Chapter 37

Someone is singing.

An angel. An angel is singing to me, lulling me to sleep. The oddly seductive sound feathers down my arms, as soft as a butterfly’s wing. I breathe in deeply, filling my lungs up with the scent of copper and citrus, before exhaling.

I don’t recognize the song, but a sense of comfort seeps into my bones. It penetrates the darkness consuming my mind.

Focusing on the voice, only the voice, I open my mouth to sing back. Reply to his melodic song with one of my own.

He trips over his verse, pausing momentarily, before resuming with gusto. His beautiful, ethereal voice soothes all the jagged edges inside of me.

Despite not knowing the words, I join him and sing a song from my past. It was a song Kai used to sing to me in the Compound. He told me that his mom taught it to him.

Slowly, I come back to myself. Instead of drifting above my body like a malicious phantom, I become aware of every ache and pain inside of me.

My arms are wrapped around my knees, holding them to my chest. Cold tears slide down my cheeks and hang suspended on my lips. A distinctly salty flavor overwhelms me. There is another pair of hands on my knees, where my dress has ridden up, rubbing soothing patterns into my skin.

“There you go, Angel. Come back to me,” Damien whispers. I never would’ve believed that he was the owner of such a soulful, beautiful voice. I always knew there was light in him—light tainted by his own inner darkness. He just needs help feeding the flame until it reaches an inferno. He needs someone who accepts his darkness and embraces his light.

“Damien?” I sob.

“I’m here. I’m right here.”

With a cry, I lunge forward and wrap my arms around him. My face settles into the crook of his neck.

At first, his arms are hesitant around me, limp and unsure, but the longer I hold him, the more courage he gains. His body molds to mine until I can’t distinguish where he ends and I begin.

“Thank you,” I say into the hollow of his throat. His arms are steel bands around me, evoking a sense of irrevocable peace and security. The remnants of my flashback dissipate with each second in his embrace.

“I’ll do whatever you need,” he replies resolutely. I feel something feather soft on my scalp—his lips. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, reluctantly lifting my head. My arms remain twined around his neck, my fingers playing with the short hairs at the nape. “I don’t usually get flashbacks. I guess it was when you grabbed me from behind.” I shudder delicately. “That was how Man used to grab me.”

“Man.” Damien’s voice drops to a deadly whisper, ice saturating every word. “Is he from the Compound?”

“I think he was one of the guards,” I admit, recalling the brief second I had seen his reflection in the window. It will haunt me until the day I die. “He would come into my cell and call me ‘Little Monster.’ Sometimes, I wouldn’t even hear him enter. I would be minding my own business when he grabbed me from behind.” I rub at my arms, hoping to dispel the sudden surge of goose bumps pebbling on my skin. Fear pulses through me, tainting my body with the pungent, sour smell of it. “I don’t want to be scared anymore. I don’t want what he did in the past to dictate my future.”

Damien cups my cheeks with a tenderness and warmth that belies his frigid disposition. It’s hard to associate this Damien with the man others claim him to be.

“Fear is not a bad thing,” he says after a moment. “Having feelings is not a bad thing. It just means that you’re human. I once thought I would be happier if I didn’t feel, if I didn’t let my past consume me. I was like you, in a way, though I don’t think it’s wise to compare one tragedy to another.” He pauses, breaths feathering in and out, before beginning again. “When I was a little boy, I was plucked off the streets and taken into an assassin’s guild.” His hands tighten almost imperceptibly on my face. “I did a lot of bad things when I worked for them, killed a lot of people. And you know what? I liked it. Maybe it’s because I’m a sick, coldhearted bastard, or maybe it’s because my sins and choices were already piling up on me, burying me in a coffin I created. It terrifies me, but that’s the thing about fear—it’s not rational and it doesn’t listen to reason.”

He doesn’t speak for a moment, holding me in an embrace that is anything but cold. Warmth emanates from where he touches me, migrating to the center of my stomach. My heart begins to palpitate.

“I see you, Damien,” I whisper. “The good and the bad. I see you.”

