These Wicked Desires (Fates #3)

13. Ellis

Ellis

Waking up the next morning is difficult. I’m so warm and cozy with my legs and arms tangled with my guys. Sterling puts off the most heat, and with his chest pressed against my back, his hand resting on my belly, I’m extra warm. I peek an eye open and smile. How Cade is sleeping is beyond me. He’s on his back with both me and Kai resting our heads on his chest. My eyes slide closed again, contentment a warm glowing ball inside of me. This is how I want to wake up everyday for the rest of my life.

I’m just about to slip back to sleep when someone’s phone rings. Kai twitches and grumbles. Sterling groans and tucks himself closer to me. Cade sighs, his chest deflating under my head.

“Who didn’t turn their fucking phone on silent?” Kai mumbles sleepily.

“Just ignore it,” I say, snuggling into the bed even more.

The phone stops ringing, and we all relax in our pile of limbs and happiness. Until the phone rings again.

“Seriously?” Kai snaps. “Whose phone is that? I’m going to throw it against the wall.”

Cade sighs. “It’s mine.” He manages to disentangle himself from me and Kai, and climbs out of bed.

Kai immediately scoots over to me. His cooler skin makes me shiver at the loss of Cade’s heat. “Mmm,” Kai hums. “This is better anyway.” He buries his face in my neck, inhaling deeply.

Cade sucks in a breath, and all three of us look up. His throat works on a swallow before he slides his thumb across the screen and puts the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

I watch his eyes widen and his face drain of color. As the rising and falling of his chest becomes more rapid, I sit up. Something is wrong. I crawl to the end of the bed, never taking my eyes off of him.

“Wait!” Cade yells into the phone, but closes his eyes and lets his arm drop. Whoever was on the other end has already hung up. He sets the phone on the dresser with a shaky hand.

“Cade?” I hop to my feet and press my hands to his chest. Under my palms, his heart pounds hard enough I can feel it. “What’s wrong?”

He looks at me, his violet eyes devastated. “That was Kennedy,” he rasps.

My stomach drops to my feet and I have to sit on the edge of the bed as the room tilts. I already know what he’s going to say and I shake my head as if I can ward off the bad news.

“He’s threatening my family because I haven’t been working.” He runs his hands through his hair, yanking roughly on the strands.

Oh, gods. It’s my fault. It’s hard to breathe through the guilt bombarding me, but I take a deep breath that hurts my chest. “You have to go. Go back home.”

He’s shaking his head before I even finish speaking. “I’m not leaving. Especially not right now when we’re planning to rescue your sister.”

“Cade!” I jump from the bed and take his face in my hands. “It’s your mom and sister. You know what will happen if you don’t.”

His heartbreak is evident in his eyes. I can see how much this is killing him. But he places his hands over mine on his cheeks, and he stares at me. “I’m not leaving, Ellis. This is not up for discussion.”

“Cade—”

“I’m serious. Drop it.” His tone leaves no room for argument. He pulls from my grasp and snags a t-shirt from the floor, tugging it over his head as he heads for the door. “Call Connor and Drew. Tell them to meet us here in an hour.”

The door doesn’t quite slam behind him, but I still flinch. My eyes burn for more than one reason. I hate that he’s letting this happen to his family because of me. One day he’ll regret that, and I don’t want him to resent me for it when he does. And he’s never taken that tone with me. It stings, even knowing he doesn’t mean it.

I press my hands to my middle in the hopes it can ease the ball of nerves that formed at his words. The room is quiet, and I spin around to face Kai and Sterling, throwing my shoulders back and preparing for a fight. “We’re not ignoring this.” I didn’t let Sterling’s family continue to suffer under Noah, and I won’t let Cade’s family suffer under Kennedy.

Kai sighs and runs a hand down his face. “No, of course we’re not. I just don’t know what the fuck to do.”

That takes the wind out of my sails and I plop onto the bed, defeated. “There has to be something,” I whisper.

“Sneaking in is out of the question,” Sterling says. “That building will be under way too much surveillance and there is no way only one or two mages can manage the security and wards Kennedy has surrounding it.”

“Not to mention we have no idea where exactly they’re being held,” Kai chimes in.

An idea starts to take root in my mind, one that only increases the anxiety in my gut, but to save Cade’s family, I’ll do anything. I swallow thickly and turn to Kai. “You said when you abducted me from my room at the Kennedy mansion, there was video surveillance in my room?”

Kai nods, a frown forming a crease between his gray eyes. “Yeah. Cade was able to hack into it.”

“Any chance the footage from that camera gets saved and stored somewhere?” I ignore the way my voice shakes and the way my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.

