Page 7 of Hidden Sacrifice
Guess my fox had a new power.
CHAPTER3
JAX
Storming back into the cabin, I immediately began pacing. There wasn’t enough space in this fucking house for all these people.
Justice sat at the table, and immediately, a glass of poison appeared. It was like nothing phased him. Panic at the thought of losing her gripped me twice today. My mind completely forgot she was a demonling. It would have been my fault if something had happened to her when I broke through the ancient spells.
“I need to go back to the palace for a while. Get everyone patched up here,”I mentally announced to the group before bolting through the door, heading straight for the castle.
My knuckles wrapped against the door loudly. If she didn’t answer the door in ten seconds, I would scream Shakespeare into her mind.
Shuffling sounded on the other side of the door. “Give me a fucking second, Jax.”
Aggie opened the doors, her long black hair spilling down her back. She was covered in black inked runes from the neck down; most of them were inked by her own hand. She looked like the biker girls you find in the mortal realms. She acted like one too.
Aggie has always been like a younger cousin to me. She was Pride’s youngest daughter, which in a way made us actual cousins. Other than our parents not having the same blood, they were all just Lucifer’s creations.
“Now, what has your boxers all twisted up like a werewolf on a lunar eclipse?” Aggie asked as she looked me over. I hadn’t even changed after a fucking house fell on top of me; I could imagine the scene she was seeing.
“Just let me in; I have a lot to tell you,” I said into her mind. Aggie was one of the only demons outside the pack I could call my friend. She knew my preference for speaking inside her mind.
I burst through the threshold, and she squeezed out of the way to avoid having me brush against her. I was thankful for that. Of course, she has touched me far more than most since she does all my runes.
Her house was modern. Square designs and an open floorplan that opened to a large, windowed wall that faced outward, toward the beyond. I spent so much time traveling from doorway to doorway I often forgot what hellscape looks like. Particularly here on ring one. Ring nine, where the hunting cabins were, is mostly wilderness.
I took a seat on her leather couch. She always sat on the chair with her legs tucked under herself. Hellfire blazed in the fireplace, casting a warm glow in her otherwise sterile house.
I told Aggie all about the spells I had broken through at the manor. They were ancient, but there was no mistaking a demon made them. Which one? I didn’t have the faintest idea. And the fact that they were holding soul fragments made absolutely no sense. A typical demon could hold three fragments in a rune, for pet creation. Why a demon would need to stockpile so many fragments escaped my imagination.
“Maybe they were trying to build a warrior dragon army. Think about it, Jax,” Aggie said, throwing a spellbook on the coffee table in front of me, opened to a page on hordes.
“Why would a demon need a horde? We have off-seasons for hunting because we are so effective.”
“What if a demon was bored?” Aggie shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know, Aggie. It’s probably nothing; keep it about your mind when flipping through books.”Running my fingers through my hair dislodged more debris around me.
“When are you bringing her to meet me?” Aggie had been hounding me about bringing Mor to meet her ever since she found out I had a mate.
“Guess I’ll have to bring her by soon, before I meet an untimely end at this rate.”
Aggie rolled her eyes at me, “you don’t have to be so dramatic about it.”
I gave Aggie a sad smile in return. It was time to go.
I left for my wing of the palace, feeling slightly more in control. I worried about Mor all the fucking time. The sensation of prickling needles danced across my neck whenever I thought about her in danger. It was uncomfortable, and I needed something more familiar for a while.
Hell brought me right to my gallery, as I intended. I frequently woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of deafeningly loud static in my ears. On those nights when my thoughts and worries buzzed, I got up to come to my gallery and sat at the piano. Or at least I had until I slept in Mor’s bed with her and the others. I put a telepathic wall up all night to deflect random touches, but I couldn’t remember the last time I slept so well.
My long dexterous fingers hovered above the keys. I didn’t know how to play. I couldn’t play any instrument, for that matter. No matter how hard I tried to learn, I couldn’t do it. I gave up on that dream long ago, but I kept the piano as a reminder of my failings.
“Can I come in?”Morrigan’s voice drifted into my mind.
“Come into my mind or come into the room with me, Babe?”
“Come into the room. I’m standing outside the door.”
