Madly and Wolfhardt (15 page)

Reaching up with my left hand, I wound it around Jackson’s neck, pressing my palm to his nape, and snuggled in closer.  Something brushed my hair.  I thought it might’ve been his lips, but I didn’t want to look.  If I kept my eyes closed, the world around us didn’t exist.  It was just me and Jackson, his strong arms wrapped around me, his scent in my nostrils, his skin at my lips.

Before I could think to myself that I shouldn’t do it, I kissed his neck.  I did it so softly, so gently I don’t know how he even felt it.  But he did.  I knew that he did.  I felt it in the tensing of his arms.  I heard it in the sharp inhalation of his breath.

Jackson stopped walking.  When he didn’t start back after several seconds, I raised my head and looked at him.

“Don’t make this harder, Madly.”

Night had fallen and I couldn’t make out what was in his eyes, but I could hear regret in his voice.

Nodding, I laid my head back on his chest and he carried me the rest of the way home.  When we reached my door, Jackson set me on my feet and steadied me.

“Are you going to be alright?”

For an instant, I wondered what he’d do if I said no, if he’d pick me up again and carry me to my bed and stay with me.  I quickly cast those imaginations aside, however, knowing they would lead nowhere good.  At least not in the long run.  The only future for Jackson and me was one of pain and heartache and loss.  He was right—there was no reason to make it any harder.

I tried to smile, but I felt it wobble.

“Yeah.  I’ll be fine,” I said, the tie we shared squeezing my chest tight as I looked up into his breathtaking face.  “Thank you.”

Jackson smiled, a slight curve of his lips.  He raised his hand to my face.  It hovered in the air at my left cheek for several seconds, as if he wanted to touch me, but he didn’t.  He let it drop back to his side.  I saw him clench and unclench his fist.

“You’re welcome, Princess,” he said and then turned toward his door.

He was resisting again and it seemed to have resumed when I’d dropped his hand guiltily in front of CoCo.  He said earlier that he’d never hide me.  Maybe he thought I was hiding him. 

Jackson unlocked his door and opened it a crack before he turned back to me.  He waited—quietly, patiently—until I obediently unlocked my own door. 

With a sigh, I walked into my room, not sparing Jackson another glance.  At the moment, it hurt too much.

CHAPTER NINE

I had just changed into my warm, dry pajamas when I heard a key sliding into the lock of the door.  I knew before I saw her that it was Jersey.  Other than me, she was the only person who had a key to our door.  And her timing couldn’t have been more perfect. 

From the moment I’d closed the door behind me after Jackson had dropped me off, all my senses had been irritatingly, excruciatingly focused on the sounds of him just a few feet away, puttering around in his room.  Everything in me wanted to throw caution and tradition to the wind and march right through the thin door that separated us.  But I didn’t.  I knew it wasn’t right.  But, more than that, I wasn’t sure it was what Jackson truly wanted.  He fought it far too diligently.

Jackson would always be a Sentinel first.  He would always do what was right by the Mer and what was right by the code of the Sentinel.  And being with me wasn’t right on either count.

  With a sigh, I pushed those depressing thoughts aside and geared up to defend myself against my most imminent threat—Jersey.

I watched as she stepped through the door and then, eyeing me angrily, she slammed it behind her.

“That was some shower,” she snapped without preamble.

“Jersey, I’m so sorry.  I swear I didn’t do it on purpose.  I swear.”

“Yeah, right.  You didn’t want to go and that’s fine.  But you should’ve just told me.  You know I hate to be lied to.”

“I know and I wasn’t lying.  I have something to tell you.”

“I can almost promise you that I don’t want to hear it,” she said dismissively, walking to her bed and throwing her purse on it as she began taking off her various pieces of chunky jewelry.

“Even if it involves me being kidnapped from the shower by a Seer?”

That at least got Jersey’s attention, though she was still skeptical.

“Please don’t tell me this is the best you could come up with.”

“The truth?  Yeah, it’s the best I could come up with.”

“Well then,” she said, perching on the edge of her bed and crossing her legs, as if she was settling in for a whopper-of-a-tale.  “This ought to be good.”

With as much detail as I could impart, I told Jersey exactly what happened.  By the time I had finished, she was wide-eyed, gape-mouthed and incredulous.

“Shut up!”

“I’m serious.”

“What the—”

“I know, right?”

“So that’s why you wouldn’t answer me in the shower?”

“Yep.  You know me better than that, Jersey.  Why would you even
think
I’d do that?”

Jersey shrugged, looking decidedly unhappy.

“I don’t know.  I was just aggravated, I guess.”

“But why?”

