Those fuckers always thought they could outwit whatever gods, goddesses, or entities haunted the realm of Midnight, but they never did. The moment the blood touched their lips, they died.
A shiver rolled through her body, and she rubbed her arms, chasing away the chill. “Where’s this secret entrance? And please don’t say we’re wading through vampire skulls to get there. I’m really not dressed for an excavation tonight.”
“No skulls, angel. Just a few plants and a little dirt.” Still gripping her shoulder, I guided her toward the far wall covered in shadow and creeper vines. From here, it looked like a solid wall, but that was just the fae glamour.
“Ouch! Damn it!” Haley suddenly yelped. “What thehell?” She glanced down at her feet, stomping at some invisible assailant in the tall, leafy grass. “If that was a fucking snake, I’m out. Elian’s on his own.”
“Not a snake,” I said, my heart leaping as I finally caught sight of the vines shifting on the ground. Panic gripped my throat, damn near cutting off my air. “Haley, listen to me. We’re going down, and it’s gonna hurt. You need to fight hard. Kick, punch, claw, whatever you need to do. Take a deep breath right fucking now and hold it or—”
“Wait, what?” Her fear spiked, sending my own into overdrive as the deadly chokeweed vines slithered around our ankles and up our legs.
“Hold your breath!” I shouted, but I knew the command didn’t make sense, and there was no time to explain. The chokeweed swept our feet out from under us, dropping us flat on our faces as their sharp, golden thorns burst from the vines, tiny black blooms unfurling beside them.
We had seconds before those blooms released their toxic gas.
“Jax!” she cried out, swatting uselessly at the vines as they ripped into her skin. “What do I do? I can’t get to my daggers!”
She was panicking, confused by the sudden threat. I knew she’d fight hard no matter what, but there was only one way to fight chokeweed, and it wasn’t with daggers or blood magick.
Fuck.
No time.
“Close your eyes!” I ordered. “I need you to trust me and close your fucking eyes right now!”
She finally did as I asked, no more questions, which made what I was about to do a hundred times worse.
I’m so sorry, angel.
Cupping her face, I called on one of her oldest memories—her oldest fears. I’d seen it the first time we kissed in that corpsevine field—her own mother trying to drown her—and now I drew it to the surface like I was drawing poison into a syringe.
I released that vile memory into her conscious awareness, amplifying it, making her believe it was happening right now.
In an instant she sucked in a breath and held it, then thrashed wildly, kicking for all she was worth. Her sharp, jerky movements knocked the blooms off the vines, neutralizing them.
Good girl.
I did the same, the thorns tearing through our clothes and skin, but unlike the poison, gashes were survivable.
After a few minutes of us thrashing around on the ground, the vines finally receded, but they’d come back soon enough. They always did.
I got to my feet and hauled Haley up.
“What… what the fuck happened?” she panted and coughed. Blood slicked her arms and legs, and her eyes were wide with fright, like she still couldn’t be sure she was out of the water.
“Chokeweed. Its thorns tear, the vines constrict, and the flowers release deadly gas. Only way to fight it is by aggressively shaking it loose, hard and fast. There wasn’t time to explain. I had to improvise. I needed you to believe you were drowning. It was the closest thing I could think of and… Fuck, Haley. I’m sorry. I never would’ve put you through that if I thought there was another way.”
I reached for her, but she flinched away at my touch.
“It’s all right, angel,” I said softly, guilt burning inside. If there was a medal for the number of times you could hurt a person in the span of an hour, I was pretty sure I’d win it. “You’re safe now.”
“Am I?” She glanced up at me, the terror still lingering. Then she closed her eyes. Took in another breath, blew it out slowly. When she looked at me again, those eyes were guarded. “Just… Look, I understand why you did it, but that was… Shit, Jax. You dug deep on that one. I need a little space.”
“Haley, we can’t—”
“Please. Just… I need a minute.”
“You don’t have one.”
