Lieutenant General Oona of Midnight got wind of the mission before it all went down, though. Knew Jax and I were close with Hudson. So she tracked me down, told me the story. Knew as well as I did the only way to keep Hudson’s head attached to his body was to smuggle him out of Midnight and hide him in the earthly realm.
Getting out of Midnight was an impossible feat. No one had ever done it before. But with the right connections, help from the inside, and a good bit of forbidden magick cooked up by one terrifying dark goddess who’d been slumming it in Midnight recently, maybe we could beat the odds.
And, Oona reasoned, if I was going to smuggle out Hudson, I’d be taking Jax with me—those were her terms. Terms I happened to agree with. But we both knew Jax would never willingly leave her behind, and she’d never turn her back on her duty, so she couldn’t go with us.
The only way then, she reasoned, was for Jax to believe she was dead.
A few nights later, when the plan finally came together, I knew we’d only have one shot to get out—one fucking shot. Me, Hudson, Jax. All or nothing. So, in my efforts to convince Jax he had no reason to stay, I’d painted the most grim, disturbing, hopeless picture my mind could craft, using my vampire influence and fae magick and everything I possessed to make him believe it.
It was quite a fucking performance.
Oona was Keradoc’s daughter, I told him, pushing my influence deeper into his mind until the belief took root. Her father found out about their relationship—a daughter of Midnight fucking a lowly demon exile—and ordered his own men to kill her. I told him I’d witnessed it. Told him about the blood—so much blood. Told him about her strangled gasps as she supposedly died in my arms. Told him about my wasted efforts to save her, and how those same guards were afterhim, and he needed to leave Midnight with me and Hudson right fucking then or we were all going to be food for the ghouls.
I did not, however, tell him about Oona’s demands of me. About how desperately she’d wanted Jax to have a better life, far away from the dark corners of the Hollow and her father’s cruel regime. About why Hudson needed our protection in the first place.
“Why?”
It was only a whisper, but it dragged me right back to the present. Jax was still staring at Oona, and he didn’t even turn to face me when he spoke, his voice soft with that quiet fury.
I’d never seen him so beside himself. Not even after I’d told him his woman had died, carved out his eye with a hot blade, and pushed him through the portal out of Midnight.
I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could figure out what the fuck to say, Oona was already talking.
“It was my idea, Jax. I begged him to manipulate you into believing I was dead so you’d leave Midnight with him.”
“Oona.” I shook my head, imploring her to shut the fuck up. Jax was going to hate me enough after all this—why saddle him with the burden of hating her as well?
“No,” he said, as if he couldn’t believe it. “No.”
“It’s true,” she said. “It was the only way. I’m sorry.”
He finally turned to face me then, his skin pale, his remaining eyelid twitching like he was T-minus thirty seconds from detonating.
“Why?” he said again, taking one step, then another, until we were nose to nose at the back of the cell.
Oona unlocked the bars and stepped inside our cell, but didn’t come between us.
“I had an opportunity to leave Midnight,” I said, forcing a steely calm into my voice I damn well didn’t feel. “I wasn’t about to leave you here.”
“Why, Saint?” he demanded once more. “Why? Because you fucked up your life with Haley and you couldn’t stand the fact that I found even ashredof happiness with a woman here? Or was it because you needed a demon lapdog to peddle your drugs and work behind your bar in New Orleans? Someone you could keep beholden to you for a fucking eternity, all because you let him believe you’d saved his fucking life?” He let out a bitter laugh, then slammed me against the wall, his fist wrapped tight around my throat. “You never saved me, Saint. All you did was drag me out of one prison and into another. I would’ve ratherdiedthat night.”
Pain bolted through my heart. That’s what he fucking thought? What he wanted?
That old devil dropped onto my shoulder again, taunting me.
Who gives a fuck what that asshole thinks? Should’ve left his ass here to die if that’s what he wanted. Hell, there’s still time.
“It was the only way to get you out, Jax.” Oona placed a hand on his shoulder. “You wouldn’t have left me otherwise.”
“Damn right about that,” he said, still glaring at me. “Because I—”
Loved you,he wanted to say, but didn’t. I could just about taste the words on his breath, not that he’d ever said them out loud before. Fear demons weren’t supposed to love, but I knew how he’d felt about Oona.
Knew how he felt about Haley now.
“It was the only way,” she said again. “I wanted—”
“Stop.” He finally released me. Turned to face her.
