Embraced (Eternal Balance) (8 page)

Chapter Ten

Sam

T
he water had been hot and the pressure just right. Still, it hadn’t alleviated the tension in my muscles. I’d been standing right next to Jax when Heckle gave his warning. We didn’t know if it pertained to me or him, but it’d been clear. Break the rules and pay the price. We both knew…and neither one of us had cared. Even now, after knowing it had hurt him, I wanted to slide from the bed and make him kiss me again.

That was the drawback to Jax and me. It’d been that way for as far back as I could remember. We ignored everything and lived to keep each other sane and safe. Then when things between us changed, nothing else mattered. It was all about us. Screw the world.

I rolled over and pulled the covers with me, burrowing deep. They smelled of cigarettes and stale beer, but I didn’t care. I was too tired, both mentally and physically exhausted. Thoughts of Jax, of the pain he was in, and the danger that hung over our heads, played on repeat inside my head. The lingering memory of what we’d almost done, coupled with the fact that he was laying a few feet away, made my pulse quicken and my skin warm.

The cuff was heavy and growing tighter with each moment that passed. When I’d slid into bed, it was just past three in the morning. I’d been wearing this thing for almost twenty-four hours now. One day down. Only two left.

I looked down at the cuff and it contracted as if responding to my scrutiny. I’d actually forgotten about it for a while. Jax had that effect on me. Even when we were kids, he had a way of making my problems and fears fade until they were nothing more than harmless shadows on the wall. I wanted to be that for him, too. To be the thing that grounded him. But instead I’d instigated an act that had caused him pain. The skin beneath the black metal band twitched and I fought a shiver. An act that, despite what had happened as a result, I wanted to instigate again.

I shifted, this time rolling onto my back. The clock cast a faint glow on the ceiling. It was reflected on the television, the light playing off the bare bulb in the ceiling overhead. But there was something else. A faint rustling sound coming from just beyond the door.

I threw off the covers and, sliding out of bed as quietly as possible, crept across the carpet and put my ear to the door. The sound was almost like an animal scratching against the wood.

“What the hell?” Jax groaned from underneath the covers. The light beside his bed flickered to life. He shifted around, peering at me through the dim light with groggy annoyance.

“I dunno,” I said, pushing away from the door. “I thought I heard something.”

He shoved off the covers with a grunt and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. The floorboards groaned as he padded barefoot across the room and stopped beside me. “Like what?”

I put my ear to the door again. Everything was quiet. Maybe I was losing my mind. “Nothing. I was probably dreaming.”

Without a word, he started back across the room. But he only got halfway to the bed when a knock stopped him. Quirking a brow, he turned and tilted his head. “Expecting someone?”

“Yeah.” I dove for my jeans and tugged them on. “I ordered a stripper.”

With a roll of his eyes and a finger to his lips, he backed toward the door. There was no peep hole, so he moved the curtains aside a fraction of an inch. “Looks human,” he said with a snort. “Then again, who the hell knows?”

“So, harmless?”

He turned to me, a spark of mischief in his eyes. A rush of warmth rippled through me. “You’re human and you’re far from harmless.”

I flipped him off and nodded to the door. “Safe to answer—”

The guy on the other side of the door began to pound.

I crept a little closer. The door rattled and shook. “Someone wants in real bad.”

Jax moved between me and the door, holding his hand high in an attempt keep me back. “What the hell does he want? It’s after three a.m.”

“Open the door and find out. He’s human, right? The manager maybe? What could he possibly do?”

The man decided to answer my question personally. The door blew open in a hail of wooden splinters and the guy walked in, eyes glowing a fiery orange and an axe in his hand.

Jax looked from him to me and shrugged. “Depends on how you feel about the axe.”

Our new guest let out a hair-curling sound—a cross between a howl and a yell—and swung his weapon. The blade imbedded itself in the dresser by the door. It was deep, wedged solidly in the wood. There should have been no way for him to pull it free so easily. But he did. Like pulling a loose thread on the end of a shirt, he lifted the axe from the wood and swung it again. This time, it passed so close to Jax that his hair fluttered.

He jumped back, hand up to block the next attack.

“What’s wrong with his eyes?” I screamed, stumbling back as Jax nearly knocked me over in his attempt to avoid the blade.

