“I honestly think he shouldn’t get a second chance,” Damian pointed out.
“No one will miss him,” Saint added.
“Yes they will, stop it.” I nudged him in the side as he offered me a wounded look, making Cy chuckle. I had to admit, the concept of ever being able to physically injure Saint was enough to almost make me laugh.
I shook my head and began to pick at the plate in front of me, relaxing into the comfortable moment together, feeling far better than I had earlier today. Tilting my head, I wondered how long it would be before Razar and Zain would join us. Was that being needy? I felt like I was being needy today. I also knew that I needed to talk to him, and it was making me anxious to feel tension between us. Razar and I rarely fought, so this was unusual to say the least.
Almost as if on cue, the room turned quiet, the large amount of terrifying nightmares going silent as a trickle of familiar energy ran over my skin. I turned around in my seat and watched as Razar made his way across the space, Zain offering me a charming smile from next to him. Other nightmares shied away from them, averting their eyes as they neared us, my heart jumping in my chest, thrilled to see both of them. Especially since Razar was watching me with such a heated expression.
You know… in some ways, I truly did think people considered Razar one of the scariest nightmares here. I knew technically Saint outpowered him, but Razar had a certain level of confidence and a very dark edge to him that terrified people. Only I got to see the softer side. Although I couldn’t lie, there was a natural dominance that radiated off the man as he approached us, my chest squeezing as I wondered what the hell I was going to say to him.
The others were talking behind me as Zain grabbed a chair and sat down. Razar, though, walked towards me, pulling out the chair next to me. Amun had moved to the end of the table, watching the entire situation with interest.
I squeaked as Razar tugged me onto his lap and buried his head against my neck, on the opposite side of Cy’s mark, and squeezed me against him. My breath caught as my eyes stung a little bit with emotion, my hand automatically running through his short hair. I appreciated the others giving us a bit of a moment alone despite them clearly being right there. It did make me feel like I could talk to him without eyes on us, though.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered softly.
“Razar…”
“No, I am.” He pressed his lips against my shoulder. “We should have talked about this long before now.”
I examined his tense expression, seeing guilt and a bit of fear there, my fingers moving down his jaw as I decided to be bold. I knew now was not the best time to talk about all of this, but I decided to take a chance. I tilted my head up and brushed my lips against his, praying he wouldn’t reject me.
He didn’t.
His entire body tensed, a low groan breaking from his throat before deepening the kiss, causing me to shiver with excitement against him. I pulled away only when one of the other men made a surprised noise. Yeah, probably not the best place for this.
“I have no idea what the fuck to do,” he admitted softly, ignoring the others.
“We’ll figure it out.” I infused as much confidence in my words as possible.
“Saint,” Zain groaned, pulling my attention away from our moment. “You are being fucking ridiculous.”
“I don’t like him in that chair.” Saint’s voice was firm, but I could hear the scowl in it, making me wonder what he was talking about.
“Who?” I arched a brow as I followed his gaze to Amun at the head of the table. Oh, for real? Seriously?
Razar shook his head, smiling against my shoulder before starting a distracting pattern of running his fingers up and down my leg.
“Amun,” Saint explained, his eyes flashing with a dangerous light. “I don’t want him sitting at the head of the table.”
“Then switch with him,” I offered.
Saint looked at the chair and then at me, grabbing me by the waist and putting me next to him. Razar growled but left me between them, clearly not bothering to start shit with Saint. I arched a brow as Amun offered me a somewhat tired expression.
“Saint?” I prompted.
“I don’t want to not be next to you though,” he rationalized.
“He doesn’t want me to be next to you,” Amun chuckled. “Age has made you so fucking petty, Saint.”
Something dark, almost cold and ancient feeling, flashed in the repear’s gaze before he shrugged and kissed the top of my hand he was holding captive. I had a feeling Saint and Amun were never going to properly deal with their issues, and there was a not so small part of me that found it amusing.
“Where have you guys been?” I asked Razar curiously.
“We checked on the girl in the emergency center,” Zain explained, making me sit up and lean forward with interest.
“Is she okay? Is she awake?”
“Okay, but not awake yet,” Razar rumbled.
“We should go see her after this,” I whispered. They seemed to agree.
“You need to eat.” Razar pulled my plate over.
As the table broke into comfortable conversation about possibly going to train afterwards, I considered going with them. Obviously, it wouldn’t be training ‘with’ them as much as training in the gym on the balcony above where they worked, but it would allow me to watch them. I had to admit, it was one of my favorite pastimes and had led to a few very… interesting situations.
Especially since quite a few Class B nightmares had thought it would be a good time to talk to me, and with how worked up the guys were downstairs training, you can imagine how that went. I still had yet to see any of them again—I was sort of hoping that was not the bodies that Saint had been referring to.
The balcony gym was fairly empty as I walked on the treadmill, headphones on, as I watched Razar and Blackwell train below. The flush that was on my face was one hundred percent because of them and not because of working out, but they didn’t need to know that, right?
I increased the speed on the treadmill as I looked over towards the others that were using one of the circuits for non-combat training. A small sound caught in my throat, realizing Saint and Damian were both shirtless.
Now that? That wasn’t fair.
Suddenly, a movement to the right of me had my head snapping to the side, finding a large man on the treadmill… directly next to me. There were twenty of them, and the massive, barrel-chested nightmare had picked that one. He flashed me a smile and began running next to me, his eyes the only part of him that appeared ‘non-human’ despite feeling a fairly strong signature of magic coming off him. I was going to assume Class B here. I couldn’t tell which type though. I refocused back on the training and frowned, no longer seeing Saint next to the three on the training course.
A tap on my shoulder had me muttering a curse while moving my headphones and offering the man a curious look. I turned down my treadmill so I could actually focus on what he was saying, despite knowing it probably wouldn’t be all that interesting.
“What’s up?” I asked curiously.
“I just wanted to introduce myself.” He flashed a smile, jogging as his dark eyes that contained no whites seemed to run over me. I was sorely regretting only wearing a pair of yoga pants and sports bra right now. To be fair, usually my boys didn’t allow any other people in here while they were training.