He flinched at my tone but kept talking. “She said she understood.” His voice sounded small and weak, which told me something else happened, something he wasn’t telling us.
“What did she say?” Rykon demanded, getting angrier by the second, and this time I was on his side.
“She said she understood, but… she had tears in her eyes.” Ajax’s broken tone pissed me off even more. It was his fault this happened. He was the problem. He’s the one that chased her away and made her leave. She wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment. We knew this. We knew she had a controlling father and that meant she needed time to get him on board. But no, Jax just had to get his feelings off his chest. He had to scare her off. That was the only explanation.
This was all his fault.
So much hate and rage was in my heart that it spilled over, filling my whole body up with it until it felt like I was going to be blown apart. She was the one, and I knew it. We all knew it. We all even talked about it before last night happened. Before we all had the best night of our lives and cemented our bond in the most intimate of ways. We agreed we wouldn’t push her and wouldn’t take things too far. Try to ease her into having a relationship with all of us, not just being an experimental thing for her, but this idiot ruined it.
He ruined it all.
“You’re the reason she’s gone. You chased her away.” The venom filled my veins as it bled out into my voice. Making it this sharp, cutting thing as I stepped up to him.
“What the fuck, Jax? Why-” Rykon’s anger now simmered to despair as he was trying to figure it all out like some puzzle, but this wasn’t a puzzle, it was very cut and dry. I cut him off with a look.
“No!” I turned back to Ajax, my entire world coming apart, needing someone to pay for it. I pointed at Ajax. “I will never forgive you for chasing her away, for making her leave. She is my everything-”
“She’s my everything too!” Ajax yelled back, hostility and bitterness aimed at me.
I straightened my stance, looking down at him as I spat out, “And now she’s gone, because of you.”
“Guys, I think we need to settle down and regroup. Maybe the guy she left with forced her to leave. We need to try to-” Rykon tried to reason with us, but I could see it in his face that he knew it was going to be useless. She’s gone, and she took three hearts with her when she left.
I could see tears collecting in his eyes. Ajax already wiped at his face furiously, mine clouding over, threatening to spill, but I refused to let them. My loathing wouldn’t let me see past anything, but these two guys had weighed me down. If I didn’t have them, I could’ve held onto her. I started to make up scenarios in my head about how I could’ve kept her. How I could’ve waited for her to be ready for that level of commitment. I went over all the things they did wrong over the past couple of nights and how it would’ve been better if it was only me.
I gave them each one last look of contempt before I walked out that door. I could hear Rykon’s cry, “Wait, Zay. We need to figure this out together.” I didn’t stop. Together. He thinks we can still be friends after this. My heart was pounding and my limbs were shaking. No, there was no going back after this.
I let go of the memory. Laughing at that kid with too much heart and not enough wisdom to know how to handle complex emotions. Not that I was so good at it now, but I have handled much worse emotional turmoil than having a broken heart. That now seems like kids play.
“I don’t hate you guys either. To be honest, I never really did.” Rykon whispered, looking at the water, playing with it between his fingers. His admission met with silence as I kept my eyes closed, waiting for Ajax to man up.
“I don’t hate you guys as much as I used to… but it’s only for the sake of the mission.” That’s it. I opened and rolled my eyes at Rykon, who smirked at me, knowing that Ajax had the fucking pride and ego as big as the sky. For a second it felt like old times, Rykon and I razing Ajax. His rumble of a voice continued, “We need to work as a team if we are going to get this whole thing done and get out of it in one piece. We don’t have to be friends, but we also don’t have to be hostile to each other, but,” his serious gaze switched between Rykon and me, “Back off with Emerald.”
This time Rykon and I both turned to look at Ajax. “Ya, that’s not happening,Jax.” I immediately replied. My tone held no jokes or light heartedness this time. I was all serious when it came to my gem.
Rykon squared his shoulders, facing both of us straight as he replied, “Not going to happen. There is something brewing between us I can’t walk away from.”
Ajax’s arms and shoulders tightened, I’m sure because his hands were clenched beneath the water, as he bellowed, “Your something couldn’t evencompareto the bond that me and her have! It’s written in blood. It’s permanent.”
I rolled my eyes as I tilted my head in his direction. “Then why are you such a dick to her? I don’t think you’re winning any boyfriend points, if that’s what you’re after.” I then ran a hand down my chest as I proclaimed, “Now what I and my gem have, is a genuine connection. One where I would follow her to the ends of the earth and back, if that’s what it takes.”
“So would I.” Ajax puffed out his chest while Rykon narrowed his eyes at us and nodded that he felt the same.
I let my arms go wide as I chuckled, “When then, boys, it looks like we are going to have ourselves a friendly little competition.” I smiled widely because I completely intended to win, and I wanted them to know it.
Ajax crossed his arms and glared at me like he could kill me with just the intensity of his look. “It won’t be so friendly once you’re both dead.”
Rykon chose that moment to butt in like he thought the notion was hilarious as he picked at his nails. “You’ll have to catch us first.” He looked up at him, their eyes intensifying by the second as his lips turned up into an evil smirk. “I’m not the boy you last knew. I’m stronger, faster.”
“You also have a pretty little lid on that hellish temper of yours.” I sang out to Rykon as he swiveled around, glaring at me.
“You think just because you’re good at sex, you’ll win? Not everything is about sex with women.” He sneered at me like he knew more about women than I did. I almost laughed out loud, if I wasn’t so appalled by the words that came out of his mouth.
“Good?! You think I’m just fuckinggoodat sex?!” Disbelief at the insult he just volleyed my way crossed my face before it darkened. “I will bend you over right now and show you how I can make you scream.” I yelled that last part out, which seemed to make him a teensy bit mad as he surged forward, getting in my face.
“You try to, I will make sure it’s the last thing you do. You think only assassins can kill?” He left it out as a threat, but I tilted my head and gave him my best closed lip crazy smile.
“Then don’t talk about things you know nothing about.” His nostrils flared, and I laughed as I pointed them out.
