Chapter Thirty-Eight
BLISS
Stepping foot into this house, my hair stands on end. I can smell Jordan’s scent, clear as day. Amelia makes a face. “Stars, it reeks in here. And not just smelly boy gross, there’s something else.”
I don’t want to, but I take another sniff. I can smell what she’s talking about. There’s a rotten smell underneath everything else, something pungent once I notice it.
“Hexes,” Bell supplies, motioning to the table where Jinx sits, smirking.
That’s what the smell is. I’ve never made a hex, but I know sulfur is a common ingredient.
Interrogation equipment is still being set up, a camera and microphone so they can record what Jinx might say, so Amelia and I take a look around the place.
The flat is much smaller than the townhome we are staying in. The festival organizers threw the smaller bands into two-bedroom flats, and if Goddess’ Trance hadn’t filled in for one of the bigger spots, we likely would have been in one of these flats as well.
The other members of Dead Hearts aren’t here, whether because the Phantoms have cleared them out already, or because they also took off after Jordan left.
I’m guessing the former, however, noting the half-packed duffel bags and articles of clothing strewn about the floor.
There are also empty beer bottles on the countertops still.
Amelia passes by the couch, and I notice her pick something up.
It’s a small leather-bound journal that’s been shoved in between couch cushions.
She puts it under her shirt, sticking it in her bra band, and looks around, completely nonchalant.
I arch my brows at her and she winks. I’m not sure why she took it—my sister isn’t a klepto.
But I guess I’ll have to ask her later. If I say anything now, the Phantoms might overhear and I doubt they’ll approve of her removing things from…
Well, I guess it’s not like this is a crime scene, but still.
Bell waves us over to where she’s double-checking Jinx’s handcuffs. “We’re ready to begin.”
Amelia and I take seats across from Jinx, both of us leaving a bit of room between our chairs and the table. Neither my sister nor I want to get too close to Jinx, even if his magic is contained.
His smirk deepens and he leans back in his chair, his shackles clanking. “Well, well, if it isn’t the slutty Rassard sisters.”
Amelia grins like she’s in on the joke. “That’s a good one. Never heard it before.”
Jinx fixes her with a glare, his lips sealing into a thin line.
“Go ahead,” Stormy says to Amelia. “Let’s get this over with.” She seems to want to get out of here as much as we do.
I can feel as my sister reaches into her power well beside me, drawing on her persuasion and coaxing it out until it spreads towards Jinx.
She focuses it on him, leaning forward in her chair and adopting a sultry smile.
“Jinx,” she murmurs in her husky voice, her fingers dancing across the table towards him but not getting too close. “Where’s Jordan?”
Jinx barks out a laugh. “Keep your lust away from me, whore.”
Amelia blinks, a bit thrown off. She pushes more of her power into it. “Try an easier question, maybe?” Bell suggests.
Jinx laughs again, a bit hysterical. “It won’t work. I’m immune.”
Amelia tries again. “Why did you hex Tubbs and the others?”
Jinx gnashes his teeth together, leaning forward in his chair and pinning Amelia with a wild-eyed look. “It. Won’t. Work. I have zero desire for you or your slutty sister. I have standards.”
Amelia looks as if a bucket of cold water was dumped on her. She looks at me and then to Bell and Stormy, getting up out of the chair.
I follow her, seeing Pisces out of the corner of my eye.
I expected him to be right at my side with the way he was acting earlier, but now he just looks pissed, standing behind Grim, arms crossed, Benny standing close beside him.
His jaw ticks as he glares at me. I wonder what changed in the last ten minutes.
“He’s right, this won’t work. He has absolutely no desire for me, or Bliss, so we can’t use that as leverage here.”
Grim comes over to our little circle. “What’s the issue?”
Amelia explains, shrugging. “I’m sorry, I don’t think there’s anything left here for us to do.” She looks to me with pity on her face. “I’m so sorry, Bliss.”
“There has to be a way to break him,” Grim murmurs.
I turn and look at Jinx again, studying him.
He’s looking around, probably searching for a way to escape.
But there’s no way for him to get past all of us without his magic.
I think about how Jinx has always been at Jordan’s side.
I don’t think it’s love. I don’t think either of the fae are capable of such a complex emotion. But there’s something there, some tie.
It’s always seemed like Jinx would do anything for Jordan.
Even go to jail for him.
How desperate, I think.
And there it is.
I sit back down across from Jinx. “Bliss,” my sister and Grim warn at the same time.
I ignore them. I pull up my own powers and muster a sense of something I’m utterly familiar with.
Desperation.
