My eyes flicked to the plastic cup in his hand. I licked my lips. I wanted it, but my neck hurt. It hurt bad. 'Where's Ivy?' I slurred.
Jenks's expression closed. I focused on his green eyes while the edges of my sight grayed. Nausea tightened my gut. Kisten said she had forgotten control while under Piscary's ungentle touch, possibly killing people in the throes of blood passion. I'd thought she was better. Kisten said she was better. She looked better. Apparently by asking her to divorce her feelings of love from her hunger, I'd taken away what she had used to shackle it. In three minutes I threw her back into the pit of depravity she had struggled so long to escape. I had done it to her. Me.
'I'm sorry,' I said, starting to cry, and he took both my hands in one of his to stop them from moving upward to my neck. 'I only wanted to understand. I didn't mean to tip her over the edge. Jenks, don't be mad at her.'
His fingertips brushed the hair from my forehead, but he wouldn't meet my gaze, not yet ready to believe. Though his smooth features looked too young for someone who had adult kids, the deep-set pain born in understanding said he had endured a lifetime of joy and sorrow.
'Let me get some water in you before you pass out,' he said, turning away. 'Jax!' he snapped, sounding very unlike himself. 'Where's that straw? I don't want her lifting her head.'
'Which one is hers, Dad?' the adolescent pixy said, his voice high in worry.
'It doesn't matter. Just get one!'
The reflected light on the ceiling darkened, and from the open door came a hesitant, 'She had the Sprite. And her cup is the one with all the buttons punched in.'
Jax rose three feet in a glittering column of sparkles.
How about that? Those plastic dents are of some use after all.
'Get the hell out of here,' Jenks said, seething. The warmth of his fingers slipped from me as he rose to stand above me.
Guilt hit hard, and I wanted to curl up and die. What had I done? I couldn't fix this. All I'd wanted was to understand Ivy, and now I was lying in a motel room with holes in my neck and my two best friends fighting. My life was a pile of shit. 'Jenks,' I whispered, 'stop.'
'She wants me here,' Ivy came back with immediately. I could tell she was still in the threshold, and she sounded desperate. 'It was an accident. I'll never touch her again. I can help. I know what to do.'
'I bet you do,' he said snidely, putting his hands on his hips. Now that he was six-foot-four, it didn't look as aggressive, somehow. 'We don't need you! Get out!'
I wished they would figure this out so someone would give me some water. Jax hovered above me, a red straw taller than he was in his grip. Feeling distant and unreal, I made my eyes wide so I could focus on him. 'Dad?' the small pixy called, worried, but they weren't listening.
'You little twit,' Ivy snapped. 'It was an accident! Didn't you hear her?'
'I heard her.' He left me, his feet silent on the carpet. 'She'll say anything you want now, won't she? You bound her to you! Damn it, Ivy! You weak-willed, jealous sack of vampire spit. You said you could handle this! You promised me you wouldn't bite her!'
His shouting was furious, and I went even colder. What if she had bound me to her? Would I be able to tell?
I desperately wanted to turn my head, but Jax was standing on my nose, his bare feet warm, the scent of sugar and wax coming from the drop hanging on the end of the straw. I wanted it, then felt guilty for wanting water when my friends were going to kill each other.
'I'm not going to tell you again, Jenks. Get out of my way.'
There was an intake of breath, and Jax let out a yelp and darted to the ceiling. I heard a grunt followed by a rolling thump. Adrenaline surged, and I pushed myself up, then slumped against the headboard, neck protesting.
They were grappling on the floor, moving too fast for my blood-starved brain to follow. The small end table had been knocked over, and they were a confusing tangle of legs and arms.
'You're a lying, manipulative, vamp-bitch whore!' Jenks shouted, twisting violently out of her grip. She leapt at him from a crouch, and the two crashed to the wall. Jenks moved blindingly fast, flowing out from under her, grabbing her arm and landing atop her back, pinning her to the carpet. My God, he was quick.
