Page 10 of Illusory (The Marked Saga #8)

Morgan’s impromptu visit had left me with a phantom tug at the back of my mind that stayed with me long after she’d gone. After clearing out the dining room, I’d spent the rest of the day training within its cramped quarters, alternating between combat with Tessa to being a magical charge station for Caleb while also finding time to work on my Nephilim abilities with my mother.

The latter of which mostly consisted of us trying to figure out a way to control the wings.

Unfortunately, by the end of the day, I was completely spent and nowhere near closer to figuring out how to get the damn things to make another appearance let alone to produce and retract them at will.

My combat training with Tessa, however, had gone a hell of a lot better, probably because I was still infuriated with her and had relished every opportunity to strike out at her without repercussion. And judging by the way she’d glare back at me with murder in her eyes each time I knocked her to the ground, she knew exactly how much I was enjoying every second of it.

“We should break to eat something,” she rasped sometime later, her breathing coming out fast and labored. A clap of thunder reverberated off the windows, making the chandelier lights flicker in the dining room as an evening storm rolled in over the coast to greet us. “You haven’t eaten all day,” she pointed out as she pushed up onto her knees and paused there to catch her breath.

She was spent and it was showing.

“I don’t need a break,” I answered coolly, resuming my fighting stance with ease. “But if you do, then by all means, take one.”

Her glare deepened as shadows plunged her charcoal eyes into darkness. “I don't need a break either. I was suggesting it for your sake,” she bit back as she staggered back up to her feet.

We both knew she was gassed right the hell out, but of course, Tessa would never admit that out loud. She was far too stubborn to ever do something like that.

It was no skin off my back. If she wanted to keep going, I was more than willing to continue delving out the hurt.

“Great,” I said, fake smiling. “Ready when you are.”

She quickly tossed her own phony smile right back at me. “I was fucking born ready.”

Less than thirty seconds later, I had her hurdling through the air again, bellowing out in pain as her body hit the floor in an awkward heap of scrambled limbs and matted hair. If I wasn’t so ticked off with her, I might have felt bad about it.

“You sure you don’t need a break, Tess? You’re looking a little turned around today,” I informed, trying to get under her skin and not even bothering to hide it. Apart from the fact that it felt good to knock her down a peg, it also made her angry and when Tessa was angry, she fought better.

She pushed up from the ground again, this time faster as though trying to prove me wrong. “I’m fan-fucking-tastic,” she sneered, her jaw tight as she schooled her expression into one devoid of any emotion.

But I could still read her like an open diary.

“Does your body know that?” I asked, gesturing to the slight but noticeable limp in her left leg.

Her eyes stayed fixed on mine when she replied, “Eat shit.”

“Oh, that’s okay. I think you’re eating enough of it for the both of us.”

Tessa’s fragile composure cracked like a cheap mirror as she charged toward me, her eyes blazing with rage. A dark thrill nestled under my skin as the drumbeat of war pounded in my head. With my jaw clenched tight and my fist even tighter, I lunged right back at her, eager to wipe her face with my fist again. For every time she stuck her nose into my business and made everything worse. For every time she let my calls go to voicemail. For every time she kept the truth hidden from me. This was personal in so many ways.

My knuckle slammed into her cheek, bone crunching against bone as Tessa’s head swung back before throwing her own hit at me and missing. Her other hand came out just as quickly, open palm with her nails carving into my cheek as I kicked at her injured leg and then went for a fistful of her hair. Neither of us were using any combat techniques at that point and were just angrily swinging at each other, trying to see who could inflict the most amount of damage with the least amount of grace.

“ That’s enough ,” snapped my mother from the doorway, halting the two of us in our tracks and nearly startling the Holy Spirit right out of my body.

I had no idea how long she’d been standing there watching us or just how much of the shit show she had witnessed, but her icy tone let me know exactly what she thought of our outburst.

“Leave us,” she ordered, speaking to Tessa then. “You’re done for the day.”

“Like hell I am. I said I’m perfectly fine. I can do this all night,” she insisted and then tried to retake her combat position while attempting to hide the limp in her leg from our mother.

Jaqueline’s steely eyes zeroed right in on it. “Wash up and get that ankle wrapped up before you give yourself permanent damage. You can resume training tomorrow once its healed.”

Tessa dropped her fists and fired a glare at our mother. “This is such bullshit. It’s a fucking bruise , Jackie. I’ve worked through much worse than this.”

“I’m sure you have,” said Jaqueline, the picture of absolute calmness. “But you’re still done here.”

Tessa’s gaze shot to mine as though she were expecting me to step in and back her up.

“You heard Mother . Run along now,” I said instead, smiling as I gave her an obnoxious wave goodbye.

“Whatever. Fuck you both,” she bit out as she grabbed her personal effects from the corner of the room and then stomped out of the dining room, limping and muttering curse words like a salty-ass sailor caught in a squall.

I’d be a liar if I said the whole thing hadn’t been completely satisfying to watch.

“Thanks for that,” I said when I was sure that Tessa was out of earshot before making my way over to the windowsill to retrieve my phone and water bottle. “She would’ve dragged that pissing match on all night if you hadn’t stepped in. Not that I minded,” I added as I turned on my phone and quickly thumbed through the notifications, “but it was starting to feel a little like cheating if you know what I mean.”

Jaqueline didn’t answer, and frankly, I could care less.

“Anyway, see you in the morning,” I said with my face still buried in my phone as I turned on my heel to leave.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

I paused to peer over my shoulder at her, my brows furrowed in confusion. “Huh?”

“We’re not done here.”

“But you just…and she…” I pointed at the hallway that Tessa had disappeared through just moments ago. “You said we were done.”

