Chapter 44. Eloise
Eloise
I stare dumbfounded at Grayson, still buzzing with sensation and grappling with how things flipped so quickly.
I pull up my knees and wrap my arms around them. None of it makes sense. “Why are you trying to convince me you’re a bad person? Bad people don’t say they’re bad. They just do what they want in the moment and let things crumble later.”
“I’m sleeping on the couch,” he says, not even trying to answer with logic.
The whole thing makes me irrationally angry. Nothing he’s saying adds up. “Great. Well, I’m sleeping on the floor,” I say, and I slide off the comforter, my feet landing on the soft rug.
He freezes. “I just said I’m giving you the bed.”
“And I’m saying you can take your pity elsewhere, because I don’t want it. I’m sleeping on the floor.”
“Pity?” he repeats, just as fired up. “I’m being polite.”
“Well, that’s the biggest load of BS I’ve ever heard,” I say. “Which fits, actually, because you just lied. About why you stopped kissing me.”
He gives me a warning look. “I didn’t lie.”
I swipe a pillow from his bed and march toward the fireplace.
“Lie … omission. Same thing. You’re always an infuriating contradiction.
You say you hate your uncle, and yet you play the perfect nephew.
You say you’re a bad person, yet you go out of your way to protect me at every turn, even from yourself. ”
“Drop it, Claws,” he says in a dangerous way. Except I’m not scared of him.
I throw the pillow onto the rug. “No, I don’t think I will.
Because I might be new to all this, but I know you want to kiss me.
I didn’t think so yesterday. But today you insist on getting my gran the medicine she so desperately needs.
And you tell me to sleep in another bedroom because you’re worried about my comfort more than your uncle’s wrath.
Be a coward all you want. But I know how you look at me. ”
He groans like I might be killing him. “You’re making this impossible.”
“I’d argue that you are.”
His rubs his forehead. “And screw your coward comment, by the way, because I could talk about how much I want you all day and all night. But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bad idea. Plain and simple.”
All I hear in that statement is that he wants me and now I can’t drop it. “Why? Why is it a bad idea? No more lies. Tell me the truth, Gray.”
He throws his hands in the air. “Because it’s complicated!”
“Give me a reason!”
Something cracks in his resolve and he almost looks pained. “Because I can’t give that Key to my uncle, all right? I won’t.”
I freeze, blinking at him.
He doesn’t go on, but his eyes storm.
“And what? Some speck of a conscience took over and you felt guilty about flat-out betraying me?” My voice rises.
He stares at me, eyes hardened. “I told you I’m not a good person.”
The air crackles around him, and for a brief second a ball of white fire explodes above our heads—basically the magical equivalent of letting off steam.
“Fuck,” he says as the fire disappears.
The room suddenly feels wobbly. “Your uncle will literally kill me if I don’t give him that Key,” I say, horrified.
“I told you. I’d never let that happen,” he says.
Angry tears spring to my eyes. “How could you stop him? He’s the strongest Mage our world has seen in a century and you’re a first-year University student.”
“He killed my brother!” he says with so much emotion that I feel it in my own chest. “He killed Liam because he called the Key.”
I suck in air so fast I feel lightheaded.
Because of all the things I thought he’d say, that definitely wasn’t one of them.
And worse still, it might be the only reason I could actually understand.
Would I do the same thing if he killed my little sister?
You’re damn right I would. I’d bury a dagger in the bastard’s heart.
“Take the bed,” he says one more time and sits down on the couch, his head in his hands. He flicks his wrist, turning out every light except the one shining under the door leading to his bathroom.
I want to say more. But in this moment, I don’t even know what. I’m hurt. I’m confused. And the shock of it has me spinning. Thoughts in a tangle, I plod past him and climb back into his bed.