~ Jax ~
Something in Pandora’s expression made Jax pause as she looked at him over the rim of her mug. Something challenging. Something defiant.
One blink and it was gone.
She put the coffee down and stood, seemingly at ease as she walked behind him toward the counter. Samael didn’t turn his head to watch, choosing to instead focus on the bagel on his plate, but Jax heard the sound of the fridge opening. He peeked at the edges of his vision, watching Kira take her laptop back and set it down before her. He’d found it odd that Pandora had grabbed it in the first place. They’d been here for weeks—she knew exactly what Kira’s blog looked like. She’d already seen it.
A second later, the conduit’s eyes widened.
A brief, passing flash.
Then her expression grew blank and her gaze turned focused.
She reached for her cell phone, then typed swiftly.
One of the phones on the table buzzed.
Luke’s.
Before Jax could see how the other conduit reacted, his eyes closed and a prolonged, contented sigh rolled through him as Samael relished the bite of bagel he’d just taken.
He was happy this morning.
Pandora had woken him up to plant a passionate kiss on his lips. The night before had passed smoothly, and he’d had no trouble visiting the vamps he’d gone searching for. Jax had been quiet for a few hours, and the last Samael had sensed of him had been the anguished cry that acted as a lullaby to soothe him to sleep. Whatever the devil was planning seemed to be working. The pieces were falling into place. Revenge was nigh.
Or was it?
Pandora sat back down, an apple and peanut butter on her plate.
Jax tried not to make a sound, a thought, anything that might remind Samael he was there, lingering in the background, seeing everything. Because right now, his foe was focused on a good breakfast, not on the people around him.
But Jax was paying attention.
Jax was watching.
And he couldn’t help but notice Pandora’s pointer finger drumming against her mug as she held it firmly on the table. A smile was plastered on her lips, and she small-talked with her friends, taking a bite of food every so often with her free hand. But that single finger kept tapping against ceramic, subtle enough to be subconscious, yet methodical enough to seem intentional. She wasn’t a fidgety sort of person. Impatient, yes. Nervous, sometimes. But fidgety? No. She wasn’t the kind. She was too stubborn to be jittery. Once she made a decision, whether right or wrong, she plowed ahead completely assured in her actions.
So he counted the beats.
Fast, one, two, three.
Slow, one, two, three.
Fast, one, two, three.
Over and over in the same pattern.
Fast, one, two, three.
Slow, one, two, three.
Fast, one, two—
And then it hit him.
SOS, he realized with a jolt. She’s using Morse code to say SOS.
Samael sensed his flare of hope and sat up, head swiveling toward Pandora, suddenly alert. But as though sensing the attention, Pandora lifted the mug to her lips, laughing at something Kira said, and took a sip of the coffee before setting it back down. Her fingers dropped away. She reached for the last bit of apple on her plate.
Jax tried to smother the spark suddenly aflame within his chest.
Because it couldn’t be.
She was absently tapping her finger.
He was reading too much into it.
But what if he wasn’t?
What if—?
The door opened, and a shout flitted in from the foyer.
“Where’s my favorite bridezilla?”
It was Pavia, with her normal sassy drawl. Tristan no doubt followed silently behind. They were a little earlier than normal, but that didn’t mean anything. Maybe they’d woken up early for no reason. Maybe they’d forgotten to buy groceries and needed something for breakfast. Maybe there was a problem with one of the recently cured vamps. There were so many possibilities, and yet one nagged at Jax, refusing to be ignored.
Maybe that text Kira sent was to them too, not just Luke.
Maybe they rushed over here because she told them to.
Maybe, just maybe, Pandora had found out the truth.
“I’m not a bridezilla,” Kira retorted, tossing an accusing stare at her friends as they walked into the kitchen and paused at the counter.
Tristan offered her a grin as he reached for the last bagel and split it in half to share with Pavia. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
Kira frowned and arched a single brow before wryly retorting, “A plague on both your houses.”
“I’m five hundred years old—well, give or take,” Pavia interjected as she yanked her bagel-half free from Tristan’s fingers, “and even I think swapping Shakespeare is lame.”
Tristan grabbed her around the waist and tugged her closer, leaning down to murmur, “Though she be but little, she is fierce!”
Pavia rolled her eyes, but no one missed the small grin that danced across her lips as he pressed a kiss to her forehead.
They’re acting normal, Jax thought, confused. Well, normal for them.
The smiles were easy.
The tones were teasing.
The body language was perfectly relaxed.
Either they’d collectively had enough experience with world-ending situations that learning Samael might be alive was no big deal, or he’d jumped to conclusions.
Maybe Pandora didn’t know the truth.