“No. I said she was done.”

I blinked back at her, failing to see the difference.

“Tessa isn’t prepared to keep up with your required level of combat training right now,” she stated flatly.

I crossed my arms and smirked to myself. “Can you make sure you say that again at breakfast tomorrow morning so she can hear it, too?”

She ignored my very well-timed joke and said, “You’ll continue sparring with me.”

The smugness immediately dropped from my face. “With you? Now? But you’re supposed to be handling the Nephilim shit this time,” I whined as horrifying flashes of my past “training” sessions with my mother zipped through my mind, making me shudder at the memory of it.

While her maniacal methods had indeed gotten me to invoke my ability to freeze time at will, the whole experience had been the stuff that nightmares were made of. She had been cold, unrelenting, and shamelessly brutal. Sadistic, really, and I wasn’t interested in living through that ordeal again. Once had been more than enough, and as far as I was concerned, I wasn’t ever going to train with Jaqueline Morningstar again for as long as I lived.

Not if I had anything to say about it.

“You know, Jackie, as much as I’d really love to do the whole mano a mano thing with you, I’m actually pretty wiped out myself. I think I’m going to just grab a bite to eat and turn in for the night, but we’ll totally make this happen tomorrow,” I said, lying through my damned teeth. If training with Jaqueline was back on the table, then I had every intention of leaving the country and changing my identity by morning. “That is, if Tessa isn’t healed up by then.” God willing .

“Jemma.” Her clipped tone sent a cold tremor down the whole of my spine, but it only made my feet move faster.

“So yeah, I’ll totally come find you first thing in the morning,” I said and then spun around to make a run for it, hoping to get away before she could object.

She stepped out in front of me in a flash, standing directly in the path of my one and only escape route. “We can either do this the easy way, or we can do it the other way. Which would you prefer?”

* * *

Jaqueline’s question had been a rhetorical one. Clearly, she didn’t know how to do anything the easy way and had made that much obvious when she proceeded to beat me to a cruel and merciless pulp for the next three hours.

It had taken every bit of strength and wherewithal I had just to break away from her onslaught of blows long enough to catch my breath and not drown in the steady trickling of blood flowing down the back of my throat—courtesy of a probably-fractured-possibly-broken nose.

How ever I had remembered it, how ever terrifying the memory of training with Jaqueline had been, the reality had proven to be so much worse.

There was something irreversibly wrong with that woman.

By the end of the session, I barely had enough strength left to pick myself up off the floor let alone to make it back up to my room. I’d seriously contemplated spending the rest of the night on the dining room floor where I had dropped like a lifeless corpse, and if it wasn’t for the fear that Mother Dearest might show up in the middle of the night to continue “training” me, I may have even done it.

But there was no way I was taking that risk.

Instead, I allowed the promise of soaking in a long hot bath until the feeling returned to my face guide me all the way back up to my room where I promptly double bolted the door shut behind myself. Just in case.

Nearly one full hour later, I emerged from the bath feeling slightly better than when I’d gone in, and even though I could already feel the bruises forming on my face, I didn’t once allow myself to check my reflection in the mirror. Mostly out of fear that that the grotesque sight would ruin what little bit of peace I’d managed to restore.

After quickly towel drying my hair, I changed into a sleep camisole and shorts and then quietly made my way back downstairs to the kitchen in search of something to eat. As per usual, my hectic day of training and dealing with life in general had taken precedence over remembering to eat. Not that I would’ve admitted that to Tessa, though.

My stomach, however, wasn’t having any more of the charade, evidenced by the growl-like rumbles sounding from it at regular intervals.

The house was as quiet as a graveyard save for the gentle rain pattering against the windows. The distant flashes of lightning and thunder told me that the storm was finally moving away from Hollow Hills and onto greener pastures. If only that were symbolic of all the problems troubling my life lately, but alas, I knew that storm was set to circle right back around and hit us all over again like a bad song set on repeat.

It was just the way things always seemed to go for me.

I didn’t plan on worrying my mind with the thought for long, though. Not tonight. Tonight, I intended on basking in my momentary stint of solitude and enjoying the peace and quiet. After dealing with a steady influx of people in my face all day, it was nice to not have anyone talking to me or demanding yet another thing from me. Even though I knew they were all here for me—to help me—it still didn’t make their weighty expectations any easier to carry around all day.

Flicking on the light switch, I quietly set my math homework down on the kitchen island and did my best not to make any noise. The last thing I wanted to do was accidentally draw anyone’s attention my way and ruin my self-imposed timeout from life.

Tessa had already retired to her room hours ago, probably to lick her wounds and tend to her bruised ego while Jaqueline had disappeared into the study to continue combing through the grimoires, picking up from where Gabriel had left off before he’d called it a night and returned to the basement to check in on Trace.

Fuck . Trace…

Despite the heavy feeling in my heart, I tried my best not to allow my thoughts to linger on him for too long either, choosing instead to believe that Gabriel was exactly who he needed at that moment and that he would be doing everything in his power to get Trace back on his feet. Anyone with half a brain cell could see that my presence there would only further upset him, and that was the last thing I wanted to do.

He’d already gone through enough and really didn’t need to deal with me on top of everything else he was already going through. I had enough sense to at least know that much.

Crossing the kitchen, I pulled open the fridge door and searched for something that wasn’t expired or completely covered in mold to eat. Spotting some bread at the back of the top shelf, I surmised that it looked more or less edible and then grabbed two slices from the bag along with a jar of peanut butter before kicking the fridge door shut with my foot.

“Need a hand with that?” asked a honeyed voice from the doorway.