Page 75 of Tainted Gifts
"I like the way you said that," he murmurs before kissing me softly, and then he laces our fingers together.
You mean the way I thought that.
He laughs, nodding after. "It's not often I get to just be me. In all actuality, I'm all hybrid," he whispers, escaping the ears of all others. "I'm just a different kind of hybrid."
You're my hybrid and I'm yours.
He stops walking, turning to face me as he pulls me to his halted stance. "I really hope that's true because I've never ached like I did when I thought I lost you forever. Don't bring me in and force me to endure losing you that way a second time. I won't survive it."
I feel like an ass now. I know he's so worried I'm just confused, but Kellan is the only thing that confuses me. I know what I don't feel for him, and I know what I'm supposed to feel. With Jase, I know exactly how I feel at all times.
"Let's focus on interrogating," he says as we head into the elevator.
Simone has gone on ahead, apparently not wanting to eavesdrop on our conversation. I'm glad. I hate seeing her even look at Jase.
When we reach the room, Simone is propped up outside the soundproof room. She puts out a cigarette quickly when she sees us, and I frown. She only smokes when she's upset. I've only ever seen her smoke after her parents and my dad passed on.
"You guys ready," she says, swiping at the lingering smoke to fan it away.
"Yeah," Jase murmurs while knocking.
No one answers, so Jase leans in, listening to the silence. "Fuck. She's hurt."
He kicks the door open, bending the heavy metal with too much ease before we rush in. He must have read her mind because there's no way he heard through these thick walls. I couldn't even hear.
My mouth falls open when I see a woman who has been gagged and then bound to a chair. Her throat is slashed, bleeding profusely. Her body is mangled from a terrible beating, and her head is tossed back, very little life left in her eyes.
"Shit," Jase says while glancing at his phone. "This city is organic and Mel and them took our blood in case of trouble. They didn't think we'd need it since this was supposed to be a friendly grill session."
"Organic?" I squeak, freaking out a little. "As in no packaged blood? What the hell? We can't let her die."
I could bleed for her. I could let her heal off me in order to find out anything on these assholes. We need her.
"No," Jase says. "You can't... not for forty-eight hours. I'll... fucking shit. I'll do it."
No! Hell no.
"Aria, we don't have a choice right now. If she can give us anything at all-"
Before he can finish, he's interrupted by the sound of blood pouring. I look over to see Simone pushing her own blood into the mouth of the full blood.
"Fuck, Simone!" Jase blares. "She's full blood. Your blood is-"
I cover his mouth, realizing the door has been left a gaping hole and everyone can hear.
Her blood isn't poison. Don't let anyone know she's hybrid right now. Simone has secrets too.
Simone's eyes shift to be paler, just like her mother's once did, and then they bounce back to cosmic blue. Ty's experiments left her a new breed of hybrid as well, the feared kind. Simone's body was eventually restored, but not before she conceived Simone.
I can't believe she just did this. They'll kill her if they find out, and that woman will know she's not human or full blood. Full bloods can't heal full bloods, and humans are weaker in a blood fuck.
The woman rouses from her almost dead state, and her blood bringers emerge, breaking the flesh of Simone's milky white skin on her shoulder.
The long dark hair of the woman is matted with blood, her face is streaked with it, and suddenly her lips are on Simone as the wound on her neck seals.
Jase turns away just as things start crashing to the ground, and he pulls me out into the hall way, looking around.
"What are you doing?" I whisper.
