Embraced (The Eternal Balance #2)(17)

“What the f*ck is wrong with you?” He slammed his hand against the hood of Rick’s car, eyes drifting downward to the cuff. “Since when did you jump the doom and gloom train?”

“You need to understand—”

“Enough of this shit,” he roared. With a jab of his finger he said, “You better get your damn head straight, Sammy. Because this isn’t you.”

As if in response, the skin beneath the cuff tingled, giving way to a spike of pain. I gritted my teeth and held my breath. There was no point in letting Jax know.

“Even if you manage to do what he asked, there’s no guarantee Chase will hold up his end of the deal. Plus, we don’t have all the facts. He can’t be trusted. For all we know, this is a trap. Maybe killing Malphi will make things worse somehow.”

Jax took my hand and brushed his thumb over top of the cuff. The metal warmed, sending a pulse of heat deep into my skin. “Fine,” he said with a sharp nod. “You want facts? Then let’s get them.”



Jax had me drive while he called Sadie. The conversation lasted longer than I’d expected, and he’d been quiet since hanging up. I didn’t need the link between us to tell me something was wrong.

“You ever gonna tell me what she said?” I moved into the right lane to let the guy behind me pass. He was driving too close, slowly crawling up our ass, and I was tempted to slam the brakes. God. I was so damn uneven all of a sudden. Not nuclear like Jax could be, but more volatile than normal. Either he was starting to rub off on me, or the stress of all this was causing me to lose my mind. One minute I felt like a time bomb, as if one spark would ignite me past the point of rationality. The next I felt as though life wasn’t worth living. It was making me dizzy.

“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 f*cking 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?”