10. Jade
As I step into the apartment, Isaiah and Shep rise from the dining table. Both are so rumpled and bleary-eyed, they must have slept there.
“You can bring the bags inside.” Dominik’s clipped order snaps Patten out of his shock.
He lunges toward Dominik. “You piece of?—”
I step in front of Dominik before Patten can strangle him. “It’s okay, I’m okay. You don’t need to kill him,” I say in a rush as I brace myself for him to ram into me.
Patten skids to a stop inches away. “Jade. Move. He needs to die.”
This is not the first time since we left New York that I’ve had that same thought. I shake it away before it can take root.
“He saved me from the compound,” I remind Patten.
Patten’s eyes narrow as they flick from me to Dominik. “And he kidnapped you after. Didn’t he?”
There’s no response to a question that won’t end in Dominik’s death.
In the silence, the driver piles bag after bag beside the front door. “Was there anything else, Mr. Alarik?”
“Did he take you shopping?” Isaiah’s voice is strange.
“Yes, but that isn’t important,” I say.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Dominik pull a bundle of notes from his pocket and pass them to the driver. “I’ll call you if I need your services again.”
The driver nods at me. “Mrs. Alarik.”
Patten sucks in a breath, and I swear Shep growls.
“It’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay, but it will be. It would be wrong to kill him.” I ignore how killing him would be the easiest way of ridding myself of this bond tying us together.
“That would depend on if he hurt you,” Shep rumbles as he moves even closer, his hands flexing when he forms them into fists.
The driver backs out, slamming the door shut behind him.
Smart.
If Dominik hadn’t done so much to make me feel safe in the compound, it would be very easy—convenient, even—to take a step out of the way and let Patten strangle him, like he so clearly wants to.
I don’t trust Dominik, but I can’t forget his kindnesses when I was so afraid.
He helped me escape from Atticus Chira when he could have run himself. Regardless of his reasons, I’m alive because of him. I can’t let Patten or Shep kill him.
“Move, Jade,” Patten quietly orders me.
“No, you can’t kill him,” I plead.
“He kidnapped you.” Shep prowls closer, his eyes flaring a bright wolf gold. “He won’t suffer for long.”
“Why did he take you shopping?” Isaiah is pale as he stands at the dining table, his dark gaze fixed on the suitcases. “Was it an attempt to bribe you for something else he did?”
“No. I… I…” What to say?
What the hell do I say?
Claws emerge from the tips of Shep’s fingers.
“I’m pregnant,” I blurt out and then wince.
Silence.
Why do I feel like that was the wrong thing to say?
Everyone stares at me, surprised. But not Shep. He nods once. “You smelled different.”
It takes everything I have not to sniff my armpit. I showered back in New York, but it was a couple hours ago now, and I’ve been stress sweating ever since.
“Bad?” I clamp my arms by my side to prevent anyone else from getting a whiff.
Patten grunts. “You see what I meant. This is why you never tell a girl she smells anything except perfect.”
How did the way I smell become the focus of the conversation and not on the life-changing thing I just yelled out?
I look at Shep, Patten, and Isaiah, and I wait for them to decide they don’t want me anymore. “You’re not mad.”
“We are,” Isaiah says.
“Yes,” Shep agrees.
“At the dragon for kidnapping you after we saved his lazy ass.” Patten glares over my shoulder.
“Oh,” I say.
Patten adds, “You want to move aside beautiful so we can kill the guy?”
I’m so surprised, I nearly do it. “There’s no need to kill him. I mean, the pregnant thing wasn’t his fault. The bonding was...” I think I said the wrong thing again. Or the right things in the wrong order.
“What bonding?” Shep’s eyes narrow.
I have completely messed this up. It isn’t like I didn’t have hours to plan exactly what to say to cause the least amount of conflict. I scrub a hand over my face, frustrated and annoyed at myself.
Things were simple in the attic. I don’t miss being in it, but things were different. Now what I say—and what I do—has an impact on someone other than just me.
I’m not sure when I’ll get used to that feeling. If I ever will.
“It’s okay. I can explain,” I say when I don’t think I can.
Dominik decides now is the perfect time to step forward, lifting his chin. “Jade is mine, and our bond is permanent. She will be returning to New York with me.”
Blond fur sweeps over Sheps’s cheeks, and his eyes flare to a brilliant gold. Signs his wolf will ravage Dominik if I don’t do something. “What did you say?”
I lift my arms between them, desperate to put an end to this before blood starts flowing.
“We’ll break the bond, and then I want to go back to Chicago. That’s all I want. For Atticus to die so he can’t hurt anyone else ever again, and to just go home.”
“Jade…” Dominik rests his hand on my arm.
I wrench it free. “No. I told you not to touch me again. I don’t trust you after what you did, and I don’t much like you either.”
A slow smile of satisfaction is stretching across Patten’s lips when a female voice distracts me. “Jade?”
A curvy blonde woman with olive skin and tired blue eyes, wearing a green floral dress, smiles in relief as she steps out of a bedroom. “He asked about you.”
“He…” Then I see him. The man in the bed behind her, covered by a pale blue sheet.
My biggest reason for wanting to return to Wilkerson.
