Chapter 376

“Jess!” Rafe barks out as Jesse leaves, flipping Rafe the middle finger as he goes.

Then Rafe, growling, storms back to his own sleeping area and begins furiously pulling his dresser drawers open, not seeming to get much done but needing the distraction of having something rather violent to do.

“What…what is happening?” Jackson murmurs, tearing his eyes away from the Prince and looking down at Ariel, worried.

“Oh, puppy,” she sighs, beaming up at him and squeezing his hand. “Come help me pack, I’ll explain everything.”

“Pack?” he says, grinning down at her, unable to help it. Then he snarls and snatches her up into his arms. “Pack!? I have nothing to pack – you’re my only luggage, tiny – I’ll zip you up in a bag right now –“

She shouts with laughter that goes right to Jackson’s heart, makes everything actually feel okay, makes war and devastation and death and the thought of losing her feel very, very far away. Jackson laughs too, falling with her onto the bed as she quickly begins to explain a very baffling story about Jesse and Daphne somehow being in love.

But even as his mouth falls open in surprise, Jackson only half listens. Because his heart and his soul are elsewhere, on other thoughts.

We have to mark her, his wolf growls, pacing back and forth in his soul as Jackson’s eyes fall to her neck, to that spot he’s been thinking of for months, even if it’s covered now with black fabric. We should do it now.

Patience, Jacks murmurs, running a comforting hand over his wolf’s raised hackles. She has to be ready. It has to be right. She can’t have two bad experiences being marked – I’m not going to ruin this just because we’re impatient.

No time for patient, his wolf growls, shaking out his fur, anxious. Now. We have to do it now, before it’s again too late.

Jackson just grits his teeth, forcing himself back to the moment, ignoring his wolf and concentrating on his girl.

Who is, after all, the center of the entire world.

Ariel grins up at him. “You’ve been lost in your thoughts, haven’t you, pup?” She runs a soft hand through his hair and Jackson smiles, leaning into it.

“All thoughts of you,” he murmurs, utterly truthful.

She beams. “Good thoughts?”

“Every single one.” He dips his head and presses a soft kiss to those perfect lips.

Jesse leans back against Daphne’s pillows in her tiny bed and shuts his eyes, the weight of her against his chest a balm to his entire soul. Mittens purrs softly, a little ball of fur happily curled up on the upper ridge of the headboard.

“So,” Daphne sighs, her voice weary. “Rafe…knows.”

“Rafe knows,” Jesse confirms, dour. “I fucked up. Badly.”

“We should have told him,” she murmurs, closing her own eyes and nuzzling closer, tugging his neat Cadet shirt out of his pants and slipping her hand beneath so that her palm rests flat against his stomach. She exhales softly, relishing the touch.

“It wouldn’t have been any better,” he murmurs, shaking his head. “Any way that Rafe found out, no matter how, he was going to be pissed as hell about it. Bro code and everything – in his head, you’re off-limits to me because he had you first.”

“Jesse that’s ridiculous Alpha bullshit,” Daphne sighs, lifting her head and resting her chin against his chest to peer up at him. “I’m not an object that’s given permission for or forbidden – I’m a whole person with my own emotions –“

“I know, Daph,” he says, opening his eyes and looking down at her, running his hand over her lovely, soft hair. “Don’t let it bother you, love. It will all blow past.” He steels himself, because even if his wolf is still raging a bit at all the things Rafe said, he doesn’t want Daphne to be mad about it. No, his cousin is his business to handle, not hers to stress about.

“Do you think he’ll get used to it?” she whispers, anxious.

Jesse sighs and moves, pulling Daphne close to him and turning onto his side so that they’re face to face. He loops one arm around her back with which to hold her tight and the other, a bit unable to help it, slips low, his hand gently cupping her ass.

She grins and shakes her head at him, thinking that he can’t even help it when they’re having a serious chat, but not minding – not really. Not at all. He just shrugs like why wouldn’t he, while he still has the chance.

“He’ll have to get used to it, won’t he?” Jesse murmurs, pressing a kiss to her cheek and then her nose and then her mouth. “Once we’re married – even before that – he’s going to see us together and have to deal with it. I’m sorry I haven’t gotten the ring yet – it’s been so crazy, but the minute we get back to the city –“

“Jess,” she whispers, hesitant, making him go still.

“What is it?” he asks, peering at her.

