Jenna Black - Dark Descendant

“It’s over,” Maggie whispered to me. She was still holding my hand, a very welcome anchor.

“Good,” I said, but I didn’t open my eyes. I knew without a doubt that I would hurl if I did.

The light behind my closed eyelids grew dimmer, and at first I was afraid I was about to pass out. Then I realized someone was dousing the torches.

“I’ll stay with him until he revives,” Logan was saying, and I heard the gathered Liberi starting to stir.

I was tempted to let Maggie lead me out of the clearing without ever opening my eyes, but at the last moment, morbid curiosity got the better of me. Still sure the sight was going to make me hurl, I opened my eyes.

There was a lot of blood, though with the torches doused that blood was black enough I could pretend it was just pools of shadow. Logan had laid Jamaal out on his back, placing the head right up against the neck so that I could almost believe the two were attached.

“He’ll heal,” Maggie reminded me yet again, giving my arm a little pull.

I turned away and followed her back to the house, my stomach unsettled, but so far under control. Despite everything I knew about the Liberi , I would have to see Jamaal up and walking around before I could fully believe he could survive beheading.

The moon was just beginning to rise as Maggie and I headed toward the kitchen. If I were following the plan I’d made during the afternoon, I’d immediately get in my car and go visit a couple of properties. Instead, I made a cup of coffee and parked myself in the kitchen. Logan and Jamaal would almost certainly come back this way when Jamaal was healed. Then, once I’d seen with my own two eyes that he was still alive, I’d be able to concentrate on my hunt enough to have a hope of success.

I sat in that kitchen, drinking coffee and waiting, formore than three hours. I don’t know how many times I halfway convinced myself to go back out to the clearing and see what was going on, but every time I made it to the back door, I changed my mind. If something had gone wrong, if Jamaal was truly dead against all expectations, I didn’t want to know about it until I absolutely had to. There comes a point when you just can’t deal with any more shocks, and I had passed that point a long time ago.

I was so wired on caffeine that I jumped and spilled my coffee when I heard the back door open. Lucky for me, the coffee had gone cold as I held it and stared off into space, so I didn’t burn myself. I put the mug down on the table, then dried my wet hand on the leg of my jeans as I stood up and listened to the approaching footsteps.

Logan went by first, the sword belted to his side, though I’d seen no sign of the scabbard earlier. He gave me an unfathomable look as he passed by, not stopping for a friendly conversation. He’d voted to expel Jamaal, but I got the feeling he resented me for putting him in the role of executioner—though maybe that was just my own guilt speaking.

Jamaal did not look good, though he looked far better than he had the last time I’d seen him. A bloody, bruised scar circled his neck where his head had somehow reattached itself to his body, and there was dried blood caked in his hair and on his shirt. More dried blood mixed with dirt speckled his face, and behind that blood his skin was unnaturally pale.

He came to a stop when he saw me, swaying on his feet and grabbing onto the doorjamb to steady himself. I took a couple of steps forward. Maybe I was a fool to dismiss him as a threat because of his current condition, but it was obvious from the tightness at the corners of his eyes that he was still in pain, and I knew from personal experience how weak the supernatural healing made you.

“Do you need a hand?” I asked him, because even if I didn’t feel threatened at the moment, I didn’t think touching him without his permission was the best idea in the world.

His eyes widened at the suggestion, and he swayed a little more. I hoped he wasn’t about to fall down, because I knew for a fact I wasn’t strong enough to get him back up if he did.

“Thanks,” he said, and he didn’t even sound sarcastic. “I think I need a rest before I tackle the stairs.”

Why Logan wasn’t helping him was anyone’s guess, since it was clear he was still in bad shape. Maybe he was in Logan’s doghouse, though why Logan should get mad on my account or even on Steph’s, I didn’t know. I’d had only the briefest interactions with him since we’d met, and as far as I knew, he’d never even set eyes on Steph.

Doing my best to ignore the blood, I draped Jamaal’s arm over my shoulders and supported him to the nearest chair. He was built of solid muscle, and the operation would have been a heck of a lot easier if I were bigger and stronger—like, say, Logan. However, I managed to get him into the chair without either of us going down in a heap. He closed his eyes and breathed hard from the exertion. He’d probably have been better off lying out in the clearing for a little longer, though I supposed that would have been cold and unpleasant.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” I asked. “I made way more than I should drink.”

He opened his eyes, frowning in puzzlement. “Why are you trying to help me? You of all people …”

What could I say? To properly explain, I’d have to lay out my life’s history, and I wasn’t about to do that. Instead, I shrugged in what I hoped looked like a casual manner.

“I’m not the type to hold a grudge. If you’d intended Steph harm, that would be one thing, but I know you didn’t believe me.”

“I intended you harm.” His expression was almost challenging, although I heard no hint of threat in his voice. It occurred to me that he wasn’t very used to people being nice to him or forgiving him and that he was looking for some hidden motive.

“Well I took out your eye, and you just got your head chopped off, so I think that makes us even. Now do you want some coffee or not?”

He opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head like he’d changed his mind. “Yes. Thanks. Black.”

I poured him a mug of the now rather stale coffee, then set it on the table in front of him. That should have been the end of our conversation. After all, I had a plan for the evening, and through the kitchen window I could see the moon, almost full, gleaming in the clear night sky. It was a perfect night for me to go hunting if the moon would indeed help me in some way. Yet I couldn’t just walk out and leave Jamaal sitting here by himself. Not in the condition he was in. I wasn’t sure how he would make it downstairs without falling and breaking his neck—again. So I pulled out a chair and joined him at the table.

Jamaal raised an eyebrow at me, and despite the dried blood and the unnatural pallor of his face, I noticed again how amazingly attractive he was when he wasn’t scowling or frothing at the mouth. He’d be devastating if he ever smiled, which I suspected he hadn’t done often even before Emmitt’s death.

“I’m going to ask Anderson to … give you a stay of execution, for lack of a better term.” The words came out of my mouth without any conscious thought behind them, so that I was almost as startled by them as Jamaal was. I avoided his gaze, staring instead at the coffee I had no intention of drinking. “You’ve been through enough already.” I wasn’t just thinking about tonight’s ordeal, either.

“Don’t bother.”

I looked up again, unable to interpret the tone of his voice. The words sounded brusque, but he wasn’t giving me the evil eye.

“It wouldn’t do any good,” he continued. “He’s not going to reverse his decision. He can’t without looking weak.”

I snorted. “No one who’s known him for more than five seconds would think he’s weak.”