Page 24 of Jackal's Pride

I tilted my head when I saw Sebastian walk toward Jackal. The fool placed his arm around Jackal’s neck and beamed. “That means you’re working for the good guys now.” He patted his shoulder. “Congratulations.”

One second Sebastian was grinning like the goof he was, and in the next Jackal grabbed the top of his shirt and slung my brother to the ground.

“Jackal!” I hissed.

“It’s fine,” Sebastian groaned as he got up. He faced Jackal with a grim expression. “We don’t have to be enemies. You don’t seem evil. You don’t appear evil. You look lost.” My brother might seem like a fool sometimes, but he was simply an easygoing guy. He took everything with a smile, and he missed nothing because of it. I scrutinized Jackal anew, trying to see what Sebastian uncovered so quickly. The entity before us looked murderous. His gaze held Sebastian’s with venom, but maybe, there was something else there. Uncertainty. Confusion. Pain. I didn’t know which.

Then again, I didn’t know Jackal at all. He seemed tormented by something. Maybe it was wrong for me to bring him here… to subject him to our duties, to have collared him in the first place. But when thinking of all the helpless lives at stake and dying right now because of this plague, I steeled my nerves and decided someone had to make choices even if it was slightly wrong—wrong to control ones will and to goad them, but I was helpless already to my own curse. Even if I knew in my head, it wasn’t all black and white with Jackal, that there was truly something more beneath his pained bright green eyes and his history of pestilence, I couldn’t call a cease fire with him. Not with pride.

“Barron said you never tried to reverse your powers, but could you try?” Sebastian asked him, knocking me from my harrowing thoughts.

“Why would I?”

“Did you need a reason to drop your plagues everywhere?” I countered. His attention snapped to me. A thin thread of patience and control always seemed to hover between us.

“I had a reason.”

“Why are we even bothering to ask?” Prudence piped in. “Some will never want to do good. He wasn’t created with virtue in his DNA.”

“Enough.” Dad raked his finger through his hair and sighed. “Regardless, we’re going to need him to try to reverse a disaster. The human world needs him.”

“You heard the old man.” August strode toward Jackal and me. “Come on. I’ll take him to the human world.”

I caught August by the arm as he tried to walk past me. “I don’t think so,” I told him. August stared down at me. “I’ll take him. I’m the only one who can control him.”

“At least take Barron with you,” August murmured.

“I got it,” I snapped back.

August exhaled, holding up his hands in surrender for a second before ruffling my hair. I smacked his hand away. “You got it, we know. But you’re not alone. Not even with your sin.” In typical August fashion, he faked a yawn and made a break for it. He could only handle so much tender stuff at a time. “I’ll drop into the human world once I get my shit straightened out at the casino.”

“Are you sure you don’t want us going with you, Maureen?” It was Joy who asked.

I shook my head and peered over my shoulder at Jackal who was already watching me. “Let’s go, Jack.”

Chapter 7

Jackal

“Will you chill?” Maureen huffed as we walked out of Grim’s castle.

Not only was I angry, I was uncomfortable. The one hundred and thirty-seven hearts beat furiously out of sync in my chest. They rang in my ears, rattling my teeth. The human world was in dishevel—seasons were out of whack because of the looming fate. Famine and disease were taking over even the healthiest places. Water was disappearing. Food was slowly being contaminated. The hearts knew that now thanks to Grim. His presence was the tipping point for them. It wasn’t my fault, so many villages were hurting this time, but they wouldn’t let me forget their deaths had been my fault.

Instead of feeding me memories, they were almost furious in their need to pound in my chest until their anger bled into me, becoming mine. They weren’t settled nor were they trying to hurt me. It was something equally worse though. I had a driving need to do something, go somewhere. But why? What for? What did they want from me?

Their anger slowly turned into resolve. Resolve for what? I wish I knew why a trickle of desperation in the form of my churning gut made me want to do whatever it was they wanted so they’d stop feeling so, sopained.I did not like this helpless sensation…like I couldn’t do anything. I was stronger than most, yet in this moment it was like I was stranded in the middle of a blocked room without a way to exit—completely hopeless to soothe my rolling stomach.

Maureen stopped abruptly, and I slammed into her. My weight threw her off balance but she was nimble like a cat and regained her footing. Lines of hate marred her face when she twisted toward me. “How many hearts do you have?”

“I don’t even know if I have one,” I responded honestly. I was so consumed by the one hundred and thirty-seven that I couldn’t argue with her.

“I don’t believe you. Before you mentioned mine being louder than yours.”

Had I worded it like that? Claimed them for my own? She examined my chest. I grabbed her wrist just as she reached out to touch it.

“I hear all of them.”

My eyes widened. “You can hear them too?” I asked disbelieving.