Chapter Twenty-Four
What I Take Back
Adreana
This time I know something is wrong. I’m myself, but I’m not. What in the ever-loving fuck is this bullshit, and why is this happening again? I try my best to shake off the twisty, dark feeling roiling inside me.
It takes me a moment to realize I am indeed outside. Naked. Although someone thankfully took the time to wrap me in a blanket. I stare up at the dark gray clouds obscuring the sun, and wonder idly what time it is. Not that it matters.
My body moves, but it’s not me controlling my actions. Fear races through my system once more. Realization dawns on me as I finally comprehend what a marionette must feel like. Having my limbs moved without my permission. I’m here, but it’s like I have been put on the back burner. Anger rages through me that I am yet again in this fucking situation.
“My boy,” I hear myself say but it’s not quite my voice. It is deeper, more gravelly.
“No!” Kaleb yells, his face pale as he stares at me. “You’re dead. The dead don’t come back.”
“I’m here for you, Kaleb. You know Mommy loves you.”
I feel dirty as the words leave my mouth. The thoughts swirling in my head are disturbing to say the least. No mother should think of her child that way, and I am revolted that this monster is using me to inflict more damage on her son.
“You’re dead,” he repeats, shaking his head.
“Yes, you killed me.”
“No, no, no. It was an accident,” Kaleb whispers.
He looks absolutely heartbroken.
“You know that’s not true, baby. You hit that tree on purpose.”
My mind is filled with images of the accident. The fight they were having, Kaleb telling her what they did behind closed doors was wrong. His mother touching him, trying to seduce him. The tree. The crash. Her body flung from the vehicle, shattering upon impact.
My heart aches for this younger version of Kaleb that his mother remembers. I want to hold him and tell him everything is okay. I want him to know nothing that happened is his fault.
“Shut up!” my own voice screams, my hands holding my head. “He isn’t yours. You can’t have him. He is mine.”
“Addi?” Kaleb asks.
“Don’t talk to her!” the thing currently controlling me hisses. “She isn’t coming back.”
The hell I’m not! I don’t give a shit if I have to fight this bitch every day for the rest of my life, I won’t just give in. I won’t shut up and stay quiet while this hateful, horrid, spectre of a woman hurts one of the men I love.
Love?
One of the men?
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
Seems like being possessed or whatever I am is giving me clarity I didn’t have before.
My body moves, stepping toward Kaleb. I can see him shake as my hand extends in his direction. I fight with everything I have to regain control, to not allow her to touch him. When the arm quickly lowers, I feel relief.
“You bitch!” she roars. “You can’t keep me away from him.”
“Let her go,” Kaleb begs. “She didn’t do anything.”
“Another lie, Kaleb?” she asks. “She took your heart. You love her.”
“I do. But that doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“It does!” she says angrily. “You were supposed to love me . Only me. The bond between a mother and her son is special, and ours was more so than most.”
“No,” Kaleb chokes out. “You did things to me that no mother ever should. I didn’t think I would ever be able to love someone the normal way. You broke something inside me before I even knew what that was.”
“I loved you,” she replies angrily.
“You abused me!” Kaleb cries out.
I feel the thing inside me doubt herself and I push. I push against the hold she has on me. I won’t be held captive in my own damn body. The moment I feel her grasp on me start to slip I push even harder.
“Mana!” I scream, my voice my own once more.
I see his face just beyond the graveyard’s gates, a dark blade pressed to Lethe’s throat.
“Come to me, Addi,” he calls out. “If you can make it here, you will be free of her.”
I force myself to move, putting one foot in front of the other, but it is slow going. Kaleb’s mother fights me for dominance, holding me back. My feet feel like they are filled with lead, making it hard to move them and win any ground.
“Let her go,” Kaleb says, trying to pull me to Mana.
“Never!” the distorted voice erupts from me once more before I am able to fight back.
“You fucking bitch!” Mana roars. “If you weren’t dead, I would kill you myself.”
The entity shrinks back at his rage and I win a few steps before she tries to stop me again. I am two or three steps away from Mana and freedom from this bullshit.
“Lethe!” I cry out.
Mana glares at the angel on his knees. I know he can help me. Don’t ask me how, I just do.
“Please.”
Mana removes the blade from his neck and within the blink of an eye he stands before me. Gently, he swipes my hair out of my face.
“I’m sorry I did this to you,” he whispers.
My heart cracks for the big man in front of me. There is so much I want to say to him, explain that I know in my heart he was only trying to keep me safe, but I can’t. Inside my head, the entity shrieks long and hard at his touch. The tenuous grasp she had on me slips and I push past Lethe, jumping into Mana’s arms.
I feel the last vestiges of her melt away the moment he catches me. Somehow, I know it has nothing to do with Mana but where he is standing. I breathe him in, enjoying the dark musky scent that always clings to him.
“I am so fucking done with all of this,” I say a moment later, pushing out of Mana’s grasp. “My sister tried to kill me, a succubus used me to get a free meal, and now I’ve had a dead woman in my head. I. Am. Fucking. Done.”
With each word I poke Mana in the chest, driving my point home.
