Page 33 of True Sacrifice
I’m not sure he understood me because he just stood there. I saw his hands clenching again. He does that a lot when we’re talking. I went into my mind and opened the doorway.
“We can talk in here, if that’s what you prefer,”I breathed. Jax had some issues. I would have to work to earn some trust with him.
“What do you mean you built a door?”His body visibly relaxed. I could see it from where I sat.
“Come in and sit down and I can explain it all to you.”I did not need the other boys waking up to go for a stroll and find a half-naked Jax in my doorway.
Jax nodded as he took a seat at my small table. That was where Jasper had sat last night. I let my mind wander a bit about what happened last night. Jax slammed a fist into the table, startling me from my thoughts. He stared hard at the middle of the table before turning his head slowly towards me.
I grabbed at my sheets, balling them up in my lap. I did, of course, choose a tank top and boy short underwear as pajamas and right now, with that look, I felt entirely exposed. “Sorry, I still have a hard time controlling it when we’re actively talking like this. I don’t know how to change the door into like a walkie-talkie.”
“I should go.” His voice just cut into me. There was just no emotion.
“You knew I would be with them. I don’t get what the big problem is.” He was the one that said no to us before we ever even had a chance. He even told me I could be with anyone in the pack and here he was, running around like a jealous asshole.
He’d already gotten up and headed for the door. Guess we would resume the ‘ignore the problem and hope it goes away’ plan.
“We need to talk about this. You can deny what you’re feeling all you want, but you’re not the only one that feels the bond. So, until you face me, we’re going to continue to live our lives miserable trying so desperately to live a lie.”The hot and cold, the push and pull. I couldn’t do that for all of eternity.
He stopped with a hand on the door, turning back to look at me. “You can’t have an opinion on this.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I lost it, fully lost it. The aim of my pillow was true. Guess trying to throw things at Crowley was a blessing in the end. It tumbled through the air end over end, hitting him right upside the head. Oh shit. The look in his eyes told me to run, so I did. I jumped out of bed, heading straight for my closet. If he followed me, I could use the door that connected into the bathroom to come back out into the room and hopefully into the hallway.
Wait a minute. I’m a fucking ghost demon. I instantly turned invisible, sliding through the walls and into the hallway. I turned and headed down the hallway as fast as my disembodied self would go. Ghost travel wasn’t fast, but at least I was mostly undetectable. I didn’t know where Jax was. I lost sight of him the moment I got out of my room.
I turned and twisted at every available moment, finding myself entirely lost. Good, if I didn’t know where I was, then neither could Jax. My next turn ended in a single doorway waiting for me at the end of the hall. Magical fucking Hell doors. Whatever room was beyond that doorway was exactly where Hell thought I needed to be.
I stepped into a large, dimly lit room. It looked like a giant ballroom. A human mansion type ballroom, not the Hell’s feast type. A piano sat in a corner of the room, slightly raised to the wide-open space. A staircase twisted around and up, revealing a second story which looked full of stuff. My curiosity got the better of me and I found myself unable to resist the pull.
I floated slowly up the steps, taking my time to appreciate the architecture. The railings looked hand carved, depicting a great battle. Scenes of wings, fire, swords, and magic told a tale of four warriors against the entire universe. I watched the story unfold as I ascended, unsure who the victors were when I reached the landing.
The upper level stretched farther into the back than I expected. There were display cases all around, meticulously cared for. Neat row upon row lined the entire space. Various objects sat behind glass, unable to be touched. I knew at once who this room belonged to.
“Why did you come here?” Jax’s voice startled me as he stepped out of the shadows. I hadn’t even heard the door to the room open. He was looking around my general area, but his eyes never settled on me. I was still invisible.
“Hell brought me here. I guess it’s trying to say something.”I didn’t want to give my exact location away. Moving as if I traveled by a draft in the air, I started toward him.
“This room is private. You shouldn’t have even been able to get in,”he grumbled.
I understood it, though. If you have a bunch of private stuff, you keep locked up from other people, it doesn’t exactly make you feel warm and fuzzies when you find someone up in your shit. “I didn’t break in. The door opened right up. I didn’t mean to intrude. But Jax, I have a question for you, a new one, but you have to answer this one.”
“No,”he said, narrowing his eyes, looking around the shadows of the room. I was nearly in front of him now. “I won’t agree to answering a question I haven’t even heard yet.”
Well, I tried at least. “Why don’t you like to be touched?” I whispered, turning my ghost powers off. We were not touching, but just barely. A deep breath from either of us would cause us to touch.
Jax froze, completely staring into my eyes with shock.
“I will not touch you, but I want to know why you don’t like being touched, and I think Hell wanted me to know, too,” I whispered, moving my gaze to all the items locked in glass cages surrounding us.
His hand shot up quickly, grabbing me by the throat. He squeezed lightly, then backed off, simply holding me firmly in his grasp. “I don’t like demons touching me because no one has control over me. No one is worthy of that. I can touch anyone any way that I want. I just don’t want to touch you,” he whispered in my ear. I felt every muscle in my heart contract, fear from Brad resurfacing. Sometimes you thought you got over something, but it still bites you now and again.
No. Something about that wasn’t right. I refused to let it be right. Jax tore a demon’s hand off because he may or may not have touched me. Jax was touching me right now, and it wasn’t the first time. “Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?”I taunted.
“That is how I really feel,”his voice strained. I figured out what was wrong with his normal voice. It had no actual emotions behind it. It muted everything into one passive tone. His mind was free to betray him.
“Then why is your thumb running up and down my neck?”I felt his thumb stop and press into me sharply. I winced as a hiss escaped me, but my eyes never left his. I would heal up in a little while, anyway. That power had gotten much stronger.
“I’m just thinking about how easy it would be to snap your neck,”he mumbled.