“Dad!” I sprint across the room, skidding to a stop just inside the doorway. My eyes widen in shock. “His veins are silver.”
“A bolt was slowly poisoning him. My spell is working, but the poisoning was extensive, and he’s still not out of danger.” The woman who stepped out of the doorway before I could slam into her moves to the other side of Dad’s bed, drawing my attention to the tiny glass bottles on the bedside table.
“Who are you?” I ask, though I don’t turn to look at her.
“Meliah.”
“Jade.” I’m careful not to disturb Dad as I perch on the edge of the bed.
He looks bad. I’ve never seen Dad sick before. In fact, I didn’t believe he ever got sick. I lift my hand, let it hover over his pale skin, and lower it again without touching him. I’m too afraid anything I do would hurt him. “How could a bolt hurt him this badly?”
“Charmed cold iron,” Meliah says.
Atticus chained Dominik to stop him from escaping from his cell. For twenty years, it trapped him in his human form, leaving him as Atticus’s prisoner.
“What is cold iron?” I ask to distract myself from the damage that metal must be doing to Dad’s insides.
Dominik was going to tell me—or I was about to ask him—back in the compound, but we ran out of time. Asking him now comes with the possibility he will tell me the truth, or, more likely, lie to get what he wants: me back in New York.
“Iron that has never been worked with fire,” Dominik answers.
His expression is thoughtful as he stands in the doorway, hands stuffed in his pockets. I’m surprised he made it to the doorway at all with how close Patten was to strangling him.
That might have something to do with the fact that behind Dominik, Shep is gripping Patten’s right arm as Patten glares at Dominik’s back. Isaiah is at the window, his expression distant as he studies Patten and Shep.
Dominik steps into the room. My eyes snap back to him and my muscles tense as he slowly approaches Dad’s other side.
Meliah’s gaze bounces from Dominik to me, likely reading my tension. “Is there a problem?”
Dominik doesn’t respond. He doesn’t seem to even notice her as he stops beside Dad and peers down at him. Despite the silver veins on Dad’s neck, Dominik’s expression is blank, as if there’s nothing unusual about a man with silver veins.
He rests his palm on Dad’s forehead for a beat before rubbing it on his pants. As if that brief touch alone hurt him. “Iron sickness. If Atticus had a witch charm it, it could do a lot of damage while it was inside him.”
“But how did Atticus…” My voice trails off when the answer hits me.
Atticus Chira came from a family of collectors, and one that had a fascination—or obsession—with all things firedrake. He learned enough to chain one. He must have learned how to kill one as well, making him even more dangerous than I believed he was before.
“It’s not safe to stay here,” Dominik warns me.
“Do you think he won’t just hunt us down wherever we go?” I ask. “You might not mind waiting for someone to attack you when you least expect it, but I do.”
When you stop being the hunter, you become the prey.I had years of Dad telling me that, and Atticus does not strike me as someone who would give up his obsession for anything. We have to stop him. Permanently.
When Dominik doesn’t respond, I refocus on Dad’s unconscious form. “Will he be okay?”
“The bolt splintered and tiny fragments spread. If I had gotten to him sooner, maybe it wouldn’t have been this bad, but I don’t know.” Meliah pulls up the pale blue sheet covering the grayish-silver veins running over Dad’s chest and neck. “The spell I’ve used is working, but it will take time.”
“How does it work?” I ask.
“The way doctors can use charcoal can stop a body from absorbing certain types of poison,” Meliah explains.
I look up at her now. Maybe because of the talk of spells, or because of the tiredness in her voice. “You said he asked about me?”
She nods. “I did. He woke briefly, looked around for you, and then fell asleep again. That he woke is a good sign. Means he’s healing.”
It looked like Shep, Patten, and Isaiah had slept at the dining table. Meliah doesn’t look like she slept at all. “How do you know so much about us, and why would you want to help?”
After Dominik’s betrayal that I didn’t see coming, I can’t help but wonder whether this help is going to end up costing me—or Dad—more than we want to give up.
She smiles. “I understand your suspicion, but there’s no need for it. I don’t mean your father any harm. Several years ago, he saved my life. If I can help save his, then I will.”
“But you knew who I was,” I say.
“He mentioned he had a daughter called Jade.”
My eyes pop. “Dad told you about me?”
“He did.” She glances over her shoulder when Shep and Isaiah’s argument gets louder. “It’s not safe to keep him here.”
I rise from the edge of the bed, frowning. “What do you mean?”
Her expression is somber. “We all know about Atticus Chira, and he’s always been content to leave us alone. If he suspects you are here…”
“He will track us down,” Dominik says, disapproval hardening his voice. “Easily. This town is small.”
I don’t want him to be right, but he is. Wilkerson is too small to hide for long.
Dominik didn’t want to come back here at all, yet despite knowing it wasn’t smart, I couldn’t just leave Dad, Shep, Patten, and Isaiah here.
I had to come back.
“But he’s safe for now, right?” I ask Meliah as I dart a rapid glance at the late-morning sunlight streaming in through the window. There’s no sign of trouble. Yet. “Won’t it be dangerous to move him while he’s still this weak?”
Glass shatters in the next room, a sharp sound followed by a grunt of pain.