Embraced (The Eternal Balance #2)(44)
She didn’t answer right away, and when she did, it wasn’t to answer his question. “Can he hear us? Jax, I mean?”
“Of course. I gave my word. He is able to oversee our journey.”
She sighed. “No. It doesn’t hurt.”
The demon studied her for a moment then let out a growl. “What is the purpose of that?”
“Of what?”
“Of attempting to deceive him?”
Sam snorted. “I’m not—”
“Do not lie to me!” Azirak bellowed. My body shook with a flash of anger. It was potent. The sting of it flooded what little sense I had and momentarily blocked out what was going on in the car.
“Fine,” Sam snapped. “It hurts like hell.” She made a fist and slammed it against the dash. The sound of it echoed through my body, the demon’s heightened senses making it seem like a bomb had gone off inside my skull. “It feels like something is trying to squeeze my hand off with a pair of bolt cutters. Oh. And my body temperature? Dropping lower than a frat boy’s IQ. This thing is killing me. Why don’t I want Jax to know? Maybe because he’s got enough to deal with right now, what with you hijacking his body, his brother trying to end the world—oh, and your demonic bitch looking for a hookup.”
The demon seemed to consider her words for a moment. “I have lived a thousand lives and I still do not understand humans.”
“What’s not to understand?” Sam asked. Her voice softened a little. I knew the tone. Irritation blended with sympathy. “When you love someone, you want to keep them from pain.”
“Demons do not love like humans. The word does not exist within our vocabulary.” A long, deep breath filled my body. “Yet I do not like that you are in pain.”
“That makes two of us.” She shifted around so that she was sitting sideways, facing me. “If we can find this guy, this relative of Fakori, and he can get the cuff off, then what? You’ll hand Jax’s body back over?”
“I said I would.”
“Just like that?”
“Unlike Zenak, I am honorable. A downfall, my clan says.”
“And me?”
“What of you?”
“You’re going to simply hand Jax back his body and let him walk away with a Pure?”
“Samantha Merrick, the hum—Jax—will never be able to walk away with you. I will always be present.”
“I mean, you’re not going to claim me?”
The demon chuckled. It was my voice, but it wasn’t. “Would you let me?”
“Nope,” was her reply. “But that hasn’t seemed to stop everyone else from trying.”
“While your power would be an asset to my clan’s cause, I am able to see what the others cannot.”
“And that is?”
“Going home will serve no purpose right now.”
“But it will someday?”
“There is something you need to remember, Samantha Merrick. I am, and always will be, a demon. Despite whatever human-tainted feelings I may have for you, I am dangerous.”
Sam’s face filled my vision, her expression a mix of surprise and fear.
As if the universe was enforcing Azi’s words, everything shifted. There was a deafening sound—shattering glass and the scream of twisting metal.
Sam’s cries of terror echoed through my head.
Chapter Eighteen
Sam
One minute I was staring into the face of the demon-infested guy I loved—the next, my entire world was spinning out of control.
I was beginning to notice a disturbing pattern.
I called for Jax, but it was drowned out by the cacophonous sound coming from all around us. My stomach lurched and my body was momentarily weightless as my hair obscured my vision. There was no up or down because the earth seemed to have disappeared, allowing gravity to use us as toys.
With the seat beneath me gone, my limbs flailed wildly in every direction, desperate to find something solid, a small bit of unmovable reality to prove this wasn’t all just part of some horrible waking nightmare.
Then, just when I thought I’d lose my mind, my breath hitched and something crushed my body. Two ironclad limbs enveloped me as a series of breakneck crashes rattled the car.
I let go of another scream as the car gave one final shudder, skidding to a stop in a symphony of cringe-inducing squeals and broken bits. My head slammed against something. The door. A broken seat. Hell, it could have been the steering wheel. When I opened my eyes, nothing was where it should have been.
Jax’s arms, still presumably under the demon’s control, loosened. “Are you well, Samantha Merrick?”
Was I well?
Whatever it was that had just happened, I was pretty damn sure well wasn’t in the description. I shifted, moving away a few inches, and gasped. The windshield was gone, leaving only bits of jagged glass dotting the pane. The dashboard was in pieces, the large chunk in front of me buckled like tin foil.
I opened my mouth—to say what, I had no idea—but suddenly I was moving. Jax’s arms tightened and a wave of vertigo hit me as a pounding noise filled the space around us. I was jostled from side to side several times, and seconds later cool air washed over me as Azi extracted me from the car and set me down on the grass outside.