Maybe Kira hadn’t texted them.
Maybe he’d misread all the signs.
Then again, breezy banter seemed to be something the conduits excelled at. He didn’t know. There was no way to be sure—at least, not yet.
The sliding door to the porch rolled open, and Sam swiveled toward the sound, taking Jax with him. Naya walked through but stopped in the frame, pausing at the sight of the two cured vamps in the kitchen.
“Oh, I didn’t realize you were coming over so early,” she said casually, gaze wandering around the room as she softly closed the door behind her, leaving her younger brother on the other side of the glass. “Is everything okay?”
Her tone was somber.
Concerned.
Completely different from the mood of the room… Or was it?
“Everything’s great,” Kira cut in, voice a little too enthusiastic. Jax shifted his attention to Pandora, noting how the muscles in her neck seemed a little too taut, as though her teeth were clenched. “I am not a bridezilla, but…I did call you over for a wedding emergency.”
“Bridezilla,” Pavia half sighed under her breath.
Kira wrinkled her nose in the general direction of her friend but then dropped her jaw and raised her brows almost comically high.
“My wedding dress arrived!” she practically shouted.
Give me a break, Jax thought, sensing a swarm of annoyance from Samael as well, for completely different reasons. If all of this was about a damn dress, and I thought the whole time that Pandora—that they—that— Oh, come on!
“Your dress is an emergency?” Naya asked hesitantly, squishing her face in uncertainty.
“Well, not an emergency exactly, but don’t you guys want to see it? I need to make sure it fits. I mean, we only have another two weeks, and if it needs alterations, there’s barely any time. And my grandma gave me a bit of lace from her dress to have sewn in, so I need to figure out where to put it. I’ve been meaning to do some sort of trial with my hair to make sure it goes with the style of the dress. And, duh, how could I forget? I need to see if my jewelry matches, and if I can wear the earrings my mom gave me, and—”
Pandora slapped a hand over the conduit’s mouth, silencing her.
Jax snorted silently, and he sensed the amusement rolling through his body as Samael matched his sentiment. It made the joy taste sour.
“I think what she means, boys, is save yourselves while you still can,” Pandora muttered, tossing Jax a look that seemed to say, Please, take me with you.
“Good idea,” Luke sputtered as he jumped to his feet. “Men, assemble!”
“We’re right here,” Tristan commented softly.
“Obviously,” Luke countered. “What I meant was let’s leave the ladies to it and go do some man things. Drink a beer. Shoot a gun. Watch some football. Uh, mow the lawn…”
“Right,” Kira drawled, “and we’ll just stay here and try on wedding dresses before having a pillow fight in our lingerie.”
“Don’t tease me,” Luke retorted, pressing his hand to his chest.
“Tell you what,” Kira murmured as she walked over and began pushing her fiancé toward the door. “The day you actually mow the lawn is the day Pavia and I will have a pillow fight in the backyard, okay?”
Luke stopped dead. “Don’t go making threats unless you’re prepared for the consequences because that is a challenge I’ll gladly accept.”
Kira sighed, sharing a quick glance with Pavia before turning back to Luke. “We both know you pay the neighbor’s fifteen-year-old son twenty bucks every week. We don’t even own a mower.”
“I’m just saying, stranger things have happened.” Luke shrugged. “Tristan, back me up.”
Kira tsked and shot Tristan a look. “Please, don’t let him do anything too stupid.”
“I’ll do what I can,” he responded with faux seriousness.
At the same time, Luke murmured, “Define stupid.”
Kira gave her fiancé one more hard shove toward the hallway and then turned to Jax. “Aren’t you going to go with them?”
A slightly disgusted panic seized his heart—Samael’s gut reaction to the idea of an afternoon stuck with those two guys. “No, no. I’ll stay upstairs, get some rest. I won’t bother you.”
But a hand grabbed his arm, and Jax felt his body get yanked to a standing position. The darkness in his mind whirled at the contact, preparing to lash out, unused to being manhandled. Anger flared brightly. But on the outside, Samael managed to keep his face calm as he met Luke’s gaze.
The conduit released him immediately, maybe sensing something in his eyes that Jax himself couldn’t feel. Or maybe because he knew the truth, and suddenly realized the devil was the last person he wanted to piss off.
No.
Don’t get your hopes up.
Don’t.
But it was hard not to, especially when Luke perhaps too innocently said, “Yeah, come on, man. Come with us.”
“No, really,” Samael began to say.
But Tristan cut him off. “You’ve been a little silent and broody lately. Why not join us?”
An amazed expression passed over Luke’s face. “If that guy is calling you silent and broody, this is really serious.” Neither of them reacted. Luke released a soft breath and muttered, “Oh, the irony.”
