Blood Instinct (28 page)

‘
H
ow is she
?’ Sophia asked.

Leila joined them at the table, taking a seat to Sophia’s right and directly opposite Jask. ‘She’s finally sleeping.’

Leila ran her hands back through her hair, sighing heavily as she lowered her head into them, her elbows resting on the table. Eventually, she dropped her hands onto the surface before reaching for Sophia’s, giving the one closest to her a gentle squeeze. ‘And you?’

Jask knew what the reassurance of her sister’s touch, the acceptance it indicated, would mean to her.

Sophia shrugged, Jask knowing further explanation wasn’t required. They all knew the mess they were in.

After getting Sophia something warm and sweet to drink, after leaving her with Jessie and Solstice, he’d headed down to Leila and Alisha’s room to explain the full extent of what had happened. Alisha had been too distressed to listen but Leila had been a sponge for the facts.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised if Jake’s assumptions are right,’ Leila said. ‘This stinks of Feinith.’ She rubbed her hand across her mouth as she held back her tears. She looked back at Jask. ‘All he’s going to see is his dead brother. Did you know a serryn murdered his older brother?’

‘Kane once mentioned the rumours to me.’

Kane, who he’d still had no contact with since he’d stormed out of the tunnel.

‘Feinith knows
exactly
what she’s doing.’ Leila lowered her head before looking back at Sophia, then to Jask. ‘You need to warn your pack. You let a serryn loose in Blackthorn. You let it kill his brother. He’ll be coming for you now.’

‘Then I need to be the one to go to him,’ Sophia said. She looked back at Jask. ‘I need to absolve you.’

‘And take my young you’re carrying with you?’

‘It’s out of the question,’ Leila said.

‘So is letting you go in there now,’ Jask said, meeting and holding Leila’s gaze. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

Jask looked back to Sophia, who was clutching her downturned head, her elbows on the table. Because Sophia knew it too – and that was as much about why she’d suggested she go in as anything else.

He leaned back in his chair, his arms folded as he stared up at the ceiling. When the door opened, he expected to see Corbin, having already sent Sorran to bring him back from the compound where he’d sent him.

‘Jask,’ Sorran said as he stood at the doorway.

Jask looked up at his troubled frown. More worryingly, Solstice stood in the doorway alongside him, clutching a phone, her face flushed, her eyes wet with tears.

T
he deathly silence
overwhelmed the room. Solstice could barely look at Jask as she slid the phone along the table towards him, her expression somewhere between fury and distress.

‘The text message says that in exchange for Corbin and Zeena,’ Sorran explained, ‘they want Kane and Jessie. It says to call the number when you’re ready to negotiate.’

Jask’s breath caught in his throat. His chest tightened.

‘You have to press play on the first bit of video footage,’ Sorran said.

Jask forced himself to look at Solstice – into the eyes that already betrayed the horror of what he was about to watch. He stared down at the phone. His hands instantly clenched into fists on the surface of the table, barely even feeling Sophia as she curled her hand over the one nearest to her.

Jask pressed the play arrow on the screen. Corbin was on his knees, close enough to the camera for Jask to see the whites of his eyes whilst whoever was responsible for the footage ensured their identities were concealed.

Cowards.

Corbin’s arms were wrenched back in restraints, the collar around his neck being yanked by those standing to his left and right to the point of choking him. He was gagged so he couldn’t speak, but his eyes stared directly down the camera, no doubt knowing Jask was going to see it.

And the message from his beta, his best friend, behind his already bloodied and swollen face was of stern resoluteness: he wasn’t going to break.

As they pounded his face again and again, Jask closed his eyes, trickles of tears sliding down his cheeks. He had sent him to the compound where they had to have been waiting. He had sent him to do the job he should have been doing.

In the background, he could hear Zeena. Her screams for mercy between her breathless gasps were horrific enough to make his palms bleed as he dug his talons in deep, barely containing the rage coursing through his veins.

And amidst it was laughter. Male laughter.

‘Phelan?’ he asked, looking across at Sorran. ‘Nokes?’ The others who were at the compound; the others
he
had sent Corbin to check on.

Sorran shook his head.

‘Joel? Kyan? Adam?’ he asked.

Sorran looked down at the table.

‘
What
?’ Jask asked. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

The few moments of silence tightened Jask’s chest further.

‘The five of them had been put in a cell together,’ Sorran said eventually, seemingly barely able to utter it from the way the words caught in his throat. ‘Once it was over, it looks like they shot the only remaining survivor: Kyan.’

Jask’s pulse sped to human rates, his breathing terse.

