Chapter 12 Jasmine #3
There’s a soft clinking as Sai rolls the re-capped vial over the table, until it falls off the edge, landing in Julien’s awaiting palm. He studies me briefly, before removing the lid and drinking.
Right, well… Sai and Julien are close. Sai drank, so of course Julien would for moral support. They’ve drank it before, they know the effects, it means nothing. Now, it’ll be thrown away.
But when Julien re-seals it, he doesn’t put it away. He holds the vial out to Ezekial who takes it. Right, now he’ll dispose of it. He’ll say there’s no need for this—
He’s drinking it. He… they…
They don’t even know what it is? Not really, because they didn’t even ask. What if it’s poison? Are they insane? Did they even think about that? They’re immortal, not indestructible.
Ezekial then throws the vial over the table, and Kane catches it in one hand. Shit. Why was that so attractive?
No. Keep expressionless. Lock all feelings down. He won’t drink it anyway. There’s no way. He’ll just put it in his pocket like he did the first time he made me drink—
Unlike all the others, Kane stares directly at me as he removes the cap. His dark eyes never waver as he tilts his head to one side, just so—and that small action screams everything he doesn’t say.
That he accepts my challenge, that he understands, that he’s willing to do this. To do anything.
He drinks. Drains it.
They all just drank it. And I’m suddenly so… so… angry. Angry that they derailed my plan. Angry that they trusted me so easily. That they just put themselves at risk without hesitation. And I’m angry that I even care. I hate that I care—
It’s fine. This is fine.
I bite my tongue, straighten my spine and look away from Kane.
A small hitch in my plan, that’s all, we can still progress onto the next step. The reason we’re all here, why I asked for this meeting, to discuss the truth they kept from me.
“When did you know we were…” Fuck. Come on. Just say it. “…bonds?”
That word makes the shadows bloom, encasing the room in a creeping gloom. My gaze flickers to the darkness as it spreads, dimming the light, curling like smoke around the edges of the walls. Then I look back at them, waiting to see who breaks first.
“It was different for each of us,” Julien begins. I don’t miss how his eyes dart to my throat, to the tiny mark.
“And for you?” I ask, matching his quiet tone.
His gaze sweeps up to mine, and it stays there as he answers, “The night you took the truth serum, when Sai was attempting to remove your mark and I was… inhaling your scent.”
“I remember.” I tilt my head, exposing the mark more clearly in the low light, then place my index finger beside it. “When I told you I had no other marks. That I’d never been bitten.” His gaze sharpens, flitting from the mark to my eyes viciously. “Then you tried to bite me.”
Back to my eyes. “I wouldn’t have. Never without your permission.”
I study him, scrutinise his words, try to pick them apart. He can’t lie, but I still find it hard to believe him.
“Did you want my permission when you cornered me in the club’s hallway?
” My voice fills with sarcastic bite. “When you said you were going to drain me? Lock me in a cage? Make me yours?” The shadows bloom, and my nail drifts along the tender line adorning my neck.
“I don’t remember you asking for my permission then, Julien. ”
“Fucking hell,” Sai groans.
But Julien’s eyes stay locked on me, on my nail as it traces the tiny cut.
“I’d been locked in the pit for a week.” I narrow my gaze, listening for any attempt to twist the truth. “I made my brethren chain me there. Keep me detained for even having those thoughts.”
His eyes never leave my throat, his brows pinched.
I dig my nail in slightly, he tenses then blurts, “I should never have come to you that night, but the calling was too much. When I said those things, my darkness was overpowering me, I hadn’t fed, I’d only just recovered from the frenzy you’d triggered—”
“So it’s my fault you said those things to me?”
“Stop talking, Julien,” Ezekial urges.
But we all know he can’t, because the serum won’t let him.
“No.” Julien’s gaze falls back to mine. “I put you at risk that evening. I was foolish, selfish, greedy. I wasn’t prepared to see you again, yet I still went.
” His eyes flicker across the table, left and right, before settling like he’s reached a conclusion.
“I’m sorry I subjected you to that side of me.
I was weak, and I’ll never let it happen again.
But, please believe me when I say, I would never have harmed you. ”
Just like Kane, another member of this unit who just loved to say things they didn’t mean. As though Julien can see my uncertainty, my doubt, he stands.
With his palms flat on the table, he leans in, levelling his burnt-maroon gaze with mine.
“I will do anything to prove myself to you. Anything. I will remain chained in the Pit for eternity, if that is your wish, because there is no reason to linger in this realm, on this planet, in this existence, without you.”
