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Just as I thought it, I saw the peek of a snake tail vibrating just under the cuff of her sleeve.

I gasped in a breath, and Travis immediately turned to me. He took in my expression, his face worried. “Don’t believe what she says.”

Jennie turned. “She should believe it. It doesn’t matter because she doesn’t love you as much as the rest of them, anyway. It’s plain to see when you’re an outsider. I’m sorry to have to break it to you, brother.” She turned to me. “And don’t worry, Norah. Randy’s so fucked up in the head that he won’t ever be able to love anyone enough. So, you don’t have to worry about liking Liam best.”

Randy’s hands fell off my arm.

“Though, I don’t know,” she said, her voice hypnotizing. “Gabe might give Liam a run for his money. It’s the accent. But just remember that accent has gotten him plenty of ass in the past, Norah. I doubt he thinks you’re the best piece he’s ever had. Top thirty, maybe.”

“Jennie!” Travis shouted.

But he didn’t understand. None of them did.

I lunged at her. I pounced on her with a roar, thanking my lucky stars that I now had an all-seeing-eye bracelet around my wrist, and I knew that everyone around me also had one. The demonic familiar was on Jennie. Jax, aka the demon knew that we’d go looking for her and knew that we’d be bringing her back to us with a piece of him on her. He knew all about the plan. Everything.

We struggled on the ground. Jennie was strong, most likely getting most of her strength from the familiar, but that didn’t help me when she kept flipping me onto my back and sliding her hands around my throat. I captured her leg and bucked, taking the upper hand again only to have Travis yelling in my ear to stop. That Jennie was hurt. No fucking shit. She had the fucking familiar on her.

He tried to pull me off, but I resisted, slapping at his hands until he let me go. When I turned back around, Jennie punched me in the jaw and pain radiated.

Randy came up behind me then, grabbing me up by the shoulders and picking me up off her in one swoop. I kicked out, but he resisted. Jennie got up and ran, breaking through the crowd. “Stop her!” I yelled.

Travis moved into my line of sight. “What are you doing, Norah?”

“It’s not her,” I said, finally getting Randy to put me down. “She has the familiar on her.”

Travis’s eyes widened and then he searched the crowd for where she went.

“Shit,” Randy cursed, pushing me toward Liam as he followed Travis into the crowd. “Move out of the way. Move it!”

The crowd dispersed for them quicker than I’d seen anything like it. I felt the earth shake under my feet and then a blood-curdling scream. Liam, Gabe, and I moved to follow. Up ahead, Randy has Jennie in a vice grip while Travis lifted Jennie’s sleeve to see the familiar there. It bulged out of her skin. The witches that gathered around for the spectacle gasped. Most of them had never—and would never again—see anything like this.

We ran up to them, just steps away from a stone ship slip. The superiors ran up in front, inspecting Jennie like they were doctors with a patient who had a terrible skin disease.

An eerie laugh broke through the commotion. It bounced around the area again like the demon was using a megaphone to spread his hate far and wide. We looked all over until someone shouted, “the Mast.”

I looked up, and sure enough, Jax was hanging off the mast of Friendship. “I see you’ve found my pet.” Even though he was fifty yards away, his voice was as clear as day, sinking into my pores and twisting my stomach. “I’d hoped that she’d throw you for a little while, but your Norah is something else.”

“You have no idea,” I said, glaring up at him.

If he hurt Jennie, and in essence, tearing Travis apart again, I was going to kill him myself.

21

Jax smirked. There was no hiding his eyes now. They were glazed over in black like the shiniest onyx I’d ever seen. In his eyes were the bottomless evil thoughts he harbored. To look at him was to feel a negative thought take hold of your mind and start to grow. It was a good thing I had those I loved surrounding me or I just might forget what I was doing here.

The crowd got restless, and he laughed again, this time darker than the previous.

He let go of the mast, but instead of falling onto the deck of the Friendship in a crumpled heap, he floated. He glided through the air and settled himself fifteen feet above the ocean, just a step beyond the grassy square that led there. “Since that fun is gone, I suppose I’ll take my pet back.”

Jennie screamed. The snake bulged out of her skin again like it was truly a real-life snake that wanted to break through her skin. Her head rolled back as a sob raked her. Randy held on to her tighter and her body writhed as the snake poked and stretched her skin.

“Yes, it can be quite painful,” Jax said.

Liam moved forward. He’d known what that felt like.

The snake finally poked its head out, its tongue darting out in a quick hiss as he slithered out. He grew and grew until the last of his body emerged from Jennie and she slumped to the grass. Travis followed her.

The crowd again parted as the snake slithered past. Everyone gave it a wide berth. Its head swung from side to side, hissing at anyone who looked at him.