Zack had been born a wolf, lived with that superhuman strength all his life. Nothing he broke could be by mistake. But in her position, Jay would probably have to turn it around too, if only because the knowledge was terrifying, and accepting it unthinkable.
He took a deep breath. “I didn’t say that, and it’s not about the table. You know it isn’t.”
“I know. It’s about what we have to do, and what we can live with.” Pain twisted her features, a sad echo of the agony trembling across their bond. But even now he could feel her pulling away. Fighting to put up walls, to block him from her heart. “I can’t stand by and let you kill him. I can’t live with that.”
The new distance between them hurt, but Jay hid it behind the blankest mask he could manage. “It isn’t a subjective matter, Eden. Zack has been putting as much space between him and the rest of us as possible, but it’s not enough. If he keeps on the way he has been, at some point, he’ll become too dangerous.”
“Then I’ll find a way to stop it.” She turned her back on him and tipped the box upright, as if the conversation was over. “I’ll have the dining table from my house brought over tomorrow.”
“Eden, don’t.”
“Don’t what? Make plans to fix the things that are broken?”
“No, you—” Don’t push so hard you push him away. Don’t blame yourself if you can’t change things. Don’t get hurt. “Nothing. You do what you have to do.”
She picked up a framed photograph of her and her father standing with Zack at his graduation and shook the broken glass free. It bounced on the floor with a sad clink. “I’m not a helpless little girl anymore. I’m not going to let him get hurt this time.”
And the demons plaguing Zack were the same plus some, death and destruction and the kind of failure Eden could only now begin to suspect existed. “Let me help you.”
“You can get the broom,” she said, her voice devoid of any emotion. Flat and careful, as smooth a mask as her face. She was good at pretending.
“Damn it, I’m not talking about the glass.” But she’d already placed the broken frame in the box and started for the door. Jay raised his voice. “Just stop for a second and listen.”
She hesitated in the doorway. “I don’t know if I can take many more words right now. I’ve made a lot of hasty decisions today already.”
Take your own advice, dumbass. Don’t push. “All right. Okay.”
Tears brightened her eyes, but she didn’t ask for comfort. She turned her back on him and walked away.
Her sadness lingered longer than her anger, and it wrapped around him as he grabbed the broom and began to sweep the glass from the floor. He could have waited, hidden the truth from her. Pretended Zack was fine, that Jay had never seen the flashes of desperation in his eyes, never listened to his pleas for mercy and offered his promise to handle things.
In the end, Jay didn’t have to pull the trigger. It was the sort of work Colin had taken upon himself so many times before, eliminating threats with brutal efficiency. Except it was killing him, bit by bit, and having him take on what was rightly Jay’s responsibility could only push him farther down the path to losing his soul, and maybe even his mind.
No. Eventually, Jay would have had to stand before Eden and have this same conversation. Better now than later. Now, when the cut could be quick and clean.
Mostly.
Chapter Fourteen
Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.
The word pulsed with every step she took, a self-loathing refrain pounding in her head. Unshed tears stung her eyes and formed a lump in her throat. She took the long way around the house because she didn’t know what to do when she reached the barn. She’d left half of the contents of her box strewn across the dining room floor for Jay to sweep up, and if that didn’t feel like a metaphor for her life right now…
One morning. That was all she’d gotten. One morning of bliss, one morning of freedom, feeling comfortable in her skin and so confident of her place. She’d wanted to believe she’d turned a corner in her life. That this new Eden was the real Eden, awake and unfettered after so many years of making herself small and numb.
Maybe it had all been a haze of adrenaline and good sex, and she’d thrown over her life in the reckless pursuit of something that could only exist a few hours at a time. And that was the good possibility.
The truth burned in her gut like she’d swallowed a hot coal. Zack wasn’t right. At some point during the full moon, she’d slid into the wolf and the wolf had slid into her. She knew things now. She felt them, knowledge that lived in her cells as if she’d been born with it.
Zack wasn’t right. Wasn’t just wounded. He was sick, darkness eating him up from the inside out, and Eden hated Jay for saying the words and hated herself more for knowing they were true.
Not that agreeing with him could change anything. If he put down her cousin—her brother—how could the human parts of her live with him? How could she live with herself, and the parts of her that would undoubtedly approve? She’d be torn down the middle, mired in self-loathing and addicted to the man who’d ripped her in two.