“Wicked contacts?” he called, dodging another blow. The man roared and dropped the axe, launching himself forward. He collided with Jax, sending them both clear across the room. He hammered a series of blows to his head, followed by another to the throat—Jax sputtered and coughed, gasping for air.

If he was human, the guy had been sucking down otherworldly steroids. Except… I thought back to the angel in the alley, to the way her eyes blazed like fire. “Jax!” I made my way around the room, trying to steer clear of the chaos. “Don’t hurt him.”

“Don’t hurt—” The man hit him again, knocking Jax to the ground. “Are you insane?” he yelled. “He just swung an axe at me!”

Our minions are everywhere.

“His eyes,” I called as the man whirled on me. His blank expression was as disturbing as any demonic scowl I’d ever come face-to-face with. “The color. Something the angel in the alley said. I think the angel is controlling him.”

“The
angel
is dead,” Jax yelled. He swung at the man, and I couldn’t help gasping when his hand came up, catching Jax’s fist like he was swatting a fly. Before I could blink, he lashed out with his other hand, the blow connecting with the side of Jax’s head. He went down hard.

“You must come with me.” His voice rang with an eerie echo. He whirled away from Jax and grabbed my arm. I tried to pull away, but his grip was like iron—and just as cold.

He turned and started toward the door, dragging me along. I glanced over my shoulder. Jax was on the floor where he’d fallen. He wasn’t moving. The air turned frigid. He was okay. Just knocked out. I’d know if it was more than that. We were linked, right?

Out the door and into the darkness—the guy didn’t stop. I fought, but it was as pointless as trying to light a match in a tornado. We passed rows of doors, all silent and dark, and waltzed right past the manager’s desk. “Hey,” I screamed. “Do something. This guy won’t let go of me!”

The guy behind the counter, a tall, thin man with horn rim glasses and a roman nose, came bounding out the door. He looked from the man to me, brows furrowed. “Everything okay here?”

“No,” I screamed. Did anything about this situation look normal? “Not okay. Help me out here!”

It wasn’t fair to involve him. He was human and had no idea what he was up against, but my terror made me selfish. I was apparently the Holy Grail for both heaven and hell. I had no idea what they would do once they got their hands on me, and I had no desire to find out.

The motel employee grabbed the guy’s arm and tugged back. “I don’t think the lady wants to go with you, man.”

With a single shove from the fiery-eyed man, the Good Samaritan flew across the parking lot. But when my abductor tried to move forward, he ran into a small roadblock. Well, not really so small. Jax was there, cloaked in shadow and larger than life. He stepped forward, a single move that shifted him into the beam of light coming from the streetlamp a few feet away. If I didn’t know him—if I had no idea what a good man he was—I would have been terrified by the deranged look in his eyes.

They were black. Not rimmed in inky darkness like they had been recently, but solid and bottomless. Usually that meant Azi had taken control.
Usually
. This time, it was all Jax, I was sure. The actions were different, the way he held himself and the way he moved. I saw the rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed, and the subtly twitching muscle in his neck. When the demon seized control, it was eerily still.

“Mind jacked or not, if you don’t let her go now, I
will
kill you.” His voice was low and dangerous. He leaned forward a bit, and the grin that split his lips made me shudder with trepidation. “And I promise you, I
will
love it.”

“You cannot kill this human,” the man said. His grip on my arm tightened. “He is an innocent.”

Jax laughed. “Someone’s been feeding you bad info. I can, and will.” He came a step closer. “And innocent? I don’t think so. He’s latched on to my girl. That’s as far from innocent as you can get in my eyes.”

“Do not pretend you want this human for anything other than to use her, demon.”

Another step. “Power means shit to me.
She’s
important to me. The most important.”

“Hell will not gain her power.”

“No, it won’t. Because hell ain’t getting its hands on her.” Jax shot forward. “And neither are you.”

The man didn’t flinch. Pivoting, he avoided Jax and spun me out of reach. I tripped, going down hard on my knees. “You cannot fight us,” the man said with complete calm. It was creepy. His expression never changed, and his movements, so controlled, were like the precise mechanics of a machine.

