Jared fought for balance, then pressed a palm to his head wound. Blood trickled between his fingers as he doubled over and growled in pain.
I wanted to go to him, but Cameron kept his iron grip on my arm.
Brooke crept in behind me and wrapped an arm in mine, keeping a wary eye on our opponent.
After a moment, Jared blinked back to us. He took his time, measuring us with his feral stare. “What happened?” he asked at last just as his gaze landed on me.
“We don’t know,” I said. “You disappeared. You’ve been gone for three days.”
The barest hint of surprise flashed across his face before he caught himself.
“Are you with us?” Cameron asked, waving a hand in front of his face. When Jared scowled, Cameron flipped him off and asked, “How many fingers am I holding up?”
Half an hour later, Jared sat at what passed for a kitchen table, a blue blanket from our linen closet draped over him as Cameron sewed up a huge gash in his arm. An array of medical supplies sat splayed across his countertop along with bloodied gauze and towels. Towels I would have to wash before Grandma saw them.
Jared’s hair, soaking wet, hung in clumps over his bruised brow. The wound on his head that had been bleeding profusely was now stitched and on the mend. It ran along his hairline, and I could hardly see it now.
Brooklyn and Glitch had gone to change out of their soaking-wet clothes, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave. What if Jared disappeared again while I was gone? So instead, I stood, assisting Cameron with shivering hands.
Jared raised his lashes and locked his gaze with mine, unblinking even when a drop of rain-soaked blood dripped from the tips onto his cheek. The rich browns of his eyes seemed darker than usual as he stared, more intense.
He reached out and touched my neck, his hands warm and soothing. “Sorry about that,” he said.
“I’m okay. I was just worried about you.”
Before he could say anything, Brooklyn tapped my shoulder. “I brought you some clothes,” she said, wincing as Cameron tugged on a stitch to tighten it.
Jared also had a huge gash on his arm that required sutures. My knees almost gave beneath my weight every time Cameron stabbed. Tugged. Tied. Clearly nursing was not in my future.
“They were waiting for me,” he said without releasing my gaze. “A group of them.”
“Who?” Cameron asked. At his nod, I took the scissors and cut the suture. “A group of what?”
Brooke took the other seat at the tiny table as Glitch scooted onto the counter.
“Unless it was a group of charging water buffalo, I’m stumped,” Glitch said. “Because anyone, even a group, bringing you down is a little hard to believe.”
Jared finally looked back at Cameron, his expression grave. “They were descendants.”
Cameron stilled. I wondered why. What were descendants? And whom were they descended from?
“I didn’t think there were any left,” he said, voice thick with apprehension.
“There are quite a few, actually, but the real question is, why would they attack me?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Cameron said as he plunged the needle again.
The world spun. Brooke took the scissors and sat me in the chair, taking over. I couldn’t help but notice Glitch fold his arms at his chest and glare when she started helping Cameron, but when Jared took my hand into his, a movement that both shocked and pleased me, I lost interest in his annoyance. After weeks of avoidance on Jared’s part, the warmth was nice.
“I wish I could remember,” Jared said. “I can’t. Everything after that initial attack is a blank. I was fighting—and winning, I might add—then I was here.”
“Glitch-head’s right,” Cameron said, tying off another stitch. “Even a hundred descendants would have trouble bringing you down. How did they take you?”
Jared turned his attention toward him so slowly, so methodically, I was certain he did it to goad
Cameron. “Why?” he asked at last, planting a humorous and, if I didn’t know any better, taunting gaze on him. “Looking for pointers?”
“It’s just a little hard to believe.”
“So is reality TV, but there you have it.”
The tension between them simmered, thickened, blanketed the room in silence.
“What are descendants?” I asked, breaking it. They had been getting along famously—or, well, semi-
famously. Now was not the time for tempers to flare. When they were at odds, architectural structures paid the price. “And why on earth would they attack you? Surely they don’t know what you are.”
After a long moment, Jared tore his gaze away from Cameron. “They know exactly what I am. And they are descended from the original nephilim that were created centuries past.”
“They’re nephilim?” Brooklyn asked, her voice soft with astonishment. “Like Cameron?” She snipped the last suture and cleaned off Jared’s wound with peroxide.
“They’re diluted versions of Cameron,” Jared explained, “descended from the original nephilim, so there’s a lot of pure human mixed in. It’s like taking a single drop of food coloring and adding a gallon of milk. The food coloring will alter the color slightly, but for the most part it’s still milk. There simply can’t be that much seraph DNA left in the breed.”
“There’s not,” Cameron said. “I would be able to tell if there were. I would be able to feel them.”
Brooke smoothed antibiotic ointment onto the stitches and covered them with a bandage.
“In an effort to contain the purity of the race,” Jared continued, examining her handiwork, “there has been a lot of inbreeding as well. From what I understand, they’re not right in the head.”
“Then you are related,” Glitch said to Cameron.
“Their attacking Jared proves they have a screw loose,” Brooke said, ignoring Glitch. “What did they hope to gain?”
“To leave Lorelei vulnerable,” Cameron said.
“Me?” I asked, alarmed. “What do I have to do with the descendants?”
“I have no idea what they would want with you, unfortunately,” Jared said.
Cameron raked a hard gaze over him. “They tracked you here. When you showed up a few weeks ago, they tracked you.”
“Or they were invited.” Jared’s accusation was as smooth as caramel. He settled a withering stare on him. “You’re the hybrid. You’re like them.”
“I’ve never even seen one of those things.” Cameron bit down in an effort to control his temper. “I didn’t even know for sure they existed until you showed up.”
“And yet here they are.”
“And here you are,” Cameron volleyed, baiting the only one in the room who could kill us all with a thought. He was looking at Jared like he’d never seen him before, like he was different somehow.
After a moment, Jared leaned back in his chair and scrubbed his face with his fingertips. “They must have an agenda. They attacked me for a reason.” He looked at me, his brows drawn together. “They have to be after you. It’s the only explanation.”
I really hated to hear that.
“I still think we should get you to the hospital,” I said, switching the focus off me. “You could have a concussion.”
“Hey,” Cameron said, clearly offended. “I got this.”
The corner of Jared’s mouth lifted into a lazy grin. He let his gaze drop to my robe. I pulled it tighter, smoothed my hair down, and tried not to concentrate too hard on the dark sparkle in Jared’s eyes, the powerful set of his shoulders. Even injured, he exuded authority, his supremacy so absolute, so pure. “I know this is going to sound dumb, but are you sure you’re okay?” I was still floored with the attention he was giving me. It was like the old Jared was back. Scraped up. Bruised. Covered in wounds. Yep, it was definitely the old Jared.