I bucked against the vines again, frantic. There was something in Jax’s eyes I’d never seen before. Defeat. Acceptance of surrender. Fear.
Chase stood over him, and his shoulders shook with a laugh. “You’re making this too easy, man.”
Jax coughed and struggled to catch his breath as he used the uneven cave wall to pull himself upright. “It’s over, Chase. Azirak is gone. Killing me won’t get Zenak’s clan back their powers.” He grinned and spit out a mouthful of blood. “Looks like you’ll just have to sit tight for another sixty or so years.”
Chase laughed again. “Really, Jax? You thought that would work?”
“Because I’d let you kick the shit out of me to try tricking you?” He shoved his brother. “You really are a special kind of idiot, Chase. If Azirak was here, you’d sense it.”
I held my breath and waited for one of them to make a move. Chase still had the stone. It was clutched in the white-knuckled grip of his left hand. He sighed loudly and shook his head. “You could have easily learned to conceal him. I did it, after all. You never could accept defeat,” he said. “Either of you.”
I caught a flicker of movement in the corner of the cave—the smallest tuft of black smoke. Jax saw it, too. He smiled and hitched his thumb to the right. “There,” he said. “Azirak is gone, man. Not inside me. This is over.”
Chase followed his gaze, but the wisp was already gone. He laughed. The sound was like a million shards of glass all raking against my skin at the same time. It was cruel, and angry, and worst of all, it was human. His eyes met mine, and Chase smiled. “You’re right. It is over.”
There was no slowing of time. Things didn’t take on a surreal, watery, slow-motion effect. In fact, it all happened almost too fast for me to follow. Chase reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and stepped forward. That’s it. There was no sound. No scream. The only indication that something was wrong was the look on Jax’s face—eyes wide, face pale, and lips slightly parted.
Something fell to the dirt between them, a long, thin object that glinted in the oddly lit cave. The reflective surface was coated in something dark. Something black. No… Not black.
Red.
Jax stumbled back, then fell to his knees. His eyes met mine, and I could see it—the life slipping away. The light dimming in his eyes. His lips moved. No sound came, but I heard him as though he’d screamed the words in my ear.
“I love you.”
He closed his eyes and took one last shuttering breath before collapsing to the dirt at Chase’s feet. With a hoot, his brother spread his arms and threw back his head—and waited. Of course, when nothing happened, he whirled on me. “What the fuck, Samantha?”
Chase stalked across the cave floor, a volatile predator deprived of his prize. He flicked the now-whole Brim Stone in my direction, and the vines around my neck and mouth receded.
“What did you do?” My gaze fell back to Jax, lying still on the floor next to a growing pool of blood. My heart thundered in my chest. “He was telling you the truth. Azirak is gone! Do something. Call someone!”
Chase sighed. He turned back to his brother and tilted his head. “Call someone for what, exactly?” When he turned back to face me, there was a wicked grin on his face, one that screamed of smug satisfaction. It left me cold. “He’s gone, Samantha. Jax is dead.”
Jax…is dead.
Jax is…dead.
Jax is dead…
Something inside me snapped, a force so primal, so incomprehensible in terms of simple human thought that I let go of a scream that rocked me to my core. The hairs on the back of my neck snapped to attention. The black smoke was back. It hovered all around me, the wispy tendrils extending in loving caresses. The vines that bound me were gone. A pair of eyes blinked out at me from the smoke, and then it vanished again.
Van wasn’t crying anymore. Chase wasn’t speaking. My gaze fell to Jax. He was on the floor, still. There was nothing except for a pain so profound, so all-encompassing, that it gnawed at every fiber of my being. There was no breath in my lungs, no ground beneath my feet. All that existed was the pain. The loss. It centered in my chest, and the weight of it crushed all that I was for what felt like an eternity before it spilled outward and leeched into every one of my limbs.
These things—these demons—had stolen everything from me. From my parents, to my freedom and identity. And Jax… They’d taken my lifeline, and there was nothing left. No chip with which to bargain.
Chase let out a roar and stooped to retrieve the knife. In a blurring move, it was in his hand and he was flying at me—weapon in one hand, stone in the other. There was no time to move.
Except, there was…
In the mere seconds it would have taken for him to cross to me, the blade should be buried deep beneath my skin.
It wasn’t.