Page 71 of Will It Hurt?

Jinn

After days without rest, I cocooned myself in the guest coffin, trying not to think about the fact that the cushion beneath refused to yield to the shape of my body. Or how other strangers would have spent their nights here, too.

Instead, I thought about Aisla and her filthy tongue. The things she’d whispered still made my stomach tighten at the mere memory of it all. My skin still smelled of her, sweat laced with magick. Perhaps it was time I took the monthly bath she joked about, if only to keep memories of her at bay.

I entertained the thought for only a second before I released it. I’d rather let her linger—the beautiful filth of her.

As I tried to get comfortable in the new bed, shifting against the satin, I realized I could still feel the imprint of her nails on my skin, little half-moons pressing into me as she rode my shadows. The memory followed me into sleep, and I dreamt of blissful nothingness.

Aisla and I had agreed to meet an hour before midnight, and I found myself snoozing well past dusk. When I pushed myself out of the coffin, swiping sleep from my eyes, something—or rather, some one —made me stop short.

“Indira.”

She lounged in an armchair a few feet away, her dark satin skirts brushing the floor as she crossed her legs.

“Why, hello, darling.” Her broad smile was all teeth. Instantly alert, I got to my feet .

“Why are you here?”

The surprise creasing her skin was utterly false.

“What?” she said, placing a hand on her chest in an exaggerated display. “No hello ? No how are you? ”

I reached for my discarded shirt, tugging it back over my chest.

“We both know you don’t appreciate niceties,” I said, a strange sensation pricking my throat.

“True.” She shrugged, falling back onto the worn leather. “I always underestimate how well you know me, sweetling.”

Darling. Sweetling.

My hackles rose.

Suspicion coiled in my gut.

Her words were falsely laced with honey—a teeth-numbing sweetness meant to mask their true bitterness. The rhythm of Indira’s speech was familiar to me. When she spoke like this with measured pauses and careful inflections, I knew something was amiss… I simply needed to figure out what.

It boiled down to one thing: I didn’t trust her. I never have.

A hundred and fifty years ago, she’d changed me without consent, and every day since, she’d lorded her generosity over my head. Vampyrism had offered me a better life, one far away from familiar poverty and disease.

But it hadn’t been my choice to be born to darkness.

It had been hers.

A glance at the clock told me it was far later than I’d expected. As the minute hand ticked away noisily, I speared Indira with a look.

“I assume this isn’t some sort of social visit,” I said. “If so, you could have simply waited until I got home. ”

“Ah.” She rearranged her skirts with one hand. “But that would be too late.”

“Too late for what?” I asked, my fingers fighting with a pearl button that had never given me trouble before.

“To stop you, of course.”

I paused with my shirt half-done.

She was composed—too composed. Her lips curled just so , like she was holding back the punchline to a joke only she understood.

She knew something. I was sure of it.

But how much did she know?

“Oh, come now, Jinn,” she said, propping her chin on an upturned palm. “You didn’t think you could keep anything from your mother, did you?”

I chose to say nothing as my stomach turned.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t know what you were planning to do?”

Her eyes met mine, and I fought the instinct to look away. I had known her for years. Long enough to recognize the tricks she played. Long enough to understand that if I looked away right now, she would think she had won.

“Have you been keeping an eye on me?”

She watched as I ran a hand through my hair.

“I don’t have to,” she said with the same sweet smile. “I have friends who tell me what I need to know.”

“You’re not stopping me, Indira,” I said, my voice as steady as I could manage.

“Aren’t I?” she pondered aloud.

“This is my last chance to get Belle back. Do you have any idea how important this is?”

“So you’ve said about a thousand times over.” She rolled her eyes and pointed to the armchair across from hers. “Have a seat. Let’s talk.”

I glanced at the clock again and shook my head .

“I don’t have time right now.”

That was my first mistake. Saying no to Indira was akin to stepping on a rattlesnake: stupid and dangerous.

I had never seen her react well to boundaries, and she wasn’t going to start today.

Magick sparked in the air, cold and acrid, making my nostrils twitch as it curled around me. My shadows reacted quickly, rising with a crackle.

“Nuh uh, none of that,” Indira chided, flicking her manicured fingers in my direction.

With a violent snap, I was pulled through the air like a ragdoll. My shadows screamed in my ears, their high-pitch keening making my teeth grit painfully.

She lassoed me to the armchair as she rose, tipping my head up to meet hers.

My ribs strained against her magick, trying to break free. But I knew, deep in my belly, that Indira was stronger. She’d always been stronger. And she knew it.

“We don’t need to have a problem, Jinn,” she said, the tips of her nails dragging over my shoulder and slipping into the open collar at my neck.

Mother of God.

Her magick pierced my flesh like hot needles, burrowing deep into my nerves. My muscles clenched involuntarily and my shadows whimpered, spasming as they struggled to retreat but found that they couldn’t. Not like this.

She uttered a string of words I didn’t recognize and a tendril of white-hot pain slithered into my veins, sinking into my bones.

As she spoke again, I recognized the sensation that had pricked the back of my throat minutes before: foreboding. I should’ve run while I still could.

“Belle chose death for a reason, Jinn,” she said, her voice a saccharine purr. “Let her go. It’s best for all of us.”