The sound of laughter from behind me makes me jump.My heart skips a beat as I turn around, and Jasper is standing in the doorway with a smug expression plastered across his face.
“Go on, you freak,” Jasper taunts, his voice dripping with amusement.“Tell her how you know it’s not Travis.”
Blade’s body goes rigid, his stance protective as he positions himself in front of me, blocking me from Jasper’s view.He lowers his voice.“It’s you?”
Jasper steps forward into the house, his eyes scanning the room with casual indifference.He closes the door behind him with a soft click.“Yep,” he says, as though it’s the most natural thing in the world.
My pulse races as the weight of the situation hits me.This is escalating fast, and I have no idea what Jasper’s game is.
Blade takes a step toward him, and the shift in energy is instantaneous.Jasper pulls out a gun, the cold steel catching the light as he levels it in Blade’s direction.
“Pretty sure you could take me, sport...”Jasper sneers, “...but not before I put one in her.”
My breath catches in my throat.I freeze, my heart pounding in my chest.The tension is suffocating.Blade’s body stiffens in front of me, but I can see the moment he weighs his options.He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t back down.But I can feel him holding back, waiting.Blade’s entire being is coiled like a spring.
“Back up, the two of you,” Jasper says, his grin widening, but there’s a dark edge to his words.“Let’s take this into the backyard.It’s nice and secluded back there.”
Blade turns to me, his hands going to my shoulders, his touch grounding me.“It’s going to be okay,” he says, his voice low and soothing, though the tension in his body tells a different story.
Swallowing hard, I fight the fear rising in my chest.I trust Blade, but the situation is spiraling out of control.Nodding slowly, I try to steady my breath as Blade leads me toward the backyard.
Once we are outside, Blade positions himself in front of me, his body a protective shield, his every movement purposeful as if he’s already anticipating the worst.Jasper paces in a wide circle around us as he watches with a predatory glint in his eyes.
“Does she know what you are?”he sneers, his voice dripping with venom.He quirks an eyebrow at Blade.“Did you tell her before you fucked her?”
Blade’s head moves slightly, the muscle in his jaw tightening.A deep growl rumbles from his chest, low and menacing.“If you hurt her, I’ll—”
“You ain’t gonna do nothin’!”Jasper interrupts with a loud, mocking cackle.He grins, and it unsettles me further.“She’s used goods now.I don’t want her anymore.”
His words land hard, each one a blow.My heart races, the pit in my stomach growing deeper with every cruel word Jasper spits.
“Jasper, I don’t understand,” I say, my voice shaking.I don’t know if I’m asking for clarity or trying to buy time.
Jasper’s expression softens as if he’s playing some sick game.“He should have told you.”His gaze shifts to Blade, and there’s malicious satisfaction in his eyes.“She has bad taste in men.First, that other fella, you should have heard the way he spoke about her, how she’s disfigured, ugly.How he thought no one would want her, but she was already moving on with a Neanderthal with long hair.Didn’t take much to figure out it wasyou.”
My breath catches in my throat, the weight of his words suffocating me.
Travis.
His words pull everything I’ve tried to bury to the surface.For so long, I’ve told myself Travis didn’t matter anymore.But hearing them again, through someone else’s mouth, stirs up everything I’ve tried to forget.The hurtful things he said.The fact that Jasper knows makes my stomach churn.
“What did you do to Travis?”I ask, my voice barely more than a whisper, a tremor in it.
Jasper’s smile widens, and it makes my skin crawl.“Took him hunting.Told him he didn’t want to leave Alaska without making a kill.”
“You killed him,” Blade states flatly, his voice stone-cold.
“Yep.”Jasper shrugs, unfazed by the accusation.“Was going to make it look like one of your kind did it.”He scoffs.“By the time I got you out of your house and back to the body, the animals had carried it away.There was nothing left to plant evidence on.”
“Oh my God.”The words slip from my lips, my hands trembling as I clutch my chest, my mind reeling with the horror of what I’m hearing.Tears well in my eyes, and I can’t blink them away fast enough.
“It was you who shot the bean bag at my house?”Blade’s voice is hard, almost as if he’s already calculating the consequences.
Jasper laughs again—this is all a game to him.“Yep.Thought you’d seen me hiding in the woods, but I knew well enough to stay upwind from your kind.”
The cold reality of what he’s saying settles like ice in my veins.“How do you know aboutmykind?”Blade asks, his voice steady, but the tension in his shoulders betrays him.
“You think you’re the first to come here and hide?”Jasper sneers.“My granddaddy hunted your kind back in the day.He figured out how to mask our scents so we couldn’t be tracked.Exterminated them right out of Alaska.Didn’t you think it was odd that there were none of your kind here?”
