What I needed was comfort, not accusations.
“So what?” I snapped, suddenly defensive. “He was there when I needed him and he’d nearly died for me, so yeah… we had a moment. Live with it!”
Myel stepped back at the vehemence of my words.
“Is this how it’s going to be?” Ifeltthe pain in Myel’s voice, the bond sent his agony lancing through my heart. “A new man every day?”
It wasn’t like that!
Okay… yes, Ihadhad a new man every day for the last two days… but still… it wasn’t like that!
“No, you’re not… it’s not… we just… Ugh!” I slammed my head back against the door — a bit too hard, ouch! — and balled my fists. I’d had a long day, and my body still ached a little after healing Vyns. His orgasms had done wonders but hadn’t been quite enough to cure me of the pain. And with the anguish at seeing him nearly dead, the exhaustion of healing him, the frustration of this last classandthe general fucked-upness of my life, my emotions boiled over into a righteous anger.
“This!This is why I never got involved with anyone. You’re all too clinging and needy and jealous. Gah! And men say women are the emotional ones!”
I stared down Myel. “Yousaid you were okay with me being with other men, so fuckingbe okaywith it!” I remembered my vow to give him some slack when he was jealous, but my anger overruled it.
My glare turned to Rook. “You’re a fucking sex demon; how many partners have you had? And you’re getting angry at me forone more?”
“It’s the fact that it was an angel—” he tried, but I cut him off.
“So what! angel, demon, shifter, does it really matter?”
“In this world it does,” Myel whispered as I spoke over him,
“You’re all men!”
Myel flinched back from my fury, but I was at the end of my rope and only the start of this rant.
“EvenbeforeI came to this world, you men have been screwing me over!” I pinned Rook down with my stare. “You just had to report me and up end my entire life. And being all contrite now doesn’t make up for the fact that since I’ve been here, I’ve been bullied and beaten and treated like shit. Hell, look at my room. That bitch destroyed my room, and no one has done anything!”
“And you,” I shouted, turning to Myel. A part of me knew he didn’t deserve the vitriol I was about to spew at him, but my righteousness wouldn’t let me stop. “I didn’t ask to be bonded to you. You have no right to dictate what I do with my life. We’re together and that apparently means something to you, but not for me. I’m just trying to survive!”
Myel’s heart shattered. I felt it. It felt horrible… and that only made me angrier.
“And neither of you was there this afternoon when I needed you. You’re both all:we’ll be there for you, whatever you need, but are you, really? Maybe if you’d been there when Inearly diedsaving Vyns, I could have been with you not him.”
Okay, nearly dying was a bit of an exaggeration, but I didn’t regret saying it, since both men suddenly perked up with concern and interest.
Now they were listening.
Now they were worried.
“I did feel something,” Myel admitted. “You wereworried and exhausted, but… I couldn’t get away. I had training. I… I…”
Fuck, those big dark eyes of his, so filled with regret and anguish. His ashamed agony sucker-punched me in the gut, blowing the fight out of me.
I sighed again.
“I just… I need a bit of time,” I said. I couldn’t be near either of these men right now. “I’m going to study in the library.”
I turned and left.
Neither followed.
Good.
But as I walked across campus, I felt worse and worse about my little explosion. Those two really were doing their best and I’d just ripped them a new one. They might have had a tiny bit of justification for being mildly put out by me fucking an angel in Rook’s room… but it was too late to take back what I’d said now.
