16. Sin
Sin
“ I ’d appreciate it if you reconsidered,” I said, adjusting myself in the cushioned chair, which had been a staple of my sister’s room for a decade, even though it was brand new.
That, along with her four-poster bed we replaced at least five times a year, and the thick white duvet she currently buried herself under.
It had barely been twenty-four hours since I had made love to Melanie before she vanished to be with Kai, and I was still shaken. Especially since they had exchanged bites after she rejected my offer.
I thought visiting Camille would help distract me, as work was no use at all.
Camille’s fists clenched as she drew in a sharp breath, turning her head away from me to stare out of the window.
It was incredibly rare for her to be angry, and I had to be careful not to push her. If her emotions took her over, she may be triggered, and it could take a day before she was well enough to even talk to us again.
Her usual cotton and lace white nightgown rose to hide her throat, her slight features hardened as the delicate wave of pink brushed her cheeks.
Even though she’d be stuck in bed, she had still neatly dressed herself and was ready for company. Though Flint, her carers, myself, and Mother would be the only people she saw all day.
“I’ve already made my decision,” she said carefully.
“This cannot be called a decision when he coerced you into it,” I replied.
“How do you know Michael has coerced me? He’s been nothing but courteous every time we’ve met. I don’t understand why you, Mother, and Fathers are so afraid of him.”
What was the most polite way to tell her she had lived her entire adult life in her bedroom and she had no idea the damage someone like Michael Farringdon could inflict on her and our family?
She only half-believed us when I told her about some of his more heinous ‘bullshit’, as Kai lovingly called it.
Camille knew of the world through news articles and television programs. She was confined to four walls until her doctors and nurses deemed her safe to emerge for a set number of hours a week.
If I plainly said to her ‘Michael runs one of the largest sex trafficking rings in the world’, would she actually comprehend what I was saying?
She rarely left London and had never once crossed any country border. There was no way for her to know what people were truly capable of except through her own experience and the news.
“What has he promised you?” I asked, leaning forward, my elbows dropping to my thighs so I could meet my sister face to face. “What will he give you that we can’t provide?”
“He can help find out what is really happening to me. And he can help me get better.”
I tried not to sigh at her words. Because it had been ten years and she showed no sign of recovering.
Every year, her aura spun further out of control. Her bones shattering, organs failing; bleeding noses, cracked lips, and heats so severe she would fall into a coma for days following.
Her doctors and nurses were scentless and aura-less alphas and omegas.
Camille couldn’t manipulate them with her power, so they could treat her fairly.
Without scents, they didn’t have to restrain their emotions lest they upset her.
Without auras, they couldn’t interfere with her energetic space and trigger her.
Even when Flint had scent matched with her and he was able to keep her more stable, it didn’t prevent an episode when his honey scent grew too much.
The delicacy and organisation required to keep the severity of her illness private was a great strain on anyone involved. But this was safer than the wider world finding out what she had done in the past when she had lost control.
She cleared her throat. “I’ve already told Caspian I’m leaving. I’m telling you before I inform our parents, because I know you’ll be the most vocal about it.”
That would fully explain the maelstrom of rage and grief Caspian had dealt with since we arrived home from the party.
Kai had locked himself in his nest, Caspian had shut himself in his gym, and I’d been left to piece together why my mates were more scrambled than I was after what I’d done to them both.
I had to discuss Melanie’s meeting with Caspian’s parents with them, but it was impossible to do when neither of them would talk to me.
“Can we at least tell Caspian now?” I asked.
She paused only briefly before she shook her head.
“He feels guilty enough about my illness. What would he do if he discovered the battle I’ve fought since I presented?”
“He would understand,” I lied. “It’s not as if he doesn’t know you’re ill. Telling him the extent of it will no longer make a difference when you’re apart.”
She pressed her lips together. Another tremble shook through her as she gathered herself.
“I don’t want to hurt him anymore,” she whispered.
From everything that had happened since she’d presented—every time she was triggered, or she lost control, or even a change to her nest she had not agreed to—I understood why she wished to keep it a secret.
And the weight I endured from hiding what she had done in the past was likely nothing compared to hers.
I also knew how my mate could be. If he knew the true extent of Camille’s illness, I was certain he would never leave her side. Kai mocked me for acting like a hero, but Caspian was incorrigible. Even when Kai became our omega, it was not enough to stop him.
“Sin, it might be useful to control other people with, but my aura isn’t stable. I need someone to teach me.” Her frustration surged through her scent, building too quickly, but I couldn’t give up.
“Michael Farringdon is not the answer,” I replied coldly.
Michael must have found her. Though I didn’t notice him at the party, so he probably sent his trained staff to tempt her.
Anyone who knew what Camille was capable of would admit her illness was the same one Michael studied in his research centres.
But that was not the only thing he did there.
“You are safe here,” I insisted, even as her agitation grew. “We can protect you. We can—”
“Brother, please !” she gasped, clutching her chest. Her body trembled as pain flared behind her eyes.
“Stop talking like you know what this is like!” She drew in a ragged breath.
“You don’t have to live every single day scared you’re going to kill someone!
