Chapter 295. Difficult Conversations II

Chapter 295: 295. Difficult Conversations II

Maisie

Quinlan shifted, his blue eyes soft. "Maisie, you’re still healing from what happened. In time--"

"There is no ’in time’!" I cut him off, my voice trembling violently as I looked at each of them. "I know the medical reports have come back. You’ve looked through it, and I’m sure the doctors have told you the exact same thing they told me. The fall off the cliff... the ash..."

They expressions locked hard like they were recalling the footage Gruer had presented to court today.

"The ash spread through my entire body while every bone in my torso was shattered," I sobbed, wiping aggressively at my cheeks. "It forced my organs to heal around poison. It sterilized me. There is no hope. There are no babies. Not now, not ever. I am broken. I can’t give you a future. I can’t give you anything that someone else couldn’t give you!"

The silence that followed was agonizing.

"Someone else?" Quinlan repeated, his voice dangerously low. "You want us to... what? Have children with someone else? Build a life with a stranger?"

The image flashed in my mind. Some woman nameless, flawless woman, untainted and unburdened by pain and darkness, round and heavy with their heirs, giving them the family they deserved.

It felt like I was being stabbed in the gut with a red-hot knife.

I looked away sharply, turning my head somewhere I didn’t have to see their faces like a coward, unable to bring myself to say the word yes.

"This isn’t working," I whispered.

"You’re giving up," Soren said, his tone flat, devoid of emotion. "We haven’t even tried, and you’re quitting."

"Fuck you. I’ve tried, and I’m done trying!" I lifted my head, my eyes burning. "I am accepting reality! I know when hoping for things to change is useless. Some things just aren’t meant to be, Soren. Maybe we--all of this--isn’t meant to be! It shouldn’t be this difficult. It shouldn’t be this hard!"

All three of them stiffened at once. Their postures shifted. It was in the subtle angling of their bodies. The darkening of their gazes. The predatory flare of their pupils.

The soft, worried husbands disappeared, replaced by three dangerous, territorial and very posssessive Lycan males cornering prey.

My pulse jumped at the aura sucking all of the air out of the room and my Lycan whimpered inside me, cowering as it licked up my skin like a threat.

Jericho’s eyes narrowed into slit-like amber flame. He predicted the words before they could leave my throat. "You want to leave, malyshka?"

It came out layered. Partly pained, partly savage.

I caught myself stepping back.

I swallowed hard, trying desperately to hold back the tidal wave of pain threatening to split me open. My nails curled into fists behind me, digging harshly into my palm.

I managed to lift my chin and mirror an emotionless expression. "I didn’t come back to Ashbourne for you. I came back for Lyon. I came to see that I bleed them to death. Nowhere in my plans did I include a reunion."

They all flinched, as if I’d struck them across the face.

"Since I can’t leave Ashbourne until the trial is over, I’ll move back to the Academy dorms," I pressed on, my breath shaking. I couldn’t hear myself over the roaring on my ears. "There’s no point in staying here if this is headed nowhere. The bond is too strong. We’ll just end up marking each other again and completing the bond, and then I’ll be left with the unbearableburden of needing to protect you all over again."

I emphasized on the burden, hoping it did the trick and inflicted as much damage as I needed it to. Because I knew them. They would never let me go unless they were sure I didn’t want to be here.

And for a moment, I was sure it worked. I saw the flicker of hurt. Saw the ache.

However, something passed between them again. Their postures relaxed and the aura pulled back from the study, making it easier to breathe again. I was willing to bet they’d just communicated within their bond. Nothing I could hear because the bonding between us wasn’t been finished yet.

Soren tilted his head. He studied me for a long second. It stretched on for a small eternity.

Then, he said with a shrug, "Fine."

I blinked in absolute disbelief. I couldn’t have heard him right. It couldn’t be that easy. "Fine?" I stuttered foolishly, gaping like a fish out of water.

The last time I’d tried to walk away, they had tried to buy me off. And then succeeded in seducing me into staying with me realising it. It was simply who they were. Obsessesive. And with my mark on them, they wouldn’t just let me walk away. There had to be a catch.

Soren walked around his desk, pulling out his leather chair and he sat back with terrifying composure, threading his graceful fingers together atop his desk. "It is what you want, isn’t it?"

My lashes fluttered quickly, blinking back the sting. "Yes."

It sounded like a lie. Soren knew it. I knew it. Everybody knew it.

