by Cassi Carver
“I’m trying to teach him more control, but he is gifted for his age. It just hurts that my brother would attempt to take away the priesthood from my own daughter…his own niece.”
“Well, you aren’t going to allow it, are you?”
“Of course not. Abigail is the heir. A piece of paper can’t change that.”
“And you don’t think he would…hurt her…do you?”
“Syd! That’s my brother. How could you even say that?”
Her mother’s voice was all anguish and guilt, and Abbey wished she could reach out and hug her. “Charles, I love you. I would never want to say anything to hurt you, but the rumors aren’t going away…”
“About the summer camp? Please don’t bring that up again. My family has put it behind us.”
“Maybe you have, but the boy’s parents still want answers. They’re a powerful family in the coven, and they have a right to know how their son—one of the best swimmers on his high school team—could have drowned on a hundred-meter race to the buoy. The water isn’t even that deep.”
“That was the problem, Syd! His feet tangled in the weeds. To think that Claudius would drown him just because the boy won for class president is insane.”
“There were weeds,” she conceded, “but they were knotted around his ankles, Charles. Knotted. Not tangled. And your brother was swimming alongside him the entire time. Why would Kevin have kicked around in the weeds where he couldn’t touch, and why, if his forearms and the top of his head were visible on the surface of the water, did Claudius not swim down and free him?”
“The water was murky from all the thrashing. He couldn’t see.”
“It was less than six feet deep. He could have felt his way down.”
“Claudius was in shock, and he was scared of being blamed,” her father said. “And apparently, he was right.”
“I understand your loyalty, and I love you for it. But if you ever loved me, hear my words—you keep an eye on our daughter. And yourself.”
When the tape player clicked and the voices stopped, Abbey couldn’t do anything but stand there with her chin drooping toward the floor. Jaxon regarded her with a heavy brow, waiting.
“The brakes…” she began.
He nodded. “The brakes.”
“We have to tell somebody. We have to go to the police. Maybe if we take this tape…” But when she popped open the cover of the recorder, it was empty. It had been empty the entire time.
Chapter Seven
“I let him lead the coven. All these years, I let a man like that take my rightful place in my coven,” Abbey repeated. Of all the recent revelations, this and her parents’ possible murder seemed to be hitting her the hardest.
Jaxon helped her to the bed, having insisted she should lie down. She was trembling from head to foot, and he ached to ease her pain. He brushed her hair from her eyes and adjusted the pillow under her head, but she pushed his hand away and sat. “I want you to do it,” she said.
“Do what?”
“Give me your blood. Heal my brand. You were right—I’ve been hiding from my life for too long.”
“Are you sure now is the right time?” he asked.
“I’m not waiting any longer. I need to get better so I can take back what’s mine—so I can bring honor to my family’s name again…if that’s even possible after everything my uncle’s done. My father was a good man, and he wanted me to lead our people. That’s what I’m going to do.”
He brought her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “I want that for you, Abbey. I truly do.”
She blew out a gusty breath and stripped off her shirt, leaving her upper half clad in only her lavender lace bra and her tan, stretchy bandages. He swallowed, ashamed he was so turned on by the sight of her pale nipples through the thin, lacy fabric.
“So, what do we do? Do you know the spell?”
When she stripped off her jeans, leaving her in only a wisp of lavender lace panties, he stood to put a few inches between them. “Demiáre don’t need spells…not in the sense of saying the right words. If it’s going to work, my blood alone should be enough.”
She scooted off the bed and walked to the bathroom. He followed in time to see her pull the bath mat to the middle of the cold tile floor.
“What are you doing, dove?”
She flipped her red hair off her shoulder and crossed her arms. “I may not have built it, but this house is mine, and I’m not going to get blood everywhere.”
He blinked. With Abbey’s almost phobic aversion to blood, he was floored she was handling this so well. “Good idea.”