She stopped at the corner of the house and stared at the barn. She’d pushed Jay last night. Scratched at him, challenged him, skated along the line between violence and sex because there had been something thrilling in the game. Something necessary to satisfy her baser needs.
Such a delicate balance, and it could go so horrifyingly wrong. What would it take to push them off that edge, to stumble over the line from sweet games of power to the sort of nightmare Kathy and Albus had lived out on this farm? Violence and passion, rage and lust.
Maybe it could never happen. Maybe it would only take one step.
Shivering, Eden hurried past the porch and strode toward the barn. Neither of them would take that step. She’d give him up before she became her uncle. Cut out her own heart if she had to. Cut out his too. Better numb and alone than destroying each other and everyone around—
“I don’t want you to fight. I want you safe. I f**king need you safe. When you say this shit, you’re not making it better. You’re giving me one more reason to get the hell away from you.”
It was Zack’s voice, drifting from around the edge of the barn, and Eden froze as Kaley answered.
“Is that what I’m supposed to do? Go away, just not too far?”
Eden could hear the tears in the girl’s voice. Her already battered heart broke in half as Zack whispered Kaley’s name, full of pain and regret, and Eden had to move, because she couldn’t listen to any more of this and couldn’t let Zack say the words he wouldn’t be able to take back.
“No,” Kaley continued. “At some point, I’ll have to leave. I won’t be able to—”
Eden reached the edge of the barn, and Kaley’s words cut off in a gasp. When she stepped around in sight of them, Kaley drew away and turned, folding her arms around her body, and Zack jerked around, his eyes going wide. “Eden.”
“Sorry,” she said, forcing her voice to sound casual. “I was bringing this stuff out to the barn to sort through later and I heard voices.”
“I was going for a run anyway.” Kaley kicked off her shoes and picked them up. “I’ll be back late.”
“Don’t go too far,” Eden warned her. “Jay doesn’t want any of us running on our own after dark right now. If you want a long run, you could see if Colin or Shane wants to go.”
“Fine,” she muttered, already brushing past Eden. “Whatever.”
Eden fought a flinch and turned back to Zack. “I’m sorry.”
He laughed, strangled and hoarse. “Christ.”
“I didn’t hear very much.” Enough to know he’d probably hope she hadn’t heard more. “Are you all right?”
“I screwed everything up,” he said calmly. “For them, and now for you too.”
The calm was almost as chilling as the outburst in the dining room. “You haven’t screwed anything up, Zack. Even if you could take it all back… God, I hate everything that brought you here, but I like being a wolf. I like how I feel now.”
He nodded, his gaze fixed on a point past her shoulder.
“Zack. Look at me.”
He did, but his eyes didn’t focus. He was looking at her, but he didn’t see her. “If I hit a skid, Jay knows what to do. I took care of that already.”
Her heart froze. “Don’t say that. Jay is the only thing—” The lump was back. She had to squeeze the words out past it. “I think I love him, Zack. If you hadn’t come back, I never would have known. And if he has to—it won’t matter.”
He snapped into focus then. “Yes, it will. Damn it, Eden, don’t toss him over stupid shit like that.”
“Stupid shit?” Her temper slipped as she slammed the box to the ground. “You don’t get to tell me your life is stupid shit. You may not value it, but you have to deal with the fact that the rest of us do.”
Zack swallowed a growl. “Why would—”
The earth shook. Eden’s stomach dropped out, through her feet and into the earth, taking her equilibrium with it. For a moment, she felt like the ground was sucking everything out of her—oxygen, balance, the ability to think. She blinked at Zack, but all she could make out was a blur of him pressing a hand to his head.
It hit her a moment later. Screaming, a warning that rang not across the still night but inside her head.
“Magic,” Zack muttered. “Fuck. Did Stella set up something, an early-warning spell in case someone shows up?”
“I don’t know.” Eden’s human mind was still rattled, but the wolf rose to steady her as she turned and started for the house. “We need to find out.”
By the time she made it to the front of the house, Jay and Stella were out in the yard. Fletcher stood on the porch at the little house, ushering the latest refugees from Memphis out the door.