Jacob POV
It was… difficult.
Zahraa had me fixated from the moment I’d met her – and somehow, I’d known. I’d known she was meant to be mine, but… how could we proceed?
The idea of rejecting her made me sick to my stomach; when she’d suggested it, I almost vomited then and there. And I knew that tomorrow, father would have opinions – if only because Zahraa was meant to be Rowan’s. The idea made me furious now, and I had to calm down the instinct to go and fight the alpha now.
I asked as tenderly as I knew how for her to tell me what else she might be hiding – what else there was for them to use against us as ammunition. And she sat there for a while, legs curled under her in a way that freed them from that sinful red dress, biting her lower lip in a way that made me so incredibly jealous.
I wanted to bite that lip – and then, I wanted to do so much more to her. With her.
“Well. You know about the touching thing,” she started. “It seems like it happens only with men. I haven’t dared to try touching any children, but it doesn’t happen with my friends at all.” A look of realization dawned on her. “I should probably-”
“I’ll have Tatum tell Ingrid and the others that we’re talking. Just talking,” I emphasized – not like I needed to. Not like there was much else we could do. “I’m sure Ingrid will quiz you thoroughly later.”
Zahraa sighed and nodded. “Sure.” She paused, then: “It doesn’t happen through clothes, as you’ve noticed,” she said, nodding to the hand that had crept onto her thigh, my thumb sweeping over the coarse feel of the lace leggings she wore. “That’s about all I know about that.”
“Okay,” I felt horrible about it, but I needed to know. “What else?”
She twisted a golden band on her wrist that I’d never really noticed before. She raised her wrist, as if showing it off. “This doesn’t come off.”
I carefully took hold of her wrist and the band. It slipped off her wrist easily, actually. I looked up at her quizzically.
“Just wait,” she bid, a look of knowing on her face.
And she must’ve known, because just moments later, the band dissipated in a shower of golden dust, reappearing on her wrist as if it’d never left. “Is it enchanted?” I asked, fascinated as I rotated it to get a better look. I took it off again, this time checking the inside for any clues. It was blank – a simple band of rounded gold with no engravings whatsoever.
“No,” Zahraa replied with a sigh. “A year or so after I started living with the Wild Fangs, Alpha Rowan took me to see a coven of witches. They tried to divine my future and past – it went as badly as it possibly could.”
My brows shot up as I took a sip of wine. “How bad is that?”
“She had to be carried out of the room, and when she came to, she said everything she saw conflicted. There was so much chaos in the vision, she couldn’t gleam anything from it at all.” Zahraa sighed. “In the same meeting, they examined the bracelet. Everything about it seems perfectly normal.”
“What else did they say?” I asked, enthralled.
Zahraa shrugged. “They couldn’t pinpoint my magic, but they said…” she swallowed, as if nervous. “They said the magic I used – the Door, like I showed you at the bar that day – is very powerful. Reality bending. The kind of stuff a witch would need a three-hour ritual to make happen.”
I leaned back; this was a lot. I couldn’t imagine the life she’d lived.
I didn’t want to.
She shifted on the couch again, and I watched the way her legs moved as she uncurled them. The lace felt like a tease, offering only the slightest glimpse of her skin beneath. It felt incredibly unfair, considering I couldn’t rip them off of her and kiss the exposed skin.
“There’s more.” She said, speaking so softly that I had to focus entirely on her. Not that it was hard to do. Not that anything else interested me at all.
She stood, “May I use your bathroom for a moment?”
“Of course,” I replied without hesitation, watching curiously. She disappeared, only to reappear a literal moment later – but the lace garments were gone, leaving only a strapless red dress and goddess, so much skin.
She looked at me, and those beautiful lips, painted sinfully dark, quirked into a smile. “You’re drooling.”
I checked – I wasn’t. She laughed, and it sounded like music to my ears.
“But – here.” She raised her legs, and I had to look closely to see what she was talking about.
There was a pattern in her skin – vines with broad leaves snaked their way from her ankles, up to her calves. It was on both legs, but also, from her collarbone to the crooks of her elbows. I reached out to touch them, mesmerized, and she cleared her throat.
I remembered myself. “Sorry.”
“That’s not all,” she sighed, her fingertips trailing her delicate skin. I followed the slender digits, until I realized what she was pointing at.
On her chest, another strange mark. A snake, coiled around what looked like a syringe needle and a rod with a rounded hook on each side, crossed in the middle to make an X. The whole thing was a couple shades lighter than her natural skin and had a strangely blue hue to it.
“A tattoo?” I asked.
She only shrugged, looking aside. “Who knows? It’s been here since they found me. It could be a brand, for all I know.”
“And I imagine Rowan has researched it thoroughly?” I asked, annoyed to even have to say his name right now.
“He has,” she replied. “He wasn’t able to find a hint of what it might be, or what it might mean, anywhere.”
I leaned a little closer to inspect it and realized that it had a scent to it – a strange seawater stink that made my instincts riot.
I cleared my throat, trying to soothe that. “May I take a picture of it? For my records?”
She nodded, and I pulled out my cell phone. I took two pictures – one zoomed into her chest, and a full body shot: a view of her sitting there, her slender legs falling off my couch, her hand on her collarbone, looking aside.
A vision.
“Alright,” I kept my voice even as I spoke. “So, we’ve got several marks on your body, strange magic powers, and a strange effect when men specifically touch you.” It was a lot of puzzle pieces, none of which seemed to connect, but I wouldn’t let it overwhelm me. I wouldn’t let it shake me. I was resolved to find a way….
“There’s something else,” Zahraa said, voice small.
My brows raised. After everything she’d shown me, after everything she’d said, what could make her shrink like this? “Okay,” I said, adding a surety to my voice that I didn’t really feel.
Her fingers slid across her collarbone, indicating to something on her neck that I was honestly surprised I hadn’t noticed yet.
A bite mark, faded as though someone had marked, then rejected her.
Fury bloomed; white-hot rage made my veins molten. Zahraa had just graduated from high school – we were the same age. So how… who? The wine glass shattered in my hand, staining my white couch red from the wine, glass showering on the floor. Zahraa jumped up and stepped away, and I was suddenly aware that her feet were bare.
Still, the fury infused every syllable of my words as I asked her: “Who did this?”