Chapter 13: Aislin

Chapter 13: Aislin

Being trapped in Everett’s house was worse than death. I would have rather been slaughtered by the Inkscales than held hostage by the fated mate who didn’t want me.

The moment of closeness we shared in his bathroom was unreal, and I’d never admit it, but my body ached to feel him… to silence my mind and let our urges take over. My ego never would have recovered if that happened. I couldn’t justify giving in to his dominating presence when he’d already rejected me, especially when all he seemed to want me for was the physicality. It made me realize just how tender my heart had become when I thought about what I truly wanted from Everett, and why I was so angry at him.

Everett had never been interested in me on an emotional level, and I was wrought with emotions I wasn’t strong enough to tame. He’d never cared about my dreams or how I was feeling, just what was most advantageous for him, like the sexual magnetism of our fated bond, or forcing me to heal my wounds. It alienated me. I felt like I was worth nothing to him. So that night, after I’d washed the cut on my ankle and wrapped up in a blanket on his couch—refusing to sleep in his bed, despite his offer—I submerged myself in torturous thoughts, hating the situation I’d found myself in. Everett sat on the far end of the couch so he could keep an eye on me, and I just wanted to yell at him, but neither of us said anything until I fell asleep.

My exhaustion kept me asleep for hours. When I opened my eyes again, the sun had barely risen, illuminating the living room with a cool blue glow. I craned my neck to spy on Everett. He was reclined on the couch with his head back against the cushions, eyes closed, hands under a blanket on his lap. From the way his chest slowly rose and fell, I could tell he was still asleep. Well, he didn’t expect to stay awake all night watching me, did he? This could be my opportunity to sneak away. I sat up and still he didn’t move. His muscular arms were slack by his sides and feet leaning lazily on the floor, the ridges of his throat sublime. His Adam’s apple trembled with the odd quiet snore. He looked so peaceful. It was unfair that he could be at peace when I suffered so much turmoil.

Carefully removing my blanket, I stood up and tiptoed across the room, ignoring my dull aches. I just had to make it to the door, then I could run. Listening for the slightest cues of wakefulness, I made it to just in front of the glass doors to the yard, then pulled off Everett’s shirt that I was still wearing—I couldn’t believe I had worn it all night—and dropped it on the floor. Good riddance, I thought. With my back to the couch, I went for the door handle and fumbled when I realized it was secured with multiple locks.

The sound of the door jostling in the track brought an abrupt end to Everett’s serene little snores. I froze, hearing him sit up, and felt his eyes on the back of my head.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

His voice husky with sleep made my spine tingle. I glanced back at him, naked and robed only in the gentle hues of sunrise. “I’m not staying here.”

Everett furrowed his brow and stood up. His blanket crumpled off his lap and to the floor, revealing a bulge in his sweatpants I’m sure neither of us had expected to see. “Urgh,” he grumbled, turning away to deal with his morning wood while I continued fidgeting with the three locks on the door. “Don’t—Don’t you dare open that door,” warned Everett over his shoulder.

“Fuck you.” I unlocked them all and slid the door open as Everett turned around again. Hearing his footsteps behind me, I pushed outside, shocked awake by the cold dew on my feet.

Instincts told me to run, so I did. With long strides, I dashed across the yard, swelling with hope that I could escape Everett without having to go to the hospital. Seconds later, his body hit mine with gargantuan force as he tackled me down, his arms around my waist. I grumbled loudly and thrashed against him.

“I said you’re not going anywhere,” Everett growled at me, fighting to get control of my wrists.

I curled my body and kneed him in the chin. “Get off me! Fucking let me go, Everett, I swear to God! As soon as Gavin hears about this, you’re screwed!”

“What’s Gavin going to do, end our alliance too?” he threatened.

“Yeah, and when this is all over, we’re never gonna have anything to do with the Mythguard ever again!”

“Fine, it’s not like I need Grandbay for anything,” said Everett.

“Asshole!” I shouted. My lungs burned. The impact rattled my chest and reduced me to rasping again.

He loomed over me, pinning my wrists to the grass. His body dipped closer as he tilted an ear toward me, listening to my breaths. “We’re going to the hospital right now,” said Everett, climbing to his feet and yanking me to mine.

“I’m just going to tell them you kidnapped me,” I fired back.

