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“And how are you going to handle it?” I ask, feeling sick to my stomach, even though I know that whatever he chooses to do won’t be successful. Beast, Ford and Kate will see to that.
“Brother?” Leon questions when Jakub doesn’t answer straight away.
“I was ready to kill them all,” he admits. “But I know that if we were to do that then we’d lose you forever. I’m not about to make the biggest mistake of my life. I’ve already made so many.”
“So what are you suggesting instead?” Konrad asks.
“We’re going to let Christy poison us just like she and Thirteen have planned.”
“What?!” Leon exclaims, his eyes widening in shock as he looks from Jakub to me.
I rise to my feet, pushing back the chair as I back away from the table. “How did you…?”
“Five,” Jakub replies, getting up slowly, stalking me.
Fear thumps inside my chest, rabid like a dog in its attempt to leap out of my chest and run away. He promised he’d never hurt me, and yet there’s a tiny part of me that doesn’t know for certain that he won’t.
“I don’t understand,” I reply, flicking my gaze to Konrad and Leon who are watching us both with their mouths agape. Shock rendering them immobile.
“I sent Five to invite you to dinner a few hours ago. She found you both on Thirteen’s bed and came to fetch me. You were out cold, dead asleep, and Thirteen looked like a corpse.”
“The hell?” Konrad exclaims.
“I saw the cut on Thirteen’s hand, the vial of liquid and discarded knife on the counter and for one horrible moment I thought you both committed suicide,” he says, his hand shaking as he swipes it over his face, a brief flickering of grief glancing across his features. “But when I couldn’t find any cut on you and realised you weren’t cold like Thirteen, I understood what she’d done and recognised that you were under the influence of a vision. I witnessed it once before, but at the time I hadn’t realised what was happening to you.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Jakub?” Leon asks, rising from his chair. He storms across the room standing beside me, ready to defend me.
“I spent a whole afternoon watching Christy sleep a couple weeks after we kidnapped her. I was fascinated by how deeply she slept and the fact that I could place Star’s collar around her neck and she never stirred. Only you weren’t sleeping, were you?” Jakub asks.
“No,” I admit.
“And Thirteen?” Leon snaps, confusion and worry making him short-tempered.
“Thirteen was always the Trojan horse.” Jakub sighs. “I suspected her arrival here was more complicated than she’d let on, and whilst the Deana-dhe have every reason to come here to seek revenge just because we’re Brovs, I think possibly it has as much to do with Thirteen as it does us.”
“You think she’s involved with the Deana-dhe? That she wants to hurt us?”
“Yes and no,” he replies heavily.
“Fuck!” Konrad swears.
“Don’t doubt her. Thirteenisyour friend, a really good one,” I say, willing him to believe that.
He nods. “I believe you,” he reassures me. “Whilst I sat there watching you both debating what to do, I remembered what you said to me the other night. You said that one day you’ll lay claim to our hearts and on that day we’d have to trust you to take care of them. You promised you wouldn’t break them. I knew then what you were both trying to do. So I waited to see what would happen, and when Thirteen’s lips started to return to their normal colour, I knew what you had planned. They’re coming for us, but you’ve alreadyseenthat, haven’t you?” he asks.
Tears prick my eyes but I refuse to answer him. Knowing I can’t risk confirming his suspicions even though he’s right about it all.
“She can’t say,” Konrad intervenes. “Don’t make her.”
Jakub nods. “I trust you. I trust Thirteen. Fuck knows we don’t deserve your protection, but we will accept it, Christy,” he says, reaching for me, his hands wrapping around mine. “I can’t see into the future, but what I do know, what I’ve always known, is that your sister and the Deana-dhe won’t rest until we’re dead. I was ready to die for you. But when I saw there was a possibility that we could get a second chance…” his voice trails off as he pulls me against his chest, his lips brushing over mine. “I knew I’d do anything to have it.Anything.”
I can’t respond, not just because he’s pressing a kiss against my lips, but because I’m terrified that I’ll change the course of the future somehow. Instead, I kiss him back. I answer him as best I can with my actions. That's all I can do in the moment. When we pull apart, we’re both panting and Leon and Konrad are watching us intently.
“They’ll take her,” Leon says, his fingers curling into fists at the thought.
“But at least we’ll all be alive to see if she returns,” Jakub replies, glancing at me.
“No!” Leon exclaims, shaking his head.