Seeing him take his knife from the pocket of his jeans and set it on the counter, she asked, “Is that what you’re going to use?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to…”
“Cut my palm and transfer the blood from there.”
Abbey nodded. “Okay. Sounds good. Hold on a sec.”
She turned and dashed to the toilet. He heard the sound of the seat banging open, directly followed by the sound of her stomach being purged repeatedly. When she was finished, she strode out, rinsed her mouth in the sink, then came to stand before him once again. “Let’s do this.”
She began unwrapping the first layer of cloth. By the time she was done, the long bandage was in a heap at her feet, but the pink-tinged shreds of paper towel still clung to her abdomen.
She grasped one edge of the paper, then paused. “You haven’t seen this in a while. It’s not pretty.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She tilted her chin high and pulled off the strips. Jaxon fought to control his reaction, but seeing his deranged father’s brand on Abbey’s stomach filled him with rage. That his half brother could have carved Brakken’s sign into Abbey was inconceivable—and all for some misguided vendetta against Kara herself, that Abbey had no part in. He would never owe Kara a greater debt than for killing Gable when she’d had the chance.
“Is it worse than you remember?” she asked, her cheeks and neck a splotchy rose.
He shook his head. “No. The memory of that brand is seared into my mind. Finding you at Gable’s mercy that night is something I’ll never forget.” He walked to her and took her hands in his. “But let this day be a day of healing. For your body. And our minds. Let it be a day of new beginnings.”
A tear rolled down her cheek. “I’d like that.”
His gaze fell to her supple lips, but he didn’t want to push her in this moment. There would be time for that when she was healed. So instead, he placed one chaste kiss on her brow and lowered her to the rug. He reached for the pocketknife and poised the blade above his palm. “My entire life I wondered why, if there was a Maker, he would allow me to be born to such parents. But in this moment, I understand. If my blood can heal you, then I accept my lineage with a grateful heart.”
Her chin quivering, Abbey closed her eyes when he drew the blade across his palm. He cut deeply, wanting to ensure that once it had begun, the flow of blood would continue long enough to cover the entire symbol before he started to heal.
He dripped the blood on the deep tracks etched into Abbey’s skin. And when his blood slowed, he pulled at the edges of his wound, opening it up again and continuing the steady flow until every inch of the brand was covered.
By the time he was done, Abbey’s shaking had transformed into full-blown tremors. Frowning, he closed his bloody fist and put his other hand to her cheek. “It’s all right, dove. It’s finished.” She didn’t answer. “Abigail…you can open your eyes now.”
Her eyes shot open, and she let out a deafening wail, grasping at her bloody stomach and bending double. Her guttural groans and the wild look in her eyes made his heart stutter in his chest. “Abbey?” He grabbed her upper arms and frantically searched her face. “Abbey!”
But when her eyes rolled back in their sockets and foamy saliva spewed from the corners of her mouth, he knew he’d made a terrible mistake.
“A
bigail! Wake up!” he cried, his limbs going numb from the shock of seeing the woman he loved seizing before his eyes.
She gasped as though choking, and a fine spray of foam let loose from her lungs. He snatched her up from the floor and carried her to the shower, turning the water on high and jumping in while it was still cold. Too concerned with the blood to worry if the temperature would jolt her, he held her limp body up to the spray, flushing his blood from her wound as if it were acid. And maybe for a witch it was…
“Damn me!” he screamed, the frigid water drenching him head to toe. “Damn me to hell!”
He rinsed and rinsed, reaching up to adjust the water a minute later so it wouldn’t burn her. And then he sat down on the floor of the shower with Abbey stretched out on his lap and simply held her as the water washed every last trace of his blood away.
Her breathing was so faint when he turned her face away from the spray that he couldn’t be sure she still drew breath. He felt for the pulse at her neck, but to his horror, the weak tick at the artery along her throat continued to slow until at last, everything went still and silent.
