27
Sloane
Monday Night
After I left the basement, I climbed the million stairs to get to the rooftop patio. The night sky was bright and there were more stars shining down on me than I could fathom. I flattened myself out in a lounge chair and searched for constellations, doing the absolute most to keep my mind blank. I didn’t want to think about anything.
“I thought I’d find you up here, in the dark,” York admitted from the doorway as he turned the outdoor lights on.
“I’m not ready to talk,” I protested diligently, covering my face with my forearm. “Not even a little bit.” It came out muffled, but I knew he heard me.
York huffed irritably and circled around my chair. “We need to talk,” he persisted.
“No. We don’t,” I complained, “Not right now, please.”
“Sloane,” he pleaded with me.
“Don’t Sloane me,” I snapped. “Just. Don’t.”
“Sweetheart,” the druid tried once more, his Australian accent thick in that one word.
“I swear, York Briar, if you don’t stop now, I will push you over the roof’s edge and not think twice about it,” I warned him and stood to put more distance between us.
“You would, though,” he mused. “You’d feel it, too, and then be mad at yourself for hurting me.” He approached me with long strides, stopping three steps away.
“Don’t,” I repeated, holding my hands up and begging him with my eyes to walk away.
“Sloane, we need to talk about this. You can’t keep ignoring me,” he chided.
“It’s only been a few hours, York. Try again in a couple days,” I informed him with narrowed eyes. Rage seeped into my pores as he continued to push me.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” He tossed the insincere apology out like it should mean something. “I get that I hurt you. I know you’re angry with me.” His nostrils flared with his admission.
“Angry with you?” I spat out. “No, I’m fucking incensed.” My voice rose an octave, and I took a deep breath to calm myself. “If you would’ve been honest with me from the beginning then things would have been so very fucking different,” I surmised. “But, no. You lied to me, York. Not just once or twice. The whole godsdamn time. When were you going to tell me?” I dared him to answer with a raised brow. “Or, were you just hoping I’d notice? I overheard the shit you said to Stone. You’ve forgotten how much I can hear when I want to, or maybe you didn’t.” He closed his eyes, and I kept going. “When did we seal the bond? Why didn’t you mention it when you noticed?”
“I thought you would feel it too. I didn’t realize how much power you had until I felt it through the bond,” he grumbled.
“So, you what? Thought you’d be mad at me for not knowing that I had earth magic coursing through me? With all the magic I have already? You only feel a tiny portion of it, York,” I informed him. “I have every right to be “angry” with you right now.” I air quoted.
I took a ragged inhale as I prepared to let all my frustration out. “If you hadn’t had my memories locked away the first day we met, then I would’ve finished my job. We both could have walked out of there. Together. Those hidden memories didn’t just keep me from stopping all this shit sooner, they kept me from remembering what that bond felt like. Every time I thought about it too hard, my mind would clamp down.” I squeezed my hand shut in a tight fist to make my point a little more clear for him. I whispered the following words with more emotion than I wanted to show. “The Fae King didn’t just lock those memories down, York, he kept me from thinking about anything that related to them, even in his death.”
I swallowed hard and tilted my head to the left. I hoped he understood how deep that mindfuck went. “Until I met Vaughn on Friday. Then, those words and phrases that triggered the memory magic didn’t freeze my mind in agony anymore. When Vaughn and Novak unlocked them, everything came hurtling to the forefront. I wanted to kill you for keeping that from me.
“For years you hid the truth from me, York. You weren’t thinking about what was best for both of us. You were being selfish. Thinking only of you. No matter how you try to spin it.” I pointed my index finger at him, wanting so badly to poke him in the chest. “So, forgive me if I’m not quite ready to hear about how you felt, or how you feel about any of this shit,” I ranted in a stern voice. I heard footsteps approaching from behind me and knew we now had an audience. Great. Let’s give a big round of applause for Sloane’s temper and York’s inability to keep his mouth shut.
“I had to, Sloane.” He shook his head at me like I wasn’t understanding. “I couldn’t tell you. Charles told me it wasn’t time for you to know. I didn’t understand, but I promised to keep my word.” He looked up to the brilliance of the night sky above us and sighed. “If you had known then you would’ve done something stupid, like try to rescue me by yourself when they took me. I couldn’t let that happen,” he argued. “They want you!” York bellowed before calming himself. “If they had you, then they would’ve drained you and never reached an end. There is no death for you that way, because there is no end to your fucking power. Don’t you see that?” he asked, astounded by what he thought was ignorance. “I wasn’t being selfish. I was being selfless. Sacrificing myself to make sure they didn’t get to you,” he shouted.
“Selfishly selfless, how noble of you,” I sarcastically quipped. “Did you ever stop to think that I could’ve handled myself better in that kind of situation because they couldn’t weaken me to the brink of death?” I proposed mockingly. Too many emotions were bouncing around inside of me, so I resorted to being a smartass. My hands were shaking with unrepressed rage as I filtered through my feelings, noticing some of them weren’t my own. If he yelled at me one more time, this would turn into a knock-down drag-out and I would throw him right over the edge of the roof. Into the pool.
“No!” he shouted, and I fucking lost it. “They caught you once and-”
“Because I fucking let them!” I interrupted, seething and seeing red as I stepped closer to him. “I had a plan, and it all flew out the fucking window when you had my memory tampered with!” I screamed and swung my left hand hard, connecting with York’s nose. The soft crunch it gave was a satisfying sound, but it made my hand hurt.
“I deserved that,” York told our audience as he wiped at the blood running down his lips. He was harder than I remembered. Fucking mate bond. He’d opened it up. That was where all these extra feelings were coming from.
“If you hadn’t overstepped in the very fucking beginning none of that bullshit would have happened to you!” I continued raging, unable to stop myself at this point. “Those assholes would have been gone. Dead, York, they would’ve been dead! But, noooo. You had to take matters into your own hands. Matters that had nothing to fucking do with you! They were my godsdamn matters to deal with, and you took that choice away from me.” I shoved him, but he didn’t move very much. What a great time for him to show me that he gained my strength.