Page 13

Jess yelped in pain as the ache in her hand ramped up to unbearable in an instant.

She sat up in bed and clutched her hand to her chest, panting as tears of agony filled her blurry eyes.

It felt as if someone had jammed a machete straight through her hand, but just as fast as the ache had come on, it faded to nothing.

Shocked, Jess opened her fist and stared at the scar there. It was red and angry looking but hadn’t opened up or anything.

“You messed up,” a deep voice said from the chair in the corner of the room.

Jess shrieked as she realized who was in here with her—Tawk.

He looked relaxed in that chair, as if he had been sitting there for a while. His hands were clasped in front of his mouth, elbows resting on the arms of the chair.

“Wh-what are you doing in here?” she stammered, wishing she sounded stronger than she did.

He flickered his fingers at the locket sitting on the bedside table, where she’d left it last night. She’d fallen asleep staring at it, imagining the blue was getting darker by the moment.

“That little treasure of yours is probably calling to anything with any extra senses right now.” His nostrils flared and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Can you smell the stink of dark magic?”

“Yes,” she whispered, heart hammering against her chest. “Can you hear it?”

“Bum. Bum. Bum,” he said in rhythm with the pounding in her head. “You sure didn’t waste any time activating it, did you?”

“Thirty-two years,” she uttered defensively. Thirty-two years without falling in love. It wasn’t enough, but it was something.

“Your ancestors had powerful enemies. I wonder do you know what they did to deserve the curse on your bloodline?” He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll make some coffee while you get ready. We need to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk,” she said, finding the steel in her voice. “I’m here because I want to be. Sister’s Edge doesn’t own me.”

“No, it does not,” Tawk said from the doorway. “But you owe it to Sister’s Edge to listen to what we know about your little curse.”

Her hands were shaking as she watched him disappear out of the door. “Who else is here?” she called after him.

“Just me.”

What the hell was happening? In a rush, Jess kicked off the covers and flew into action, getting dressed as fast as she could. She scanned the room for her phone to message Kade that Tawk was here, but she couldn’t find it anywhere.

“I have the phone,” Tawk called from the other room.

Shhhit.

“You should be wearing the locket now,” he called out. “It’ll be calling for power. You’ll get it stolen quick if you don’t keep it on you.”

Since when did Tawk know every-fucking-thing?

A little growl escaped her, and it surprised her. The animal was awake. That rarely happened anymore.

She had dressed in cut-off shorts, a black tank top, a flannel and a pair of low-top sneakers that were a half-size too big because they had belonged to Raynah. Messy bun it was today, and then she was ready to face whatever this was.

Tawk was pouring creamer in a coffee and offered it to her.

“No thanks. I’m not up for being drugged first thing in the morning,” she grumbled, and passed him by to make her own cup of coffee.

“Suit yourself. Drugging isn’t my gig though.”

“Oh yeah? Just burning me alive and eating my ashes if I piss you off?”

“More like it,” he agreed.

She hated being in small spaces with Tawk. Even when he wasn’t worked up, his dragon felt too big and heavy and it made it hard to breathe.

“Kade will kill you if you hurt me.”

“Why do you keep thinking everyone is out to hurt you?” Tawk asked, sinking down onto the couch.

And she thought about it as she waited for the coffee to begin pouring into her little mug. “It’s what most people I know have done.”

“Mmm, you’re talking about Misty? And Samuel?”

“Yeah, Tawk, and about a billion other people I’ve trusted over my lifetime. Misty told you guys about the locket and the curse. Samuel killed Tanner and let my Promise take the fall for him. And this whole time? This entire time? Samuel and Misty played it out like they were innocent, and I was crazy for still thinking kindly of Kade, and meanwhile, I was in the house with the real traitors to Sister’s Edge all along. And not to trauma dump on you, but this,” she said, holding up the locket that was now secured around her neck. “Has made trusting people a little difficult.”

“You trust Kade. I don’t think he would betray you.”

“Yeah, but the curse. The one person I can trust will be betrayed by me. That’s the fate of a Heichman Witch, right?”

“Do you know why you were cursed?”

