Page 58 of Feeding Frenzy

I grabbed his arm and shook him.

“Jaxon Crimson.”

Asher settled in the bed next to me until his thigh was flush against mine.

“Whatever happened left a mark on him,” he said. I scrunched my nose and looked at my hands on my lap. “Want to tell me about it?”

“Not really,” I mumbled. I squeezed my hands tight together. I sighed. “Nothing you wouldn’t expect. She broke my bones. Laughed about it. Ordered him to do some things to me.” I rubbed my intact fingers. The remembered agony was shrouded behind a foggy layer.

“Did she force him to fuck her in front of you?”

My heart jumped and my fingers curled into a fist. I turned to look at him, my eyebrows furrowed, and fangs extended from the gum.

“Since she’s been back, did she do that to you . . .?” I trailed off.

His eyes widened.

“I did nothing with her. Nor did Jaxon. But it was coming. That’s why the others and I paid a visit to Calliope. After her little stunt, forcing me to watch the orgy, it would have headed that way, if we did nothing.”

The crippling fear that prickled over my nerves made me want to lash out. I’d thought being emotional was supposed to go away with becoming a vampire, not feel more intense. I forced my fangs back in and licked my lips. I needed to distract myself before I crumpled on the ground at the idea of Imogen forcing the twins to do things they didn’t want to.

The encroaching freak-out faded into the background much faster than I’d ever been able to calm myself down and I compartmentalized it.

So, I felt things stronger, but I could distract myself easier, got it.

“And what did you need from Calliope?”

“A favor.”

I lifted an eyebrow. That wouldn’t fly anymore. Asher pursed his lips and nodded. “We wanted her to take Imogen in. Then there was an attack on Saphire Lounge.” An attack right when they met up with her?

“Imogen must have planned it.” It was too perfect. All of it was. She’d had Maddy drug me, then shown up while all the guys were gone. It was definitely a plan. Maddy’s part in the situation hovered on my lips, but if I told them, what would they do to her? She hadn’t been at fault. Maybe I could wait a bit before telling them, and allow their trigger-happy selves to relax a little.

“Of course she did. I should have never let my guard down.” I stiffened, for a moment wondering if I’d spoken about Maddy aloud, but no, he was talking about Imogen.

I could throw it in his face. Yes, Asher shouldn’t have let his guard down, but he’d been too busy trying to keep the peace. Both with getting me not to run out of here like a bat out of hell and with Jax’s mercurial behavior. It couldn’t have been easy for him thinking that Jax would leave with Imogen. I’d believed it, and I was sure he had too.

Jax hadn’t made the assumption any less probable with how he followed after her like a puppy. “If we’d had you instead, maybe we would have an easier time with all these emotions. We became used to feeling nothing. Doing nothing but satisfying our whims and accumulating power and wealth.”

“The wealth is kind of great.” I shrugged. Silver linings, right?

The corner of his lips twitched.

I hadn’t moved my attention away from Jax’s stiff features. His eyes were closed and by what Asher told me; they’d been closed a while. Asher theorized it was because Jax was sinking deeper and deeper into his psyche.

Was he thinking about losing Imogen? Now that she’d done this, it was clear the others would not stay at her beck and call. Did the realization break him? He’d lose something—either his Coven or his woman. If I were him, I wouldn’t want to wake up either.

Thinking about Jax caused the boxed compartment I stuffed my emotions for him into to start opening. I refused to look at it. I didn’t want to poke it with a stick. If I paid attention to it, I would crumple into my sadness.

Once he woke up, he was bound to leave. I rolled my lips inside my mouth. There was the crux of it, I didn’t want that. The box in my chest pulsated. I pressed my palm to my gut. It felt oddly like nausea, but yet, not. So weird. I hadn’t had time to really take stock of the changes to my body.

No longer was I crippled by the attacks that seized my lungs. Just like when I had their blood, but better and permanent. My hearing, sense of smell—everything became advanced. And the blood. My fangs extended from my gums.

Asher raised a blond eyebrow at me.

“That’s kind of embarrassing.”

“Blood-boner, Pet?”

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