Page 70 of Will It Hurt?

Aisla

“Aisla?” Maia’s voice was muffled. “I brought you something to apologize.”

Frustration crackled over my skin.

“Now’s not a good time.”

“I’m sorry!” she yelled through the firmly shut door. “I’ve got some wine and snacks if you want.”

I stared down at Jinn and the tension fizzed between us like a balloon at the mercy of needle.

“Perfect timing,” she muttered, her voice edged with something between irritation and regret.

I swallowed against the disappointment tightening my throat.

Maia knocked again, her raps quick on the hardwood.

Jinn sighed, pushing her hair out of her face.

“Let her in, I suppose.”

Those were the words Maia had been waiting for. I dove under the covers, pulling it all the way up to our chins as Maia barreled through the door with a tray full of goodies. To my surprise, Anaia sauntered in after her, rubbing herself against the bed frame.

My sister set the tray down at the foot of the bed and quickly settled next to it.

“Maia?” I made her name a question from beneath the covers. “ What are you doing? ”

“Pouring you some wine,” she said as though this was a completely normal thing for someone to do.

“We didn’t ask for any wine.”

Anaia took the chance to leap onto the bed near Jinn’s feet.

She sniffed at the toes that poked out from under the quilt and slowly ambled her way up to Jinn’s belly.

Like Maia, the tortoiseshell cat also pretended that it was completely normal to invade people’s spaces, but perhaps I could more easily forgive Anaia.

After all, no one had taken the time to teach her any manners.

Jinn and I shared a puzzled glance as Maia handed us two long-stemmed glasses. Jinn took a quick sip, likely to soothe her parched throat. Teasing her with a taste of my blood seemed cruel now that I hadn’t followed through.

“Our cat trusts you.” Maia eyed Anaia’s chunky form as she curled up on top of Jinn’s stomach.

“Did I forget to mention?” Jinn said wryly, reaching out with her free hand to stroke Anaia’s round head. “I’ve also compelled the cat and all other beings in this house.”

“I knew it!” Maia reared up, only to be cut off quickly.

“She’s joking, Maia, for fuck’s sake.” I sighed. “What is this about?”

The suspicion didn’t abate from my sister’s gaze.

“So,” Maia said, reaching for a bowl of mixed nuts—which, I knew, she’d tipped out from a pre-mixed bag. She popped a salted cashew in her mouth. “What are your intentions with Aisla?”

I almost choked on my first sip of wine. “Intentions? Maia, we’re not in the 1800s and we’re not getting married!”

“I’m not saying you need to get married,” Maia said with a roll of her eyes. “I’m just asking what the vamp’s intentions are.”

“My intentions are to get my daughter back,” Jinn replied solemnly, speaking above the rumble of Anaia’s purrs .

“I see.” Maia chewed thoughtfully. “So your priority isn’t my sister?”

“Of course it is,” Jinn said easily. “I haven’t slept with anyone in over a decade. Do you think I’d fall into bed with a woman I didn’t care about?”

Stunned silence fell over the bedroom like a shroud. I turned to stare at Jinn, the wine sloshing over my glass and staining the sheets.

“What did you just say—” I began.

“What the hell—” Jinn appeared as startled as the two of us, blinking at the wine as though belatedly realizing the weight of the words that had come out of her mouth.

“You haven’t slept with anyone in over a decade ?” Maia repeated. “As in, more than ten years? More than twenty years?”

Jinn took a hurried sip of her wine, but even that didn’t seem to stop the words from bubbling from her lips.

“I was busy teaching Belle how to survive,” she said, her mouth moving in a strange, erratic way. “I had no time for anyone but my child.”

“Sounds like a co-dependent relationship, if you ask me,” Maia quipped. “So, then, why end your celibacy now?”

“How could I not?” Jinn said, the words blending together to form one long string of letters. Her jaw twitched, straining against the unnatural pull.

“...when you look at me as though you don’t know whether to kill me or kiss me.

And apparently, my brain rather likes that indistinction.

Oh, and not to mention the fact that you agreed to help me even though I tried to end your life.

Maybe I happen to like magnanimous wytches.

Or, hell, maybe I just need comfort after what Belle did.

This loneliness is new to me and grief does strange things to people.

Or so they say. Don’t they? Mother of god, what is in this wine? ! ”

Horror crashed through her with each effervescent word. She blinked rapidly as though trying to reset time with a flutter of her lashes.

But she couldn’t take the words back. Not now. Not after they had been cast into the air between us.

Her lips parted, then pressed shut again, twitching like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to make things more interesting with some half-baked explanation or just give up entirely.

Instead, she chose to flee.

Without another word, Jinn pulled a throw from the edge of the bed and stood, covering herself before either of us could catch a glimpse of her nudity.

“Maia,” I said with a hint of suspicion. “What did you do?”

My sister had the audacity to shrug. “Just a little truth serum. No harm done.”

“Maia!”

Appalled, I set the glass down with a clink. My sister was such a child sometimes, playing tricks that were best left to children.

“Don’t worry,” she said, helping herself to a macadamia nut. “I only put a drop in hers. You’re safe.”

