“Nuh-uh,” Jax chimes in. “Your room is two doors down from mine, shortcake.”
He winks at her, and her plush lips press together firmly as she looks down. The smirk slides off Jax’s face and I shake my head at him as I walk past, not waiting for Sienna to answer. Her soft footsteps pad after mine as we walk up the stairs, the distance between us feeling like a mountain. And I have no idea how to climb it.
Her breathing deepens, and I turn around, noticing that her leg is landing a little heavier on the one side. Concern tightens my chest. “Is your leg okay?”
Sienna pauses, leaning heavily on the banister. “It’s a little sore. Think we should put more turps on it?”
I swing around, but she’s smiling, biting on her lip as she shuffles past me. “I’m fine, Logan.”
She’s waiting at the top of the stairs, and I point to the room that was always meant to be hers. She raises her eyebrow. “So I was supposed to be here all along? What happened?”
“Alicia.” The word trips apologetically off my tongue, but I don’t miss the way she flinches as she moves slowly towards her room. “Of course.”
There’s a bitterness to her words. Of course there is. As far as she’s concerned, we paraded Alicia in front of her at our Bonding Ceremony. I’m amazed she’s even giving us the time of day.
And there’s a whole clusterfuck to untangle. Alicia might be gone, but our problems aren’t over. Erikkson is still expecting us to Deny Sienna at the closure of the Trials, and I have no idea how we’re going to call him off without Gray and I becoming public enemy number one for the whole of Navarre society.
And Gray and I are a special cluster-what-the-actual-fuck all on our own. I don’t even know how the hell to explain that to Sienna. If we even should.
Maybe we should let things lie.
The thought sends pain lancing through my chest, a direct hit. I don’t want to be without Gray. To live our lives standing alongside him, unable to touch him the way I want to. Need to, even.
I need him, just as much as I need the omega in front of me. And all I’m doing is making a damned mess with both of them.
Rubbing my neck, I turn away. “I’ll let you rest,” I say abruptly. Not waiting for an answer, I take the stairs two at a time.
I need to lose myself in some art for a while.
40
SIENNA
I’m left staring at Logan’s back as he throws himself down the stairs, getting away from me as fast as he possibly can. I shove down the little spike of sorrow, locking it into an already overflowing box of rejection.
This is the slow game. It’s not all going to be fixed in a day.
As confirmed by my reaction to Gray’s comments.
Taking a few steps into the room, I hug my elbows as I look around. Someone has already brought my few belongings down, stacking them in the middle of the giant bed like a little shrine to how stupidly pathetic they are.
Shoving them aside, I wriggle awkwardly until I’m lying on my back, staring up at the white muslin canopy of the four-poster bed.
Makes a change from the filthy beams in the attic.
I stretch my leg out experimentally, wiggling my toes and biting back a wince at the pain in my calf. Yup, definitely not magically healed. My arms flop out to my sides as I blow out a frustrated breath, my thoughts shifting to the four alphas somewhere beneath me.
I have noideawhat I’m doing here.
I’m rudderless. I thought I knew my way forward. Thought I knew what being an omega was all about, thought I knew what the Bonding Trials would bring, but now?
It all feelstainted. And the thought of going through my heat, of being so vulnerable to them when we’ve barely even started to work through this shitshow is not making me feel any kind of warm and cozy. It actually makes me want to curl up in a ball and hide until all of this magically goes away.
I don’t… I don’t want them for my heat. Soul Bonded or not. Not right now. Maybe we’ll find our way through – it’s not like I have much of a choice, with my own body firmly on their side.
I don’t have an option here, unless Tristan can make good on his promise to find an alternative.
I stay where I am for a while longer, until the silence is full of my own screaming insecurities. None of them have come to check on me, to see if I’m alright.