Jax roared and made another swipe. This time he caught the man’s head between his hands and, without hesitation, twisted. It happened so fast yet at the same time was so incredibly detailed. The man’s neck rotated at a wholly unnatural angle and the orange light in his eyes flickered then died, leaving behind a dull, lifeless brown. His grip on my arm fell away and his hand went slack just before his body crumpled to the concrete. It was soundless, like something from a dream, or a scene on the television with the volume turned off. It stayed like that. Eerily quiet, just Jax and me standing there staring down at the dead man—until a shrill scream shattered the silence.

On the sidewalk, a woman with a small suitcase stood, her mouth open in horror.

“Let’s go,” Jax said, grabbing my arm and dragging me away. All our stuff was still in the room, but there was no time to go back. Jax had the keys, and we were in the car in moments and peeling from the parking lot.

Chapter Eleven

Jax

T
he sun was up before we stopped again. The car needed gas, and thankfully Sam had kept her credit card and license in her jeans’ pocket. The motel was a close call. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. I didn’t care if I had to keep her locked in the car from here to the mountain. No one else was taking a crack at her.

“You’re quiet,” she said, stretching her feet. “You need to talk to me.”

I kept my eyes on the road. Chancing a look in her direction could be disastrous. Even while that man at the motel had been holding her, trying to take her away from me, my eyes caught on the curve of her neck. The way her shirt pulled taut with every breath. Her lips… I may have embraced the demon, gaining more control over its natural power, but I’d sacrificed something of myself as well. I’d fought for Sam before. Had killed without remorse. But they’d all been demons. I’d never been forced to go this far with a human. “About?”

“You killed—”

I tightened my fingers around the wheel. “I know what I did, Sammy. And if you think I regret it, you’re wrong. I did what needed to be done to keep you safe, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.” And I would. Sam was the single most important thing in my life.

“Then why do you look…I dunno…upset?”

Upset was a serious misinterpretation, but I was glad. I was trying hard to keep my emotions in check. “I’m thinking,” I replied. Easy. Innocent. She didn’t need to know that my mind was playing out a scenario where I pulled the car to the side of the road, ripped every scrap of clothing from her body, and showed her just how much she belonged to me.

Azi rolled with it and communicated in its own desires. The pictures and feelings that came were so graphic, I flinched, and the car jerked to the right, skidding into the gravel on the side of the road before I managed to right our course.

“Jax?” came Sam’s worried voice. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” The word was sharper than I wanted, but that was fine. If she was pissed then maybe she’d stop asking questions. Questions I couldn’t—and didn’t want to—answer.

She sighed. “When exactly did you start lying to me?”

I ground my teeth together, clenching my jaw hard. No answer was better than biting her head off.

“Seriously, Jax. I might not be able to see your emotions, but I know how you’re feeling.”

“One stupid link and you think you know everything that’s going on inside my head?” I yelled.

Red filled the car. “Screw the link,” Sam shouted. “This is about us. The
us
that existed long before that damn thing came into play. I’ve known what was going on inside your thick skull since we were kids.”

I pushed harder on the gas, bringing our speed to almost eighty. “What is it you want me to say? That this sucks? That it’s unfair? It is. Deal with it.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” she fired back. “Deal with it. In order to deal with something, though, you have to acknowledge that there’s a problem in the first place.”

Sam Merrick. My reason for breathing, but also the source of every migraine I’d ever had. “Fine,” I fired back, fingers digging into the wheel. “There
is
a fucking problem. I’m having a hard time controlling things.”

“Things…?”

“Myself,” I said with barely contained loathing.

Deep breaths. Needed to calm down. Azi was growing antsy, nipping at the tendrils of anger I put out. If I kept this up, soon it would be rabid and desperate to feed. When that happened, I would have zero control over any of my impulses. Or the demon’s.

“Myself with you,” I amended, keeping my eyes on the road. “Since we… Things have been harder.”

“Harder, how?”

I didn’t answer. What was I supposed to say? That every time I was close to her, Azi goaded me to rip her clothes off? That I didn’t need the encouragement because I wanted to do that anyway? ’Cause that wouldn’t make me sound like a dick? Add all that to the demon cuff, heightening and siphoning the emotions she was feeling through our link, and you had a recipe for disaster.

“I think it was easier when it was just a fantasy,” Sam said quietly. “Thinking about being with you, of having you back in my life—that unattainable dream that you’d come home one day and everything would just go back to the way it was—was something that made it easier to deal with things.”

“How was that easier?”