“Go,” Pandora urged from over his shoulder. Samael turned, gaze scrutinizing as it surveyed every inch of her face. But her smile was wide. Her eyes were loving. Her body language was at ease. “Go, you deserve to have some fun. At least, one of us does.”
Kira glared at her.
Pandora returned the look, not backing down. And that’s when Jax noticed she had a red dish towel in her hands. Not completely unusual. Not really. They were in a kitchen. Maybe she’d washed her hands, and he hadn’t noticed. Maybe she’d grabbed it when she got that apple from the fridge. Maybe she’d spilled some coffee and cleaned it up.
Or maybe—
No.
Don’t go there, he chided.
But it was impossible not to. And as Luke put an arm across his shoulders and dragged Samael out the front door beside him and Tristan, Jax silently pleaded for one last look behind, one last glance at the house. But every time Samael began to turn his head, Luke interrupted with a question or a comment or a little tug on his body to prevent him from looking behind.
Intentional?
Probably not.
And then they were in the car, and Jax was shoved in the back seat like the victim of a kidnapping. His head fell back as a heavy sigh rolled through him. Samael stretched for the shadows swirling at the edge of his soul, fingertips dancing with the darkness, just waiting for an opening to escape. But he couldn’t, not here, not when it was so obvious. He was trapped, confined—the very last thing he needed. Jax felt his hand flex, muscles stretching taut in a failed attempt to calm the panic and the rage beginning to coil through him.
Samael had, after all, been a prisoner for thousands of years.
The last thing he needed was another jail.
And the air in the car was stifling, even to Jax.
But the devil was patient. After the shadows, it was probably his most powerful weapon. And he pushed the rising tide of emotions back, turning to stare out the window instead, biding his time.
“So, where are we really going?” Tristan asked from the front seat. “I mean, you can’t actually want to mow a lawn, watch football, and shoot a gun, right?”
“Dude, of course not,” Luke chided. “What do you take me for?”
Tristan shrugged.
The car rumbled as Luke switched on the ignition. He turned to look out the rearview window, backing out of the drive. “We’re doing what every beer-drinking, gun-shooting, football-watching American really wishes they were doing instead.”
“What’s that?” Tristan asked.
Jax could hear the smile in Luke’s voice even though he couldn’t see his face anymore. “We’re going to Disney World.”
A groan curled in Jax’s gut. Samael closed his eyes, pressing Jax’s head against the window of the car. He could practically see the disdain flaring in the shadows circling his thoughts.
Open your eyes, Jax silently pleaded.
Open your eyes.
Because Disney World was two hours away, which meant two hours in a car, two hours where Samael had no possible way to escape, not even for a second. And Pandora, that look in her eyes. And the tap of her finger—fast, then slow, then fast. And that red towel, if he could only see, if he could only…
Open your eyes.
Open your eyes.
Jax blinked. Samael’s doing, of course, but it didn’t matter. The second he opened his eyes, absently taking one last glance at the house, Jax zoned in on the window. And he saw her. Standing behind the glass. Her palm aloft, clutching the red towel as she pretended to wave goodbye.
But it wasn’t goodbye.
Jax caught the burst of elation before Samael had time to notice, had time to understand. He buried it. Shoved it six feet under. And when his eyes closed again, for good this time, as Samael settled into a begrudging nap, for the first time in days Jax didn’t see darkness.
He saw light.
He saw hope.
He saw Pandora, twelve years old, a frown across her face, holding a red shirt against her window as he looked out his own bedroom and into hers. At the time, he’d fallen onto his bed, totally defeated, because it meant she’d been grounded. They’d broken curfew, staying in the tree house accidentally until dawn, and her father had been furious—one of the rare moments he’d seemed to care. Normally, Jax was the one using the signal they’d crafted a few years before—red meant he was in trouble and couldn’t meet her, while green meant he could. It was the first of only a handful of times she’d ever needed to send the signal across the narrow space between their houses, one that seemed impossibly vast in the naiveté of youth.
Now, Jax understood separation a little differently.
But thinking of Pandora holding up that red dish towel, he also knew there were some things that would never change. The most important being that they always found each other in the end. No matter what. No grounding, no fight, no betrayal, no lie, no sacrifice would ever keep them apart. They were bound. Maybe not across time like she and Samael, maybe not through many lives and endless cycles and reincarnation.
But in this life, they were bound.
They’d chosen each other.
They were tethered.
And there was no misreading those signals. Pandora knew the truth. Somehow, someway, she had figured it out. That red towel meant she knew he was grounded, trapped in his mind, ensnared by Samael. That red towel meant she would get him out.