“Are you – are you serious about that?”

He blinks at her, then frowns. “Did you think I wasn’t?”

“No, I think you are, I just…” she shrugs, looking down, smoothing and hand down over the fabric covering his chest. “I just love you a lot and you keep talking about marriage and rings – but that’s all very…human, you know? And I’m a wolf.”

He smiles a little, honestly relieved.

“Do you want my mark?”

She looks back up at him through her lashes, blushing, because – well, it’s ridiculous, right? They’ve been dating for like a couple of weeks at best – how can she want it like this, this fast, when there’s no bond –

But she’s sure – absolutely sure even if her wolf is not, and her wolf is coming around to the idea, honestly, that maybe it’s just his half human heritage, that the bond will come and they can go and ask the Goddess what’s up when this has all settled down.

Because everything is else is so real, and so vivid. In her heart she knows it’s him, knows it has to be. How…how could it be anyone else?

“Yes, Jess,” she whispers, smiling a little, laughing. “Yes, I want it – but –“

He snarls, laughing too, rolling her over in the bed, reaching for her shirt buttons. “Cool, let’s do it now –“

“Jesse!” She bursts out laughing.

“I’m serious, I’ve got like fifteen minutes, and it’s just a little bite – I can do that in four seconds –“

She laughs harder now, knowing that he’s not completely serious, even if…well, if she agreed to it right now that it might happen. Both of them – she knows he feels precisely the same – they’re both just…a little swept away by each other. But Daphne just shakes her head, taking his handsome face between her palms, the aftershock of laughter running through her.

“No, Jess,” she says with a happy sigh. “You know I want it to be right. And you do too. Not on a sewing break in the few minutes before I send you away to war, of all things.”

“But it’s settled,” he says, looking at her quite seriously, all the love in his heart clear on his face. “We’ll make some time in the upcoming weeks to go away, be alone. And we’ll do it both ways. A mark and a ring.”

“A mark and a ring,” she says, smiling a little, absolutely perfectly happy. And then she leans in, pressing her mouth to his, closing her eyes and kissing him with everything she’s got. They lose themselves to each other for a long few moments, burying their grief, their worries about family, their anxieties about war in their mutual happiness which right now feels strong enough to sweep through the entire world and make everything right.

Which is why neither of them notice as the room slowly fills with smoke.

Smoke, or shadow, that seeps in like a rage, pulsing and growing and flickering with a horrible blue light. And at the center of it all a very small form made of darkness itself, her breath heaving in her chest.

Mittens gives a horrible little mew of fear just a moment before the darkness moves.

“Mine,” the darkness snarls, storming forward, reaching out a claw-tipped hand to grab at Daphne’s shoulder and haul her back, pulling her away from Jesse.

Daphne gasps and then screams at the form before her, a tiny female form with dark pits for eyes, a hole from her mouth from which horror and shadows fall with every breath, every word.

“He. Is. Mine.”

The darkness slashes its claws once across Daphne’s face, leaving three long streaks of blood. She screams as Jesse roars leaping for the girl at the center of the darkness, grabbing her neck in his hand.

But the girl made of darkness just smiles at him, stepping into his rage and fear and anger like an embrace, even has he tightens the hand around her neck.

“Mine,” she says again, smiling up at him like he’s perfect as Daphne screams in horror and fear and pain. “You’re mine. Not hers. Mine!”

And then she wraps her arms around him, and vanishes away, taking smoke and boy with her.

Silence.

It echoes in the room alongside Daphne’s panting breath.

Quite suddenly the room is precisely how it was not thirty seconds before, calm and quiet.

Except Daphne’s face stings with pain. And she trembles, looking around frantically for Jesse, raising a shaking hand to her cheek. Her fingertips come away red with blood but she can’t even think about it because Jesse –

He’s not here –

He’s gone – completely gone – without a trace –

Shaking now, Daphne runs her eyes again around the room because he – he can’t just be gone – he has to be here.

But somehow, impossible as it is, she’s wrong.

Daphne is alone in the room now. Alone with a little cat made of shadow, who stares at her with wide, shocked round eyes.

Mittens and Daphne stare at each other for a horrified moment before Daphne snatches the tiny cat from the headboard and dashes for the door, hauling it open and shouting frantically for Rafe and Ari and Jackson and Ben as she sprints through the halls of the Castle.