Veiled (Ada Palomino 1)

“Well she’s married to you, what did you expect?” I sigh, rubbing my hand over face. “I just want someone right now to tell me what’s going on.”

“Fine,” Jay says and before I know it he’s at my side, grabbing my hand and pulling me backward.

There’s a great popping sensation, like all my bones are hollow and clicking in and out of place and the scene in front of me, Jacob’s face furrowed in disapproval, Dex’s one of shock, starts to shimmer and warp like I’m passing through liquid.

Suddenly everything is grey, Jacob and Dex are gone, and my ears are filled with immense pressure, like I dove too deep, too fast.

It’s enough for me to grab my head and fall to my knees, groaning at the pain, begging for it to stop.

I feel a warm hand at my back.

“It will pass,” comes Jay’s voice, softer now, like he actually cares. “Just breathe.”

But there is no air to breathe. There is nothing at all. Everything inside me feels absolutely devoid of life, and if it wasn’t for his hand on my shoulder blades, I would think I’d actually died.

My lungs keep working though and air or not, I keep breathing. Eventually I look up.

I’m still on the street, in a grey deserted world, my house in the distance. Not another soul to be seen.

“Welcome to the Thin Veil,” Jay says, standing in front of me. “I’ll be your guide.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

I blink, trying to take it all in, the world of the Thin Veil. It’s not hard. There’s nothing here. I should be grateful we’re alone, that spiders the size of cats aren’t skittering toward us, wanting to slice and dice.

“I know you’ve been here before,” Jay says as I get to my feet and take a few tentative steps toward my house. “But there are layers to the Veil. We are only in the first step of immersion, barely below the surface. It’s the safest for you.”

“Safe?” I repeat, looking around, my hands rubbing along my arms even though I’m not cold. “I’m not sure how safe I’m supposed to feel considering you kidnapped me in front of my brother-in-law and took me to another dimension.”

When he doesn’t say anything I turn around. His eyes flit off into the distance but I caught that. He was staring at my ass! I guess I am still in my underwear but the fact that his gaze was lingering on my sugar skulls tells me that whatever he is, he’s still a full-blown male.

My stomach warms at that thought and I have to remind myself that this no time to indulge my ego.

I clear my throat. “Why am I here?”

“Because I needed to talk to you alone,” he says.

“You could have just invited me out for coffee like any normal person.”

He raises a brow, those intense eyes of his locking on me. “What were you just saying about being normal? No. I couldn’t have. You ran after me, in case you forgot, and I knew it couldn’t wait until morning.”

I cross my arms, staring at him impatiently. “Well, talk.”

He chews on his lip for a moment, his eyes staring at the ground, deep in thought. It irks me how much I enjoy staring at him.

He sighs and rubs his fingers along his jaw. He’s got nice, long fingers. Strong hands. More things I shouldn’t be focusing on but I guess my brain is just trying to find the normalcy in all of this.

“I’m not sure how much of this you’re going to believe,” he says.

“Try me.” I gesture to the fact we’re in another world. “I’m pretty open-minded.”

He studies me for a moment and then nods sharply. “How familiar are you with the Jacobs? And no, not Jacob himself, I mean the term for . . .”

“Supernatural redheads who can’t mind their own business?” I ask. Then it hits me. It’s been so damn obvious this whole time. “Oh my god. You’re a Jacob. You’re my Jacob.”

“Tell me what you know about them,” he says, ignoring that.

I’m still spinning over my epiphany so it takes me a few moments to remember what I know of them. It’s been awhile.

“Perry had one,” I tell him slowly. “Dex had one. Even Pippa had one. They’re supposed to—you’re supposed to—help guide or instruct certain people when dealing with the afterlife. Ghosts and demons and all that bunch of nasty stuff. Right? So I’m guessing you’re my guardian of the non-angelic kind.”

I mean, shit, if this is true, that means he’s mine. This gorgeous man. I’m not sure if that’s lucky or extremely unfair. “Even though,” I quickly add, “I also know not all Jacobs are good.”

“We aren’t good or bad,” he says simply, as if he’s rehearsed it before.

“So you say. But Perry’s was bad. He made her burn down a house.” At the time I was so young and naturally thought Perry was losing her mind when she torched a house at fifteen. I wouldn’t have believed the truth back then, that she was under the influence of a supernatural “guardian.”