Rogue Descendant (Nikki Glass) - By Jenna Black Page 0,95

my finger at Sita like I was scolding a small child. “If you hurt him, I swear to God I’m—”

Sita interrupted me with a roar that rattled my teeth.

“She won’t hurt me,” Jamaal said with conviction. “Now get the fuck out of my room.”

There were a lot of things I wanted to say just then, but I swallowed them all. Jamaal said he hadn’t summoned her, but could I be sure that was entirely true? We’d taken some slapdash steps to avoid triggering his issues, but maybe it hadn’t been enough. Maybe we’d avoided the conscious issues, but the unconscious ones were deeper and more insidious. So insidious his subconscious had called for Sita to intervene. Maybe he would have to talk through whatever had happened to him in his slave days before he would be able to let someone get so close again.

Or maybe Sita was as out of control as his temper had been, before he’d learned to summon her.

I knew I couldn’t help him. Not right now, anyway. I didn’t want to leave him to face Sita’s wrath alone, but I suspected my continued presence would just make her more angry.

Mentally promising myself that this was not over, that I was not going to give up on Jamaal no matter how difficult the situation, I slowly backed out of the room.

I was awakened in the night by another blast of thunder. I was surprised to discover that I’d fallen asleep at all, considering how long I had tossed and turned, searching for a solution to the Sita problem—one that didn’t involve Jamaal having to shut one or the other of us out of his life. And wondering if he was just one more on the list of unavailable men I was destined to fall for.

I rose from my bed and went to the window, hoping to see that it was pouring down rain, but the sky was clear enough that I could have counted the stars if I’d wanted to. I wondered how big the clearing was going to be when Anderson had finished venting his pain and rage. Hopefully, we’d still have some woods left.

I slept only fitfully after that, waking up every forty minutes or so, brooding about Emma, and Jamaal, and my most recent brush with death. By 4 A.M., I was lying in bed debating whether I should try to get some more sleep or just give up and get out of bed. The decision was taken out of my hands when the phone beside my bed rang.

Phones ringing at four in the morning are rarely a good thing. The only person I’d given my land line number to was Steph. The last time she’d called so early, it was because the Glasses’ house burned down.

Dread pooled in my stomach as I sat up and turned on the light. I blinked in the glare, trying to see the caller ID before picking up the phone.

My hand was halfway to the phone when my vision cleared enough for me to read the caller ID: Cyrus Galanos.

TWENTY-TWO

I was an emotional wreck when I got off the phone with Cyrus. I spent a few minutes indulging in a crying jag, a little piece of my heart breaking. When the worst of it was over, I went into the bathroom and splashed some cold water on my face. My eyes were red and puffy, and I had shopping bags under them from not sleeping. The hair around my face was wet from the splashes of water, and the hair that wasn’t wet was tangled and frizzy. I wanted to get into the shower and put myself back together, but there wasn’t time.

I threw on the first pair of jeans I could get my hands on and grabbed a warm, comfortable flannel shirt. Then I dug out my one pair of waterproof boots, nice and fleecy to keep my feet warm in the snow. I braided my hair sloppily as I made my way down the stairs to the second floor. The house was dark and quiet. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was now twenty after four. I’d wasted too much time having my pity party. The moon would set in less than two hours, and I would need every spare second of that time.

Of course, it was possible I wouldn’t survive relaying to Anderson what Cyrus had told me when he called. I wished Cyrus had had the guts to tell Anderson himself