58 Jasper #2
“I cannot stop.” He shakes his head, pain and self-loathing threatening to drip from his features like blood.
“You cannot stop me. And now you have offered yourself to me freely, and I have tasted you, and you are mine. I feel you in me!” He presses both hands over his chest, that signet ring glinting in the soft light of the lamps.
“Gods—your light, your strength. What I took tonight, I kept. It is here.” He rubs the left side of his chest, just over his third rib.
“My Jasper . . . your soul is here, filling me so that I do not hunger.”
My heart is racing as I accept the truth. A piece of my soul is gone, irrevocably lost to the wraith. Do I not feel the same emptiness over my own third rib? “It’s okay,” I hear myself say. “I offered—”
“And you must never do it again!” The black of his shadows overtakes his eyes as he speaks his words like an oath. I don’t even know if wraiths have that power.
He’s right. If I keep offering him bites of my soul, soon he’ll eat the whole damn apple . . . and then I’ll really be dead.
His shoulders stiffen as he stands tall. “I must go.”
Birdie rises from the coffee table. “Go where?”
“Elsewhere,” he says on a breath. “Anywhere.”
“Dáinn—”
He backs away. “I cannot stay.”
“You can’t leave. No, we’re—this is a team. We’re in this together.”
He shakes his head. “I was only using Jasper to suit my own ends. I will find another witch to assist me in breaking my bond to Ludmilla.”
“No, this is madness,” she counters. “Jasper and his coven are in this up to their necks. It’s this island Ludmilla wants! The First Five and their spell books. You have to include them in your plans—”
“I cannot stay here,” he bellows. His shadows burst from him, toppling my lamps and cracking the glass in my picture frames. “To know his taste twice is enough to unmake me. To know I shall never taste him again will surely break me!”
“That’s why I’m here,” she cries. “Dáinn, you can do this. We can do it together. Just stop being noble and feed from me. If I’m your miracle, then use me!”
He groans, dragging both hands through his tousled hair.
She crosses to him, and I see the way his shadows reel her in, even as he wards her away with his hands. But she gently bats them down and steps in to cup his face. He flinches, trying to pull away. “Look at me,” she murmurs.
The wraith stifles a whimper as he opens his eyes. The shadows swirl back, receding to show the handsome whiskey of his irises.
She smiles, brushing her thumb over his parted lips. “I see you in there.” He leans away, but she holds fast, flowing with him. “I see you, Dáinn. And I am not afraid of you.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’ve done—”
“I do know you. Jasper knows you too. We know the heart of you.” She strokes her hand down to press over his chest. “It doesn’t matter that nothing beats beneath my palm. You have a heart, and it is ours.”
“Birdie,” he moans, pressing his hand over hers on his chest.
“We know you don’t want to hurt us. You crave our souls, but you’re resisting because you’re strong. You’re so beautiful and strong. We need you here with us. We need you to stay.” She glances over her shoulder at me, tears streaking down her cheeks. “Don’t we, Jasper?”
Dáinn can’t even bear to look at me. Pain mars his handsome features. But it’s his self-loathing that gets me to my feet.
I know a little something about hating yourself.
Witchcraft is all about instinct and intuition.
As a kid, whenever I tried to follow my instincts, Mom was always there to tell me I was doing it wrong.
It made me confused and frustrated. I’d swallow the urge to cast spells, too afraid of messing up, and then it would just explode out of me.
Blow up one grandfather clock, and suddenly you’re dangerous.
Grow a beanstalk to make your sister laugh, and you’re reckless too.
Curse the bullies taunting you, get suspended from school, and now you’re just a menace.
It’s been thirty years, and I haven’t shed the skin of my past either. I’m the high priest of my coven, a prominent businessman, a leader. So why do I still hear Esther’s voice in my ear?
Dangerous.
Reckless.
Menace.
Monster.
Apparently, this wraith and I are a matched pair too.
I glance between them, the wraith and the human.
In the span of less than a week, they’ve twisted my life inside out and upside down.
Dáinn talks of being unmade? Well, they’ve unmade me.
I’m someone new now. My goals have shifted irrevocably.
My vision for my future? Fucking shattered, like the glass now scattered on my floor.
Stepping in, I wrap my hand around the back of the wraith’s neck, my fingers digging in his hair. He winces at my touch, trying to pull away from me too. “Dáinn, look at me.”
This body he wears is broader in the chest and shoulders, but I have an inch or two on height. He looks to me, wariness etched on every line of his face.
“The moment you were free of your cage, you came to me. Why?”
“Because I needed your help,” he murmurs.
“To kill Ludmilla for you.”
He nods, shutting his eyes again.
“That’s not the reason you came.”
“It is—”
“It wasn’t your first reason,” I say over him. “What was your first reason, Dáinn? Why did you come to me?”
He keeps his eyes shut tight, unable to say the words and look at me. “Your soul.”
“You wanted my soul.”
He nods.
“Why do you want my soul, Dáinn?”
“Because it feels like home.”
I nod, rubbing the back of his neck. “Do you want to know what I feel in the magic of your name each time I say it?”
He blinks his eyes open, searching my face. Slowly, he nods.
Unmaking both our lives, I give him my truth. “I feel the beachfront bonfires of my youth, camping down at Cinder Pointe. Sun-warmed blankets spread out on the sand. I taste toasted marshmallows and a stiff shot of whiskey. That’s what your name does to me, Dáinn. It brings me home too.”
I can see the doubt in his eyes. He wants to believe me, but good things don’t happen to this wraith. “Jasper . . .”
“Now, you listen to me,” I growl, getting right in his face.
“I don’t give a fuck what that mage thinks about fated mates.
I don’t care about statistical probabilities, celestial alignments, or creature natures.
I don’t need any of that shit to know the truth.
You are mine, Dáinn. Whatever that looks like for us, whatever it means, we’ll figure it out.
Together. You’re not going anywhere. Threaten to leave again, and I’ll let Hortie kick your ass. ”
His shoulders sag with relief as he nods.
“We’ll make it through,” I assure him, rubbing his shoulders as I try to put my faith in my own words. “The mage is looking into the mystery of why Birdie can stop you. We just have to give him time. Maybe whatever it is can be replicated. There’s still hope, Dáinn.”
“Hope,” he murmurs.
I know, foreign fucking concept.
Birdie steps in at my left, wiping her tears away. “Please tell me you two have a plan to kill Ludmilla.”
I stiffen. “We have parts of a plan . . .”
“Well, we’re gonna need a whole freaking plan.” Hands on her sparkly hips, she glances between us. “I’m going upstairs to change out of this stupid dress. Then we’re all sitting down, and you two are telling me everything I don’t already know about the mess we’re in.”
“No, you need rest,” the wraith counters. “My Birdie, you are tired.”
“Yeah, tired of feeling like I’m on the back foot with all of this.
I may be just a human, but it’s clear from the chaos of today that you both need me too.
Jasper needs my skill with archival documents and GPRs, and you need my magical feast-blocking abilities.
Now you both need a taste of my secret weapon, my greatest superpower. ”
My eyes narrow as Dáinn says, “What superpower?”
She flashes us both a confident smile. “My chaotically Capricorn ultimate fixation with rigid organization.” She claps her hands over the sound of my groan. “Now, chop chop. You say you’ve got pieces of a plan? Well, when I’m done, we’ll have ourselves a whole revolution.”