“That’s not what I was worried about,” I bit out, tugging the quilt from beneath her. “You can’t just barge in here and slip something into Jinn’s drink! That’s unethical.”

I turned to Jinn who was tugging her vest on.

“Look—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

“It’s not your fault.”

She dragged her clothes on with admirable quickness.

Maia flicked another nut in the air and caught it on her tongue.

“Leave,” I told her. “Enough meddling. ”

“I’m just trying to keep you safe.” In her defense, she seemed genuinely concerned. “I still believe you’re being compelled. You’re acting like it.”

“I’m not…” I pressed my fingers into the sides of my temples, trying to reduce the sudden pounding. “I’ll talk to you in the morning, okay?”

I spoke as calmly as I could. “Just… go.”

“Fine.” With a dramatic shove, she rose to her feet and picked up the tray. “At least now you know she isn’t here to hurt you!”

“I already knew that!” I snapped at her. “Especially when the house didn’t zap her to a crisp when she walked through our front gates.”

“Oh.” Maia brushed her hair out of her eyes. “I suppose that’s a fairly good clue.”

Maia stared at me sheepishly, her cheeks turning a flushed red.

“So I guess I didn’t have to intervene, huh?”

“No,” I bit out. “You didn’t have to.”

“Oops.” Her laughter was humorless. “Guess I’ll just leave then.”

The door shut behind her with a slow creak.

I glanced over at Jinn who was trying to sidestep Anaia while she pulled on her wingtips.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said as earnestly as I could. “Maia has these crazy ideas sometimes and it’s hard to change her mind when she’s locked in.”

With her shoes firmly on her feet, she picked Anaia up and turned to face me.

“I think it’s best we don’t speak,” she said, her cheeks a shade of red identical to Maia’s. “There’s no predicting what I might say.”

“Right.” I bit my lip, trying to keep the questions locked tight, but they had a force of their own, like caged birds desperate to escape. Questions bred intimacy, and intimacy snowballed into feelings that were anything but temporary.

“Why me?”

Jinn’s gaze brushed against mine for a fleeting second. She pressed her lips together as though trying to contain the bare truth of her response, but just one drop of Maia’s truth serum was incredibly powerful.

Jinn tried to parrot the question as though she hadn’t heard me the first time.

“Why—”

The words died on her tongue, and try as hard as she did to keep them from escaping, they tumbled out in an uncontrollable wave.

“I was celibate, little wytch, not dead, and you walked into my life and reminded me that those two things were not one and the same.”

My heart stuttered in my chest.

A small part of me wanted to interject with something witty, something safe—perhaps remind her that she was , in fact, very dead.

But another part, the part that glowed bright under her words, relished the way her words sank deep.

They delved past skin and blood and bone and etched themselves around my heart.

I tried to swallow, but my throat had turned to sandpaper.

Jinn muttered, “Ignore what I said.”

Her throat clicked in the silence as she added: “Forever.”

“I won’t.” I shuffled across to her side of the bed. “You can’t make me.”

Splotches of color appeared on her cheeks—a wonderfully human trait I adored beyond reason.

“Jinn.” I reached for her fingers. “I know you didn’t mean to say any of those things out loud, but… ”

“But?”

“It’s enough that you thought them in your head and maybe… Maybe I want you to say more things like that.”

“You want me to continue to embarrass myself?”

I shook my head. “I want you to make me feel special.”

“Aisla…”

Anaia meowed when Jinn stepped closer to me, trying to vie for her attention, but Jinn’s gaze never left my own.

“You don’t realize it, do you?” she whispered. “How utterly special you are.”

I blinked at her, my mouth parting slightly—maybe to respond, maybe to breathe—but no sound came out.

“Maybe I should ask Maia to slip you her truth serum more often…” I tried to laugh, but only a hollow sound emerged.

“Jinn,” I said, halting her as she turned to retrieve her coat. “Wait, please.”

“I’ve said enough.”

I placed a hand on her sleeve. “I won’t ask you anything else. I promise.”

I stood and placed my arms around her waist, holding her tight. My sigh was buried in her tweed vest.

“Thank you,” I whispered, squeezing her so tightly that my bones began to ache.

“For what?” she asked, pushing back the hair at my temple as she gazed at me.

“For seeing me,” I confessed, wishing tears weren’t obscuring my vision. “For appreciating me.”

How had I never realized how much I needed a hug, a kiss, a tender whisper of how special I was? Jinn’s words made something ache inside me, something I hadn’t realized was so starved for this—for her .

I squeezed my eyes shut against the tears, fingers curling into the cotton shirt, holding on to her as tightly as I dared.

For once, I didn’t have to fill the silence.

I stayed pressed to her for far too long, wrapped in warmth and comfort and something too fragile to even think about. The world outside faded into a hushed noise—no Maia, no spells, no Cold Moon, no solstice… No Belle.

Her fingers traced slow, soothing patterns on my bare skin like she, too, was in no hurry to let go.

A long while later, I said, “I will see you tonight at the covenstead, but before you go… Kiss me goodnight?”

I didn’t have to ask her twice.