“No.” He quickly shut off the shower faucet and carried her drenched body to the center of the bathroom. There, with her sprawled on the mat, he pressed his fingers to her throat and his ear to her chest. And what he heard was the worst sound he could imagine. Silence.
“No!” he cried. The stunning olive-green eyes that had been rolling in their sockets just minutes before, now stared out, unblinking.
He began to compress the ribs over her heart and breathe into her lungs. He wasn’t sure how long it went on like that. But if he hadn’t felt like he was desecrating her beautiful body, he would have continued forever.
He brought a wet lock of Abbey’s hair to his face and held it there, pressed between his hand and his cheek. He’d killed her. He’d killed the only woman he wanted for all time.
He was the end of Abbey. He’d destroyed her life just as he’d destroyed his mother’s. Why hadn’t Hexa cut him from her womb when she’d had the chance? Because she was weak. She was scared of pain. Well, Jaxon wasn’t scared. He welcomed it.
Picking up Abbey’s limp body, he carried her to the bed, pulled back the covers and settled her between the sheets. He didn’t bother with a towel. What did it matter when all was said and done?
He returned to the bathroom and retrieved his knife, then stripped off his soaking clothes and shoes and lay down beside her. It was difficult for a Demiáre to end his own life because it required total decapitation, but if he cut his throat deeply enough, he might sleep with Abbey in his arms for a very long time. If the Maker had mercy on him, maybe he would never wake.
He held her cold body in his arms for a long while, then said a prayer for them both and one for his mother. He brought the knife to his throat and pressed the blade against his skin, focusing on how deep and wide he would need to cut before the darkness closed in on him. One strong stroke—
“Jaxon…” Abbey whispered to him so sweetly he could envision her waiting for him in a land where they could truly be together forever. He would meet her there soon…
“It’s so smooth.”
At the first knick against his throat, he realized a slight movement accompanied the small voice. Fearing he’d lost his mind, he set the knife on the nightstand and drew back the covers. Abbey’s hand twitched against her stomach, moving a few inches, then coming to rest on her perfectly flawless skin.
“Feel it, Jaxy. It’s so smooth,” she murmured.
“Haa!” The loud burst of sound was like pure joy escaping from within. “Abbey!” he bellowed.
She cracked open her eyelids a fraction of an inch. “What?”
“Abbey…” His eyes brimming, he leaned down and kissed her full on the mouth.
When he released her lips, she smiled. “I’m guessing it went well?”
“Very well,” he whispered, almost unable to speak through his constricting throat.
“Then why are we so wet?” She glanced at his bare chest and the boxers sticking to his thighs. “And where are your clothes?”
“We…showered.”
She lifted her head and inspected her stomach. “Oh my God. You did it, Jaxon. You healed me.”
He was overcome. He couldn’t speak any longer. He couldn’t even nod in agreement. Abbey was alive. She was alive and getting stronger by the second.
She sat and ran both hands down her abdomen. “I can’t believe it. It’s been so long since I’ve looked down and seen this view.” She took his hand. “Thank you, my friend. Your beautiful blood healed me.”
Finally, he forced his throat to work. “I suppose it did.”
He wasn’t expecting it when Abbey’s expression changed as though she’d had a profound thought and then she slapped him on the arm. “If you knew it was going to be this easy, you should have done it a long time ago! What were you thinking?”
“I…” He laughed, but it sounded slightly insane to his ears. “I should have. It’s true. You’re feeling all right, then?”
“No, I’m not feeling all right—I’m feeling awesome!”
He ran a shaky hand through his hair. “That’s…amazing. Praise the Maker.” If the Maker had anything to do with this, Jaxon would consider talking to him more often.
Abbey sat up on her knees to face him. “Hey, what’s the matter with you? I thought you’d be happier.”
The sight of her in a damp bra and panties, her stomach toned and immaculate, hit him like a nuclear detonation. She was alive. And so was he. And there was nothing on this green earth that should keep them apart now.
