You were flustered because, deep down, you like me. You just don’t want to admit it.”
Almost to the top of the stairway, I reel on him. He’s standing closer than I calculated, and I just about smack into him. He grips the railing, startled, but refuses to put space between us.
I cross my arms over my chest. “Is this your way of paying me back for the Truth Serum incident? Because I think we’re getting pretty close to being even.”
“We’re not even close to being even.” He slants toward me, his voice dropping an octave. “Do you have any idea how bad it is to be forced to say things against your will?”
“I’ve had a few possession spells cast on me before, so I actually do.” I hold on to the railing as my heart thunders in my chest, either from the intensity of this conversation or his nearness—I’m not quite sure. “Look, Jax, I am sorry about what happened. I just felt like I had to, you know, or else I’d never get answers. But if I could go back, I’d probably have found a better way to get the truth out of you.”
He rubs his lips together, considering something. “All right, I accept your apology, and I’ll stop with the jealousy thing.” I start to relax, but then he throws out a, “But I still need to pay you back so we’re even.”
I sigh. “Fine. Pay me back. Make us even. Then maybe we can move on from this.”
“I’m glad I have your permission to get you back.” He grins then pushes past me and climbs the rest of the stairs.
I follow after him, wondering how on earth he’ll even things out between us. He warned me before that it wouldn’t be magical. What will it be?
“You won’t figure it out,” he says when I reach his side.
I throw a cheeky grin at him. “Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.”
Chuckling, he raps his knuckles against the door. “You’ll know when I do it because you’ll feel as stupid as I did when I realized—”
The metal door swings open, and a faint mist laces the air as a woman in her early twenties appears in the doorway. “Jax, darling, how are you?” she purrs.
The first thought I have is, no wonder Jax was fussing with his hair, because the woman standing in front of me is absolutely stunning with long, auburn hair that flows in curls to the base of her back. Her lips are stained a fierce red that brings out the intense gold-green in her eyes. And her body is freaking amazing. The tight red dress she’s wearing shows off her curvy and voluptuous frame. It makes me suddenly loathe my tall, lean, bean-pole body. I seriously just want to …
Wait a second …
My gaze drops to her legs and scrolls up all the way to her neck. A viney, floral tattoo loops the hollow of her neck. Jackpot.
She’s a succubus, known as seducers of men and hypnotic to everyone unless you can manage to tug yourself out of their powerful, exhilarating, euphoric trance …
I shove the sensations away like I was taught by my parents. They did a lot of training with me while I was growing up, preparing me for the day when they thought I’d become a Keeper and have to know how to protect myself from potentially dangerous, very powerful creatures.
Sucking in a breath, I peek over at Jax. Yep, he’s definitely smitten by her. In fact, I think there’s some drool dripping off his chin.
“I’m doing great … just great …” He dazedly grins at her then lets out a content sigh. “Just … great …”
The succubus glances me with her lips curled in delight. “You brought me a present?”
“What? Oh …” He blinks at me as if he forgot I was standing right next to him. “Layla, this is Alana … my …”
“Trainee.” I give the succubus a cold smile. “And I’m not a present for you. Neither is Jax. So turn off the sexy charm and let him go.”
She momentarily gives me a cold, hard stare, but then a massive smile spreads across her flawless face.
“Jax, she’s adorable. I can see why you like her.”
“He doesn’t like me,” I tell her, confused over her sudden personality change. “He’s just stuck with me.”
She laughs as if I?
??m being stupidly cute. “Sweetheart, trust me, he definitely likes you.” She inhales then angles her head to the side. “I can smell it all over him.”
I don’t know what she smells, but all I get a whiff of when I breathe in is Jax’s woodsy scent. And he usually smells like that.
I cough loudly into my hand to break the feelings of euphoria expanding inside me again. “So, are you going to let him out of your trance or what?”
Her lips curl as the mist from inside snakes around her. “Well, since you asked so nicely.” She snaps her fingers then leaves the doorway, heading inside. “Come along and tell me why you’re here. I don’t have all night.”
Jax gasps, blinking his eyes as he focuses on me. “What just happened?”
I point inside the doorway. “You got succubussed.”
He frowns, wiping the drool off his chin. “Layla.” He storms inside, disappearing into the smoky darkness. “I thought we had an agreement that you wouldn’t use powers on me.”
I follow after him, drawing the collar of my tank top over my nose as I make my way across an open area decorated with red velvet couches and a giant, wall-sized fish tank.
“Would you relax?” she tells him. “I was just having some fun, something you should try more often.”
“I don’t have time for fun,” Jax says, “not with all the shit going on.”
“Yeah, so I’ve heard,” she replies through a yawn.
“You act as if this is nothing, but what’s happening affects all of us.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, chaos is threatening the world again,” she says dryly. “Tell me a story I haven’t heard, and then I’ll react.”
“What have you heard?” An edge carves into Jax’s tone.
I track their voices to where the smoke thins and find them at a tiny bar tucked in the far back corner of the room. Layla stands behind the black marble counter, wiggling around a cocktail shaker, and Jax is perched on a stool, his rage-filled gaze on her.
“Oh, look, your adorable, little friend decided to join us.” Her smile is all mocking as she sets the mixer down on the counter.
The way she keeps using the word “adorable” toward me makes me feel stupid and small, and I kind of want to kick her ass for it. But I promised Jax I’d behave, so I force my irritation down the best I can.