Page 80 of Seducing Jenny
I drew her close, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and kissed the top of her head. Rhonda slithered down her body and glided over to Longshot’s waiting arm, sensing her job was done.
I turned to Jenny and asked softly, “How are you feeling?”
“Wobbly. But better, now that I’m in my own skin.” Her voice was still a little rough, but steadier than before. “Mogging back into me made the drugs and venom feel way less intense. Like, a lot.”
I brushed a knuckle down her cheek, glad to have her back and whole again. “Mogging reorders your cells and puts them in the most advantageous position for your health, so it can heal some wounds. I am not surprised it has improved how you feel.Tiger, why don’t you take Jenny to get cleaned up, while we deal with this mess in here?”
Jenny’s brow furrowed. “I should stay and help clean—”
“You should go shower,” I said firmly, giving her no room to argue. “And in case the sedative makes you unstable on the wet floor, I want Tiger with you, okay?”
But her wide brown eyes swept over the blood-slicked lab, her expression pained. “I can’t just leave, Mal. Not after what I did.”
“You can,” Discord interjected haughtily. “And you will. You’re filthy, you smell like a corpse, and that’s not helping the morale in here, girl. Go.” But there was a definite twinkle in her eye that let Jenny know she wasn’t trying to hurt her feelings.
Jenny almost smiled at her, but then sighed heavily. “Alright, I’ll go. But if there is anything I can do, come and get me, okay?”
“I swear,” I said with a smile, knowing that wasn’t going to happen.
As Tiger led her from the lab, a deep breath slipped from me. They needed to get out of here, both of them. It was too much for them to handle, and I wanted them safe.
I turned to my friends. “I do not want the staff to know what happened here. The fewer people who know about this, the fewer people who will figure out what Jenny is. Agreed?”
Without hesitation, Longshot nodded in agreement.
Discord wasn’t so easy to convince. “Don’t you think they have the right to know what she is?”
“No,” I said without remorse. “I do not.”
Discord’s lips pursed with disapproval. “Conduits…you know their history as well as I do, Mal. It’s not that I don’t like Jenny. Honestly, I think she probably has nothing but the best of intentions, but conduits attract trouble. They always have. And if they’re not attracting it, they’re causing it. Even before Justice had all the Ladrian conduits—”
“Shut your mouth,” Longshot said quietly.
She turned on him, eyes blazing, her tone knife sharp. “I know you did not just say that to me.”
He nodded toward me, for her to look in my direction. When she did, she must have seen it on my face. The guilt. The horror. What I had done to all those women.
Her eyes went wide with shock. “I thought…but you…you were too young to be involved—”
My jaw clenched. “Not young enough.”
“You told me it wasn’t you—”
“I told you what I could handle telling you,” I said, looking away out of shame and mumbled to the bloody floor, “I’m sorry that I lied to you, Discord. I…it was right after I had attacked that jackass, Bandolier Gabinul, who had groped you. Or well, I thought he had—”
“You were a hothead. You still are.”
I met her eyes again. “Do you remember how scared you were of me after I beat the shit out of him?”
“I wasn’t scared of you,” she said too quickly, too defensively. “I just…you went overboard with him.”
“We were just teenagers, and you were the closest thing I had to a family back then, Discord. I was not about to let some lecherous little shit hurt my family.”
She gave me a reluctant smile. “If you had seen anyone getting pawed at like that, not just me, you would have done exactly the same thing and defended them.”
“Well, yes, but I had extra reasons to attack him when it came to you, on account of the whole family thing.” I sighed hard. “And after you had seen me beat the shit out of him, you hardly spoke to me for weeks. That’s when—”
She gasped softly, putting the pieces together. “That was when they were executed…”