“No. My alcoholic mother must’ve let that little family secret slip through the cracks while she was spending all our grocery money on her next bottle of numbness. She just told me I can never fall in love a bunch of times, and then didn’t even fight CPS when they took me, and then never followed up, never looked for me, never even fucking tried to help me through a single day of my life.” Sarcasm was thick in her tone right now but fuck it. She had all these feelings boiling over, and Tawk was asking annoying questions first thing in the freaking morning. It was barely dawn outside.

“I think she probably loved you in her own way.”

She huffed a laugh and shook her head. “Oh yeah? Did you know her?”

“My mom did.”

Well, that drew her up short. “What?”

“My family has known about your family’s curse for generations. Open the locket, Jess.”

She already knew what she would find in there—black and white pictures on each side of a man and a woman she didn’t recognize. She’d studied those pictures a hundred times.

He was waiting, his expression unreadable.

“Fine,” she muttered, prying open the glowing, pulsing locket. The light blue glow looked a little darker this morning, she swore. Inside were the same two pictures that had always been there. The woman had dark hair, pulled back into a low bun. She wore a dark dress with white piping along the high neckline. She wore a slight smile, but her eyes were dark and empty. The man on the other side had much lighter hair and a suit on, complete with a bowtie. He had his chin raised high into the air and was glaring at the camera with icy eyes.

“Favella Heichman was your great, great, great, great grandmother, and was the last in your line to be allowed love. She ruined it for all of you by falling in love with that man.”

“Who is he?” she asked, staring at the picture of him.

“Well, technically, he’s your great, great, great, great grandfather, but he wasn’t supposed to be. Back then, the covens were powerful, and he belonged to someone else.”

“He cheated with Favella?” she asked softly.

“They were both to blame,” Tawk said with a shrug. “They both knew better. His wife was head of all the covens back then. She was it. She was the one everyone went to, she knew the most, she held the most power, she was the most revered. She was also the most jealous, and brutal, and unforgiving. Favella and Edmund hid their affair for a long time, until Favella began showing. She wouldn’t say who the father was, and that kind of secrecy wasn’t allowed in the covens back then. When it came out that Edmund was the father, they weren’t killed in the traditional way. Helena wanted their betrayal to echo through the generations. She wanted to set an example, so that no one would ever dare to betray her again. She gathered all of the covens, and she did a blood curse on the Heichman’s, of which Edmund would be the first victim. He died in Favella’s arms.”

“How…” She frowned, closing the locket. “How do you know all of this?”

“Because my family used to protect the covens. We were the guard dogs.”

What the hell? “What was in it for you?”

“We got to feed on blessed ashes, and cursed ashes, and our power was fed as payment for our loyalty.” He gestured to the locket. “If there were more of us left, they would be headed here, drawn to that.”

“I’ve never heard of any of the dragons having anything to do with witches.”

“I’m not like Damon, or Vyr, or Dark Kane, or Rowan, or any of them. My dragon is smaller and obsessed with treasure, and that treasure is ingrained in me from generations of my ancestors consuming ashes that were blessed by witch’s power. Blessed, or cursed. However you want to look at it.”

Chills rippled up her arms. “Tawk? Why are you in Sister’s Edge?”

“Because of you and Samuel.”

Truth. Chills, chills, chills.

“You might not practice, but you still give off power. It feeds me. That locket is feeding me as we speak. I am stronger around you.”

“Like a parasite?”

He huffed a laugh, but he just seemed kind of tired. “It’s a symbiotic relationship, Jess. I don’t want to lose the taste of your power, so my dragon would keep you safe.”

“Safe like when Connor broke the glass door and it cut me? Like when I was in that house scrambling to get out before it fell down on me? Or the times I was reprimanded and cut down in front of the Crew? The times I was belittled and told I was nothing? You suck at your job, Tawk. You’ve taken from me and given nothing in return.”

His mouth ticked up into an empty smile and he dropped his gaze to the coffee table. “You have to leave Kade.”

“Wonderful epiphany. What would I do without your sound advice?” she uttered sarcastically.

“I’m serious. I’m here at no benefit to myself. I’m going against Derek’s orders. You are supposed to be shunned until you come back begging for forgiveness, but I think you won’t do that until it’s too late.”

