Page 69 of Cold Foot Curse

Bum. Bum. Bum. Bum.

I’m so sorry. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was. How she regretted that she was ruining his life. She wanted to make him understand, but she couldn’t speak in this form. Some shifters could, but it wasn’t a power she possessed.

“She’s going to kill you,” Tawk said low to Kade.

“I’ll be all right,” Kade said flippantly.

“No, you don’t get it, man,” Tawk said, lifting the locket higher. “This is your death sentence.”

“I’ll take that,” he said, approaching him. “I’m taking her home. She’ll want the locket.”

“Home,” Tawk said over the sound of Jess’s snarling as she paced the cage.

Tawk! Get him to leave!

Tawk didn’t do his job though. He didn’t get Kade to leave. Instead, he stood and handed Kade the locket. The broken chain necklace dangled from Kade’s closed fist.

Kade was touching his death, and the thought of it made Jess sick to her stomach. She had to Change! She had to explain to him! She had to make him do something unforgiveable. Something awful. Sleep with another woman, or tell his Crew her secrets, or slap her or something! She needed to fall out of love with him right now, not be saved by him again.

He was making it worse. The locket was calling to her.Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.Was it humming faster? She thought so.

Kade, you have to go away!

Shit, she needed to Change, but when she closed her eyes and tried, nothing happened. Nothing at all. When Jess opened her eyes, Kade was crouched near the bars, and Tawk was nowhere to be found.

“It’s going to be okay,” Kade said, but he didn’t understand. He didn’t understand any of this!

Jess charged but stopped just short of the bars. She didn’t want to hurt him. She just wanted him to know she needed to talk to him and make him understand.

“Hey,” he said, eyebrows lifting as he leveled her with a look. “You have to trust me. Everything is going to be okay.” There was steel somberness to his tone that she didn’t understand.

Kade was wrong. Nothing was going to be okay.

“I’m going to take you to Wreck’s Mountains. Can you Change? If not, it’s okay, I have a trailer, but if you can Change, it’s easier. I can hug you.”

And God, the temptation. If she could Change, she would. So much had happened in such a short amount of time, and the idea of melting into his embrace felt like everything. She wanted to cry and roar at the same time.

She closed her eyes again and tried. She tried and tried until she was panting. She sauntered to the back of the cage, agitated. She tried again. And again.

“Okay. It’s okay,” Kade murmured. “Can you stop putting my animal to sleep?” he asked softly. “I have to be able to get us out of here in one piece. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

She hadn’t even realized she was putting his animal to sleep though, and she definitely didn’t know how to turn it off. He wanted to be able to protect them with his rhino if it came to that, and she got it. Tawk would be telling the entirety of Sister’s Edge that Kade was here right now to take her away.

Who knew what Derek would do, or hell, even Connor. One-handed or no, he had rage and vengeance behind him now.

She tried to focus on pulling the tendrils of power back into herself, but just like her inability to Change back to her human form, she couldn’t control herself. Frustrated, she paced the cage, needing to move. There was no tingle in her skin of an imminent Change, no compromise from the animal, but that was to be expected. She’d been trapped for a very long time. Was it her fault? Jess had blamed the loss of her animal on the car accident, but was it? Or was her animal put to sleep with her own powers, and she hadn’t even realized what was happening?

Another wave of anger at her mother washed through her. She hadn’t taught her anything about herself, or her powers, or her lineage.

“It’s no good,” Kade whispered, watching her. His eyes held a somberness that she interpreted as disappointment, and it made her even angrier with herself.

Bum, bum, bum, bum.

That damn locket was pulsing in his clenched fist, calling to her, pointing out the mistakes her ancestors made, and Kade would be the one to pay.

She paced and paced, not knowing what to do.

It was Kade’s whispered words that halted her. “I’m sorry,” he said, and the look in his eyes held a hundred ghosts.

---