Sorran held his gaze as if needing to say something else. ‘We found marks on the floor.’ His eyes reddened and dampened in a way Jask had never seen. ‘It was a tally. We think they placed bets.’ His jaw tightened, no doubt with the same rage that flooded through Jask. ‘They named them dog one, dog two, dog three and dog four.’

Jask’s throat constricted enough to prevent any more air getting through. He gripped the edge of the table and lowered his head. Solstice reached for the phone but Jask slammed his hand over it. She instantly flinched and withdrew.

Sorran had specified the ‘first’ piece of footage. That meant there was more – something Solstice clearly didn’t want him to see. He closed his hand over the phone, dragging it back towards him.

‘Jask…’ Solstice said in gentle warning.

But he didn’t look at her. He couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t look at anyone. Not even Sophia.

He pressed play on the only other piece of footage.

It was hard to make out at first, the film swaying as if it had been shot on a ship, but Jask soon recognised the stone corridor it was taken in. Amidst the scuffles and yells and screams in the background, it took him a moment to work out why there was so much activity when only five of his pack had been down there.

Until he saw the faces of his pack members now deceased. Until he heard the cries and screams of his young – and realised it was footage of
that
night.

His throat clogged as he witnessed for the first time the full extent of the horrors his pack had been subjected to that night the army had broken into the compound – when he had been absent with Sophia, getting his hands on the supplies they’d needed to save themselves.

His talons buried themselves deeper into his palms, because he knew what was coming. He knew why it had been filmed.

The camera jolted as it followed someone being dragged into the chamber towards the stone table. Jask held his fist to his mouth and bit into it, his incisors instinctively lengthening as he saw boot after boot slam into his son. He drew more blood as he saw Rone slammed up onto the stone table, fist after fist pounding his already bloodied, bruised and broken flesh amidst their jeers, their laughter – worse, their encouragement of each other – as they took it in turns.

Jask blinked away the tears as, at one point, he even heard his son quietly beg. Just one plea for mercy before they publicly castrated him to even more laughter.

And the footage homed in again as one of them spat; one of them spat on his son before tapping him dismissively on the face.

Jask closed his eyes. He rested his palms flat on the table as he forced himself to contain the rage burning deep within him.

‘Fucking cheer up,’ the male voice said. ‘It might never happen.’ He laughed again. ‘Well, it sure won’t now.’ He was still laughing as he walked away.

Jask’s eyes sprang open. The footage had stopped. He grabbed the phone and rewound the last few seconds, his hand shaking as he did so.

‘Fucking cheer up,’ the male voice said on repeat. ‘It might never happen.’

And that laughter that grated to the marrow of his bones…

Jask stood up, his chair clattering to the floor. Because he recognised that voice.

He recognised that laughter.

J
ask marched
along the corridors to the makeshift interrogation room.

‘Jask, think about this,’ Eden said, close on his heels.

‘We already know where their base is,’ Jask replied. ‘We already know it’s inaccessible.’

‘You need to at least run this by Kane.’

‘Kane’s not here. Nor am I accountable to him.’

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Eden said, barricading the door the second they both reached it. ‘We could need him for something else.’

‘We’ve completed all the experiments we needed to. He’s null. He’s void. Now get out of my way,’ Jask warned, the resoluteness in Eden’s eyes not helping appease his rage.

‘Listen to him, Jask,’ Sophia said, her voice a distant echo beside him, the feel of her hand on his arm like a ghost’s. ‘Please
listen
to him.’

But with the raise of his hand, Sorran and three other pack members moved in behind him, loyal to backing their alpha.

His jaw clenched, his eyes sparking in resentment, Eden reluctantly stepped aside finally, knowing only too well that even he couldn’t hold back five lycans.

Jask opened the door. The soldier looked up from the chair they had roped him to, nothing but scorn emanating from his eyes.

Jask closed the door behind himself before surveying the implements lying around. He grabbed the half-empty bottle of whisky, which had no doubt been used to exacerbate the sting of the wounds the soldier wore across his bare chest and arms.

Jask knocked back a mouthful, letting the alcohol burn his parched throat. ‘You must have been a stubborn one,’ he said, placing the bottle back on the table before running his fingers over the cold, silky-smooth metal implements. ‘Looking at the state of you.’

The solider laughed. ‘State of
me
? Ironic coming from a lycan freak. You looked in a mirror lately? Or do you just end up barking at your own reflection?’

That laugh had grated enough back in the container, but now it pierced every nerve. It was confirmation enough that he had identified him correctly, but Jask needed
him
to know that too.