“I really wish you didn’t.” He presses his forehead against my own. “I’ve killed people for the fun of it. I’ve done horrible, horrible things. Things that would scare you away if you ever heard of them.”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” I place my hands over his on my cheeks, holding him to me. Holding the broken pieces of this proud man. “You’re not made of ice, Dam. I see the warmth in you. If you really didn’t feel, didn’t care, you wouldn’t have sung to me until I crawled out of my flashback. You wouldn’t have offered to train me to fight. You wouldn’t have looked after me. You’re warm.”

“Only with you,” he answers immediately. “Only ever with you.”

Footsteps echo from down the hall, and Damien moves away from me, as if he’s on fire. I want to be sad that he’s reverting to his ice-cold persona, but I know that, with me, at least, he has a different facet. And maybe a tiny part of me wants that warmth to only belong to me. Wants to be the only witness to the snow melting and the brilliant flowers taking its place.

“Move out of the way, Braelyn,” Bronson hisses. “Let me see my mate.”

I push into Bronson’s head to see Braelyn and Jenny guarding the door, their backs to me. I have no doubt they at least heard some of my conversation with Damien. Hopefully, for their sakes, they don’t mention the fracture in his mask of apathy.

Braelyn and Jenny both move to the side, lowering their weapons as Bronson lunges for me. Briefly, I catch a glimpse of Damien leaning against the wall, a bored, disinterested expression marring his handsome face.

“Bron,” I whisper, hugging him back just as tightly. I inhale his spicy, masculine scent as he rocks me from side to side, his body rumbling with his growl.

“The guards went looking for the twins. I got worried and came as quick as I could. Are you okay? Are you hurt?” He puts his hands on my shoulders, holding me away, as his eyes roam my body. “Fuck. We need to complete this mating bond soon. I don’t know how much more my wolf can take. How much I can take.”

“Complete the mating bond?” I question. “What does that entail?”

“A bite, usually, from my wolf.” The words are said almost dismissively as he continues to survey my body. “I’ll be able to sense you anywhere in this world. Your emotions. Your pain.”

I don’t know how I feel about that. My entire life has been made up of pain. The last thing I want is for someone else, especially someone I care about, to experience it firsthand.

Something Bronson said shakes me out of my stupor.

“Wait a minute. What do you mean the guards were looking for the twins?”

“Apparently, they had a visitor. They’ve been reaching out to some contacts who might have information on Raphael Turner and Lionel Green.” He gives my shoulders a squeeze. “Don’t worry. They’re safe. They’ll be back and annoying us soon.”

“Did someone mention me?” Rion’s voice reverberates from behind Bronson. “Hey, Buttercup!” With a grace only Rion can pull off, he sidles up between me and Bronson. All of a sudden, Bronson’s vision is filled with the back of Rion’s head. “Did you miss me? Don’t answer that. I’ll probably cry if you say no. Well, maybe not cry. I’m pretty sure someone ate my tear ducts when I was a child. But I’ll be sad for sure! I’ll have to call home to my parents and grandparents and tell them that my mate didn’t miss me. My grandpa will probably piss himself, laughing—the bastard always hated me—and my grandma will start pulling out our family tree to compare dicks. Yup. The crazy bat believes that you’ll only get a mate if you have a big wanker. My Uncle Paul had seven mates because, apparently, he was sporting a python under there. But now that I’m thinking about it…it’s kind of weird that my grandma knows all this, huh? Anyway, my mom and dad will probably put pliers under the nails on my toes?—”

“And that’s enough,” Kai cuts in. He moves to stand behind me, resting his hands on the small of my back. “I don’t want you to finish that sentence.”

“Don’t be an assburger just because you sauced the pickle first.” Rion huffs. Sauced the pickle? What does he mean by…ohhhhhh. My cheeks go up in flames. “She’s my mate too. Oh! Look at this knife! It’s shiny. Isn’t it shiny, Buttercup? Ah, shit. I forget that you can’t see. Well, unless you’re using your magical powers, but I’m not certain about that. It’s just a theory I have…”

He trails off as the silence becomes suffocating. I suddenly can’t breathe. It’s physically impossible. My lungs are incapable of taking in air as my thoughts stutter to an abrupt halt. All I can hear is the harried thumping of my heart.