“I don’t give a single flying fuck what wording you put into our deal, or whatever the fuck you did. I want out.” I turn in a circle to glare at each of them in turn. “I am going home and I swear to everything that is holy if any of you show up in my house, in my room, I will fucking end you. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Addi,” Lethe breathes out my name.
“Don’t,” I say holding up a hand. I pull the blanket tighter around my nudity. “I need time to figure out what the fuck is going on and having one or all of you around is not going to help. You all just keep distracting me with great sex.”
Mana chuckles and I turn my glare on him. He holds his hand up in surrender. “You weren’t complaining a couple of hours ago.”
I shake my head sadly. “It’s becoming more and more apparent that you aren’t human, Mana,” I say softly. “Or you would understand that sex is not enough. It’s fun, but it’s not something I consider when I’m making life-changing decisions.”
He looks like I slapped him.
“Addi, you can’t just walk away,” he says lowly.
“You’re hurting me,” I say. A tear slips down my cheek. “All of you are. You’re fighting each other constantly, and each time I end up as collateral. First my sister, then the succubus, and now this shit,” I say waving my hand in the air. “How am I supposed to choose you, one or all, if you can’t even get along for five fucking minutes? Each time one of you goes off on their own, I end up hurt.”
“Adreana,” Mana says, a stricken look on his face. “You know none of us ever meant to harm you.”
“And yet we did,” Kaleb cuts in.
I turn to face him, shocked that he agrees with me.
“Watch it, half-breed,” Mana threatens.
“That’s exactly what she’s talking about, though. I say something you don’t like, and you want to go twelve rounds. She says we all need to talk, and instead you try to fuck her into submission,” Kaleb counters. “You don’t listen. You only have yourself in mind and fuck the consequences.”
“We are all guilty,” Lethe says, standing beside Kaleb. “I stole her to protect her but I never took into account what she wanted, what any of you wanted.”
“Do you understand?” I ask Mana directly.
He shakes his head. “I can’t let you go,” he says softly.
“I’m going home, Mana. And you can’t stop me.”
“I love you,” he says, his voice cracking. “We all love you.”
His words pierce my heart. I love them all as well, but I can’t keep doing this. They have turned my entire world upside down in a matter of days. And even though I’ve never felt so free, I have also never been so fucking terrified.
“If you love me,” I say softly, “You’ll let me go.”
I watch as Mana falls to his knees in the mud, his head in his hands.
“Then go,” he croaks.
I don’t look back as I walk away, back into the house I grew up in. A place I no longer consider home, because none of my men are here. My shoulders shake as tears overwhelm me, my heart cracking wide open with every step away from Mana, Lethe, and Kaleb.
A loud wail pierces the air and I almost turn around to go back to them, to him. I feel Mana’s pain all the way to my soul. I never thought he would say the words, but now that he has, I know nothing will ever be the same again.
I enter my yard through the back gate, wanting to go inside, shower, and cry myself to sleep more than I want my next breath. But I have never been that lucky. On my back porch sits Bowen with my beautiful Daisy, her head resting on his lap while he scratches behind her ear.
“I heard what you said,” he says before I can speak. “I’m not here to try to talk you out of your decision. I just want to say something, and then I’ll leave. Please.”
I stare at him for long moments before nodding.
“I want you to know that we all love you, each in our own way. But of the four of us I am probably the one with the most damage.” He looks up at the cloudy sky before returning his gaze to me. “When I fell, it broke something in me. I’m not like Lethe, who fell for a purpose. I fell because I was bored. I spent too much time on earth with the humans and one day I just couldn’t go back.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I don’t want you to say anything. Nothing you say can fix who or what I am.”
“Then why are you telling me?” I ask with a frown.
“So, you know this is all my fault,” he replies. “I mess with Mana and rile him up. I push Kaleb’s buttons to see how he will react. I fuck with people.”
“What did you do?” I whisper, a coldness wrapping around me that chills me to the bones.
“Emma came looking for you at Harken, the night in Mana’s office.”
“No!” I gasp.
“I led her upstairs before I joined you and Mana. I showed her what was happening, that Mana and Kaleb chose you over her.”
“Why?”
“Because I was bored,” he says, his voice flat. “I let the succubus into your house and told Lethe to take you through the graveyard. I didn’t think you would leave.”
“No,” I cut in angrily. “You just thought it was fun to put my fucking life in danger!”
“You were never in danger,” he replies.
“Oh, eat shit and die,” I curse him out. “You can’t say that, and you know it.” I glare at him, breathing harshly.
“Punish me,” he says, finally letting go of Daisy and climbing to his feet. “Cut me out, hate me, whatever it takes. But don’t punish them. They love you.”
“I can’t believe a fucking word you say!” I cry out, slapping him across the face.
“Maybe not,” he says softly. “But I’m not asking you to choose me. I’m telling you not to.”
He turns and walks to the back gate before he stops.
“You’re special, Adreana,” he says, turning back to me. “Lethe fell for you. Mana has never made a deal to keep a woman for an eternity. And you healed Kaleb to the point where his heart can love again. Don’t throw that away because of me.”
He leaves through the gate but before he slips between the trees beyond, I call out to him.
“If I’ve done something for each of them, what did I do for you?”
A sad look crosses his face. “You made me feel the one emotion I’ve never felt before. Regret.”
And then he is gone and I am alone with all this new information. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?