Page 70 of Temptation
“Why? Because we’re friends?” Kane asked, backing me up.
“God, no.” Rowan slowly sat down, avoiding all our eyes. “Because she’s my sister.” He looked at Skylar. “She’s my sister. My real sister.”
14
SKYLAR
Lovingbroken people could break you as well.
It wasn’t so hard falling for us. We built fortresses around our hearts, so high, that even if you wanted to, you couldn’t see what was truly happening in our minds. We sold you stories of happiness, of a life worth living, when in reality, we battled with the demons whispering with their poisonous little tongues. We learned how to hide our tears behind bright smiles. How to hide our scars and our numbness. I loved observing people, loved seeing the world through their eyes, because mine were nothing but an endless dark night, filled with the screams of a younger me.
It wasn’t his fault that I couldn’t stop crying that night—it was the fault of those that came before him. It was the fault of those that taught me how to shield myself, how to mask my emotions so that when the next person came, I wouldn’t go through the same pain again.
Some days, my brain told me that I would never be worthy of love, and I believed it. God, I truly believed that. I told myself that there would come a day in the future, when this heaviness pressing on my chest would no longer exist, but as the days passed, I had a feeling I would never get to that point.
When he told me he loved me, that fleeting moment of happiness evaporated into thin air, replaced by anxiety, fear and sadness, because how could anybody ever love me? Most days, I didn’t even love myself.
I should’ve held him tighter when he said those three words I never expected to hear from him. I should’ve done something, acted differently. I should’ve told him how I really felt, instead of running away. I should’ve told him that I didn’t want to run from him because I didn’t love him, but because I was terrified of those stronger than me, and what they would do to him.
For so long, I was so terrified of life and truly living that I let life pass right by me, while I stood in the same spot, motionless in the darkness. But as I sat on the cold floor of the crypt, held only by Dylan, while the rest of me slowly shattered with every word that left Rowan’s mouth, I knew I couldn’t be motionless anymore.
This gilded cage I put myself into was too tight, too suffocating, and my soul cried to be set free. These silver chains wrapped around my soul were too heavy, burning through me. With every new secret revealed, their cold surface pressed harder, they squeezed tighter, and my throat started closing, while the dark shadows danced on the periphery of my vision.
Maybe I was born with misery etched into the very DNA structure of my being.
Silence descended on us, only broken by the tormented wind from the outside, shaking the crypt. Shadows played on the walls, like marionettes controlled by the flames from the candles, but I sat motionless, only held together by the pair of strong hands holding me.
I had no idea who was breaking more—me or the rest of the guys around me.
Ash looked pale. Kane kept looking at Rowan as if he too didn’t know what to say, while Dylan kept rubbing small circles around my back. And me—I was comfortably numb.
“That’s—” Ash started and shut his mouth, unable to form a proper sentence.
Ash closed the distance between him and Dylan and me, and crouched down on the other side of me, pouring his strength into me as he dragged his hand over my hair, and over my face. Only when he wiped over my cheeks did I realize that the tormented sound in the air wasn’t only the wind, but the sobs racking my body.
“Shhhh,” Dylan murmured, but I couldn’t stop.
My vision became blurry, a thousand memories assaulting me at the same time. All those nights spent where I felt like I didn’t belong in my family. All those nights after I found out I wasn’t Dylan’s sister, wondering who my real parents were. The pieces of the puzzle were all around me. All this time, the truth was always in front of me, but I was too afraid to look for it.
I was too terrified to know what happened, because if I were here and my real parents weren’t, that only meant that something terrible had happened to them.
“My father, Gabriel,” Rowan started, sliding down the opposite wall, and looking at the ceiling. “I don’t remember him because I was just a baby when it all happened, but I’ve heard stories. My parents didn’t marry out of love.” He cackled. “It was a political play of two powerful families, both of which used their kids to gain more control. But they failed, because my father fell in love, but not with my mother.”
Rowan’s eyes connected with mine, and I could see the sorrow lining every crevice of his face, but I was powerless, too stuck on what he said, to even try to move to comfort him. To tell him that it was okay he kept this a secret.
But was it really okay?
I had the right to know. I needed to know what happened.
Countless nights where tears were the only friends I could talk to, while the torture Judah inflicted upon me left scar after a scar, only to find out that I had two brothers. Two actual brothers.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” I asked. “Why keep this from me?”
“Because I didn’t know how. What was I supposed to do, Sky? Walk up to you, tell you all about the Order, and be all like ‘Oh, by the way, it seems that my father fucked your mother. Congratulations, we’re a family.’ Yeah, that wouldn’t have worked.”
“I still would’ve wanted to know.”
My voice sounded small, too fragile in the wake of all these events, but a weird kind of power bloomed inside my chest. Holding on to Dylan and Ash like they were my lifelines, I knew I would survive this.