“Most likely. But that would be a Cade question. Why?” Kai narrows his eyes at me, like he suspects what I’m about to say.

I clutch my stomach and bend over. Saying these words brings back the trauma I experienced under that roof. It makes me want to crawl into a hole and never climb back out again. It makes my skin crawl and leaves a sensation of filth covering my body. But if it helps Cade and his family, it’s all worth it. “What if I threaten to expose him for everything I went through when he was acting as my dad?” My words are strangled, and I have to force them from my throat.

I don’t need to look at Kai and Sterling to know they’ve gone preternaturally still. “What do you mean?” Sterling asks quietly. Too quietly.

“I mean, if he doesn’t release Cade’s mom and sister, I’ll make sure the world knows what he let happen to me.”

“Fuck that!” Kai jumps from the bed and paces back and forth in front of me. “First of all, no one will ever see what happened to you. I’ll get my hands on those recordings and destroy them myself to ensure that. Second, you’re not going to put yourself in a position that takes you back to that time. Not even to help Cade.”

“That’s my decision to make, not yours.” I stand and step in front of him, stopping his pacing.

“And it’s my job to protect you,” Kai growls. “That includes more than just physical protection.” He sighs and shakes his head, his shoulders drooping. “I want to be supportive, Ellis. I want to support you, but this …” He shakes his head again. “This is asking too much.”

I place my hands on my hips and stand up tall, even though I still only come to his chest. “You know you can’t stop me. If you don’t help, I’ll do it on my own. I’ve done it once, and I won’t hesitate to do it again.”

Kai narrows his gaze on me. I know my whirlwind of emotions is feeding into Kai and making it hard for him to control his own. I can see how his eyes churn with everything I’m feeling. “I’ll compel you to not do it.”

My brows raise to my hairline. I clench my fists hard enough that my nails pinch my palms and let the leash on my magic loosen. Golden sparks flicker at my fingertips and I can see the golden swirling light in my eyes reflected in Kai’s. “I fucking dare you, Malakai Thorne,” I say, words quiet and shaking with anger. Unbelievable. After that talk we just had about him having to trust me and the first time I need him to, he pulls this shit again.

We stare at each other, Kai’s jaw clenching and unclenching, my anger fueling his. If I don’t cool my attitude, Kai’s will keep rising until he explodes. But I’m not backing down this time.

“Okay, that’s enough.” Sterling steps between us, gently pushing Kai away. “Take a breath, Kai. Raise your shields before you do something stupid.”

Kai growls, baring his fangs at Sterling, but the wolf doesn’t back down. He raises one brow, the alpha ordering his pack to obey his command. Kai curses and turns around, heading for the bathroom, and the door slams shut behind him.

Sterling turns to me, and I square my shoulders, prepared to keep fighting. He shakes his head and lifts my chin with his finger. “You too, kitten. Take a deep breath.”

I don’t want to. I want to show him he doesn’t control me like that. He said so himself. I’m his equal, his alphamate. But I have a better chance at convincing them if we all keep level heads. I close my eyes and take a breath, inhaling his pine and winter scent, and releasing it.

I open my mouth to argue with him—calmly—but he beats me to it. “I’m not saying no. Yet . But this is a discussion to have with Cade. This will be a group decision, Ellis. No matter what decision we come to, you can’t go off and do this by yourself. We’re a team, remember?”

I sigh and nod. “Yeah, I know. I didn’t really mean that, but when Kai didn’t even entertain the idea …”

“The claws came out?” He smirks, and the sight causes the rest of my anger to melt away. “Come on.” He kisses my forehead and threads his fingers through mine. “Let’s go downstairs and wait for Kai.” Before we can move, the bathroom door opens and Kai steps out. We stare at each other for a moment, and Sterling lets my hand go. “If I leave, will you two play nice?”

I don’t answer, because that depends entirely on the vampire. Kai grunts, but there is nothing aggressive in his posture. Sterling must take that for confirmation because he leaves us alone in tense silence. I cross my arms over my chest, unwilling to be the one to break. I never said I wasn’t stubborn.

Eventually, Kai sighs and crosses the room. “I’m sorry, Ellis. I should never have threatened to compel you.” He frames my face in his palms, using his thumbs to lift my head. “I’m still struggling to keep your emotions out. They feed into mine and it just becomes a perfect storm of anger that I can’t control. That’s not an excuse, but it’s all I have right now. Not to mention you standing up for yourself like that is fucking sexy as hell.”