“Too late,” she repeated softly. She didn’t understand.

“After Kade is dead and you have nothing left, and you need a safe place to numb out, the way your mother spent her days numbing out.” Tawk looked up, and his eyes were full of emotion for the first time that she’d ever seen, in all the years she’d known him. “Kade is my friend.”

“You left Kade to hang out to dry,” she gritted out angrily. “If he’s your friend, where were you when Sister’s Edge was testifying against him? Huh? Where were you?”

Tawk shook his head. “I have no good answer.”

“Where were you when they were accusing him of killing Tanner. You were all friends as kids, right? You and Seth and Tanner, and you just let it happen.”

“I’m not arguing that I’m a good person, Jess. If you think that’s what this is, you’re wrong. I have simple needs, and I care about very little outside of those.”

“Eating my power.”

He nodded once.

“Manipulating me into thinking you give a shit about Kade and this curse.”

“I do. I do care. Do you know what happened to your father?” Tawk snapped his fingers. “It happens like that. The men the Heichman’s fall in love with just drop and there is no life in them. They’re gone in a snap, and so no. I don’t want to imagine that happening to Kade.”

“Because I wouldn’t be okay,” she said, the answer hitting her like lightning.

Tawk inhaled deeply and dropped his gaze again, and she knew she’d called it right.

“You can’t feed on power if I numb everything out, like my mother. And like her mother. And like her mother. Samuel can’t feed you like my power does, right?”

He shook his head. “Samuel barely feeds me at all.”

“You really are a parasite. You need me to come back to Sister’s Edge so that Kade can continue to exist, so I have some life in me, and you can benefit. If I go back to Sister’s Edge and live an empty life, it benefits you.”

He nodded, but now he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Connor was my choice for you,” Tawk said softly. “I know you can never love him, and so the curse will be dead for your generation, but he could give you offspring, and you could have something to take care of. A half-life is better than a destroyed life.”

“If I have children, they will be cursed, Tawk,” she whispered thickly. She held up the locket in front of her throat. “Why would I do this to them?”

“He will die,” Tawk murmured. “Kade will die. The locket is already engaged with your feelings for him.” He held his hands out, beseeching her. “Don’t you see, if you love him, you have to let him go?”

And damn it all, Tawk, that fucking parasite, he was right. He was making sense. She knew it to be true, but the thought of leaving Kade was so painful inside of her chest.

“Connor is waiting,” Tawk told her. “He’s on the rise for ranks, and there aren’t any other females that would work for what Sister’s Edge needs. He will forgive all of this, and he will cut you, and follow through with the Promise.”

“He knows about the curse?” she asked, disgusted even entertaining this idea.

“Let Kade find a mate who won’t kill him.”

The burning tears that had rimmed her eyes threatened to spill over, and now it was her turn to drop her gaze, so he wouldn’t see the heartbreak on her face. “I didn’t mean to fall,” she whispered.

“It’s not your fault.”

She huffed a thick laugh, and for a split second, she could see why her mother had worked so hard to stay numb. This pain was too much.

“Let Connor cut your hand, and things will get easier. Break any bond to Kade and watch the locket stop glowing.”

Jess buried her face in her hands as the tears started to stream. “I like the way he makes me feel.”

“I can imagine,” Tawk murmured. “I don’t bond to people like that, but I can imagine.”

She stood, feeling like she was drowning. “Then it’s you I’ll cut. You’ll never have a feeling for me, and I’ll never respect you, parasite. No kids ever. I’m not choosing Connor. I want my own place on the edge of Derek’s territory, and you will live separately from me. Make sure I never come back for Kade. Keep him safe from me. Do the job your people are supposed to do.” She lifted her chin into the air, knowing her life would never have meaning again. “Protect me from Sister’s Edge. It’s the only way I’ll come back.”

Tawk stared at her for a three count, rubbing the palm of the hand she would cut.

Slowly, he dipped his chin.

And this was it. This was the moment her life ended.

It was the moment hope left her.

It was the moment she took her power back from the curse.

It would never take Kade.

Even if it hurt every day for the rest of her life, Jess would make sure he still existed.