He picked up the scalpel and crouched in front of the solider. He spun the scalpel three times in his hand, the motion inevitably capturing the soldier’s attention despite his best efforts to fight the compulsion.

‘I want you to do something for me,’ Jask said, looking the soldier in the eyes, needing to see his reaction when he realised what Jask knew. ‘Say, “Cheer up” for me. Say, “Cheer up, it might never happen.” ’

The soldier frowned. It took a second, like seeing a familiar face in a crowd but not being able to place it. Then the soldier’s eyes flared slightly. His pupils dilated. And there was the subtlest, almost silent, snag of a breath of realisation somewhere deep in his throat.

It left Jask with no doubt.

The soldier exhaled, trying to put on a brave, if not nonchalant, face. But it didn’t last. Furthermore, the panic in the soldier’s eyes, his futile struggle in his restraints, the flush on his skin, were all evidence of guilt – of fear that would never have been present in anyone clueless as to what that statement meant.

Jask held up the phone for him to see and pressed play on the footage.

It was all the confirmation the soldier needed too.

‘Superhuman, huh?’ Jask said as he searched the soldier’s eyes.

He stood. He discarded the phone on the table to pick up the bottle again before stepping around the back of his captive.

‘I’m glad,’ Jask said. ‘I like an equal match. But then I suppose that’s the fundamental difference between us.’

He slid the scalpel through the soldier’s restraints. The soldier hurriedly struggled with the ones at his feet, clearly not expecting Jask to wait.

Jask took another swig of whisky as he strolled back in front of him. He returned the bottle to the table.

The soldier kicked the ropes off his ankles before stumbling back from the chair. He raked Jask swiftly, his eyes glinting with unease.

‘That was my boy you beat to a pulp,’ Jask said. ‘I want you to know that.’

Aware he was cornered, the soldier dared to smile. ‘Then that’s made it
all
the more worthwhile.’

It was Jask’s turn to smile because if he was going to feel any sense of guilt for what was to come, it had just evaporated in eight fate-sealing words.

S
ophia couldn’t listen
. She couldn’t stand by and listen to the soldier’s screams, especially when she knew Jask was causing them.

She stepped away from where the lycans marked the now-impassable door. She pressed the heel of her hand to her mouth, her nails digging into her palm as she paced, her arm wrapped around her midriff for comfort.

She knew from the look in Solstice’s eyes that she shared her fear: that Jask being let loose on the soldier responsible for killing his son was only going to provoke the lycan inside of him. And she held another undercurrent of fear too, that it could incite the serryn again – the sound and scent of torture summoning it from beneath the surface.

But she couldn’t walk away.

Sophia leaned back against the wall and clutched her face. Corbin would never have let him in there. But Corbin wasn’t there anymore.

‘What do we do?’ Sophia asked. ‘What the fuck do we do, Solstice?’

Solstice shook her head. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’

‘He’s going to go after the rest of them, isn’t he? This is it, isn’t it? He’s going to go after Sirius’s army.’ She looked to Leila, equally ashen beside her. ‘This is the start of it.’

And Solstice was right: there was going to be nothing they could do to stop it. Jask was going to be the one to incite the war.

But she couldn’t accept that. With every iota of hope she had left, she couldn’t let the spiral commence. She couldn’t lose Jask in the cyclone. She couldn’t let him lose himself.

She flinched as the door eventually clicked open. Her heart skipped a beat. Whoever walked out of the room, it wasn’t Jask – or at least it wasn’t the Jask she had come to know. Instead, the Jask emerging was the one he had once told her of: the Jask he himself had come to fear.

His azure eyes were a sharp contrast to the crimson blood on his face. His hands, clenching a near-empty bottle of whisky, looked like he’d dipped them in red paint.

And the wrath he exuded – a deep, intense wrath – unnerved even her.

The lycans were silent, stepping back as he made his way through them. Even Sophia backed up.

‘Round the pack up,’ he said over his shoulder as he placed his hand on the door to the shower room. ‘I want everyone who’s fit to fight in the training room in half an hour. You get the word out that anyone who still wants to be a part of this pack needs to be there.’

As he disappeared inside, Sophia moved to follow him. But Solstice grabbed her wrist, Leila her upper arm, Eden promptly stepping between her and the door too.

‘You shouldn’t go in there,’ Solstice warned.

‘Don’t be stupid, Soph,’ Leila said simultaneously.

‘So I sit on my arse and do nothing while Jask is out there with his finger on the self-destruct button? The destruct button for us all? I don’t fucking think so.’ Sophia locked gazes with Solstice, and then with her sister. ‘I’m the best one to go in there. He’s not going to do anything to me. He won’t hurt Mini J.’

