“Give it back!” Evangeline grabbed for the gem on instinct, but Chaos held her wrist.
“This isn’t for you,” he said.
He was wrong. She knew he was wrong. The gem didn’t sparkle so brightly in his gloved hand. It needed to be hers.
She swung at him with her free arm. It didn’t matter that he was stronger or bigger or that it probably hurt her far more than it hurt him when she managed to strike at his chest. She had to have that necklace.
“That doesn’t belong with you!” She lunged for him.
“Not a good idea, Little Fox.” Jacks’s hands banded around her, roughly dragging her from the vampire and her precious gem.
“Let me go, you monster—” She tried to butt him with her head.
Jacks took a hand from her waist and wrapped it around her neck, holding her immobile as Chaos went to the desk and locked the gem inside an iron box.
Immediately, Evangeline felt like she’d been plunged in cold water. As soon as the lid closed over the stone, her boldness, her extreme confidence, her desire to claw out Chaos’s eyes with her fingernails vanished in a flash.
She sagged against Jacks’s grip. “What just happened?” Her skin felt flushed, her breath was uneven, and Jacks’s hands were still on her.
“Can you control yourself if I release you?” Jacks asked. “Or do we need to shackle you to one of the chairs?” He sounded as if he was laughing again—because of course Jacks would be entertained while she was mortified.
“I’m fine.” Evangeline wriggled against Jacks. Slowly, he uncurled his fingers from her, but not before she felt his knuckles softly brush against the underside of her breast.
Her stomach dipped. But Jacks’s face was so impassive, she imagined the touch must have been a slip.
She shook her head as she staggered farther from him and the necklace Chaos had locked away.
“What was that thing?” she asked.
“That thing is the luck stone,” Chaos said. “It is one of the four magical missing arch stones.”
Evangeline remembered then what Jacks had said about the previous key, that she’d died after finding one of the missing stones. The gem on the necklace must have been that stone.
Chaos strode away from the desk, but his movements appeared to be tighter than usual. He clenched and then unclenched his hands as if he’d just finished with something challenging.
“Did the stone affect you as well?” she asked.
“The stone affects everyone,” he said.
“It didn’t do anything to me,” chimed Jacks.
“Only because the luck stone makes people reckless, and you’re always reckless,” Chaos replied.
Jacks shrugged. “What’s the point of being an immortal if you live like a human?”
“But I thought you could die?” Evangeline asked.
“Why? Planning on murdering me?” Jacks’s eyes glittered.
Chaos speared him with a glare. “Don’t tempt her.”
“Relax.” Jacks toyed with one of the shackles dangling from the arm of a chair. “I gave her the chance to stab me once, but even then she wouldn’t do it.”
“And I’ll forever regret that,” Evangeline said. But to her horror, the words didn’t taste as true as they should have. She reminded herself that Jacks couldn’t be trusted. He was the reason she was in this mess. Except, once again, those words didn’t feel true. Jacks was not the one who’d cursed Apollo this time.
She remembered the feel of Jacks’s heartbeat, furious against hers, as he’d dragged her out of the ocean after they had escaped Apollo. For once, Jacks hadn’t felt in control. He’d felt like a feral fairytale warrior, determined to do whatever it took to save her. She knew his reasons for wanting to keep her alive were less than noble. But sometimes reason was no match for feeling. She reasoned that it would be far better to hate him, but she could no longer muster the feeling.
Chaos cleared his throat.
Evangeline looked up to see the vampire standing before his desk, arms crossed over his broad chest as he watched her with something like concern. It was difficult to tell for certain with the helm concealing his face, but he didn’t need to worry. Evangeline might not have hated Jacks, but she still knew better than to trust him.
“There are three stones left to find,” Chaos explained. “Each stone has a different power. Evangeline, because you’re the key, you will feel each stone’s magic the most, making it easiest for you to identify them. However, as you could probably tell from the luck stone, the power of the stones makes them dangerous.”