“It was easier because it was safe.” She shifted in her seat so she was facing me. I didn’t look at her. “At the risk of sounding corny, love is taking chances, Jax. It’s misery and pain and disappointment right along with all the great stuff. You think this is easy for me? You let me down once already. You promised you’d always be there, and even though I understand why you weren’t, it still stings. I think in the back of my mind, I’m waiting for you to disappear again.”

I wouldn’t tell her that I’d thought about it a thousand times since agreeing to Heckle’s deal. The idea of walking away from her gutted me, but at the same time it felt selfish to stay. It wasn’t a secret, though. She knew how I felt. Knew how, regardless of anything she said, I would always loathe myself and the things I was forced to do. Things I would always be forced to do. This was a permanent situation for me. The demon would always be riding shotgun. It would always be hungry. My life was going to be harsh and savage until the day I took my last breath. The closer I was to her, the bigger the chance of her getting caught in the crossfire when I eventually went down.

“I won’t leave,” I said, switching lanes. Traffic was slowing down. Roadwork, or possibly an accident, was bringing all three lanes to a standstill.

“I know,” she said. “But the fear is there. It’ll always be there, and that’s what I mean. That’s the risk.”

I should have let the conversation die there, but I couldn’t. “It’s hard not to act on what I want when Azi wants the same thing. It…” The words caught in my throat.

“It, what?”

I made the mistake of glancing across the car. She watched me, eyes wide and lips parted slightly. “I
want
to touch you right now,” I said, taking my right hand from the wheel and reaching for her leg. “Azi
needs
me to.” I slipped my hand between her thighs, extending my thumb to stroke her through the denim.

“This is about the sex,” she said, understanding. I couldn’t read her expression, and that bothered me. Her colors were still so muddled, too many swirling together to make out any specific emotion.

“I don’t know how to answer that, Sammy. Obviously, yeah, the sex is great.” I chuckled. “Better than great. But for Azi it’s about more than that. It’s about possession. Control. It’s raw and harsh and borders on uncontrollable, and what scares me is sometimes I don’t care.”

She snickered and placed her hand over mine, moving it to her knee. “Sounds like passion to me.”

“There’s something else,” I admitted before I could stop myself. I took my hand back and palmed the steering wheel.

“Okay,” she said carefully.

“Someone else…”

She laughed. “
Someone else?
Other than me? You know I don’t buy that, right?”

Of course she didn’t. Because it was as impossible as me getting through the pearly gates one day. And yet it wasn’t. “I told you, I keep seeing these…scenes. Fierce, possessive scenarios that Azi keeps forcing into my head.”

“You already told me this. What does it have to do—”

“Sometimes it’s you. I see myself doing things…” My fingers tightened around the wheel. The leather bowed beneath my grip. “Sometimes it’s someone else.”

“Someone else? Like who? Another girl, you mean?” Her tone changed.

“Yes,” I said. “No.” Fuck. “Another female, but I don’t think she’s human.”

“Because that makes it so much better…”

“Sammy…” I took a deep breath. “I think it’s Malphi. I think—I think Azi wants its mate. The demon will try to stop me if I hunt down Malphi.”

“That’s not really better, either,” she grumbled. “And what does that mean? For us? For me…?”

“Nothing. Nothing has changed. I said it would
try
.” The words sounded convincing, but I wasn’t sure I believed them. The ferocity of what I felt when Malphi appeared in my visions in human form was immeasurable. Sam was everything I wanted. Everything I’d
ever
wanted. Yet the pull toward Azirak’s mate was magnetism on an entirely different level. If it came down to it, Azi would do more than try. I had a feeling it would succeed.

“If Azi wants this thing,” Sam said, “then technically I’m in the way.”

Azi had feelings for Sam, but it wanted its mate. I was betting Malphi felt the same. That made Sam right.

She was the only thing standing in the demoness’s way…

I
t took the rest of the day, but still I was relieved when we finally arrived at the bottom of the mountain. By the time we reached the trailhead, the sun was about to go down. I didn’t love the idea of hiking up to the top in the dark. Sitting still wasn’t an option, though. The clock was ticking. We were almost at the end of day two.

We had everything working against us. Sam wouldn’t say it, but the cuff was causing her pain. Every now and then, when she thought I wasn’t looking, she’d wince. That, on top of being number one on heaven and hell’s Most Wanted list, was making her edgy. The more we moved, the less chance that they would find her. Nightfall or not, we were heading up that mountain.

