Page 71 of Temptation
I’d survived far worse.
With shaky legs and a heavy heart, I pulled myself up, letting go of Dylan and Ash. All four of them had their eyes on me, but I focused mine on Rowan, trying to find the right words for this conversation. He knew, yet he kept quiet.
He knew what they would do to me, why I was here, what happened to my parents, and he kept it all deep inside his soul, protecting himself.
This wasn’t love. You wouldn’t hurt people you loved under the false pretenses of trying to protect them, and that’s exactly what he did.
“Were you trying to protect me, or yourself?” I asked. “Because if you were trying to protect me, you did a shitty fucking job, Rowan.”
Bitterness dripped from every word that left my mouth, but I didn’t have it in myself to care anymore. While all of them led their lovely little lives, fully aware of the darkness spreading through Winworth, I spent my days covered under the cloak of shadows, trying to find one place where I could breathe.
I could see the pain on his face, regrets, sadness, but none of it touched me. None of those emotions mattered because he, just like many others, had betrayed me.
“Tell me!” I roared. “Why did you keep secrets from me?”
“Moonshine,” Ash murmured, his fingers wrapped around my calf, but I didn’t want his touch right now. I didn’t want any of them.
They all lied to me. They all played their little games, with no regard to my well-being. It was so easy saying that you were trying to protect someone, when all you did was hurt them more than they would’ve been hurt had you told them the truth.
“Don’t touch me, Ash,” I gritted out, stepping away from him and Dylan.
“Sky—” Dylan stood up and tried reaching out to me with his hands, but I wanted nothing to do with any of them.
“You too,” I mumbled. “Stay the fuck away from me.”
Lies, lies, lies, and more lies. Where was the end? Where was the edge of their dark depravity, of their filthy little secrets? Where the fuck was my happiness, when all the people I had in my life did nothing but lie to me?
How could I continue living like this when I couldn’t trust any of them?
“I wasn’t trying to protect myself,” Rowan spoke, pulling my attention back to him. His eyes were already on me, the apology I didn’t want to hear, hiding behind his blue eyes. “I didn’t want to hurt you, but it wasn’t for my own protection.”
“Then why?” I spat out. “I’m tired of lies, Rowan. I’m tired of all of you.” My eyes flickered over all four of them. “I’m tired of fake promises and broken truths. For once in your lives, be fucking truthful with me.”
“It’s not that simple,” Rowan answered.
“Oh, but it is,” I retorted. “It’s so fucking simple. Here we are, kids of fucked-up parents, and all of us know about the Order. You can’t tell me that now you’re withholding the rest of the truth just because of that. You can’t tell me that you’re still protecting me, when there are monsters chasing me.”
“I wasn’t protecting myself, goddammit!” Rowan roared and stood up. He started pacing from one side of the crypt to the other, his hand on his forehead, while the other one rested on his hip. His sandy-blond hair was a mess, his shoulders hunched, and it seemed as if the weight of the entire world was on his back.
And then it came to me, like lightning striking an empty, green field.
“Where is Danny, Rowan?” I took a step back, plastering my back on the wall of the crypt. “Why aren’t you including him in all these secret meetings we’ve been having lately? Why isn’t he with us?”
“Skylar,” Rowan groaned, and I didn’t miss the look Dylan shot at him.
Something wasn’t right. Something was terribly wrong, and I wasn’t leaving this place until we got to the bottom of this.
“Why. Isn’t. He. Here?” I asked through gritted teeth. My patience was paper thin, my fingers flexing and unflexing on my sides, and I had an urge to hit something.
Tormented eyes clashed with mine as he stopped pacing, and it felt as if time stopped for a moment, while I read everything he was trying to tell me in that one look. One fucking look.
“Tell me!” I bellowed. My heart erratically slammed in my chest, but I didn’t move a muscle. None of them were going to leave until they told me everything they knew.
IF Dylan didn’t attack me that night—then who did?
My parents were Eleara, a Red Maiden, and Gabriel Lacroix. How? Where were they? What the fuck happened to them? How did I end up with the Blackwood family?
They were tearing me into pieces by withholding the truth. They were shattering what little sanity I had left, and I was done letting them all walk over me, because I didn’t want to confront things that bothered me the most.
