Calen wheezed through his next breaths, humor gone from his face. He wasn’t mad though. Nope. Dude was legit eye-fucking her. And Ilia liked it.
“We’re totally moving me in alone,” I joked, turning to Asher, who was watching our friends with a resigned look on his face.
When he focused on me, though, that look morphed into something darker, possessive. “I’ve waited a long time for this day. I got you, Maddi. We don’t need any help.”
He stepped closer and I couldn’t breathe. I forgot that anyone else was even near us as I tried desperately to suck in air and moisten my dry lips. “Let’s go,” I finally choked out. “I’m ready.”
I’d been ready for a long time. Fear held me back, but no longer.
Chapter 9
Ilia and Calen did manage to help, as did Axl, Rone, and Larissa. Jesse didn’t show up at all. I tried not to let it hurt me—I tried really fucking hard to put myself into his position—to understand that he was hurting and this was how he was dealing with it.
But I just wasn’t that big of a person. Jesse was family to me, but family or not, I wasn’t letting something toxic like this current dynamic stay in my life. I might have hurt him, but I was trying to fix it. If he’d talked to me at all, explained how he was feeling—if he even said once “you’re important to me but I need to step back for a bit”—I would still be upset, but not on this level. He was treating me like he couldn’t stand being near me.
He wasn’t doing it to anyone else either. I’d seen him laughing and joking with his brothers, including Asher, but the moment I was there, he shut off and disappeared.
Maybe it was selfish of me, but it hurt to have him act so cold. I missed my friend.
“That was easier than I expected,” Asher said, pulling me back into his—our—soft bed. We snuggled into the clean sheets that already smelled like ocean and life. “You really don’t have much stuff. A bunch of clothes that Ilia definitely picked out for you, and about three things from your life before the Academy.”
I chuckled, turning to bury my head in his chest. All of my shit was already packed away—thank you, magic. Even my clothes were neatly stacked or hung up in the large walk-in closet. The only thing I still had out was my old knife.
“This blade has seen me through a lot of life,” I said, staring at it, shifting the rust-marked silver-colored handle through my fingers. A snort escaped. “Did Ilia ever tell you I pulled this on her the first night we met?”
Asher shook his head, five o’clock shadow scraping across my skin deliciously. Reaching out, he wrapped a hand around mine, enclosing me and the knife in his huge grip. “How long have you had it for?”
I thought for a moment. “You know, I’m not sure. Years, definitely. I got it from one of my mom’s boyfriends, and it definitely came in handy a few times. Sometimes a chick just needs a blade to remind people that her body is hers; they have no right to it. It’s almost symbolic at this stage, a tribute to everything I’ve been through. Everything I’ve overcome.”
He was silent, that scary silence where he was contemplating bad things. But since no one was here for him to kill right now, he eventually relaxed.
“The knife stays,” he said gruffly. “It’ll go in the cabinet.”
He had a large, almost ceiling-high, white timber cabinet that sat against the wall near his door. Inside were photos of his family—well, the family he believed were his parents growing up—plus many other pieces from his childhood, including some artefacts he searched out with his dad, and a collage of weapons collected over the years. That cabinet held some of his most prized possessions.
He got off the bed, lifting me with him. Together we crossed to the large piece of furniture, and I stared up at all the photos as I had done many times. Young Asher was one of my favorite things in the world. As a small child, his power and strength were obvious, even if they were covered by a sheen of innocence, baby-faced cutie that he was. For a brief moment, when I saw those photos I could picture my own child. Our child.
Gah. Not something I was ready to contemplate for many, many, many years. Maybe ever. Depending on how the god and danger situation in the world eventuated. I wouldn’t risk having a child in a world that might destroy them.
But the errant thought still hit me every now and then.
“We would protect them,” Asher said, voice soft but with a deadly undercurrent. “The world would have to cave in around us before I’d let anything harm our child.”
“I know,” I said, hopping up on tiptoes to reach a small space high on a glass shelf. My blade slid into that spot like it had been made for it, and Asher closed the front panel.
“This information on Atlantean couples,” Asher said as we moved back to the bed, “was there anything else that might help?”
“I legit have no idea what we would do without Axl…” I shook my head. “He’s saved my ass so many times with his unending knowledge of fucking everything.”
Asher’s full lips quirked at the corners. “Yep. Mine too. For most of my life. He’s always had his head buried in books.”
I’d pretty much told him everything already, so we just went over what had been in the diary entry again, including the information about the gods sharing power.
Asher was silent for a moment. His face contemplative as he considered what we’d learned.
“Maybe the next time Sonaris is around, we can try and get information from him,” I suggested.
We both knew that he would be around, although, thankfully, I hadn’t seen him in over a week. Maybe he was bored with me already. That would be really great news. Asher’s expression shifted from contemplative to murderous at that suggestion, but thankfully my stomach chose that point to growl loudly.
