It only took a split second of hesitation on my part for him to jump.
‘I’m not blaming him, all I’m asking is for you to look at it objectively. At Hilton Head, he ran towards the fire but all you saw was a wolf. You asked him not to go back alone but he went anyway but he couldn’t find anything? Not a single trace? And where was he when you found this warning from the pack? Right outside Bell House. At the DeSoto you said yourself it was raining too hard to get a proper look at the wolf. And who showed up two days later?’
Or maybe the night before that, I thought to myself, fighting against the memory of a tall, dark-haired man crossing Lafayette Square.
‘There’s something else,’ Jackson said, slowing himself down, almost as though he didn’t really want to say it. ‘You killedhis brother. Not on purpose, but you did it. You know how I feel about you, Em, but if you hurt Lydia, even accidentally, I would never be able to forgive you.’
All the blood drained from my face.
It’s not the same, I wanted to say. But didn’t. He couldn’t possibly understand. Cole and Wyn had a different relationship to Jackson and Lydia. Cole was literally trying to kill me, there was no other way; Wyn knew it was self-defence and, above all else, Wyn loved me. He loved me, he loved me, he loved me.
A tear slipped over my cheek and I wiped it away quickly, but not before Jackson saw.
‘Shit, I came out here to apologize, not make you cry,’ he said, shamefaced. ‘Forget I said anything. I’m a jealous idiot, a cowardly jealous idiot, looking for the worst in someone because I can’t stand losing.’
But it was more complicated than that and we both knew it.
Jackson leaned back, his face contorted with confusion, when the lights of the house caught on something silver against his dark skin. I recognized it at once. Without waiting for permission, I slid my hand inside his shirt and pulled out a silver chain. Dangling from the end was his mother’s opal ring.
‘This is your mom’s.’
Even looking at it for too long was uncomfortable and I let it go, the delicate circlet bouncing off his crisp white shirt.
‘She left it in my room before she bailed.’ He almost looked embarrassed. ‘There was a note, said I should wear it for protection. But like, how is a ring going to protect me against a Were?’
‘It isn’t,’ I replied calmly. ‘It’s protection against me.’
Now I knew why I’d had trouble sensing his energy. Alex had literally hidden him from me.
‘Em, I’m only going to ask you once and I swear I won’t ask you again,’ Jackson said as he slid the opal ring back inside his shirt until it lay flush against his chest. ‘Is it at all possible that somehow, maybe against his will, the pack could be controlling Wyn?’
Meeting his eyes in the dark, I felt a shadow of doubt rise up, my scarred heart raked raw one more time.
‘It’s possible,’ I replied, hating myself as night fell all around us. ‘Anything is possible.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
‘We could hang out in my room?’ Jackson suggested as he followed me, staggering zombie-like back into the house, into the kitchen. ‘Watch a movie or something?’
‘I wouldn’t be very good company.’ I was still standing, still in one piece. Just barely. ‘Why don’t you go back to the party?’
‘Same reason you don’t want to go back to the party,’ he replied. ‘Can’t say I’m much in the mood.’
It was an understatement to say the least.
The party was a hit, that much was obvious, music rolled through the house until every pane of glass shook. No one else seemed to notice but even the rabbits who lived on the wallpaper in the hallway seemed to be having a good time, hopping around the baseboards, their first social occasion in years.
‘Maybe later,’ I said, trying on a smile and ignoring the uncomfortable fit. ‘I’ll come find you.’
‘Em, you shouldn’t be on your own right now.’
Jackson looked too serious for his seventeen years.
‘And you should be enjoying your birthday party,’ I replied. ‘You could at least try to have fun. You don’t want to ruin Lydia’s night, do you?’
It was a low blow but he knew when he was beat.
‘Fine. I’ll go back in, but if you’re not down here in an hour, I’m coming to get you,’ he told me, pressing himself up against the wall as two girls I vaguely recognized from the party at the DeSoto raced by us. ‘Or worse, I’ll send Lyds.’
