Page 59 of Awakened and Betrayed
The yells dull to aching moans, and if I wasn’t so angry and disgusted with myself, I might be able to feel some form of relief that this is almost over. I wipe sweat from Knox’s brow and try to cover Ryker with the sheets and comforter, so he doesn’t get cold when he comes out of this. Part of me wants to trace their runes, I’ve never seen them this close on anyone but me, but I kick that part of me in the face and tell it to fuck off.
Knox and Ryker begin to settle, the tension seeping out of their clenched muscles and the writhing becoming more of a rocking. They both pant with shallow breaths, and I watch the rapid rise and fall of their chests until it starts to smooth out. The staccato rhythm of their breaths becomes quieter; their inhales becoming deeper as each of them are released from the pain at precisely the same second.
“Vinna,” Valen calls to me, but I ignore him.
I’m only able to focus on Knox’s brow smoothing out, and the lines around Ryker’s eyes disappearing as the pain leaves them both, and the need for furrowed eyebrows and clenched lids evaporates. Ryker is the first to open his eyes. He brings his hands up and twists his arm to take in the line of runes that now exist there. His eyes find mine, and he gives me a half smile.
“Ouch,” he chuckles, and I hear a relieved breath and strained chuckle escape Bastien and the others.
I wish I could appreciate his attempt at levity, but that simple word might as well be a hammer, and too much of me is made of glass right now. The back of a strong hand strokes down my arm, and I turn to look at Knox. He takes one look at my face and his fills with panic. He rushes to sit up as I scramble away from him and Ryker. His movements are shaky, and there’s a touch of stiffness still in his limbs. An echo of what he’s feeling resonates in me as I recall how I felt after my runes showed up.
“Why are you crying; what happened?” Knox asks, confused.
I climb off the bed, and an angry and indignant snort escapes me. His eyes track me and narrow when I flinch as Bastien moves towards me.
“What the fuck happened?” He demands more forcefully, glaring at the others as he tries to scoot on unsteady arms out of the bed’s comfortable embrace.
Ryker looks around confused, slower to take in that everything is not even remotely close to okay right now.
“What do you mean, what happened?” he asks.
“Vinna. Look at her. She looks like she did after the lamia attack. That same broken, pained, and lost look that killed us; the one we just started to chase away.”
Ryker’s eyes snap to mine, and he takes me in. I feel all of their scrutinizing gazes as they run over my still naked body. Collectively, they all take a step toward me, and I back up, trying to maintain the distance that suddenly feels vital right now. I quickly realize that I’m cornered and there’s nowhere for me to go, and I find myself suddenly choking on panic. I claw at my throat desperate for air, frenzied to escape the terror crashing into me. I gasp around huge mouthfuls of nothing as I try to find oxygen, but it seems like the air is suddenly devoid of it.
Arms seize me tightly, and I’m pulled into Valen’s chest. Bastien sandwiches me in and they both press in tightly against me. The space between where I exist and they exist disappears, and the line betweenI can’t get awayandI don’t want to get away, dissolves so quickly that I can’t really gauge what I want or what I need right now. I suck in huge gasps, fighting for air, fighting for control over the massive and consuming emotions trying to escape me right now.
How can I do this to them? How can I condemn them to this life? I didn’t want to be alone, so I opened myself up to what we could be, but how could I be so selfish?
My self-loathing rises even higher as I battle against how good it feels to be surrounded by all of them as they attempt to soothe me and understand what’s happening. Knox cradles my face in his hands, and the furious look on his face gives me pause. It’s then that I realize I’ve been babbling thatI was sorry, and I couldn’t do this to them.
“You fucking stop that shit right now. Do you understand me? You are mine!” Knox smacks a closed fist against the runes on his chest, and his eyes are filled with fire and frustration. “You are here, you are in my soul, and there isn’t shit you can do about it. You are not a fucking plague! You are ours, and we want it that way!”
“But I’m hurting you!” I yell at him, somehow hoping the volume helps embed the truth of what I’m saying into him.
“No, you’re tempering us. We will be stronger because of you. Connected because of you. Better because you are ours and we are yours. But not if every time things get difficult, you cut us out. Why don’t you trust us?”
His voice breaks on the question, and the argument in my mouth crumbles to ash.
“I do trust you.”
“No, you don’t. If you trusted us, you wouldn’t dismiss what we say and want so easily. We tell you that we understand what it means to be with you, to be Chosen, but you throw that away becauseyoudecide you know better. You decide forusthat being together is not worth it. Each of us has told you that we’re in. Did you think we made that decision lightly, that we didn’t think through what that meant for us, for you?”
I stare at him, and his words rumble like thunder through me.
“You didn’t have a choice. I marked you and forced you to make the best of a messed up situation.”
“Oh, is that what we are, a messed up situation?
“That’s not what I meant, and you fucking know it!” I growl at him.
Knox steps even closer to me. He brings his face even with mine, his lips a hair’s breadth away, his long eyelashes kissing mine as he blinks once before his eyes lock onto mine.
“Now you listen to me...you may be one badass Sentinel, but guess what, so am I now. Stop questioning your place in our lives. Stop doubting us when we say that no matter what, this is what we want. You are what we want. The scorching I just got from those runes? That’s nothing compared to the hurt when you doubt me, doubt your place with us. So get your shit together, Killer. Either you’re in, or you’re out.”
Knox’s face remains serious, but a twinkle enters his eyes. He knows he’s got me,cheeky fuckerusing my own words against me. I stay silent, and my eyes bounce back and forth between the gray storm clouds in his gaze.In or out. The challenge resonates through every part of me, and it stomps out the fucked up pieces in me that insist I’m not worthy or deserving of what they’re offering me. I kick at the doubts and useless insecurity and decide once and for all.
“In.”