Everett pulled me back toward his house. I resisted, dragging my feet in the grass and damp soil. “I don’t care. You can go home after your chest is better.”

“Pretty sure I have a collapsed lung, and I don’t think they can just fix that,” I countered.

“They can with an oxygen treatment and a needle to release any air that’s preventing your lungs from expanding,” said Everett.

“Then I’ll go break my arm. That won’t be such an easy fix, now will it?”

He threw me back into the living room, slamming the door hard behind himself. “Do you hate me, Aislin?”

I scoffed. “What gave you that impression?”

“I just couldn’t tell if I’d done something, or if you’re naturally full of so much vitriol you’re just an unpleasant person to everyone,” he snapped.

“Get to know me better and you’ll find that no, I just hate you.”

“What did I do then? Why do you want to make me suffer?”

“Why do you think?” I raised my voice so that it echoed through his living room, hoping that the wrath in my words would leech into his walls and haunt him every day for the rest of his life. “You never took me seriously! You act like I’m a fucking idiot, you rejected me! Of course I want nothing to do with you! And now you’ve locked me up in your house, keeping me prisoner, and you’re asking me why I’m being so unreasonable? Why do you fucking think?”

“Don’t blame me for your lack of maturity,” said Everett.

“My God, can you be any more full of yourself?” I scanned the living room searching for something to throw at him, but all he had were the blankets on the couch. There were no decorations, knickknacks, coasters on the coffee table, just infuriating minimalism. Clenching my fists, I yelled instead.

Everett locked the door and charged toward me. With no other recourse, I closed the distance and met him halfway, throwing my fist into his chest. “Why did I have to get stuck with a brick wall for a fucking fated mate, huh? I wish the dragons caught you last night and finished what they started!”

He grabbed my arms again. “Trust me, my life would be much simpler if my fated mate wasn’t an irrational brat.”

I pulled out of his grip, but he wrapped his arms around me from behind instead, grabbing each wrist with the opposite hand and turning himself into a straight jacket, lacing my arms around my chest. “You—ugh! Let me go! You’re the one who should just die, Everett! You know, maybe I should go crawling back to Colt so I can ask the dragons to get rid of you, huh?”

“Unlike you, I’m actually a valuable member of society,” Everett said while struggling with me. “People need me. I have responsibilities. What do you do besides start fights you can’t finish?”

Sparks ignited in my chest. I stomped hard on his foot, but he only groaned behind his teeth and wrenched my arms tighter. “If it weren’t for this injury, I’d be kicking your ass. I guarantee I’m a better fighter than you. All you care about is your fancy fuck CEO job and keeping your pack outta trouble,” I argued.

“I care about keeping my pack safe,” he said. “You can’t even fight while you’re trying to torment me through the connection. Why suffer too when you could easily just get healed by Muriel?”

“I don’t need anyone’s help!”

“Yes, you do!”

“Oh but as long as you aren’t the one that has to help me, right?” I hissed.

“You wouldn’t want my help anyway.”

Hot anger welled up in my throat, making it hard to swallow. My face was red from all the fighting and thoughts that I didn’t want to confess to. Once I stopped resisting, I realized how Everett’s body enveloped me, suddenly aware of his heat against my back, my bare skin only separated by a thin t-shirt from his chest. His head was tipped over my shoulder, and if I just tilted my head back, I’d get a nose full of the smell of his neck. Hands around my wrists clutched me without any intention of letting me go, even after I’d fallen still.

“You never gave a shit about me,” I muttered.

Everett said nothing as he tried to control his breathing.

“You can’t do this after you rejected me,” I added harshly.

“You have to understand why I did it.”

“I don’t owe you any sympathy, Everett.”

When he continued to say nothing, my anger mounted. I was convinced he was just trying to scheme a new way get what he wanted from me, ignoring the pleas I’d made for him to see me in a more sympathetic light before I did that for him. He was just trying to find a way to outsmart me without having to care about me. He only wanted to use me.

So it surprised me when he finally mumbled above my ear, “You’re right. I’ve been too unforgiving of peoples’ imperfections. It’s not fair of me.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean,” he sighed, “the things I see as imperfections… they form my opinions for me. I hold everyone to the same high expectations I hold myself. And I shouldn’t.”

“Not everyone can be perfect like you,” I snipped.

“Well, it’s lonely being perfect,” Everett said flatly. “Maybe I should step off my pedestal and start giving second chances.”

