Embraced (The Eternal Balance #2)(53)

“I see you’ve taken advantage of my absence,” I said.

Ranook bowed its head. “Forgive me, my lord. Someone needed to guide them while you were…away.” It looked up and there was a gleam of defiance in its eyes. “Have you beaten down the human at last? Returned to us?”

“I was never gone,” I growled, partially for show, and partially because Azi was fuming.

“You let Zenak escape,” Ranook said with a fake smile. “You forfeited our birth right to save your human’s brother.”

“Letting Zenak go was not to save—” I almost said Chase but stopped just in time. “The human. It was because something much more important was brought to my attention.”

“Oh?” Ranook said, “What could be more important than gaining back our power?”

“Gaining more power.”

“More power?” The other demon laughed. “And what source did you happen upon that warranted betraying your clan?”

I lunged forward and grabbed the front of his shirt, dragging him several inches off the ground. “A Pure.”

“A Pure? Impossible!”

“The girl. Samantha Merrick. She’s a Pure.”

“How can you know that? She—”

“With her power, I have no need to spill Zenak’s blood. I will use her to destroy the entire clan.”

Ranook stared in disbelief. “I don’t believe it.”

I drew myself up. “You dare question me?”

“How,” it said with a bit more challenge. “How is it the girl is a Pure yet still alive?”

“Her heart stopped and the power was activated,” I said. “And I will claim it.”

I wasn’t sure whose words were spilling from my lips. Mine, or Azirak’s.





Chapter Twenty-Four


Sam


“You know that I thought about you, right?” Jax said. He was on the ground, leaning back against a large pine tree, and I was wedged between his legs, leaning against his chest. “Every day that I was gone.”

“Yeah,” I answered. “I thought about you, too.”

The sun was going down, and the clouds had taken on a pinkish-orange hue. This was nice. Perfect, even. Being here with Jax, doing something normal couples did, was like heaven. I’d earned a little heaven.

Jax played with a strand of my hair, winding it around his pointer finger. “Rick asked us to come for dinner tonight. Up for it?”

The answer lodged in my throat. Dinner at Rick’s was always a plus. He could cook like no one else I knew. But the invitation felt wrong. An uneasy feeling wormed its way into my stomach, but I pushed it off.

“Sure. Sounds like a plan.” I took a deep breath. “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you’d told me the truth that night? About the demon?”

He let go of my hair and wrapped both arms around me. “I thought about it. A lot.”

“How come you never did it? I mean, you had to know it wouldn’t change things. Right?”

“In my gut, yeah. But on the surface? I think other than hurting you, Chase, or Rick, that was my biggest fear—that I’d have the balls to tell you, and you’d turn away.”

I twisted around and sat up on my knees facing him. “I’d never turn away. I’ve seen the ugliest parts of you, Jax Flynn. The darkest and the most violent. But I’ve also seen the most amazing brightness. Pure light and love and compassion that should be impossible after going through what you have.”

He cupped the sides of my face and leaned in, kissing me gently on the forehead, then again on the lips. It was the softest brush. Tentative and sweet. He climbed to his feet and held out a hand to me. “You are a miracle.”

I took it and smiled. “Miracle enough to get a milkshake on the way to Rick’s?”

“Anything you want, Sammy.” He leaned in to kiss me again, but froze halfway there. I gasped. Someone was standing behind him.

I opened my mouth to scream. To tell him to move away, but it was too late. A dark stain appeared and began to spread across his chest. At first it looked black, like someone had spilled a perfect inky circle in the middle of his shirt. But as it grew, it became obvious that it was red.

The figure behind him stepped into the fading light and draped both arms around Jax’s shoulders. “Fancy meetin’ you here,” Chase said with a laugh, then jammed something hard, forward. The tip of an object, something sharp, broke through with the sound of cracking bone, and protruded from the center of the stain on Jax’s chest.

Jax was horrified. He blinked twice, then brought a finger to the blood, swiping it across and lifting his hand to see it. “Sammy—”

I grabbed him and we fell to the ground together. “No,” I repeated. Over and over, I said it, as though it would change things. Undo what had been done.

Jax coughed and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. A thin line, so much like the time he’d bitten the corner of his lip while trying to steal my cotton candy at the county fair. “I—”

“Shh,” I said, pressing a finger to his lips. Lips that already felt so cold. That was impossible, right? He couldn’t be this cold. Not…no.

“Time is short, Samantha,” Chase said. He grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to my feet. “I can save him if you let me.”