Keeping a neutral expression has never been so hard. But there’s a slight pause in my breath, a flicker in my gaze, small tells breaking through. Any normal being would miss them.
But not these men.
The shock, the disbelief, the pleasure that Julien would sacrifice so much for me… whatever I’m trying to suppress, he must see through it, because I catch the softest twitch of his lips as he reseats himself.
But he doesn’t get to smile. He isn’t allowed that flicker of comfort. Not until I allow it.
I flatten my expression, level my stare with his, and keep my voice steady. “Anything?” Whatever comfort Julien thought he’d earned dissolves at my tone. “Like letting another bite me?”
“No.” Julien’s gaze plummets into darkness, but it doesn’t deter me. It feeds me.
The others are watching Julien now, tracking his response, possibly planning to intervene, maybe even subdue.
“She doesn’t mean it,” Sai tries. “Keep calm. Don’t say anything rash.”
But now all I want to do is unchain the beast.
“You’d be restrained,” I goad, “chained, made to watch while another fed from me, marked me, made me—”
“You believe I deserve that?” Julien’s voice is rough, as though the words are cutting him open.
But I’m not answering his question. This is his turn to speak. His time to suffer. And yes… maybe I did. Maybe I want to watch what would happen when his choice is ripped away. When the one thing he wants is close enough to taste, and taken by another.
But I don’t respond, and the silence makes it worse. His feelings twist and spike into dangerous territory as the shadows sweep towards him, cloaking his tall frame like a rising storm.
“Julien, ground yourself,” Ezekial mentally urges. “Can’t you see she’s trying to push you?” He’s leaning towards Julien.
I notice all the men are.
So I decide to go for the killing blow.
“If that’s what I decided, would you let another mark me?” My nail drags across the cut. “Bite me? Taste me?”
He has to answer, he has no choice, and to encourage this, I tap into my darkness.
I play a fake memory into his mind. It’s a painted picture, a fabricated lie, but it feels real. A moving image of a shadowy figure reaching for me, holding me, their teeth about to pierce my skin whilst he’s chained and forced to watch—
“I—” Julien clenches his jaw, silencing himself as his irises dissolve into black.
He trembles, muscles straining as he fights the serum. I remember that pain, the burning, the slicing, how it pulls up from your gut and along your throat until you can’t help but—
“I would fucking slaughter them for daring to touch what is mine.”
The room is still.
“What. A. Save,” Sai murmurs, unmissably dry.
But I’m too distracted by Julien’s claim, more so my reaction to it. My darkness soars at the possessive tone, seeking the dark-being across from me and reaching him without my approval.
“Would you make them suffer?” It—we—I ask, my vision hazy.
“In ways you can’t even imagine,” he vows, that familiar elegance threading through each word like silk pulled taut. “I’ve killed for you. I’d live for you. I’ll worship you.”
Fuck. I’m meant to remain strong, unaffected. But his words, his voice—him.
He is worthy.
I snatch my eyes away, stare at the table, trying to anchor my control. I just need a second, just a moment of quiet to reinforce my thoughts—
“You know when it was for me, Red.” My gaze slices to Sai. “When did I know?” He grins even under my uncomfortable hold. “I’ve already told you… the second I saw you—”
“Save the dramatics.” My voice is cold and clipped.
I remember all too well his heated declarations, how every line was eviscerated the second he laid eyes on me.
He frowns. “I can’t lie… you know I can’t. The first time we met, I didn’t know exactly what it was… but I knew it was something. Then our powers connected—”
“You say that like it happened naturally.” I remember the night I screamed in agony, cracked the windows, let him touch the underwear I’d worn for another. “Like you didn’t know what would happen, like you didn’t force the connection—”
“I didn’t,” he rasps, desperate, then winces. I loosen my hold. “Baby, I didn’t force it. I swear. It happened. Then I started to realise what it could mean, what it meant you were—”
“And you?” I turn to Ezekial, cutting Sai off, because I just can’t handle him.
He always finds a way to squirm towards me, with his blatant honesty and wicked smiles. I’m not ready for him. He was meant to be last.
There’s an electric pulse in the air, and the static makes the hairs on my neck stand. But I ignore it, I ignore him.
Ezekial glances at him. “Sai, don’t do anything stupid.”
But there’s a crackling in the air, a chair scrapes across the floor—
“Stay, Sai,” Kane orders—commands. Even mentally, it’s a deadly sound.