“Good.” Her voice was clear, breaking the tense moment. She sat with her legs crossed on the bed, Cy handing her a cup of coffee. “Let’s talk about it.”
Here we go.
Saint stretched out, putting his head in her lap, as if her words weren’t stressful as fuck. I mean, I suppose I didn’t really feel stress now either. It was clear as day how I felt now… so there really wasn’t any confusion on my end.
“Talk about what?” Razar asked, his tone cautious.
“Talk about it, all of it,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee. “How about we start with the concept of ‘Arabella can’t seem to look out for herself, despite years of doing so, as one of the only humans in an institute filled with nightmares far scarier than her”—debatable, the woman was terrifying in her own way— “so we are going to make decisions that limit her scope of who she can and can’t be with by keeping her out of the loop and not asking her opinion on things.’”
I felt my brow furrow. Shit.
“You know,” she drawled as she mussed Saint’s hair, making me jealous. “I have thought that maybe I was crazy this entire time. I even said, ‘maybe the attraction I am sensing just isn’t there, or maybe it’s that they don’t feel the same way enough for it to matter, or maybe they’re upset that I’m attracted to more than one of them’… something along those lines! Which, for the record, I could understand.”
That was about as far from the truth as possible.
“However, since four of you have kissed me in the last twenty-four hours, I am starting to believe that’s a bunch of bullshit. In fact, I don’t think I was imagining anything at all, so that leaves us with the question of ‘why?’ Why not tell me how you felt? I suppose you have that right even though I have made it ridiculously clear how I felt. Or better yet, why not let me make my own choices instead of shutting me down each and every time that I tried to say something about it? Did you think this would just go away? I just don’t understand.”
Her eyes flashed with authentic hurt. “And one of the worst parts? You wouldn’t let me move on, either! In fact, any time I tried to talk to anyone outside of the team, you’d lose your shit—”
A growl left my throat as I considered another nightmare touching her. Her eyes flashed to mine as she pointed. “See?! That. That right there.”
After a long exhale, she shook her head. “So the conclusion that I have come to is this. All, or at least most of you feel the same level of attraction to me as I feel towards you. However, because of some insane reasoning you’ve worked up in your heads, you aren’t willing to risk my ‘safety’ by entertaining the notion. More so, you aren’t even willing to discuss it with me but instead just limit my options, stick me in a box, and hope I don’t ask questions? Allow me to walk around feeling as though I am imagining shit. Does that seem about right?”
I winced as guilt hit my chest, because I knew I wasn’t completely innocent in this. I’d only changed my tune since my willpower broke hours ago… so yeah, we deserved this and probably far more.
“I tried to tell them it was a bad idea,” Saint pointed out, casting her a smile that had me narrowing my eyes. The bastard could be such a… well, bastard. Honestly, I think he enjoyed the chaos of all this shit far too much.
“Pixie, we could kill you. That’s a very real possibility,” Cy leveled.
Fuck. Those words out loud nearly had me growling, because I never wanted any threat to her life to be talked about so openly. Maybe that was in part why we had avoided it so much.
“No. You. Fucking. Can’t,” Saint groaned, causing Arabella to look down at him.
I paid him no mind—he always said shit like that. I had to assume he was just talking about bringing her back to life if something terrible happened, and that wasn’t okay with me. The idea of her actually suffering was a fucking horrifying notion.
He continued with a sigh, “If I hear that shit again, I am going to absolutely lose my goddamn mind—”
“Blackwell literally fucking branded her!” Razar snarled. “Burned her goddamn skin and branded her. I bruised her, and that wasn’t even an ounce of my strength, so just fucking stop, Saint.”
“Her pulse did slow when I kissed her,” Amun said.
A growl broke in my throat, my eyes narrowing on him. He had kissed her? When had he fucking kissed her? I knew we shouldn’t have left them alone.
“I kissed him, actually,” she pointed out as I realized that he was part of the ‘four’ that had kissed her in the past twenty-four hours. Even I had to admit that was a lot at once and then expect her to not catch on.
Saint stared at her with an affectionate look before narrowing his eyes at Amun, making me wonder if he would try to kill him for that. It was a possibility.
“I am not saying she won’t be affected, I just said that she won’t die.” Saint closed his eyes, clearly done with the conversation.
Arabella let out a long sigh. “Not that anyone was asking me, because why would my opinion matter, right? But personally… I like the marks! I liked the bruises. I love Cy’s mark on me, and I sure as hell don’t mind any part of what Blackwell and I did last night. I would prefer to do it again, actually. Often. So, now that we know where I stand on all of this, I am going to end this little conversation.”
My jaw clenched as she hopped up, making Saint scowl as she walked towards her attached bathroom. Arabella turned and pinned all of us with a hard look. “Listen, guys, here is the deal… I am done ignoring this. If you really don’t want to give this a chance, fine. Ball is in your court. But I am not going to let you make Blackwell feel bad for something that I very much enjoyed. Cool? Cool. I am going to get ready for the day, and then I need some food.”
The door closed as a small smile hit my lips, feeling pride in my chest because she so clearly enjoyed my touch. Razar let out a snarl and turned, storming towards her door and letting himself out.
“I’m going to go make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid,” Zain said, seemingly happy with the tone of things.
“She’s right, for the record,” Saint pointed out, his eyes closed and not moving from her bed.
“I have no idea what the hell to do,” Damian muttered, running a hand through his hair and sitting on the edge of her desk. Cy and Amun were both quiet, but if I had to assume, they were equally as conflicted. There had to be a way to make this work, right? Fucking had to be.
One thing I did know? Now that I had gotten a taste of Arabella, there was no way in hell that I would ever be able to give her up. Not that there had ever been a chance of that before.
14
Arabella
It wasn’t very often that we ate in the main dining hall, but considering I had absolutely no desire to spend another moment sitting around and rehashing all this nonsense, I wasn’t about to complain. Plus, I was very hungry. Not only had I slept through the day and when I normally would eat, but yesterday had been surprisingly draining, so now I needed food.
I had to admit though, I felt pretty positive about my day so far. Not only had we cleared the air, but I was now surrounded by most of my team as we made our way towards the dining hall.