“Oh, shit.” Rion runs a hand through his tangled hair. “I totally didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

“Your magical powers?” Bronson asks in a dark, growly voice. He puts his hands around Rion’s waist, picks him up, and deposits him a foot away. “Is that how you were able to see in the halls after our date?” His voice is thick with hurt. He grounds his teeth together, works his jaw, and flexes his hands.

“I would like to know as well,” Damien drawls lazily from his spot in the corner. He tries to sound casual, but his eyes sharpen on me, and he begins fiddling with one of his knives.

“You’re right,” I say, ignoring Kai’s muttered warning. “I should tell you all the truth. I care about each and every one of you.” I take a deep breath, my pulse skittering. I notice, somewhat distantly, that Damien stepped forward the moment I confessed I cared about him. It’s the first time I have admitted my feelings out loud, and the words claw at my heart, demanding me to say even more. “But should we wait until the twins come back?”

Bronson once more pulls me into his arms. “My wolf demands we know now. In his mind, we can’t protect you until we know the entire story,” he says gruffly.

Guilt eats at me, gnawing at the chasm-sized hole in my stomach.

“Rion’s right. I do have strange powers that no one has ever seen before. I don’t know what kind of supernatural I am…or if I even am one. At first, I only had accelerated healing. The people at the Compound loved testing out how fast I could heal myself and how close to death I could get.”

Bronson growls low in his throat, his arms constricting around me in an attempt to shield me from the world. Unfortunately, he can’t protect me from the ghosts of my past who have come back to haunt me.

“I vote we kill them,” Damien says coolly.

“Seconded!” Rion pipes in.

“Give me their heads,” adds Bronson in a guttural voice.

Ignoring them, I continue. “Soon, I realized that I could do something else as well.” I begin to rub Bronson’s thick, muscular back, hoping to soothe his tension. His body relaxes in my embrace as he takes a deep breath of my scent. “I could go into people’s minds and see through their eyes. I thought that, if I told them, if they knew what I could do, they wouldn’t hurt me as much…”

My brain is sluggish, the events from my time there coming to the forefront reluctantly, as if being dragged through tar. The pain. The fear. The hurt.

“I’ve never heard of that before,” Damien says at last. “Can you only see through their eyes, or can you use their other senses?”

Immediately, my mind flickers to Cain in his cell, his hand wrapped around his cock. My face’s temperature ratchets up a thousand degrees at the memory, heat blossoming and unfurling in my stomach.

“I fell asleep once and was able to see through Cain’s eyes. I heard what he heard and saw what he saw,” I admit at last.

“And by the blush on your cheeks, I’m pretty sure our demon friend wasn’t just playing a game of checkers, am I right?” Rion jests.

“Maybe, with training, you can use more than just the person’s eyes,” Damien muses. “Maybe you’ll be able to feel what they feel, smell what they smell, hear what they hear. Hell, you might even be able to hear their thoughts.”

“Hear their thoughts?” I squeak. The mere prospect is daunting and, quite frankly, terrifying.

“And you’ve never heard of a supernatural species who can do that?” Kai queries. Through Bronson’s eyes, I watch all of the men shake their heads.

“Well, gang, it looks like we have another mystery on our hands!” Rion says, lips curling into a salacious smile.

Bronson places his lips against the shell of my ear. “Thank you. For trusting me with this.”

“Thank you for forgiving me,” I reply, ignoring the goose bumps on my skin from his intoxicating presence. “I should’ve told you sooner.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” he grumbles. “You were scared. Fear makes you do irrational, crazy things.”

“Guys!” Braelyn’s voice penetrates the safety cocoon I have found myself in. “We have another problem.”

“What is it, Brae?” Rion snaps, whipping his head in her direction.

“Jenny just heard that the guards are back in the Labyrinth. Apparently, Nina has a visitor this time.”

“Over my fucking dead bo—” Before Bronson can finish his threat, he keels over, groaning in pain. His lashes flutter once as darkness consumes his vision. I wrench myself out of his head as more groans, grunts, and screams resonate in the room. I know, without having to look, that my guys are all unconscious as the white-haired mage steps into the room.

“Nina, you have a visitor,” he says in a silky voice. In the next moment, pain radiates behind my eyebrows as my body collapses to the ground.

I lose myself to the darkness.