She shrugged again.

“You seem distracted lately, like there’s something on your mind that you’re not telling me about.”

She was more right than I could admit.  So I prevaricated.

“Of course I’m distracted!  Geez, Jersey, look at what all has happened, what’s at stake.”

“I know that, silly.  That’s not what I mean.  It’s…I don’t know.  It’s something else.”

The way she eyed me made me uneasy.  I felt naked, like if she looked closely enough she’d somehow perceive my feelings for Jackson.

“Well, this stuff with Aidan’s not easy either,” I said, throwing her a red herring before she asked more questions.

Jersey’s head snapped up and a look of deep sympathy stole over her face.  I knew when I saw her eyes that she had fallen for that likely excuse without a second thought.  As well she should.  That
should have been
the case.

“Oh,” she said nodding knowingly.  “You mean Kellina?”

We’d never discussed how I felt about Aidan’s obvious fascination for her or how it would affect our upcoming betrothal.  She would no doubt assume that it bothered me, even though it did not. 

“Yeah.”  I nodded, relieved that she went down that path rather than digging around for more information.

Jersey nodded in a
you poor thing
kind of way and offered, “You know you can talk to me if you need to, right?”

I nodded again, solemnly, all the while thinking that I’d probably never need to take her up on that offer.

“So,” she began, making an effort to change the subject.  “What did you do then?  After the Seer brought you back?”

I took a deep breath. 

“Well, I came back here, but you were already gone so I got Jackson and we went to the forest.  I thought maybe I could find something more, learn something more helpful.”

Jersey’s eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second before she asked, “And?  Did you?”

I recounted the events of our trip to the forest, omitting all the details that pertained specifically to what happened
between
Jackson and me.

“What happens now?  What are they going to do?”

“Who?”

“The Sentinels?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?  Didn’t Jackson tell you?”

“No.  He was sort of…grumpy by the time we got back, so I didn’t ask.”

Jersey frowned. 

“Well, I can fix that,” she grouched, hopping up off the bed.

Stomping over to the door that adjoined our room to Jackson’s, Jersey announced herself with one quick rap of her knuckles across the wood.  The sound had barely faded from the room before she burst through the door.

Strangely, Jersey closed the door behind her, which made it very difficult for me to hear what was being said.  And it wasn’t for lack of trying.  As soon as the door closed, I got up and ran to it, pressing my ear to the cool surface in hopes of overhearing the conversation.

They were too quiet, though, so I went back to my bed and lay across it to await Jersey.

A few minutes later, she re-emerged, closing the door quietly behind her again.

“So?  What did you find out?”

“You’re right, he’s grumpy.”

“What else?  Anything?”

“Um,” she said, looking everywhere except at me.  I recognized those behaviors as Jersey’s attempts at subterfuge.  “Like he said before, he’s got Sentinels watching her, but he’s sending more into the forest and more still to her house.”

“Is that it?”

“Yep.  Pretty much.”

I knew Jersey was hiding something from me, but I couldn’t imagine what it might be.  Unfortunately, on the odd occasion when she decided to clam up, Jersey was like an impenetrable fortress of secrecy.  Granted, it was difficult to get her into that state to begin with, but once she was there, it was useless to try to crack her security.

Obviously done talking, Jersey went about changing her clothes and getting ready to settle in for the night.  When she finally climbed onto her bed, leaning back against the headboard with her iPod in her lap, I caught her with a question before she could effectively drown me out.

“So, what’s the deal with Jackson?” I asked as casually as I could manage, flipping lazily through the magazine I’d grabbed from my desk.

Jersey narrowed her eyes on me.

“What do you mean?”

“Why is he so grumpy and angry all the time?”  When she didn’t answer right away, I thought I’d do some fishing.  “Does it have something to do with Nadia Cobretti?”

Jersey sat up, suddenly alert. 

“Nadia Cobretti?  Why would you ask that?”

Something in her response to the name grabbed my attention, and not in a good way.  Could there really be something going on between Jackson and Nadia?  Was he really hiding something?

“I don’t know.  She’s been in his room a couple times and I just wondered if he had a thing for her or something.”

That seemed to satisfy her somehow, seemed to ease that sudden tension.

“Jackson will probably never have a ‘thing’ for anybody,” she said glibly, relaxing back against the headboard.

“Why?”

Jersey shrugged, becoming overly absorbed in toying with the cords to her ear buds.

“Jackson gave his heart away a while back and he hasn’t been the same since.”

I sat up, too interested to feign nonchalance.

“He did?  To whom?”

“Oh, just a girl.”

“What happened?”

“Things just didn’t work out and he never really got over it.”