I press my lips together, fighting the twitch that wants to break out into a laugh. He would like to make me mad just because it turns him on. “I just wish you would consider my ideas sometimes. I know they aren’t always the best, and I know you only want to keep me safe and happy. But I don’t like to be shut down without you even considering what I have to say. And you told me you’d do better, Kai. You told me you needed to trust my instincts more.”

“I’m so sorry, baby girl,” he breathes. “I don’t mean to do that. My instincts are hard to fight sometimes. I need to do better. I will do better. I don’t want you to think I don’t value your opinions, because I do.” He sighs and presses his forehead to mine. “Sometimes its really fucking scary. You are my world, Ellis. Nothing else matters in my life, except you. The thought of you hurt, in any way, makes me crazy. I let that fear win sometimes, and I don’t think before I speak or act.”

“I get it,” I whisper, clutching his t-shirt. “I really do.” That fear can be debilitating. Just thinking of losing one of them …

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I love you so much, Ellis.”

I wrap my arms around his middle and bury my face in his chest, inhaling spice and cherries. “I love you too, Kai.”

He rests his cheek on top of my head, and we stand together for a second. Under my ear, his heart thumps in time with mine. For once, slow and steady. Calm. It won’t last though. Especially because this conversation isn’t over.

I pull away and look into his gray eyes. “I still want to talk about this, though. I’m not letting anything happen to Cade’s family.”

Kai sighs, his breath fanning the curls around my face. “I know.”

“Okay.” I take his hand and we head downstairs.

Sterling is sitting in the chair where he usually sits. Cade, however, is standing by the window looking outside into the night-darkened yard. I drop Kai’s hand and approach Cade, moving slowly so as to not freak him out. His back is tight under my palm, all of his muscles tense. I peek around him and glance at his face, and my heart breaks. His eyes are red, like he’s been crying or trying not to cry.

I step between him and the window and hug him tight, lending him what comfort I have. He hugs me back, and I take that as his way of telling me he’s not angry with me, even though he raised his voice earlier.

“Ellis has something she would like us to consider,” Sterling says, then throws in offhandedly, “Calmly.”

Cade pulls away and looks at me, his violet eyes full of sadness. I tug him to the couch and gently push him down next to Kai. I’m too nervous to sit, so I pace back and forth in front of the couch, Sterling’s support bolstering me.

“I refuse to let your family suffer, Cade,” I say quietly, but firmly. “I know you say you won’t resent me later, but you can’t promise that. I’m the reason you're here and not working. It would be my fault if they get hurt.”

“Ellis, tha?—”

I hold up my hand and stop Cade. “I’m not arguing about this. I don’t care how we get them out of there, but we’re going to do it.” I can see him hesitating. He wants to argue with me, but at the same time he wants to save his family. I know Cade well enough to know that he doesn’t want to accept our help. He doesn’t want to risk any of us, or make me wait any longer to save my sister. But I’ve made up my mind. “Cade,” I say quietly and sit on his lap. “Please. You’ve done so much for me. More than you will ever realize. Please let me help you get them back.”

He closes his eyes and releases a breath, his shoulders slumping at the same time. “Did you have any ideas?”

Kai snorts and I shoot a glare at him. “Well, yeah,” I say timidly. He won’t like this, and I know he’ll fight me on it. They all will. But I have to make them understand I want to do this. Even if it rips the scab off all of my healing wounds. “Just please consider it before you shoot it down. Like actually consider it. All of you.”

His eyes narrow, already not liking the direction this is going. Unable to handle anyone touching me while I talk about this, I push to my feet. Sterling watches me like … well like a wolf watching its prey. But instead of wanting to devour me, he’s watching for any signs he needs to step in to protect me from myself. Kai’s arms are crossed over his chest and the scowl on his face is top notch.

I take a deep breath, letting it fill my lungs and expand my chest to the point of pain. When I release it, I shake my arms like I can shake off the sensation of spiders crawling over my skin. “Okay. Since we can’t sneak in to rescue them, and asking Thomas to release them will never work, I think our best bet is to blackmail him.”

“Blackmail him with what?” Cade’s voice is threaded with suspicion, like he already knows the direction this is going to go.

“If we can get the footage from my room, we can threaten to reveal what he let happen to me under his roof.” My attempt to sound confident fails miserably. Especially as Cade’s eyes darken with anger.

He swallows and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and piercing me with his violet stare. “You mean you want me to download the footage of Sam raping you so you can threaten to reveal it for the entire world to see?”

Well, when he puts it that way … “Yes,” I whisper, clutching my hands to my stomach.

“No.” That one word, spoken quietly but firmly, snaps my patience.

