“You what?” the twins say at the same time.
“Don’t you dare use my words!” Orion points at him.
“What the fuck does that even mean?” Soren shakes his head.
“It means shut the fuck up! How hard is that?”
Lex chuckles, and instead of helping the situation, he finds a nice place beside the fireplace and takes a seat, a drink in his hand.
“Work your magic, Miss Briarwick.” He smiles, and I flip him off.
“Orion, I need you to calm down,” I say, even when I don’t expect that to be possible.
He stares at me, perplexed as if I just slapped him right in his face. It’s expected that he doesn’t understand why I don’t hate Soren, and I can’t tell him why, so I need him to trust me.
“I have to go.” Soren starts for the door, but I’m there first, stepping in front of him.
“No.”
That’s all I can say. My eyes burn into his, my hand over his fast-beating heart. He looks down at my palm, pure anguish taking over his handsome features. This is going to be harder than I thought, but I can’t stomach one more second of everyone trashing him. I can’t. Every time one of them says something about Soren, I die a little. I feel like I’m betraying him by not defending his name, by not telling everyone that Arabella was a rapist. My eyes close, and I take a breath before bringing the big guns.
“Someone showed me the video today.”
Soren stills under my touch, and he glances over his shoulders, eyes hard and set on his twin.
Orion brings his hands up. “Not me! I wouldn’t do that to her!”
“It was some girl. It doesn’t matter who. What matters is that I want to put this behind us.” My words are for Soren alone.
“Why?” Orion demands. “Why would you want to do that?”
He’s not aggressive, but he looks suspicious as he takes me in. Obviously, I knew this was going to come up. When I first found Soren and Arabella together I was so heartbroken I ran straight into the arms of someone I didn’t trust. Someone I knew to be a bad person. I came to Bellthorn because staying with him wasn’t an option, yet I was so distressed that I climbed into thatcar without even considering why he was here in the first place. It would be so much easier if I could just tell him the truth.
“I’m done with the situation as it is. I’m bringing Soren back in,” I say, hoping that if I sound dominating, he won’t fight as hard.
“No, you’re not.” Soren and Orion speak at once.
Lex chuckles, and I stop myself from flipping him off once again. Instead, I concentrate on the task at hand.
“This divide is not working for me. I need you to bury the hatchet?—”
“The hatchet?” Orion screams. “You think him ruining my life and betraying all of us is something as trivial as ‘burying the hatchet’?”
Well, now he’s pissed at me too. I shake my head, not interested in arguing. “Iforgive Soren.”
Three sets of eyes stare at me at once. Even Lex, who had been enjoying my misery just a second ago, turns to me, with surprise stamped on his features. My gaze moves from him to Soren, finding him watching me carefully. Why is it so hard to make him understand?
“It’s in the past.” I only said that to calm Orion down, and I don’t want to fake-forgive him to his face. There’s nothing to forgive.
“You shouldn’t,” Soren says in a hard tone.
“Yeah, Sable,” Orion agrees quickly. “You shouldn’t. I don’t.”
“Why?” But I’m not looking at Orion. I know his reasoning, I don’t need to hear it again. But Soren? He was in my bed, deep inside me, when I said I loved him. Love doesn’t come with resentments.
“Because he fucked another girl! Wearing my face!” Orion screams.
“Stop saying that like I wore a mask or something,” Soren retorts. “It’s my face too.”