"Quinlan will drive you to the Academy. Moving accommodations for your comfort is not a hassle. We will simply resume looking after you through rotating shifts--"

"Did you not hear a single word I just said?" I exclaimed, my hands clenching into fists. "I said I can’t do this anymore! It’s--"

"Over?" Soren huffed. "There is no such thing, Adams. We will never be over."

Frustration laced every breath I took, and I was soon stomping over. "What don’t you understand about--"

"Adams," he breathed.

I flinched back. He was no longer across the room in his seat. In the blink of an eye, he was standing directly in front of me, his long fingers rough yet gentle as they clutched my cheeks, forcing my face up to his.

"You’re afraid. And that’s okay," he whispered, his violet eyes intense. "You need time and space? We can give you that. But whatever thoughts you might be having in that pretty head of yours about leaving us or breaking this up to ’protect’ us... you will bury them."

His thumb dragged over my cheek, wiping away a stray tear. "I hate to break it you, but it’s not happening. In your words, Not now. Not ever." His tear-stained thumb dragged down my bottom lip hotly.

"Till death do us part, love," he purred.

His touch was feather-light, his voice a soft caress, but he was scaring the shit out of me, and goddess help me, turning my Lycan on in the process.

I staggered back, thinking mentioning it at all was a terrible idea, but I hit another hard wall. Strong arms went around my waist from behind, crushing me backward into a rock-hard chest.

Quinlan buried his face in the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply. "Don’t run," he murmured into my skin, his lips brushing my pulse point. "Don’t hide. The thought of having to seek you out makes me far too excited. And I really don’t want to have to hunt you down, mon coeur."

He spoke with the same tenderness he did when he tore out a man’s heart for touching me.

The threat made my bladder full, but it also sent a thrill down my spine and somewhere lower, where I was far too embarrassed to acknowledge it.

Right. It was only with my husbands I could explain that being with me was going to get them killed, and the only thing they registered was that I was trying to leave them.

I couldn’t tell if they didn’t realize the danger, or if they simply didn’t give a damn about dying.

Jericho hadn’t moved from his spot against the wall. His chilling gaze kept flickering between my face and my midriff, his brows drawn in contemplation.

It was a creepy look. It felt like he was calculating the exact odds of putting a child inside me himself, just to make me shut up.

Soren stepped around his desk, leaning his hip against the wood and folding his arms. "Now that that’s out of the way--"

"Soren, I am not finished talking--"

"--we should talk about these," he said, reaching over to grab the tomes I hadn’t noticed before on his table.

I faltered. They were the forbidden texts from the library, butchered with different colours of notes and sticky notes peeking out of every corner of them.

Soren tapped the tomes twice. "This one, we couldn’t decipher." At my surprised expression, he shrugged. "Trying to get into your head and understand why you wouldn’t come back had us desperate, Adams. Though, I would admit. Your notes were rather explanatory. We were half convinced we were reading your first draft of an epic fantasy. Until we saw the rift ourselves."

I licked my suddenly lips. His eyes tracked the movement. Heat curled in my stomach.

"Who is Elara Thorne?" he asked.

My lips pulled firm. "A distant relative," I said vaguely, knowing giving him the entire picture would defeat the point of what I was trying to establish here. So I said instead, "She was the first Queen here. The first Lycan Queen. She had six mates. Want to know how they died? She opened the rift and it demanded a cost. Their lives. It drained them and left them as husks."

Jericho scraped a hand over his jaw. "Was that supposed to be frightening enough to get us to back off? Your spell of doom? You’re not going anywhere, malyshka."

I gnashed my teeth.

Soren’s brow rose. "Well? Go on."

I didn’t. "I’m tired. Can I go now?"

He chuckled, a familiar mischief lining his eyes. "Defiant as always. In time, I suppose." He settled back into his seat, rummaging through a couple of papers.

"I was going to mention this at a better time, but you seem to be in a hurry." His eyes lifted. "You’ll have mandatory meetings with your assigned therapist daily--"

"Therapist?" I stammered, my whole body tightening with a sudden mix of fear and blinding rage. "I don’t need a goddamn therapist!"

"--and in the event that you do not wish to talk to a stranger," Soren pressed on, completely ignoring my outburst, "Jericho has volunteered to handle your therapy sessions himself. He’s been studying extensively since you’ve been ill, attending prep sessions to plan ahead in case you aren’t comfortable opening up to anyone else. You’ve always been more comfortable talking to him--"

"See?!" I snapped, throwing my hands in the air. "This is exactly what I’m talking about! I try to have a serious conversation with you, and you just do whatever the hell you want in the end anyway!"