I use my magic to dry my hair until it’s straight and shiny. Siah watches me, fascinated, as he towels off and steps into a pair of sweatpants. A knock sounds on the door. I open it to find Knox standing there squeaky clean with a smile on his face. He extends his arms and offers me clothes that I recognize.
“I grabbed these for you when I went to get stuff for everyone.” I stare at a pair of black leggings and a gray slouchy t-shirt that belong to me, and my heart warms with gratitude. I didn’t even give much thought to the fact that I just threw away my bra, underwear and other destroyed clothes and didn’t have anything to replace them with. I take my pile of clean clothes, and Siah walks past me out the door. He smacks my ass as he leaves, and I let out a surprised squeak. Knox gives him an approving nod, and Siah smiles at me.
“That Squeaks nickname makes a lot more sense now.”
I roll my eyes and shut the door in both of their smiling faces. I search my pile of clothes for underwear and quickly realize there isn’t any.
“Knox?” I ask as I open the door again, and all my Chosen turn to look at me. Each of them is clean and showered and look like they’re ready for bed.
“How did this happen?” I ask, gesturing to their ash and blood free selves and the new mattresses that are spread out on the floor.
“Siah told us the two rooms over belonged to Adriel’s guards. They’re not going to be needing them anymore, so we went and showered in there and rehomed their mattresses.
“Oh,” I say nonchalantly, but inside I’m calling dibs on Siah’s mattress. At least I know who’s been sleeping in that one. I turn to Knox, suddenly feeling more tired by the second. It’s like just hearing Adriel’s name has reminded my body of everything it’s been through in the past twenty-four hours. “Um, I don’t have any underwear,” I tell him and then look around the room for my suitcase. It’s not there.
“Oh…uh…I must have forgotten to grab you some,” he tells me, but something in his tone is off. I look over to Torrez and raise an eyebrow.
“Total bullshit,” he confirms, and Knox throws a pillow at him, but Torrez catches it and fluffs it a couple times and lays it under his head.
Knox looks at me and tries to adopt an even more innocent mien, and I narrow my eyes at him playfully. I walk out of the bathroom toward Knox, and when I’m about five feet away from him, I drop my towel. There’s a collective intake of breath in the room.
“Oh, okay. I guess I’ll just have to go without,” I say to Knox, and then I bend over to pull my foot through my leggings. I put my other foot in and then do an exaggerated shimmy to pull them up my thighs and over my hips. I grab my heather-gray shirt and pull it on, and my hard nipples are very prevalent through the knit jersey fabric. I run my hands down my front in an oversexualized smoothing motion and then look up to heated stares. A couple of them adjust themselves, and I shoot Knox a wink and then run and belly flop on Siah’s bed.
Knox gives me a hungry growl and rubs his face with an exasperated huff.
“Serves you right for making me go commando.”
“Fuck, Killer, don’t say commando right now. I’m too tired to punish you properly.”
I laugh at Knox’s words, and Ryker gets up from the mattress on the ground and crawls into the bed next to me. He lays his head in my lap, and I bend over to kiss his temple. He looks exhausted. We all do. I run my hands through his hair, and he relaxes into me.
“Can someone set an alarm for four hours? I need to go relieve Nash so he can sleep,” Ryker asks, and then the next thing I know, he’s breathing heavy in my lap, down for the count. I lean back against the headboard of the big bead and quickly follow Ryker’s lead and leap into oblivion.
29
Pain demands my attention, and I’m pulled from sleep by the flash of fire in my body. The first thing that runs through my mind is that I’m still in the cell.Do not fucking tell me that all of that was some kind of messed up dream.Panicked, I claw at my throat. I will rip this fucking collar off of me if it’s the last thing I do. A sob stutters out of my chest. Hands grab mine, and I whimper in frustration.
“Squeaks. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe with us in the room.”
I go still as Ryker’s words permeate the pain and fear, and I try to breathe through the panic and agony coursing through my system. I open my eyes and relief mixes with the burning inside of me as I see that I am, in fact, in Siah’s room. I look for him and find him writhing in pain on the mattress on the ground. I move to go to him, but a new wave of agony seizes me, and Ryker pulls me into his lap and pushes my sweaty hair out of my face. “It’s okay, Vinna, we’ve got him,” Valen reassures me, and I slam my eyes shut and groan-screech through whatever new runes are showing up on my body.
“It’s okay, Squeaks. You’ve been there and done that more than any of us, and you know it will stop hurting soon. Just breathe through it. I’ve got you. I’ve always got you,” Ryker comforts, and I fist my hand in his shirt and press my forehead against his chest.
I really should be used to this by now, but maybe no one ever reallygets used topain. Adapt, maybe. Work through it, if I’m lucky, but I don’t think getting used to it will ever be in the cards for me. Bastien announces that Siah’s runes are starting to appear, and I force myself to look and see what’s showing up. It’s not just his Chosen marks. My Sentinel runes rise slowly to the surface on his arms and chest, and I’m glad at least that we’re now all connected. It feels right in a way I don’t have words for, and I feel a pure sense of peace sink deep inside of me and settle there.
There’s always been this underlying drive in me that was searching for something. Home, my place, purpose, I could never quite put my finger on what I felt was missing. But as the pain flairs one last time and then starts to recede, I realize I have all of those things with me right here and now. My runes light up, and everyone else gasps when theirs take on the same ethereal glow. Bastien and Valen both hiss in pain, and I turn my attention to them, worried.
“Just…getting…new…runes,” Valen bites out, and I look around at the rest of my Chosen and see that the same thing is happening to them too.
It’s all over in less than a handful of minutes, and everyone slowly powers down like our batteries finally wore out. “Everyone okay?” I ask, running my gaze over Siah and the others. Everyone nods absently as they stare at the new runes on their hands. Siah’s rune is lined up and just as bold as all my other Chosen runes, but the new rune on everyone’s palm is the one garnering the most attention. Six thin black diamonds, evenly spaced from each other and forming a circle, now fill up the entire palm of all of our hands.
“You’ve got a new one there too,” Sabin tells me, and he points to just right of my neck.
My eyes flash over to Siah, and he cranes his neck to see what Sabin is pointing at. I just know this new rune has something to do with Siah’s abilities as a lamia, just like the new runes I got from being with Torrez were about his abilities as a shifter. I don’t even try to deduce what this new rune could be for.
“Fuck, you think it’s going to give me fangs?” I ask, not sure how I feel about that, and the guys all shrug. “I mean, I already have the speed and like to drink blood—”
“My blood,” Siah interjects.
