FIFTEEN JAY
FIFTEEN
JAY
Finally, Lailah fell asleep, and the rest of us went into the other room, shutting the connecting door so we could talk.
I could see the tension that everyone was carrying after she had told us about her most recent interaction with the Dark Lord.
It seemed that I was the only one who wasn’t surprised at this turn of events.
Demons never play fair and always go for the soft spot we all have in our lives.
If you had asked me four months ago what my weakness was, I would have said my mother.
My father, the bastard that he is, couldn’t give two shits about her, abandoning her to live in Japan with her family.
In his eyes, he had fulfilled his duty as man of the house by producing a male heir, and one that turned out to be an Elementi Warrior, at that.
Try as he might to keep me under his thumb, I did things the way I wanted, even though on the outside it must look like I catered to him.
It was situations like this with the Dark Army, where he kept holding things back from the Elementi organization that got people hurt or killed, that made me buck under his control even more.
Especially now that I had a new weakness.
“What the fuck are we going to do? Should we have all our families on high alert?” Parker asked, running his hands through his hair.
“We have to tell Beth. God knows if we don’t, she will just suffer in silence.
Could you imagine if the Dark Lord or his people got to one of our family members—it would kill her. ”
Even though I understood where Parker was coming from, his reaction was completely blown out of proportion.
Hudson’s siblings were the only ones that didn’t grow up knowing about the Elementi.
Since I was an only child and so was Micah, it brought the pool of people down considerably.
Brayden and Parker had the largest families, but after the events with Ms. Tabitha, I can only imagine that they would have already stepped up security.
Not to mention the Elementi would put out a bulletin alerting everyone to what we found out about the serum and what dangers it poses to us.
“Lailah is who he is after, so I think it would be best to get some kind of protection for her family. There was a team watching her for weeks before she came to Ryevick, so it shouldn’t be too hard to put them back in place,” Brayden reasoned.
“Any chance I could offer up my aunt as a sacrifice?” Micah mused, tapping his chin.
I couldn’t hold back a smirk at that thought.
“It’s more likely that she’s already possessed—that witch was awful,” Parker said with a shiver.
Micah let out a bark of laughter. “Now I know the world is ending—I agreed with Parker again about something.”
“Try not to make a habit out of it, will you? It’s starting to freak me out.” Parker frowned.
“Bringing us back to the matter at hand, we should get hidden protection for Lailah’s family.
Then the second piece to this needs to be her training.
We have put it off for far too long,” I interjected.
“She is smart and picks things up quickly, but we need to fast track her on demons, self-defense, and figuring out what her powers can do. Everything else needs to be put on pause until we know she can protect herself if one of us isn’t there. ”
“It’s times like these that I can’t understand why they don’t think you’re the smart one, Jay,” Parker said with amusement bright in his eyes.
Since the day we all met, Parker had been trying to figure out what makes me tick. He still had yet to figure it out—not from lack of trying, though.
“No, he’s right,” Brayden agreed. “Lailah needs a more in-depth course on demons, and understanding how her powers work will also help us. I’m sure there are things I can do differently now that we are Bonded, but I haven’t really had the chance to work with her on it.
The same goes for Hudson. Who knows, there might even be a cool trick he and I can do.
Now that we are both Bonded, I feel a new connection to him—nothing like what I have with Lailah, but still, it’s worth figuring out. ”
“Then it’s settled. Once Hudson is back, we will fly to Ryevick and start working on understanding our new dynamic,” Micah said, getting to his feet and heading back to Lailah.
The three of us paused and looked at each other.
“Whose night was it supposed to be?” Brayden asked.
Parker raised his hand. “That would be me.”
Brayden let out a heavy sigh and headed in to tell Micah the bad news.
A few minutes and a lot of angry whispers later, they both returned.
Micah stormed up to Parker and got right up in his face.
“You better not lay a finger on her tonight. She needs to sleep. Meetings with the Dark Lord always wear her out, and with the amount of power she’s expended and the emotional drama she’s been through, she needs rest.”
Parker frowned, eyes flashing with anger. “Why the fuck would you think I would take advantage of her?”
“Because you have this compulsion to get your way and pout if you don’t. She can’t take a guilt trip right now,” Micah snapped back.
Parker’s power swirled around him in his anger. The happy-go-lucky man was gone, and a storm cloud of anger stood in its place.
“Lailah means everything to me! I would never do anything to hurt her emotionally or physically—unlike someone else. Since I met her that first week of school, all I’ve ever wanted was to be there for her, whether it was as a friend or something more.
Nothing I have done has been to manipulate Lailah in any way, so take your judgment and shove it up your ass,” Parker growled, shoving Micah away from him.
“Maybe you should look in the mirror when you say shit like that, because I know damn well if she presents the chance for me to give my Oath, I’ll be man enough to do it. ”
The room fell silent as Parker left, closing the door behind him firmly, showing restraint when he would normally have slammed it shut. None of us moved, too shocked at Parker’s outburst to know how to react.
“What the actual fuck just happened? We all know what a player he is and Lailah isn’t like all the other girls he sweet talked into sleeping with him. She needs it to mean something… hell everything,” Micah spluttered as he pulled his hair out of its binding so he could comb his fingers through it.
Crossing my arms, I replayed what just went down. “It seems that we have stumbled onto the one thing that will set him off like a bomb.”
“I didn’t think that was possible,” Brayden said, shaking his head. “Do we think it’s safe to leave him with her while he’s like that?”
“At this moment, I think Lailah is the safest woman in the world with him standing guard, but if we think it’s a good idea, I can stay there with them,” I offered.
They both nodded, looking more relaxed at the thought of me being in there as well.
It didn’t cross my mind that Parker would do anything to Lailah, but tensions between Micah and Parker have always been high, and Brayden would always back Micah up.
When I entered the room, I found Parker glaring at me from over Lailah’s shoulder like a wolf protecting its prize.
“Why are you here? Did they send you to make sure I didn’t molest her in her sleep?” Parker asked in a harsh whisper.
Lailah’s face scrunched up, and she shifted, turning into Parker as if to soothe him.
“No.”
That was the only answer I was going to give him as I lifted the covers and slid in beside Lailah.
Laying on my back, I closed my eyes and refused to give into the argument that Parker wanted to have with me.
I had every right, as one of Lailah’s boyfriends, to sleep beside her, and I wasn’t going to let him make me feel bad about it in the slightest.