“You ready?” I asked, killing the engine. Sam’s colors were a jumbled mix of confusion, fear, and sadness. I hated that she felt this way. She’d already been through so much. I hated it more because there was jack shit I could do about it.

“To drop in unannounced on the
Archangel Michael
? Sure. Sounds like a party.” She undid her seat belt and got out of the car. A wispy trail of gray followed her.

I closed the door and locked it, making my way around to where she stood looking up the hill. The trail was narrow and there was a thick chain with a sign hanging down that said that hiking was prohibited between the hours of dusk and dawn.

“Maybe this was a bad idea. If he can’t help us—”

“Then we find Malphi.”

She fixed me with a disapproving stare. “Easy as that, huh?”

I took her hand. “I’m not gonna lie to you, Sammy. Azi will fight me if I go after Malphi. It’ll get messy. But that’s why we’re here. To try and avoid it.”

She sighed and held up her wrist. “Why the hell is an archangel living on top of a mountain in New York? And why would said angel help us? I mean, he’s going to know what you are right off the bat. I don’t see him lending a helping hand to the enemy. How do we know he won’t just try to take me like the other angel did?”

I placed a finger beneath her chin and lifted her head so that we were eye to eye. “Don’t,” I whispered. “Don’t do that. You should know by now that there’s no black and white. No discernable line between good and evil. If Heckle sent us here, then I’m sure it’s safe.” I almost believed the lie. “I have a demon living inside me, yet I know you’ll swear with your dying breath that I’m not evil.”

“That’s different,” she pouted.

“How so?”

“Because you’re not.” She jabbed a finger in the direction of the mountain. “But he won’t know that.”

“You have no idea what we’ll find when we get to the top. For all we know, Michael is up there because he doesn’t like what’s going on with the others. I will not let them hurt you.” I grabbed her hand and held tight. The cuff glinted in the dying sunlight. “I swear I won’t let this thing take you away. Not when I just got you back.”

She leveled her gaze at me, not buying what I was selling, and holy fuck was it hot. I moved closer, stopping only when our faces were inches apart. The smell of her overrode my senses, making me forget why we’d come. The closeness of her blotted out the danger hanging over our heads until it was blurred and far off. Her colors changed. She parted her lips. Her mouth pressed against mine, and I waited, breath held and heart hammering, but she didn’t move. Sam stood there, leaning against me, every inch of her a humming vibration that I wanted desperately to feel in every way possible.

Her tongue slipped between my lips, so soft. So barely there. I closed my eyes and sighed. Contact. A physical connection. Sam was my lifeline to sanity. It was true what she’d said. We were more than stolen moments and forbidden touches. But I wanted her. All of her.

Her tongue skated across my bottom lip, then traced the top, tasting. The sensations were electric—the feel of her so close, the scent of her all round me. She tasted like home to me. Sam tasted like forever. Screw heaven and hell. Fuck Heckle and anyone else who stood in our way. The universe made her for me. Not for them. Not for Azirak. Not to be a pawn used to tip the balance in either direction. There would be no saving anyone who tried to remove her from my life. From my future.

It took more control than I thought I possessed, but I pulled away, hands still tangled in her hair. “Let’s get moving.”

T
he cabin Heckle told us about wasn’t hard to find—a simple log shack with stacks of firewood surrounding the entire perimeter like a crude wooden fortress wall. “This is it?” Sam asked, sounding unimpressed. “I was expecting something more…”

“Grandiose?”

She laughed. “Yeah, maybe.” Fingers threaded through mine, she took a deep breath. The smallest ribbon of pink, of hope, swirled around her shoulders. “Time to get this over with.”

The walk up the path was strange. With each step, the temperature grew warmer. The closer we came to the shack, the more different it looked. They were subtle changes at first. The color of the wood lightened. The stacks of firewood became less defined. The overgrowth of vegetation took on hints of off-season color and changed their shape.

By the time we were halfway up the walk, the small wooden shack had transformed into a stately white manor with a perfectly trimmed lawn and blooming foliage. The snow that had coated the ground everywhere else was gone. Here, it was summer. The trees that were bare and lifeless moments ago now thrived with color and life.