The sentence was simple. No bells and whistles. Nothing beyond what she truly desired, but the effect it had on me was dire.
I’d grown used to the warmth of my aura. It was a gentle hum when I called on it myself and a rush of heat when my emotions got the better of me before it was released.
This was different. It was a fire that lit up every nerve with excruciating pain. It prickled like a million hot needles driven into my skin. There wasn’t an inch of my flesh that didn’t feel like it was on fire. I doubled over, gasping as something deep inside was ripped from my body. It left a gaping hole inside of me and a deep sadness hit in my chest before it morphed to emptiness, making my eyes wet with unshed tears.
“Quen?” Gray’s voice was closer.
My knees hit the floor, pain shooting through the joints, and I held myself up with my palms. From the periphery of my vision, I saw wisps of silver before the door opened.
“Quentin!” Gray’s worried voice sounded before I was lifted from the ground. He sat me on the bathroom counter and I dropped my head against his chest, too weak to support myself. “What’s happened?” he asked, trying to move my head back so he could look at me, but I refused. The steady thrum of his heart, a fraction faster than what I was used to hearing, calmed me down. “Did someone do something?”
“No,” I mumbled, clutching his shirt. “I don’t feel very well.”
That was an understatement. It felt like the grief I’d packed away had unfurled itself so furiously that I couldn’t breathe. Something was missing, and I didn’t know how to get it back. Even though I’d given her permission, my body mourned the loss of something sacred.
Large palms rubbed along my spine and I took in the comfort Gray offered. Carefully, I tipped my head back to be greeted by his worried face and the guilt solidified in my chest at the small white lie I told him.
“This happens when you work every hour of the day,” he grumbled. “I’m taking you home. I don’t want to hear any argument.”
When Quentin looked at me with tired eyes from her lab stool and called me “bubba”, how was I meant to refuse doing the coffee run for her?
If the rest of her colleagues in the lab thought it was a strange sight for me to march out of the room after talking to her, none of them made a comment. The Gods may have known of our relationship, but the mortals remained steeped in gossip with no confirmation.
Despite my protests, Quentin returned to the lab the morning after the engagement party and continued with her long hours. She batted away all my concerns and, to make matters worse, she’d visited some of the other council members.
She relaxed around Malachi, feet curled up beneath her as he talked to her about politics. Waverly was still cautious about where Quentin stood with us, but they found common ground to discuss more trivial matters. The most irritating of the visits was Flynn. He always sat a little too close, placed his hand casually on her body, gossiped about all the people at the facility and in Elysia, and encouraged her to let her aura loose. Quentin left every visit with him with a grin on her face, and I left wondering how to snap his neck while making it appear as an accident.
As I stepped onto the ground floor and headed towards the break room, I bumped into Holden. The oaf had requested to work on a different floor and I thanked my kin for getting rid of the man from my direct line of vision every day.
“Grayson,” he said, nodding curtly and drawing himself up straight.
I couldn’t suppress the urge to roll my eyes. “Holden.”
“What are you doing on this floor?”
“Last time I checked, you aren’t responsible for me in any form, but if you must know, Quentin requested coffee.”
His expression soured. “Still seeing each other?”
“Yes, and it’s progressing beautifully,” I said, smirking. “I’ve been thinking of taking things down a more serious route.”
His lip curled into a snarl, and he pushed past me. “I don’t know what she sees in you.”
A deep, hearty laugh rumbled in my chest and echoed around me as I entered the break room. It died on my lips at the sight of white blonde hair on the sofa. Erik was sprawled across the piece of furniture, hugging a cushion to his chest and sobbing. My beautiful little brother looked ethereal even amidst tragedy.
“What the fuck happened?” I asked, clearing the room in three steps.
I sat him up straight, but he clung to the pillow and sobbed harder. Dropping to my knees in front of him, I tried to get Erik to look at me.
“What’s happened, Erik? Is it Sloan? The kids?” The chaos bubbled in my chest as a myriad of scenarios ran through my mind, each more violent and devastating than the last. “Do we need to go back to Elysia?”
Erik shook his head, hair swinging with the motion. “No. It’s nothing like that.”
He sniffed—a disgusting, snotty sound—before heaving in a deep breath and palming his chest with the heel of his hand.
“Tell me what’s happened and we can deal with it,” I demanded.
The chaos I thrived off was seeping into the lives of the ones I loved, and it was beyond me to rein it in. Without a way to stop it, all I could offer was to find solutions to ease the burden.