Sophia glanced past Eden, down at the lock on the door.

She looked back to Solstice. ‘Is there a key for that door?’

‘With the others probably.’ Her grey eyes widened. ‘Phia…’

‘Get it,’ Sophia instructed her. ‘And don’t unlock it without my say-so.’

‘Phia, this is a bad idea,’ Eden cut in.

‘I won’t let you do this,’ Leila said.

‘What else do we do?’ she asked, staring at both of them in turn. ‘We have to get through to him. Go and find Kane, Eden. At the very least I’ll buy us some time. Tell him everything that’s happened.’

‘I don’t know, Phia,’ Eden remarked, ‘he’s still not a happy bunny.’

‘He
has
to know,’ Sophia said. ‘We can’t handle any more divisions. We need to stick together.’

Leila and Eden exchanged glances. With a sigh, Eden nodded.

Sophia looked back to Leila, her grip having still not relented. ‘We need to stop the fallout.’

‘Soph—’

Sophia wrapped her hand over her sister’s and gently peeled it away.

And to her surprise, Leila finally conceded.

Sophia stepped into the thankfully windowless room. The mist of steam was already forming beyond the tiled wall that concealed the communal showers from sight.

She closed the door behind her and hoped she could distract Jask long enough for Solstice to return and lock it.

Passing the dividing wall, Sophia padded silently through the puddles that had formed in the various dips in the floor. The bottle held loosely by his side, Jask stood with his head tilted back under the spray, the water flowing through his hair, down over his face and shirt to soak his jeans, the almost transparent crimson blood washing away down the drain at his feet.

Sophia stopped a few feet away from him as he took a swig.

Sensing her presence, he looked across at her before closing his eyes again.

‘Jask, why are you gathering the pack?’

‘Why do you think, Phia?’

‘You can’t give Sirius what he wants. This is blowing away
everything
we’ve worked towards. Everything
all
of us have worked towards.’

‘And what
is
that?’ he asked, throwing his glare across the room at her. ‘What are we fighting for anymore, Phia?’

She could see it: the clearest and most terrifying sense of loss in his eyes. Corbin, Rone – they had been the final blow when he’d already been teetering on the edge of helplessness over saving her and their young.

He’d already broken from Kane. Because of her.

He’d already confronted Caleb, who would now hold him responsible for letting her escape; for Jake’s subsequent death. Because of her.

And her reluctance to send Leila back to Caleb from the beginning had now thrown the noose around his young’s neck too.

It was
all
because of her. And though he had yet to voice it, the same thought must have crossed his mind; must have added to his anger, his resentment.

The lack of hope in his eyes speared her heart. Because she knew what Jask did in the face of hopelessness was deteriorate. And he was already teetering on the precipice.

But she wouldn’t let him fall. Not because of her.

‘We’re fighting to give us all a chance,’ she reminded him. ‘To make changes. To improve things for us all. And we all agreed war wasn’t the way.’

‘You really think there’s a peaceful alternative? Now?’

‘We have a plan. We just have to wait a little—’

‘How has waiting helped so far? Are we any better off now than we were a week ago? I’ve played the game, Phia. I’ve played the game for decades. Not anymore. A week ago I made a promise to my pack. And they’ve been ready from the moment those cowards invaded our compound, our home. Now, finally, everyone’s going to see what we’re made of. The lycans will take control. And once we win the battle in this locale, locales everywhere will do the same. Not vampires, not humans,
my
kind.’

‘You’re making it happen, Jask. You’re bringing about the prophecy.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m saving my beta’s life, like he saved mine. I’m avenging Rone. I’m redeeming my pack.’

‘You’re not redeeming them – you’re putting them at risk. This is no longer your well-ordered pack, Jask. You know that. The worst of the blue moon might have passed, but they’re still in recovery. You’re sending some of them on a suicide mission.’

He reached back and turned off the tap. He cast the bottle aside; it cracked on the concrete floor as he stepped out of the spray.

He moved to step past her but she blocked his way.

‘Jask,
please
. You can’t do this.’

‘Then what do you suggest I do, Phia, huh? Shall we wait a few more hours? Maybe a few more days? Maybe we should wait a few more months, a few more years, even decades like we already have.’

‘Talk to Kane.’

He laughed, his eyes glinting darkly. He licked his canine as he glanced away before looking back at her. ‘The same Kane whose alliance to me you managed to sever? The same Kane they now want me to trade for Corbin?’

The thought hadn’t crossed her mind before. Now she felt the unease of uncertainty over exactly what Jask intended.

