Page 44 of Seducing Jenny
But somehow, he already knew.
“Your father is Ladrian, isn’t he?” he asked quietly.
Her fingers continued stroking her tail as she nodded. “How did you know?”
“You move too well in your Ladrian body,” he said, his gaze taking in her figure, head to feet. “I’ve never seen anyone do so that easily the first time they’ve mogged.”
She took a quick breath, then blurted, “My father is Volatile Bateen.”
Mal reared back, shock etching his features. “Tell me you’re lying.”
“I’m not,” she whispered, a pained look on her face.
He turned to me and demanded, “Tell me she’s fuckinglying.”
I shook my head. “She’s not.”
Seemingly realizing all the implications of that revelation, he tipped his head back and let out a harsh breath. “Fuck.”
“We think that’s why we’re conduits,” Jade said in a quiet voice. “From Volatile’s side of our genetics.”
Mal abruptly stood up and began pacing the length of the corridor outside the cockpit, back and forth, gesturing as though he was having a conversation with someone, but saying nothing out loud to us.
I glanced at Jade. “Should we stop him?”
Worry shimmered in her eyes. “I don’t think so.”
After a couple minutes of that, Mal stopped in the cockpit doorway and stared at both of us. “Any other big reveals?” he asked, his voice gravelly. “Anything else going on that I should know about?”
Jade didn’t hesitate. “Illiamor.”
I frowned, and Mal blinked, both of us confused. “What?” we both asked at the same time.
“At Illiapol,” Jade explained. “I saw Illiamor, right before Mal found me in the river. And there are other ghosts there, too. The other women who lost at Illiapol, their ghosts are trapped near the mountain where the hunting ground is.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around it. All these women stuck…an afterlife wasted and for what? “Why?”
Her lips pursed angrily. “Because their bodies were eaten on Orhon, instead of being taken to Halla for their funeral rites.”
Mal leaned against the wall opposite the cockpit. His face faded from sharp black to murky gray, and he clutched at his stomach. “Moons above, I’m going to be sick.”
He shook his head, looking devastated, then said all the things that had filtered through my own mind but I’d lost the ability to say. “Those women…this whole time. We’ve been dooming them, trapping them on Orhon…never to be a ghost on Halla, never to be born to the ether, never to be reborn in another Ladrian body…just trapped and stuck watching as other women die the same way every year.” He rubbed his temples and muttered, “I think I have your headache.”
Jade offered a soft, sad smile. “I know it’s a lot to process, but I think if we can just—”
“And you’ve been keeping all of this,” Mal snapped. “This whole mess of shit, to yourself this whole time?”
Her bottom lip quivered for a quick moment. “I didn’t know how to tell you about that until you knew I was a conduit—”
“I knew,” I said, folding my arms across my chest, feeling oddly hurt. “I knew you were a conduit. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We…” She seemed at a loss for words. “We had to focus on Mal, and I didn’t…I still don’t know if I can help the ghosts.” Her eyes glittered with tears and when she blinked, they spilled over. “I’m not good at this stuff. Helping other people—that’s what my sisters do. That’s not me. Elizabeth is a nurse, she saves people all the time. And Sarah…well, Sarah was a barista-turned-socialite, but even then, she was trying to make all her new fancy friends do more for charity. She was always trying to make things better for everyone. That’s how my mom was, too, and I…I came out all wrong. I came out selfish.”
“You’re not selfish,” I said, hating that she’d think such a thing.
“Theyknow how to help people, Tiger. I don’t know how to do any of that!” A sob caught in her throat. “I’ve only ever taken care of me. How am I supposed to help all these people?”
I pulled her over to me, and when she was sitting on my lap she immediately curled up against my chest. I held her close and breathed her in, doing my best to soothe her. “You do it like any of us would. You ask for help.”
