Chapter 7
BAILEY
I’m guessing if I weren’t a half-blooded shifter I’d be panicking waking in the dark, but my eyes quickly adjust and I know where I am. Alta Starling’s basement, at the bottom of the staircase.
I rub at the painful goose egg on the back of my head, slowly sitting up.
Everything hurts and everything is blurry, but within a few more seconds, my eyes have adjusted well enough I can make out shapes around me.
I must have collapsed after being put down, maybe because Alta Starling threw something at Jase and it bounced off his bubble, meaning lights out for me instead.
When they caught me and brought me back in, one of them threatening to hurt me if I didn’t cooperate, I stopped fighting.
But then as we descended the stairs, the guy who carried me whispered that maybe we could have some fun later.
He told me my tits were beautiful, said he wanted to taste them.
This had me struggling, feeling like my skin was crawling.
He laughed, threatening to use the knife in his pocket to slice away my bra and set them free.
When I saw Jase at the foot of the stairs on his feet, looking furious and also weakened, I was relieved they couldn’t hurt him behind that magic bubble.
It was like it was when Wyatt Meadows was trying to run away and the council shifters kept punting him with their heads and noses as if he was in an inflatable bumper ball like the ones we used on the lake at my teen summer camp.
Jase looks normal, uninjured and that might be because he’s behind that shield. And right now, he's close. I smell him and can make out his fuzzy shape a few feet away from me.
I feel around for my glasses and find them still in one piece. I put them on and tighten my loose ponytail, making details out a little better.
He’s worked his handcuffs apart, but they’re still on his wrists.
He’s broken the chain between the cuffs on his ankles, too.
There’s one of those flowers by his feet, so I’m guessing it’s inside his protective shield and he got the others off when he knocked that pole over.
Speaking of which, I sure hope the ceiling over us won’t cave in without that support beam.
My blouse is mostly undone, so I close as many of the remaining buttons as there are; the top two are missing.
He’s looking like he’s leaning back against the wall, one knee cocked, his forearm leaned on it, but there’s a space between him and that wall.
“Come here,” Jase commands with a scratchy voice.
I rush over, feeling slightly lightheaded.
“Are you okay?” I get too close and find I can’t move any closer; it’s like I’m up against a window, so I press my hand against it, testing… and it feels like a hard surface, so I back up a little.
“Am I okay?” he parrots, voice sounding a little sinister.
I swallow instead of answering.
“I’m just fuckin’ peachy. Bailey. What do you think?” he asks, voice dripping with sarcasm.
I back up about five more feet away, like the animosity is a repellant.
And it is. Because an attitude is the last thing I need from him. And maybe also the thing I need the most. Because it’s a reminder of where we are in our acquaintance and why I’m here. I grind my teeth to avoid snapping back at him. Because that won’t do us much good right now.
“Sit down,” he says. “Against this wall. I want to be able to at least block you when they come back down here.”
Sighing, I sit, putting my back against the plastic-covered wall.
“Really wishin’ you didn’t give that shit to me,” he mutters and bangs his head back in a frustrated way that I suspect would hurt if it actually met the wall.
And I feel my face get hot. “I tried to get away to get some help. I didn’t want her to hurt you again.”
“So, let me guess... you only had one of whatever Meadows had? Because there’s not another one in my pocket to turn this off.”
I stick my fingers into my shirt to feel around and am relieved the package is still there inside my bra.
“Would taking another one turn it off?”
Jase growls and I startle.
“There are two more in there.” I say, leaving them where they are. “But I…” I let that hang.
He’s shaking his head, seething with anger. “And you didn’t think to stuff ‘em back into my pocket? So maybe I could take one to turn this fuckin’ thing off?”
I blink a couple of times. “I didn’t.”
“Obviously fucking not. Also obviously never bothered to kick all the toxic flowers away before you fed it to me.”
My mouth opens and closes a couple times as I’m processing how pissed off he is at me. Like all of this is entirely my fault.
“I… I had no time to think. They were coming and I didn’t want to get trapped in a bubble with you by being too close, if that’s what would’ve happened. I don’t know. I just–”
“Are you telling me you didn’t think to ask what the fuck it would and wouldn’t do before you dosed me while I was unconscious?”
“How would I do that?”
“I don’t know Bay…” he says with a sneer, “maybe by asking the Starling witch who made these fuckin’ things and happens to be staying in the building attached to the place you spend forty or fifty hours a week?”
I gulp down a sharp swallow. “Nobody knew I took them. I found them on the floor when things went crazy in the town hall and put them in my pocket. I kind of forgot. Until I heard you might be in danger and then I figured I could bring them to you.”
“And you didn’t ask for advice on how to use them?”
I bite my lip.
He growls with frustration, glaring at me in a way that makes it feel like my chest is caving in.
Wait. Wait just a flippin’ minute! I’m done! So, so done.
“I’m sick and tired of you looking at me like that, Jason Creed,” I snap. “And the way you’re snapping at me right now? I was trying to help you!”
His head jerks in surprise before he laughs in a very not nice way. “How does stuffing one into me and basically disabling me help me, Bailey?”