“You are not making me feel any better.”

“I’m not great with… feelings.”

“That explains a lot.” So he wasn’t as perfect as he seemed to think. Maybe he’d been neglecting his social inadequacies under the belief that he would still be perfect if he just insisted that he didn’t need to treat everybody else like they were human. Never admitting he was wrong about not having any empathy. Because how could he satisfy those high expectations of himself if he admitted to having flaws?

A long exhale tickled my ear. Everett had been bent over behind me this entire time, clutching me close and unwilling to let me go, until finally the grip on my wrists fell. He removed his hands from me completely.

I didn’t step away from him yet. I didn’t want to, since it was obvious now that he was wrestling with some inner desire to appeal to me that conflicted with his perfectionism.

A distant jingle caught our attention. We both glanced toward the stairs before Everett pulled away from me. “That’s my phone,” he said. “Shit. I must have left it upstairs.”

Everett jogged a few paces to the stairs, then looked back at me, then past me at the glass door. He met my eyes and I knew what he was going to say before he said it.

“Don’t go anywhere,” we spoke at the same time, him commanding, and me mocking with a roll of my eyes.

“Please,” he added.

I gestured at the stairs, my body moving in behind him. If it would demonstrate my willingness to give him a chance—like he said he wanted to give me one—I would just go with him.

Everett walked with swift purpose up the stairs and down the hallway, heading straight for his bedroom. I recalled him ducking into the room briefly after we were finished in the bathroom last night. With my arms folded, I leaned against the doorframe and watched him retrieve the phone off the foot of his bed. Everett frowned as he tapped and scrolled on his screen, piquing my curiosity. Then he raised it to his ear.

“Gavin,” he greeted, glancing sidelong at me. “Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. It was a long night and I didn’t have my phone on me.”

My heart skipped a beat realizing how close my Alpha was—not physically, but if I shouted something, he would surely hear it over the phone.

“Aislin’s here with me. We had to bring her with us or the dragons would have gotten her. …Yes, she’s fine. She wasn’t injured too badly, just on her foot. …I’m not sending her back until I know she’s recovered. …I understand that, but our fated mate bond interferes with my own health. I’m sorry Gavin, but I can’t do that. I trust you, but— Look, I’m just trying to be pragmatic. She’s safe here. No, I don’t know what she talked about with Colt. She’s still asleep. I’ll put her on the phone with you as soon as she’s awake. She needs to rest.”

My frown deepened as Everett recited a string of lies to my Alpha. I stepped closer, tempted to pluck the phone out of his hands and ask Gavin to come get me, before Everett flashed his teeth with warning for me to stay back. Inexplicably, I stayed where I was.

“I respect that she’s your packmate, but she’s my fated mate. I’m going to take care of her as I see fit. …She’ll call you back from my phone in an hour. …Alright, we’ll talk then.”

Everett ended the call and peered at me.

“What the hell was that?” I asked.

“I need to know you aren’t going to say anything alarming to Gavin.”

“You seem to have forgotten that you kidnapped meand I’m still not okay with that.”

“I want you to stay here and give me a chance to understand you,” he said. “Hating each other isn’t the way to deal with this.”

“Okay, but everything we do, we do on my terms.”

“Very well.”

“Which means you’re going to take me back to my apartment so I can get clothes, my phone, and whatever I need. You’re going to let me go to work. Maybe I’ll meet up with Muriel to get my chest healed.”

“Fine.”

“You’re not going to be a dick to me,” I added, “and you’re not going to call me immature, irrational, stupid, or anything like that.”

“I won’t.”

“And promise me you’re not playing nice just to get in my pants.”

“I—” Everett paused, caging the words in his mouth before they tumbled out. He thought about it, his eyes drifting over my bare body before his shoulders relaxed. “I can’t promise to keep my hands off you. I do want you, Aislin.”

That was the last thing I expected him to say. I stared back at him, feeling once again exposed, vulnerable, fragile. “Prove it then,” I said finally.

Everett inhaled and nodded.

If he wanted me, he had to accept that he wasn’t the only one with expectations.

I’d never let myself covet anything about Everett due to my anger, but if he was going to start sincerely caring about me… I could already see myself growing weak for him. Just imagining him holding me close like he did before made me sizzle. For the sake of our mutual attraction, I hoped neither of us fucked this up.