Syko leads me down the hall and up a flight of stairs. “We have the same roommates we did before; at least the males do,” he explains quietly as he tugs me along past two whispering water nixies, their eyes glued to me as they giggle to one another. “Females are on the opposite side of the dorm. You’ll bunk with Sasha and Heaven. We took your stuff to them so it was ready when you came back.”
My throat tightens up at that.
We hurry down to the last few rooms on the second floor that are across from one another. He opens the one on the right, pushing it open to reveal the people inside.
They’re sitting on the beds. Heaven and Sasha are pressed intimately together on the top bunk, the vampire trailing lazy circles around the faerie’s arm. Malek, Phoenix, and Saint are huddled together on a bottom bunk, voices whispering. They’re so focused on their conversation, they don’t notice us step into the room, Syko closing the door behind us.
I take in the sight of them for a brief moment, the impact of seeing them again pressing against my chest in a happy sort of pain.
And then Malek growls as he grips Phoenix by the lapels of that shitty Academy uniform, picks him up, and slams him against the wall.
Saint shoots to his feet, his familiar blue eyes glowing with excited malice. He puts his hand on Malek’s shoulder but the wolf shakes him off with irritation.
“I’ll go after her myself!”
The bright green of Phoenix’s eyes are consumed by the black. He grips the wolf’s wrist with such a force that his knuckles go white, but Malek doesn’t even flinch. “Fuck you, Spike,” he growls darkly. “I am going to hell to find her. You’ll just slow me down by stopping to piss on every fucking tree we pass.”
Malek’s fingers curve into vicious looking talons that reach for Phoenix’s face.
I’m surprised with how much I missed this part of our relationship.
And I’ve seen enough.
My wings flap at my back and I jump towards them, my fingers ripping from Syko’s hold. I throw myself between them, tucking my wings tightly to my back. I don’t let that heartbreak press on me as I slap my palms against Phoenix and Malek’s chests and shove them away from one another.
“Stop it,” I order, but the sound comes out breathlessly. I feel suddenly weak, like my powers have depleted by the simple act of flying.
I keep it together long enough to see the stunned expressions on their faces and I smirk.
“Miss me?”
Twelve
Malek
The pounding of my heart is all I hear as Saint and Phoenix crowd her, pushing their hands through her hair and brushing their lips over every viable inch of her skin. Like they need the time to memorize the feel of her body all over again. Like they’d somehow forgotten the taste and texture of her all those weeks she’s been gone.
I could have never forgotten her in a million years. Not her body, not the taste of her lips or the feel of her tongue against mine. The sounds of her sighs are imprinted on my very soul, and her essence is a part of me.
I could never forget her, even if I tried.
And still, the mere shock of seeing her has my mind struggling to remember every inch of her body I stored away in my memories. But now she’s in front of me, and I can’t seem to connect the dots. She’s here. She’s really fucking here.
Ash, sweat, and sinfully tight leather coat her her skin like a shield and I can’t help but wonder if she’s hurting as much as my heart tells me she is. It’s in the shadows beneath her eyes, the subtle way she flinches as she’s pulled into tight hugs, is asked a thousand questions, and tries to mask it behind a forced smile.
They’re suffocating her. And she’ll let them because she loves them.
“Give her a fucking break,” I push past them both until I’m standing in front of her. We stare at each other, my gaze caressing every part of her to make sure the dry blood near her neck isn’t a wound that needs more attention than she’ll admit.
I won’t have much time with her. It won’t be like it was before. She’ll be in the women’s wing and I’ll be in the men’s. Thinking about her non stop. Worrying about her non stop.
My hands go to her shoulders and stickiness meets my palms. I sniff, inhaling the scent of her. She smells like ash and sweat, and the strange remnants ofsomething.
“Let’s go take a shower,” I finally say when what I really want to do is pull her into my arms and hold her until the pain in my chest eases. But this isn’t about my pain. It’s about hers. It’s about that haunting look in her eyes that wasn’t there last month. What exactly did she go through in hell? Whatever it was, it can’t have been good.
I’ll put my own needs aside for her.
“A shower sounds great!” Saint chimes in like an old clock that should have been thrown out years ago.
