Page 54 of Will It Hurt?

Jinn

I was almost back at the Northern Nest when my phone chimed.

“Jinn, sweetling, how are you?”

Indira’s voice curled through the connection, drawing a grimace from my lips.

“Fine.” The word was too gruff. Why was it always a challenge to keep my true feelings bottled around Indira? It was hardly a chore around everyone else.

Perhaps it was because she was one of the few who remembered me for who I was—someone who had witnessed me in my rawest form. Before the powers, before the strength, before vampyrism offered me an exalted life, I had been yet another stain on the streets.

And Indira looked at me as though I still was.

Jeanette Waters, not Jinn. Not the persona I had so carefully carved out of several deep layers of trauma.

Most people only saw me as I was now: powerful, composed, invulnerable. They feared me or admired me, but they never truly saw me. And that was a relief. It was easier to maintain control, to stay above the chaos, when no one could pick apart the cracks.

But Indira? She’d seen them. She’d been there when I was at my weakest, before I’d learned to mask my insecurities, before I knew how to wield my shadows like a shield .

“I thought you’d be home today,” she said, the words far too calm. “Imagine my surprise when your assistant tells me you’re going to be up north for a few more days.”

“Do you need me home for a reason?”

“Do you need to be there for a reason?” she countered. “Surely you’ll feel better if you heal at home.”

“I’m taking my time with it. Healing, I mean.”

“Are you?” There was something in her voice, something that sounded vaguely like suspicion.

I decided to turn the conversation around. “Did you need me for something in particular?”

“I always need you, darling,” she said. “But in this case, I suppose I’m worried about you.”

“There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Isn’t there? Belle’s gone, after all.”

There wasn’t a single note of sympathy.

“Yes.”

“And we all know how much you loved her,” she continued. There was the sound of clinking glass in the background. “I’ve said it time and again—your heart is too soft, Jinn, especially for those who weaken our bloodline.”

“Is that all?” I asked, numb to her words. She had said worse about Belle countless times before.

“No,” Indira continued. “We need to speak about standards.”

“Tonight?” I asked, irritation curling through my veins. “What kind of standards?”

“If you wish to turn anyone else, they need to meet a certain criteria.”

“I don’t wish to—”

“Be that as it may, I cannot simply let you turn the unworthy. It’s been over forty years since you turned Belle, and you still can’t grasp the wrongness of what you did, or how you’ve tainted the bloodline. ”

“Oh, I understand,” I said, clenching my teeth. “I understand that it’s been over forty years and you’re still lecturing me about it.”

“Because the consequences are not yours to shoulder, but mine,” she said, a slight edge to her voice. “You turned an unworthy vamp. You invited weakness into our bloodline. And for what? A moment of sentiment? A fleeting attachment?"

“She has potential. You simply refuse to see it.”

“Had,” Indira corrected almost gleefully. “You of all people should know exactly how our blood works. The act of turning someone is bigger than you, bigger than me.”

“I wished to save Belle. She was dying, and I wanted to—”

“She was a drug addict,” Indira hissed into the phone, any ounce of pretence vanishing from her voice.

“One who didn’t know how to contain her urge for the muted highs humans receive from chemicals.

Turning such a creature into one of us was your folly, Jinn.

The addictions we battle are far worse.”

I chose to say nothing in return.

“I suppose I should be grateful that Belle never tried to turn anyone before the boy. Could you imagine the chaos? Her tainted blood mingling with someone else’s?” she chuckled.

“If you called to express your sympathy, I think you’ve veered down the wrong path,” I said pointedly.

“You know me too well to mistake any of my words for sympathy.”

And that was the reason I chose to keep the true motive behind staying in Edinburgh a secret from Indira.

Because I knew, without a doubt, that if she found out about my interest in The Retractare , she would do everything in her power to stop me.

Her deep-seated, irrational hatred for Belle would force her to intervene, and if she stood in my way, there would be no getting past her.

She was centuries older than me, and far too powerful for her own good.

“Come home,” she said before cutting the call.

I stared at the blank screen, resisting the urge to fling the phone at the nearest wall. Every single conversation with Indira depleted the waning patience I had so carefully amassed.

I shook my head, sliding the phone back into the pocket before it met its end on the pavement.

Just forty-eight hours , I told myself. And Belle would be back with me.