'Ow,' Ivy said to the wall, abruptly still with Jenks atop her, her arm held at an awkward angle. His other hand held a dagger to her kidneys. When had he gotten a dagger? 'Damn it, Jenks,' she said, making a little wiggle. 'Get off.'
'Tell me you're going to leave and not come back,' he said, breath fast and blond hair in disarray, 'or I'll break your arm. And you're going to stay away from Rachel. Got it? And if I see her trying to get to you because you bound her to you, I'll find you and kill you twice. I'll do it, Ivy. Don't think I can't!'
My mouth went dry and I started to shake. I was going into shock. My hand pressed to my neck was sticky. I wanted to tell them to stop, but it was all I could do to stay upright.
Ivy wiggled, stiffening when Jenks poked her. 'Listen to me, pixy man,' she said, her face turned to the wall. 'You're quick, you're fast, and if you stick that into me, I'm going to smack you into the ever-after. I didn't bind her to me. I tried to leave, and she asked me to stay. She wanted to know. Damn it, Jenks, she wanted to know!'
Focus blurring, I tried to pull the bedspread over me, my fingers as strong as string, accomplishing nothing. Jenks started at the movement, realizing I was upright and watching. His angular, beautifully savage face lost its emotion. 'You seduced her,' he said, and I dropped my eyes, shamed. All I had wanted was to understand. How could so much go wrong from wanting to understand?
Her cheek pressed against the carpet, Ivy made a helpless bark of laugher. 'She seduced me,' she said, and I wavered from the pain and blood loss, knowing it was the truth. 'I left, but she called me back. I would have left even then, but she said she wanted this for her. Not for me, but for her. I told you if she ever admitted that, I wouldn't walk away. I didn't lie to you!'
My breathing had quickened, giving me a feeling of disjoined airiness. I was hyperventilating. Jax was flitting over me, trying to dust my bite but only making me squint to see through the sparkles. At least I think the sparkles were from him. God I hurt. I was going to either die or throw up.
Jenks pricked Ivy's sweater with his knife and she jerked. 'If you're lying to me—'
Ivy's shoulders lost all their tension, and she surrendered visibly. 'I thought I was better,' she said, guilt slamming into me at the pain in her voice. 'I worked so hard, Jenks. I thought I'd finally—She didn't want…she couldn't handle the sex, so I tried to separate it from the blood. I wanted something of her. And she was able to give me the blood. I—I lost control of the hunger again. Damn it, I almost killed her.'
His eyes on me, Jenks let go of her arm. It hit the floor with a thump. Ivy slowly pulled it into a more comfortable position. 'You didn't separate the sex from the blood, you took the love from it,' Jenks said, and I wavered, my pulse hammering. What had I asked her to do? 'You take that away, and all that's left is the hunger.'
My breath came in short splurges as I fought to remain upright. Did everyone know more about vampires than me? Jenks was a pixy, and he knew more about vampires than I did.
'I tried,' Ivy whispered. 'She doesn't want me to touch her that way.' She took a shuddering breath, broken.
Jenks flicked a glance at me, seeing my cold face and realizing that she was telling the truth. Slowly he slid off her, and Ivy pulled herself upright, knees to her forehead, arms wrapped about her shins. She took a gasping breath and held it.
'Rachel didn't think it was wrong, did she?' Jenks pressed.
'She said she was sorry for waiting so long,' Ivy whispered as if she didn't believe it. 'But she saw the hunger, Jenks. She saw it raw, and I hurt her with it. She's not going to want anything to do with me—knowing that.'
It was a very small voice, vulnerable and afraid, and Jenks watched me, not her. 'Why are you trying to hide what you are?' he said softly, his words for both of us. 'Do you think seeing your hunger shocked her? Do you think she's so shallow that she'd condemn you for it? That she didn't know it was in you and loved you anyway?'
Ivy shook with her head on her knees, and tears slipped from me. My head hurt and my neck throbbed, but it was nothing compared to my heartache.
'She loves you, Ivy. God knows why. She made a mistake in asking you to separate the love from the hunger,