“I’m happier than you may ever comprehend.” The only thing that could improve this moment would be hearing her agree to be his.
“Feel this.” She took his hand and pressed it to her stomach. ”You did this. I still don’t like blood, but I’m thinking maybe yours is okay in a pinch.”
She smiled, and the remaining blood in his veins began to boil. Her smooth skin and her hand atop his were more than he could endure. “I love you, Abbey, as I’ve never loved another soul.”
She smiled, still holding his hand against her skin. “I love you, too. You know that.”
He shook his head. “Don’t pretend to misunderstand me this time. I’m telling you that I love you. I want to be with you for the rest of your life. I want—” he swallowed, “—to make love to you.”
With a breath big enough to expand her chest, she dropped his hand and turned away. “I can’t. Please don’t ask me.”
If his heart had swelled when he’d realized she was alive, it was only a larger target now for the sharp blow of her rejection. How could he have been such an idiot? He’d never misinterpreted the signs so completely. “Were you never attracted to me at all?”
“Look at you. Are you kidding me? You’re hotter than a sun flare.” She wrapped her arms around her torso. “But you just don’t get it, do you? What we have—this friendship—can last forever. If I lost that, I don’t think I’d ever find it again.”
“Why would you lose it?”
“Because love and sex don’t go hand in hand for me. I’ve tried. And I’ve failed. Not just failed a little…we’re talking epic crash and burn here. You know Tray?”
“Yes.” He knew Tray. And he couldn’t help but hate the bastard for no other reason than he was Abbey’s ex.
Abbey tucked her feet under her and leaned against the headboard. “I felt this weird connection to him. I even thought I loved him. But at the end of the day, it wasn’t enough to keep us together.”
Jaxon rested his fists against his thighs. “Then he’s the man you love? The one you’d like to spend your life with?”
“What?” Her mahogany brows drew together. “No. That’s not what I’m saying. I thought I might love him, but it was just chemistry, I guess. He never encouraged me to be who I was meant to be, like you do. I never felt truly accepted or loved unconditionally by him like I do with you. Do you und
erstand what I’m saying?”
He frowned, thinking hard. “Woman, I have no clue.”
“I love you too much to lose you. No matter how attracted I am to you, I’m finally growing up and making good choices.”
“You love me…and you’re attracted to me…but denying me is a good choice?”
She squeezed his hand. “I’ve lost too many important people in my life. Kara and my grandma are the only family I have left. Boyfriends don’t last, Jaxon—but friends do.”
“No,” he said, his jaw going hard.
“No?”
“I’m finally seeing it clearly now. You’re afraid, Abbey, and your fear is going to keep us from having all that we deserve out of this life. You see—” he took her by the arm and brought her to him, “—I have no interest in being your boyfriend. I want to be your forever.”
His mouth was only an inch from hers, and the feel of his slightly damp boxers against her flat, smooth stomach was utterly decadent. Her heart started to pound and her pussy clenched in anticipation. “Stop,” she whispered against his lips. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Yes I do. I’m proving to you that the right man can both love you and make love to you.” He flipped her onto her back and grasped her wrists, bringing them above her head in an unbreakable grip. “I am that man.”
“Jaxon…” She’d meant the word as a protest, but damn her, it came out as a breathy invitation. When he leaned down and kissed her neck, she almost moaned.
It wasn’t fair. She’d done everything right, and she was still stretched out under Jaxon, pressed into the mattress with no defenses and not enough willpower to continue denying what she’d wanted for so long.
“Listen, I think we should—”
“Do you trust me?” he asked, cutting her off. His muscles were so tense, they stood out like carved granite under his sun-bronzed skin.
“Of course I do.”
“Then for once, stop talking.”
He stripped the thick cotton pillowcase from a pillow and ripped the material lengthwise into two long pieces. She couldn’t even imagine what kind of superhuman strength it took to do that.