Jenna Black - Dark Descendant

I fought to push back the gray fog that surrounded my mind. Falling to pieces would be the easy way out, and I was never one to do things the easy way. I swallowed the huge, aching lump in my throat and blinked to hold back tears.

Steph was holding her hand out to me, and I shuffled toward her on my knees until I was close enough to take it. Her fingers curled around mine in a surprisingly firm grip.

“Are you okay?” she asked. Her voice was rough and hoarse, either from screaming, from crying, or from being choked nearly to death.

My jaw dropped as I looked at her battered face, at the tears that stained her cheeks. “Am I okay?” I fought a hysterical laugh. After everything Steph had been through, she was worried about me ?

She sniffled and blinked away some tears. “You look like someone shoved you through a paper shredder.”

For a moment, I’d actually forgotten what a wreck I must look. But I would be healed in a few hours, and Steph …

“I’m fine,” I assured her, the sound breaking in my throat as I struggled not to cry.

“You are not. And you have a lot of explaining to do.”

Even in her obvious distress and with her ravaged voice, Steph managed to imbue those words with a tone of command. I wondered if Alexis had revealed his supernatural nature to Steph while he …

I stopped myself from going there, although the question remained in my mind. If his threats were anything to go by, he’d never intended to kill her, figuring that leaving her alive and suffering would hurt me more. But he was an arrogant bastard, and he might have figured she’d be too terrified and traumatized to say anything about any supernatural powers he might reveal.

“Let’s get you taken care of first,” Blake said gently when I took too long to answer. “We can do explanations later.”

“Have you called an ambulance?” I asked Blake.

“No!” he and Steph answered at the same time.

I understood why Blake would object—he was worried about the potential of police getting involved in Liberi business—but if he thought I was going to let him stand in the way of Steph getting the medical care she needed, he was sorely mistaken. I squeezed her hand a little harder.

“You need help, hon,” I said, but Steph shook her head.

“No doctors,” she said firmly. She forced her swollen eyes open enough to meet my gaze squarely. “He didn’t do anything to me that won’t heal on its own in time. And I suspect siccing the police on him would probably get them killed. I don’t know what he was, except that it’s not human.”

Crap. That meant Alexis had spilled at least some of the beans. I wanted to pretend I had no idea what she was talking about, to keep her sheltered from the knowledge of how formidable a foe Alexis was. I wanted to urge her to go to the hospital, to talk to the police, to do all the normal things that a rape victim should do. But I was too run-down to manage it. I might be able to say the words, but I wouldn’t be able to make them convincing.

“We’ll bring her back to the house,” Blake told me. “She’ll be safe there.”

I was too depressed and guilt-stricken to argue. We helped Steph get back into what was left of her dress, and then Blake gave her his tuxedo jacket to cover up in. I retrieved my car from its illegal parking space and pulled up right in front of the door as Blake carried Steph out and bundled her into the backseat.

“I could have walked,” I heard her grumble as Blake climbed in after her. I supposed he’d come back to get his own car some other time.

“But carrying you made me feel less useless,” he said.

I glanced at his face in the rearview mirror, then had to look away from his raw expression. He couldn’t know Steph very well, but despite my earlier suspicions, it seemed obvious he genuinely cared about her. And that he felt almost as guilty as I did about failing her.

I drove back tothe mansion in a daze. Steph lay curled in the backseat, her head once again on Blake’s lap as he soothed and petted her. Her tears had dried up long ago, but I knew there would be more to come. The wounds Alexis had inflicted on her psyche were far worse than the physical pain, and I wished like hell I were still a mortal so I could have the pleasure of killing him.

Blake called Anderson while we were en route, giving him an update. I couldn’t hear anything Anderson said over the phone, of course, but I swear I could sense his anger. I wasn’t sure who he was angry with, and I wasn’t sure I cared. I did my best to retreat into a numb sense of unreality, not ready to deal with the emotions that roiled within me.

When we got to the house, Blake once again insisted on carrying Steph, despite her protests that she could walk. Maybe it made him feel better to be gallant, though I couldn’t help noticing how she curled into him, her arm slung around his neck, her head resting just below his chin. Protests aside, it seemed she needed the comfort, too. Maybe he was doing it for her sake after all. I raced ahead to hold the front door for him, then followed him into the entryway and came to a dead stop.

Anderson was waiting there for us, and he wasn’t alone. Jamaal stood beside him, his eye thoroughly bandaged. I expected him to be in a towering rage after what I’d done to him. Instead, he took one look at Steph’s battered form as she cuddled against Blake’s chest, and lowered his head in what looked a hell of a lot like shame.

The rage I’d been fighting since the moment I’d seen what Alexis had done to my sister came boiling up through my chest. It was all I could do not to hurl myself at Jamaal and try to scratch his other eye out.

“Take her upstairs,” Anderson ordered Blake, who nodded and headed toward the grand staircase. “Not you,” Anderson continued when I made to follow Blake.

“But—” The look in Anderson’s eyes made me swallow my protest. I didn’t want to let Steph out of my sight, but a part of me knew my own emotional turmoil might do her more harm than good. The last thing she needed was to worry herself over my well-being after what she’d been through, and she was enough of a mother hen to do it. Curling my hands into fists, I stayed where I was and watched as Blake carried her upstairs.

Slowly, I turned back to Anderson and Jamaal. Jamaal still stood with his head bowed, his shoulders hunched like he was trying to make himself smaller. Maybe he sensed me looking at him, because he raised his head and met my gaze for a moment. The expression in his unbandaged eye was bleak. He opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head and returned his gaze to the floor.

“There are no words,” I thought I heard him say under his breath.

One thing I can say for Jamaal, he’s no actor. I doubted he could fake remorse if his life depended on it, and I knew what I was seeing was genuine. He had convinced himself every word out of my mouth was a lie, and therefore he had never believed holding me up would actually hurt anyone but me. Now that he was faced with the truth, his malice had drained away.

He might be genuinely sorry for what he’d done, but that didn’t do Steph any good, and therefore I didn’t give a damn.

“Tomorrow morning at nine,” Anderson said to Jamaal, his voice cold steel, “we will hold a tribunal in my study to determine your punishment.” Jamaal nodded his acceptance without looking up. “You’ll spend the night downstairs.” In one of the cells, I presumed. “Go. Now.”

Jamaal bowed from the waist and, still keeping his gaze fixed on the floor, backed out of the room and away. It was as submissive a gesture as I’d ever seen, and it made me wonder just what kind of punishment this tribunal might sentence him to. For all that I was nominally a part of Anderson’s merry band, I didn’t know all that much about them.