Page 33 of Hidden Sacrifice
I clung to him as the blood pooled in my mouth, washing down my throat. My entire body rushed with tingles, and I screamed out my orgasm, taking Justice with me as we collapsed against the slab.
“Did you like the dungeon, Fox?” Justice asked, panting with a massive smile across his face.
“You can bring me here anytime, Justice.”
CHAPTER11
JASPER
Iwas pouring through the folders without distractions from the others, finally allowing my mind to notice a troubling pattern. I made a stack of all the lowest point cases. One name continued to pop up as the reporting demon: Fachnan. I had no idea who the fuck that was.
Fachnan had written the report for the house with all the fractures stored inside the cellar. And at least a hundred other cases. That was not normal. Sometimes the recon demons, which tended to be the low-powered ones, would be featured on several initial reports. Something about this was off. I could feel it in my soul. Now that I had some time to myself, I planned on getting to the bottom of this. Fucked up reports put everyone in danger.
Scrubbing my hand across my face, I felt the frustrations beginning to bottle up inside me, reaching maximum capacity. I needed to take a break. Picking up my phone, I called Ryan.
“Hey Jasper, what’s up?” Springfield answered instead of Ryan.
“Been feeling a little out of sorts lately; any chance you, Ryan or Zeb want to go to the arena with me?” I wasn’t even sure if watching other demons beat each other bloody would satiate me at this point. Still, I needed to do something other than sitting around this damn cabin all day.
“Don’t you have a mate to fuck or something?” Springfield asked, laughing.
I sighed as I began to pace the room a little, “I don’t think she would appreciate me taking out all my aggression on her.” I hadn’t heard much from Mor since she returned to the palace with Justice. Just the occasional check-in with updates on all she had learned so far. We should have thought to teach her and Jace about the different types of ghosts before we went on a hunt. It made me feel even more upset that we didn’t consider that.
“Maybe she will like it more than you can imagine. I mean, she is your mate. She should be what you need, if the stories are anything to go by.” The slight edge in his tone wasn’t personal. Springfield always had a difficult time finding a long-term partner.
“She is perfect.” A growl sounded in my chest.
I could hear Springfield’s low laugh through the speaker. “I’m sure she is. Instead of heading off to the arena, why don’t you come out to DÆD with us tonight? A bunch of other packs are going, and I think some of the other princes will be there.”
A night at DÆD sounded perfect, especially if I could get Justice to bring Mor out for some fun. Justice could keep my war in check, and maybe I’d get to blow off just enough steam to put a bottle in my pent-up frustrations. “Yeah, I’ll be there. It might be more than just me; we will see.”
“So, there is trouble in paradise,” Springfield laughed.
“Not with that part, no. I’ve just been having trouble with some cases, and I can’t quite figure them out,” I said, grumbling that this was taking so much of my time. These low cases were supposed to be easy entry-level type hunts.
“Why don’t you come over to our hunting cabin and bring along the cases. We can look them over until dusk.” Springfield said it so simply like it wasn’t a bother to talk cases with him.
“I’ll be over in a bit,” I grunted, ending the call. Why couldn’t my pack stop bickering long enough to have an intelligent conversation about hunts and cases?
I packed up all the cases by the mysterious demon. They filled a backpack to the point where the zipper wouldn’t even close fully. I had to hold the bag in front of me with both hands to carry it. Grumbling, I set out on foot toward the other cabins.
My hand came up to knock on the door to cabin 24, but it opened, and my fist connected with Springfield’s face. I could hear the distinct crack as his nose broke and blood flowed down his lip.
Springfield lifted his hand to readjust his nose, causing a second crack as he rebuffed it. It would have only taken Hell a few more minutes to shift it back into place. He wiped the blood on the back of his hand and then on his pants before smiling at me. “Hey, Jasper. Feel any better?”
Honestly, I did. I wasn’t sure if it was because of hitting Springfield or just having a friendly smiling face to talk to. “Yeah. Thanks again for saying you’ll look at these files. They’ve been driving me insane for the past few days.”
Springfield stepped back into the cabin, leaving the doorway free for me to enter. Their house was situated like our own; only they would have one bedroom full of single beds. He led us to the table; their current hunt hung from the wall with notes and drawings attached to the sides. It looked like they were hunting a poltergeist.
“Hey Jasper, glad you called,” Ryan said, coming in wearing nothing more than a towel. His blonde hair was soaking wet; clearly, he had just gotten out of the shower. He shook his head wildly, splashing water all over me as I tried to shield myself behind my arms.
“Missed you more a minute ago,” I said with easy laughter. At least the towel hadn’t fallen off while he swung around like that.
“I’ll go grab Zeb, tell him to hurry it up and get out here.” Ryan went back toward the bedroom.
“Start laying them out, Jasper. Zeb doesn’t hurry a shower for anyone, and he just got in there,” Springfield said, rolling his eyes.
I hauled the backpack onto the table, and I started to pull out the folders by the handful. The pile large enough to slump over in the middle, sending the folders sprawling.
