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My sight blurred.

“Do you know how hard it was for me to get them to agree to be in a Coven? They were always squabbling.” Her perfect eyebrow twitched in the same manner I’d seen Tobias do it.

“Even my saintly brother tried to convince me to stop my games. He always tried to grab onto the human ideology ofmorals.” Her eyes glazed slightly, her thoughts taking her far away from the bed. “Yet, you have taken him from me too.” Her gaze refocused. “They replaced me with such ease. I expected at least five centuries of pain.”

She seemed honestly upset.

“They thought you were dead. Why would you leave them in the first place?”

“Boredom.” She peeked at her nails stained with blood. “I wasn’t planning to return. I was having a great time in France, but when word reached me about their new little pet, curiosity had the best of me.” She shrugged. She was answering all my questions because she was going to kill me.

Please, God, all I asked was that Peter be left alone once I was out of the picture.

I focused on her face. Pride. This was all about her wounded feminine pride. She wouldn’t let me live, and she’d make me hurt with whatever time I had left.

“You were always like this, weren’t you? Manipulating them into being with you. Using them against each other—hurting them,” I said between my teeth. “Pathetic.”

She hissed, her sharp fangs flashing. She slammed her hands on the bed, corralling my head. My heart jumped, but I gritted my teeth, waiting for the death blow.

“You don’t think it’s going to be that easy, do you?” She wrapped her palm around my knee and squeezed.

Bone crunched and bile rose up my esophagus. The door exploded from Jax ramming through. His eyes scanned my body and all I could do was eye him from my limp position on the bed.

The shock of his appearance stopped the vomit from making it out.

“Cat—”

“Do not move, Progeny,” Imogen ordered. Jax immediately froze.

“Let her go, Imogen.” His nostrils flared.

I gasped. I didn’t expect this. Not even a little.

Imogen’s eyes widened dramatically, and her palm landed on her chest.

I managed to roll my head to keep them both in my sight.

Jax remained stiff with his eyes peeled wide.

“If I let her go.” Imogen sashayed over to him, her finger grazed across his chest. “What will you do for me?”

Jax’s jawline flexed. His eyes flicked to the side, but he didn’t look at me. His head rose higher.

“Anything.”

Imogen went eerily still.

I thought he wanted to be with her? They kept her things here like a shrine. I had truly believed they wouldn’t have given me a second thought if she’d been around. My story would have ended when I was dragged into Crimson Manor on day one, especially at the hand of the vampire currently speaking up for me, except now he was trying to bargain for my life?

“I’ll tell you what,” she announced, suddenly reanimating. She clapped her hands together and flounced over to the lounging chair near the door. The wooden legs dragged across the floor with an obnoxious squeak. She placed it about a foot away from me and patted the back cushion. “Take a seat here, Jaxon. Only observe. No matter what, you will not move an inch once you sit.” His teeth clicked together, and he jerkily approached the chair and dropped into it.

Imogen turned her attention back to me. She rounded the bed to stand on the opposite side. Now the bed sat between her and Jax. I kept my attention on her. She was a snake poised to strike, and I was her victim. She leaned over me, her face hovering an inch from my nose.

“They stayed together because of me. They aremine,” she repeated.

The thickness in my throat throbbed.

“Doesn’t look like it to me.”