‘Tell me that’s not what you’re planning,’ she said. When he didn’t deny it, she grasped his sodden shirt. ‘Jask, don’t be stupid.’ She grabbed his hand, pressing it over her abdomen. ‘
This
is what we’re fighting for: what we think is impossible becoming possible.’

He pulled his hand away, the ease with which he did it stabbing her a little too deeply in the heart.

As he tried to sidestep her, Sophia blocked his way, her hands to his hard chest as she held him back.

‘I will
not
let you do this, Jask. I will
not
let you go.’

‘If I don’t, Zeena will suffer. They’ll kill her. They’ll kill Corbin. Just like they killed Rone. I’ve had enough, Phia. This
has
to stop.’

‘But this is
not
the way. If you give them Kane, there’ll be nothing holding them back from reducing Blackthorn to a hole in the ground. You’re not this selfish or this stupid. And Caleb? What about Caleb?’

‘I’ll deal with Caleb when I’m done.’

She searched his gaze, but it felt like staring into the eyes of a stranger. ‘You’re giving up on me. On our little one.’

‘No. I’m giving up on everyone else calling the shots.’

This time he eased her aside as he stepped past her.

He reached for the handle and pressed it down, but it didn’t budge. His azure eyes shot back to hers.

‘I can’t let you out,’ she said. ‘You’re not safe.’

He stared back at the door with a sneer before thudding his fist against it. ‘Open this
fucking
door!’

‘They’ll only listen to me,’ she said. ‘Save your energy.’

He turned to face her. With slow and steady steps, he closed the gap between them.

But Sophia stood her ground, jutting her chin up so she could look him in the eyes. ‘I’m not going to let you do this to yourself. I’m not going to let you do this to our pack.’

‘
Our
pack?’

‘Yes, Jask –
our
pack. With Corbin gone, with you off your fucking head, your mate’s decision is law. That makes my word law.’

He laughed tersely.

‘Don’t laugh at me, Jask,’ she warned. ‘You know the longer we stay in here together, the more danger you’re putting us both in. So get back under that cold shower if that’s what it’s going to take, but you are going to rethink before I let you out of here.’

And hopefully she’d have given Eden time to talk to Kane – because there was no way she was going to be able to hold Jask back by herself.

He rested his hands low on his hips as he licked his incisor.

‘Countless times you’ve picked me up when I’ve fallen,’ she added, ‘been the calm influence when I was losing my head, helped curb my temper, helped me see sense. Well, it’s payback time. I’m doing this because I love you, Jask. I’m doing this because you’re not yourself right now.’

His eyes shot back to hers, laced with resentment at the accusation. ‘I’m every bit myself.’

‘You’re no more yourself right now than I am when the serryn outs. And I’ll wait as long as it takes to get my Jask back to the forefront.’

‘You’re verging on negligent,’ he warned, gazing deep into her eyes to the point where the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickled.

‘No,’ she said. ‘
You
are.’

He turned on his heels and stepped back over to the door. The rage that burst out of him finally had her taking a wary step back. He kicked at the door with impressive power, and she had no doubt he would’ve already broken through if it had been outward facing.

But the door didn’t budge.

He moved back over to her. ‘Give them the command to open the
fucking
door,’ he demanded quietly, his eyes locked on hers.

She shook her head. ‘No. What is it you told me once, Jask? “Battles aren’t always about bloodshed or being the most brutal. Some of the best battles are strategic. About being smarter than your enemy.” So be smarter, Jask. Fight them smart. Win this. Don’t let them beat you. Don’t let them make you do what they want you to do.’

He let out a terse exhale and spun back towards the door.

It didn’t budge in the fifteen minutes he went at it, in the minutes that followed as he punched tiles and yanked the shower piping out of the walls, Sophia backing up as far as she could.

Eventually Jask sank to the floor, his anger appeased, assuring her that the lycan hadn’t won out completely. He drew his knees to his chest and rested his elbows on them, the heels of his hands against his forehead.

She stepped over to him and knelt in front of him. She reached out to brush her fingers through his hair; to offer him some kind of comfort.

‘I’m tired, Phia,’ he said, his attention still on the floor. ‘I’m tired of waiting for this day to come. It’s time that waiting was over.’

‘I’m not saying it’s not, Jask. I’m just saying don’t try and do this alone. None of us have to do this alone.’

A tear trickled down her cheek. Jask looked back up at her and gently wiped it away with his thumb.

‘Let me out of here, Phia.’

‘If you agree to let her go,’ Sophia said, looking into Jask’s eyes, ‘I will. Let Leila go to Caleb. Let her try.’

He frowned, his gaze locked on hers.

‘What else can I do?’ she asked with a shrug.