Jagged Embrace

Chapter 71 - Maeve

Hours later, Maeve was relieved to be back at their motel room with all of their fresh clothes. Still amused at how well Ander and Will took care of their clothes, far more than the other males she'd been around. They sewed holes in rips or worked on stains that she'd have just thrown away. When she was going to toss one of her t-shirts out after getting red sauce on it, Will acted like she was committing a crime and snatched it from her, grumbling about how spoiled she was. She folded that very t-shirt and put it back into her bag with a faint smile on her lips.

"And they are certain he disappeared after confirming he had the page?" Ander's voice broke into her thoughts.

"Yeah, that's what the contact said, but it was from shit handwritten like over sixty years ago."

Crap, she was supposed to have been listening to the conversation. She ran her teeth across her lip. Was it worth the risk of making Will angry to ask him to repeat what he'd said?

"Hey." His warm, rough hand ran up her arm. She blinked and turned her head. "You kinda zoned out there. Were you listening?" His tone was unusually gentle.

She pulled her teeth over her bottom lip again. He was so close, his energy danced against her skin as it always did. Always poised and ready for action, it was almost impossible to stand near him and not feel energized. His grey eyes moved to her lips and her stomach fluttered. God, he was handsome. Heat spread up her neck to her face. A smile crept over his sensuous lips as a knowing look settled on him. He winked, and her knees went weak.

"Do you think-" Ander began, but then stopped.

Maeve blinked, pulled out of the moment with Will.

"Maeve zoned out. I think we're gonna need to repeat that, or at least part of it." He squeezed her arm and sauntered to his alcohol.

"What information did you miss?"

She cleared her throat. "Someone confirmed they had the page and disappeared a while ago... that was because someone else had it before but lost it?" Maeve stumbled over her words, frustrated with herself. "There seems to be a pattern, but..."

Will sat on the chair in her view with a smug smile of satisfaction.

"Yes, there is a pattern," Ander said in a tight voice. Great, he was irritated with her again. "It seems the page is found and then disappears, only to be re-found by someone else and then is gone again. Also, every human who has confirmed they had the page ends up dead or missing, never to be heard from again."

She nodded. Definitely a cursed object. What else would cause that?

"Mason wouldn't take my call, but she confirmed all that via text. It's a shit show of a retrieval and she knows it. She put us on it because she's pissed. This could end up taking weeks," Will grumbled.

"Correct, because we need to plan carefully. It seems the item must have some ability, either innate or perhaps spelled. Either way, it seems to cause death, or worse."

"Worse than death?" Maeve asked.

"There are many things that are worse than death." Ander's voice was barely above a whisper.

"There's a reason soldiers want to die in battle," Will said.

Maeve looked back and forth between them. She wanted to ask what they meant, but knew better from their tones. Her hand slid up to her necklace. Every time she felt closer to them or like she'd learned about them, something would happen. A conversation, spoken or unspoken, sometimes it was the lack of words that gave it away. It was always one step forward, two steps back with them. "So we aren't going tonight?"