Released (The Eternal Balance #3)(20)

I froze. “You’ll—” That was its threat? Give me what I wanted? Bullshit. It thought I’d been born five minutes ago?

“For a short time,” it amended. “I will allow him partial control if you agree to sleep.”

I stared. I tried to answer, but no words would come. Bribery? The demon was bribing me? To go to sleep?

“Are we in agreement?”

“And what exactly does ‘partial control’ mean?” I asked, finding my voice. There was no flicker of hope at his words. No flutter of anticipation.

Without a word, Azi unbuckled the seat belt and threw open the door. Once out the passenger’s side, it slipped into the backseat in a single, fluent move. It closed the door and settled Jax’s body across the seat, leaning back. “He will have the ability to speak to you. That is all. I will permit him to stay conscious until you fall asleep.”

It was blackmail. Cruel, twisted blackmail. Yet a part of me, despite my original feelings, wanted to immediately latch on to the small crumb it offered and not look back. The ache that came with missing Jax grew each hour we were apart. I was desperate, and Azi knew it.

Without a word, I slipped from the driver’s side, partially ashamed of myself for allowing the demon to manipulate me, and crawled into the back. With a click, I closed the door behind me and kept my gaze down. I was afraid to look Jax in the eye. Afraid this was another trick. Maybe if I just pretended…

“Sammy…”

Sammy. Just a single word. A childish nickname I’d heard uttered millions of times. It sounded like Jax. There was a tremble in his voice that hadn’t been there moments ago. Yet I still couldn’t bring myself to lift my gaze. Not after what the demon had done at the cabin.

“I swear. It’s me,” he tried again.

This time I caved. I lifted my head, and my eyes caught his. All the air whooshed from my lungs like someone had dropped a two-ton weight onto my chest. I threw myself forward and brought my lips to his.

He returned the kiss, equally frantic. I ran both hands up the sides of his face, reveling in the newfound warmth and wondering how the hell I’d missed that at the cabin. He deepened the kiss, tilting his head sideways, but his arms stayed at his sides.

After a moment, I pulled away. “What’s wrong?”

His eyes squeezed closed, and when he opened them, there was fury there—indignant rage. “I can’t move. I can speak, but—”

“Shh.” I leaned in and planted the softest kiss against his forehead. I twisted and wedged myself between his outstretched legs and the seat and wrapped my arms around him. “I’ll take what I can get,” I said, resting my head against his chest. Hearing his heartbeat, knowing that it was his blood it pumped, was more of a comfort than I could have imagined.

“Are you okay?” His voice was so soft I almost didn’t hear him.

“No. I’m not okay.” I lifted my head so I could see his eyes, a part of me still worried that this was all just some cruel trick. “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. But I’m here. I can’t always talk to you, or hold you, but I’m in here. Always watching.” He was quiet for a moment, and I could almost hear him grinding his teeth. “Look, I need to explain something.”

I knew by his tone what he was talking about, and it was the last thing I wanted to discuss now. But the guilt in his voice silenced me. If he needed to explain, I’d let him—not that it mattered. What the demon had told me about the time Jax was away didn’t sway my feelings. It’d hurt, sure, but it changed nothing.

“What Azi said was true. I did…there were other girls. It didn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about—”

“Jax,” I said. “You left. You had no intention of coming back—”

“I didn’t,” he confirmed. “I wanted to. It just wasn’t safe. I believed you were better off without me.”

“Do you think I expected you to live like a priest—and no altar boy jokes, this is serious.” He snickered, but let me go on. “I get it.” It hurt like hell, but I did. I understood. I couldn’t imagine how he must have felt, being seventeen, scared of himself, of the world, of what he might do… How lonely he must have been. “It was a way to escape and feed the demon without hurting anyone.”

We could keep going like this, talking in circles. It wouldn’t change the past. He’d left Harlow, and we’d both moved on. The important thing was that we’d found our way back to each other. I had no intention of letting him go this time. “You fought your way to the surface. Back at the cabin. Keep fighting. Do it again.”

“It’s not that simple, Sammy. The few seconds I managed to steal my body back almost killed me.”

I leaned back against him, grabbing his arm and draping it across my shoulder. It felt like heaven and hell all at the same time—a tease of something I’d lost, coupled with the taunt of something I could no longer have. “Then what do we do?”

He kissed the top of my head. “We’ll think of something.”

As I closed my eyes and the darkness tugged me under, I couldn’t help feeling like he was lying—which terrified me. What could possibly be worse than what we were already dealing with?





Chapter Nine