I’m not at all sure it’ll work. Succubi powers draw out good feelings.
Lust, love, relief, ecstasy. Things people feel during and after sex.
I’ve never heard of a succubus being able to make someone feel shameful, desperate, or hopeless, but is it really so crazy? Isn’t that how I often feel afterwards?
I let it leak out of me, trying my best to center it on Jinx, but I can tell it’s flowing out all around me. I try to rein it in, channeling it directly towards Jinx. I can tell I have him when his face contorts into a pain that is not at all physical, only emotional and spiritual.
“You want to help Jordan, don’t you? That’s always what you’ve wanted?”
Jinx nods, tears starting to leak down his cheek. “Yes.”
“You’re trying to help him now, aren’t you? You want to make sure he’s safe, right?” My voice is soft and kind.
He nods again and doesn’t stop. Tears continue to fall freely as he rocks in his chair. “I’m protecting him.”
“You’re afraid of what could happen to him?”
“Yes, yes, I want to make sure he’s safe.”
“I can help you with that,” I say, reaching out across the table. “Let me help you.”
Jinx clasps my hand in his awkwardly due to the shackles, but the contact helps me focus my powers on him. “What was Jordan’s plan?”
“To take you and Voracious Maw down, so that Dead Hearts would have a better shot.”
“And how was he doing this?”
“By framing Voracious Maw for murder.”
Grim motions for me to keep going. “Anything else?” I ask, my eyes going back to Jinx.
“The hexes. We were hoping you’d both pull out of the festival. And it would make you look guilty for leaving after the dead body showed up. But then you didn’t, so he killed again.”
“Jinx, we want to help Jordan. We want to bring him in safely and get him some help. Where is he?”
Jinx shakes his head, full-on sobbing now. “I don’t know. He left me. He left me here. I don’t know—I can’t help him anymore.”
“Yes, yes, you can, you can still help.” I squeeze his hand.
“Is there anything you can think of that would help us find him?” I push what I have left into him, letting him stand on the edge before falling too far into a desperate oblivion where his mind will be useless.
I don’t know how I know, but if he goes over that edge, there’s no coming back.
Carefully, ever so carefully, I push a little sprig of hope towards him.
It’s enough. His eyes snap to mine, and he nods, a soft smile breaking across his face. “You can track him.” Jinx looks around at Grim’s team. “He summoned a wraith to do some of his dirty work. You can track the magical signature.”
“Great job, Bliss,” Grim says, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “Let him go now.”
I withdraw my persuasion and unclasp his hand. Jinx blinks a few times like he’s sobering up. His face scrunches in pain. He’ll have a hell of an emotional hangover now.
“Oh stars,” he swears, slumping into his seat. “What have I done?”
“Take him now,” Grim orders to someone behind me. I’m almost completely spent. Amelia helps me out of the chair and into an armchair in the living room, as Pinkie and Bell start escorting Jinx out, probably taking him to some sort of holding facility in the fae realm.
I try to meet Pisces’ eyes, but he’s staring at the floor. I wouldn’t mind seeing if he’ll help me feed later, but he won’t look at me.
A yelp sounds out as Bell is pushed into a wall and Jinx rips his way out of Pinkie’s hold. He heads straight at me, using his cuffed hands to grip me by the collar. “What the fuck did you make me do, you whore?” he yells at me, slamming me up against a wall.
“Bliss!” Grim yells out. I look up and see him running my way. Jinx is ripped off me before Grim can get to me, Pisces throwing him to the ground. I can’t seem to take my eyes off the two of them as Pisces rips into Jinx, the sounds he’s making threatening to make me sick.
“Stop, Pisces!” Pinkie yells, trying to get Pisces off Jinx, but he doesn’t stop.
Oh my stars.
He’s eating him. Literally eating him.
I stumble forward on unsteady feet, trying to push Pisces off Jinx, even though he definitely deserves it. Pisces snarls at me, whipping his head around to look at me, his siren teeth gnashing together, and his eyes so dark they almost look black. I stop myself from recoiling. I put my hand on him.
“Pisces,” I say, trying to get his attention, but he goes back to eating. Jinx’s arm is in his mouth and he’s practically chewed it off at the elbow.
“Pi!” I scream. He stiffens, letting Jinx’s bloodied arm thump to the ground. It looks still attached. Mostly.
I reach out and pull Pisces up, and he seems to come back to his senses. He looks down at the kitsune, who’s screaming in agony, and then at me. Jinx’s blood is covering his face and the front of his shirt.