“Why won’t you guys even consider it? Stop being so godsdamn protective for once, and fucking consider one thing I say!”

“I did consider it,” Cade says, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest, the perfect mirror to Kai. “I considered it for .5 seconds and quickly dismissed the idea.”

A frustrated, wordless scream climbs up my throat and I stomp my foot. Childish? Yes. But if they are going to treat me like a child then I’ll act like one. Kai smirks and my hand tingles with the need to slap him. His eyes flash red, daring me to act on my impulsive reactions. Instead, I take a deep breath and close my eyes, counting to ten before I speak again.

“It’s my choice to make. I’m the one who is impacted by the video being released. Not you guys.” I cross my arms and shoot Cade a glare when he opens his mouth. “You can’t take this choice away from me.”

Sterling leans forward, snagging my attention. “You realize why we’re hesitant, right? Ellis, when we first met you, you were a shell of a person. We had to watch you flinch at our touch and break down in tears. You’ve come so far and the last thing we want is to see that lost look in your eyes again.”

Leave it to Sterling to make me second guess myself. But I’m not the same person I was before. In just a short amount of time these guys have helped me become the person I’m meant to be. Now I feel like they’re taking it away.

“I understand,” I say quietly. “I really do. And you know I appreciate you guys looking out for me. But I’m stronger now. I have your support and love and that has made all the difference.” I look at each of them, trying to convey that I’m strong enough to handle this. “I don’t want you guys to reject this idea just because you’re worried what it will do to my mental health. If I couldn’t handle it, I wouldn’t have suggested it. You have to trust me.”

Sterling looks at me, and I swear I see pride gleaming in his icy blue eyes. I know I’ll be able to convince him, it’s Cade and Kai I’m worried about.

Cade sits up again, leveling a stern look in my direction. “Let’s say we forget about what this will do to you mentally. You’re expecting us to accept the fact that everyone will be able to watch our mate, our beloved, our soul-bonded, get raped? No one gets to see you naked, let alone in a position like that.”

Kai growls, the monster making its opinion known on that matter. I look to Sterling, pleading with him to help me convince them, but he says it all with his raised brows and lips pressed together in a small line. I’m on my own in this.

I have to take another deep breath, my frustration is rapidly growing and the last thing I need is for my own anger to filter over to Kai. “I love you guys. You are the breath in my lungs and the beating of my heart. But I’m this close to fucking snapping.” I hold my thumb and pointer finger centimeters from each other. “I’m your mate, your beloved, your soul-bonded. But I am still myself. I have my own thoughts and opinions. I control what I do. It’s my body, not yours. If you ever think you can pull that alphahole possessive bullshit on me, you will be very quickly corrected.”

Some of the fire leaves Kai’s gray eyes, but it’s replaced by a different fire, and he slowly pulls a pillow onto his lap. Cade rubs his face, his stubble scratching softly in the quiet. I watch him closely, because even though Kai will be hard to convince, I’m positive I can do it. Cade, however, will fight me because he doesn’t want to be the reason I do this.

Cade pushes from the couch and steps in front of me, taking my face in his palms. “Ellis, love, you know I can’t let you do this for me. I’ll never forgive myself for it.”

“You’ve done so much for me, though. You’ve sacrificed so much. I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to them.” Tears blur my view of him and my lips tremble. “Please Cade,” I whisper. “Please let me do this for you.”

He rests his forehead against mine and I cling to his shirt, silently begging him to agree. “Ellis …” He shakes his head, and my stomach drops.

I pull away, a few tears sliding down my cheeks. “I’m so tired of feeling useless. I’m just an object to protect and keep safe. Someplace for you guys to stick your dick inside with no thoughts or desires of my own. I guess I’ll just keep sitting back, looking pretty, and letting everyone make my decisions for me.”

My words hit their mark. Cade’s eyes widen and I see the devastation in them. I briefly want to take back what I said, but it’s the truth. At least how I see it. Swallowing, I open the front door and escape into the cool night air, letting the breeze dry the tears on my cheeks, only for new ones to appear.

The lake glistens in the distance and I turn away from it, not wanting the reminder of that night and how special I felt. How cherished. I know they love me. There is no denying it. But at some point, that love can become too possessive, and I’m scared that’s what is going to happen with them. I see their point of view, I hear it, I understand it. But at the end of the day, this should be my decision to make.

The grass tickles my bare feet when I step off the porch. Dew clings to the blades, making my soles damp and cold, but I curl my toes, digging into the hard earth. In just a t-shirt, my skin pebbles, but I’m not ready to go back inside yet. So I stand in the chilly night and look at the stars, wishing the sky would devour me.