I growl out my own frustration. “I was going to go try and get help. Or sneak up and tackle her and get the necklace on her neck. I kept the bag with me because of the necklace in it and as soon as I got outside her goons caught me.”
“What necklace?”
“The other necklace Mimi Young made to disable the SCC witches the night they tried to siphon Erica’s magic.”
He’s frowning now, so I explain. “I snuck it from Greyson’s and rushed here to help you because I overheard Erica on the phone with Vivi and it was obvious you were in danger and they didn’t seem like they were gonna rush over here to help you, so I rushed to help you.”
“You rushed to help me?” he asks, eyebrows up.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
He scoffs. “Let me get this straight. You snuck into Grey’s, meaning he didn’t know. Also meaning you told nobody what you were doing? None of our council, not your father, nobody?”
I don’t answer, because all this is obviously rhetorical.
“Then you got on a plane to bring me a potion and a necklace on the other side of the Atlantic… without telling a soul?”
I gulp.
He lets out an annoyed-sounding short, low growl. “Fuck, Bay. When I get us outta this fuckin’ mess, you’re getting your bare ass spanked.”
I jerk back. What? What? And that’s the second time he’s called me Bay. He doesn’t call me that. If he called me that, it’d make me think he was calling me it in a way that meant bae which I’d have loved, and I know for a fact he’s not ever done that!
“You obviously don’t know that necklace is useless,” he goes on.
I’m blinking as my brain is still trying to comprehend what he just said to me. But he’s spitting more facts out angrily.
“That necklace is useless unless it’s a Young witch that puts it on the Starling witch.
I can’t use it; you can’t use it. Has to be Grey or one of his cousins.
Or Mimi who initiated him into the coven ahead of that night so he could put those necklaces on the SCC witches.
So, you wasted your time coming here because now we’re fucked.
I’m locked in an invisible cage, can’t do anything for who knows how long.
Can’t even protect my fuckin’ mate from them. ”
Through tears, I shakily ask, “Wh-what do you mean, protect your mate?”
He’s still staring at the staircase and shouts, “Fuck! You’re not stupid, Bailey. I do not understand where your head was at with this shit!”
I sniffle and his eyes hit me. His expression softens at my tears and he reaches out like he’s about to touch my face and I flinch. But his hand stops. He can’t touch me. And now he lets out another loud growl and shouts, “Fuck!”
And I scamper another few feet away from him and that intensity. Because it feels like it’s about to electrocute me. His eyes flash with more anger as he gets to his feet and paces.
I give him a minute, but he doesn’t stop pacing, though it’s directly in front of me. Back and forth and back and forth.
He eventually stops and stares at me, arms crossed over his chest.
Finally, I work up the nerve to ask, “Who do you need to protect?”
He laughs bitterly, rubbing his forehead with his hand.
I ask, “Do they have Dani? Is… is sh-she your mate?”
My heart is pounding really hard. I’ve been telling myself I’d get through his mating, that I wouldn’t let the hurt show, but even as mad as I am for how much of an asshole he’s being, I’m also upset now because my chance to walk away with my head held high is disintegrating.
I’m not sure I can stop it from showing.
And even more, I’m not sure how I’ll live with myself if me putting him in this position to try to keep him safe means something has happened to his fated mate.
If I’m responsible for Erica’s sister getting hurt, I don’t know how I’ll cope.
Jase squats in front of me, but he’s so tall we’re still not at eye level. I look up at him, lip trembling.
“Danica isn’t my mate, kiddo,” he says, his eyes changing, his voice softer, sounding pained.
And I’m about to ask the next logical question. Ask him who it is.
But he leaves me absolutely stunned when his expression changes again and he very angrily snaps, “Color me shocked as fuck, because guess what? It’s you.”
I blink a few times. I breathe a little, I think. And I swallow before I confusedly ask, “It’s me what?”
“It’s you. You’re my soulmate. You, for fuck’s sake!” He rakes his hand through his hair and looks like he wants to hit something.
He paces some more while I stare, mouth agape.
He huffs out while still pacing, “Did you hear me?”
I can’t form words on my tongue.
I can’t even construct a single coherent thought.
“Earth to Bailey?”
I blink some more, but my mouth is open. I close it.
He stares.
“What?” I finally whisper.
“Didn’t know until about a second and a half before we passed out in the back of that car.
And then I had to helplessly watch that witch backhand you because I was chained up.
As sick and weak as I felt, that did it and I managed to get off that beam but then I had to stand by unable to do a fuckin’ thing while that fuckin’ guy carried you while you struggled, putting his filthy mitts on you.
And I couldn’t get to you, couldn’t protect you because you fucking dosed me with that magic shit.
You shouldn’t be here. You should be home, safe.
Protected by your brother, by the other council alphas until I got home.
We should’ve been there when this happened, when I realized the truth of who you are to me. ”
My mouth is still gaping. I’m in utter shock at the words that have come from Jason’s lips. I probably hit my head even harder than this little bump on my head suggests and I’m dreaming this right now because this can’t be real. It just can’t.
“I must be in a coma. This isn’t real,” I whisper.
Jase rolls his eyes and frustratedly growls again, pacing some more.