His eyes meet mine and they narrow. He scowls at me and shrugs. “I said if he touched a hair on your head, I’d rip him apart. And I did.”
He levels his gaze next on Grim, who’s got Jinx firmly in hand, as Bell tends to his wounds, using her healing magic to basically regrow his arm.
Jinx is lucky the air elemental is here, otherwise he’d have quite the scar, since the shackles mute his powers to heal himself.
Part of me wishes Bell wasn’t here to heal him.
He deserved it.
Well, maybe. I’m not quite sure anyone deserves being eaten alive.
My eyes find Pisces again and he’s scowling at me.
“What is your problem?” I snap at him.
“Nothing,” he grinds out, his teeth completely back to normal. Now that I’ve seen his siren teeth, I can’t believe I let him anywhere near my sensitive areas.
He starts to walk out the door but turns and glares at me again. “How could you not fucking tell me?” He points at himself. “I didn’t know what the rune meant. You did. How could you not fucking tell me?”
Ice.
That’s what it feels like. Someone must have pushed me into the icy Pacific Ocean.
Something tugs on me, but no one is touching me. I look at Pisces, I stare at his eyes, looking from one to the other. But there’s nothing. No rune.
“There isn’t anything there,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.
And yet, something inside me feels like it’s cracking, like pieces of dried mud flaking off with each breath.
“Are you really going to pretend you don’t see it?
” Pisces asks in a threateningly low whisper.
“I’ve wanted something like this my entire life, and you’re going to deny me it?
” Tears gather in his runeless eyes, my own eyes threatening to unleash as well.
I reach out a hand to him, but he smacks it away.
“Fuck you, Bliss,” he says, but before he can storm off, a form materializes before him. In one instant Pisces is standing there alone, the next the song wraith has him pushed against a wall, hand to Pisces’ throat.
Tears are streaming down his face, which now sports a confused look.
“What the fuck?” Pisces manages to get out, despite his airway being cut off.
Tears.
Oh my stars.
“Leave him alone!” I shout, trying to tug the wraith’s hand from Pisces.
“My dear, dear Bliss. I’ve come to gather what you owe me,” the wraith replies, looking at me out of the corner of his eye as he places a small glass vial next to Pisces’ face. “I just needed you to unlock them.”
Something clicks into place. He never needed me to steal them. He needed me to cause them.
Oh stars. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Pisces tries violently to throw the wraith off him. “You bastard,” he says, snarling. “You fucking played me.”
What?
The wraith smiles, finishes collecting the tears, and pats Pisces on the cheek like he’s been a good boy. “Thank you both for playing your roles perfectly. I’ll be in touch for next steps.”
He lets Pisces go and the siren falls to the ground, almost like the song wraith leeched the energy out of him. When the wraith turns around he’s met by guns in his face. Grim, Pinkie, Bell, and Stormy all have their guns aimed at his head.
The wraith clicks his tongue. “Those won’t do any good, I’m afraid.”
“These aren’t just any guns,” Pinkie spits.
The wraith makes a noncommittal noise and lifts one shoulder, then lets it drop. “Either way. Let me leave and I will cause no harm to any of you. Get in my way and you won’t like what will happen.”
Grim cocks his gun, readying to shoot. “I think there’s no way we let you just walk out of here.”
“So be it, then.”
Before any of them can get a shot off, they all simultaneously drop their guns in pain, as if the metal is scorching hot. With a wave of the wraith’s hand, they all go slamming backwards into the walls of the house and the wraith simply dematerializes back into the nothingness out of which he came.
I don’t know who to run to, Grim or Pisces. Amelia makes the decision for me, running to Grim and checking him out first. I go to Pisces and try to help him up, but he pushes me away.
“We’re gonna need another healer,” I hear Amelia say as she helps Bell to her feet, a large gash in her head.
Grim nods but not to Amelia. He nods at Pinkie, and they both step forward.
“Bliss Rassard, Pisces Penrose, you’re both under arrest by the authority of the fae council and elders.”
The shackles are slapped on before Amelia can finish her string of curses.
“What for?” she yells at Grim. “They were both attacked! Are you stupid?”
“They’ve both been working with a wraith. That’s a felony, Amelia.”
I lock eyes with Pisces, mine wide and afraid. We’ve both been working with a wraith, the same wraith, and had no idea? What was he playing at?
Pisces’ eyes aren’t shocked, though, they aren’t afraid. He’s pissed and glaring at me.
“Pisces—” I try to say, wanting to explain, but he cuts me off.
“You knew we were mates and didn’t tell me. I want nothing to do with you, Bliss. Ever. Don’t fucking talk to me again.”