You don’t have to lock yourself in your room because the pain is so intense that no one can come near you without risking their lives. ”
I couldn’t tell her ‘it’s not that severe’, because I had seen firsthand what she was capable of when she lost control.
When the violence took her over, it was only Flint who could calm her, and all I could do was stand outside the door and listen to her screams.
She panted too hard, the bed frame and side tables rattling as they shook along with her.
Her power was already winding into me, squeezing my chest, but I didn’t want to let it go.
A lone tear rolled down a flushed cheek.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she whimpered. “I let my guard down at the party and almost hurt your mates. I could have killed them if I’d lost control…”
This time, my heart clenched in fear at the thought of their still bodies and lifeless eyes. If she’d truly succumbed to her power, there would be no guests left in the ballroom to tell what had happened.
“Yet you still had enough control to hurt Melanie,” I said coldly, remembering the way she whipped her hand back from Camille as soon as they touched.
“I just lost it for a second. I was so shocked I couldn’t help it,” she said as her tears quickened.
But we had made sure she had enough blockers to keep her aura subdued, and she wore the bracelet the Hiscoxes had created for her, which was meant to dampen the effect should it flare up.
“Sin, I have to go,” she croaked. Her distress seeped out of her, even though she had become an expert at maintaining herself, far better than me.
“The Hiscoxes could use the mating bond to keep me subdued, but what else will they do to me? Mother is so happy they run a pharmaceutical company, but how am I going to survive being injected with who knows what?” she asked as her head dropped, her hair sweeping to cover her face as tears fell to her bedsheets with small stains.
“All the treatments, all the plans… I’m just so tired of hoping I’ll get better… ”
But all I could see was Michael’s simple smile as he dragged her away to do God knows what to her.
“Please,” I rasped, my elbows on her mattress, my head in my hands. “Please, just not him.”
I gasped as pain suddenly snapped through me as her palm descended on my head. My body jolted, cracks storming my flesh, dancing along my spine like lightning.
I spasmed as the pain slashed through my chest, following the lines of my veins as blood was crushed from them.
I tried to breathe, tried to speak, but her power fed into my heart, tightening it, along with every other organ in my body. Agony screamed through me as I froze there, trapped until she freed me.
“If I had more control over this, what could I do to you?” she asked, her words faint beyond the static in my ears as my lungs desperately fought to move.
“It’s easy enough to manipulate people’s auras, but what do I do if I’m next to Caspian and I lose control?
What if Mother is hugging me and someone hits me with their aura?
Sin”—Her voice tremored as she released me—“what if I end up killing you?”
A long, heaving death rattle escaped me as I collapsed onto her bed, my knees striking the hard floor. I slammed my fist against my chest to keep my heartbeat stable. Everything was a blur as my instincts blared, warning me of danger.
“I just don’t want to hurt anyone again,” she whimpered, extending her hand as another shot of pure power surged, invisible as it flew straight into the carpet that hid the metal floor, and boomed.
The entire room shook, and I clung to her bedsheets so I wasn’t thrown away along with the furniture around us.
My chair was flung across the room and splintered against the wall as her bed creaked and moaned like an old battleship.
I twisted my head to meet her with one eye, and the sadness etched into her face tore through me.
She wasn’t even touching anything…
“I had no idea it was this bad,” I choked out.
“And Michael doesn’t call it bad. You all treat me like I’m a bomb.
I treat myself like I’m going to explode any second and I hate it.
” Her brow furrowed as I lifted myself upright.
“I want to be free, Sin. You get to live a life with your pack and your omegas, and I can’t even bond with Flint because a bite might kill him.
” She shivered as she shifted away from me, tears filling her eyes.
“I just want to be normal. Aren’t I allowed to do that? ”
“Michael will harm you. He’ll trap you there and we may lose you forever.”
“Isn’t that better than dying when I lose control because you all think locking me in a bomb proof room is better than learning about what this power is?”
She wasn’t wrong. But Michael could harm her in any way possible while she was under his care and we wouldn’t be able to stop him. It was a mistake to trust him, especially with my sister’s life.
“Do you think I couldn’t escape if I really tried? If I learn how to control this, I can find a way to come home.”
“Camille, I still don’t—”
“He said it was a year. Only one year, and I’ll stay in touch as much as I can. He didn’t say I couldn’t contact anyone. Just that I’m not allowed to reveal what he teaches me.”
My muscles spasmed to the beat of my heart. I didn’t know if I could stand up when sparks of her power still fired through my body.
If she turned this on Caspian or hurt Kai all because I refused her the treatment which might help her the most, I would never forgive myself. Just as she would never forgive me.
“You said you’ve already told Caspian you’re leaving?” I finally asked.
“He understands, yes. I hope we can have a clean break so you all have a chance to be with your new omega.”
I didn’t miss the way her throat bobbed as she said it, and the tremble in her fist as she pushed it under the duvet to hide from me.
Maybe it really was for the best. Caspian had never been away from her for more than six months when he went to train in Japan. And when he returned, he visited her almost every day for a further six months to make up for the lost time.
That was before we’d met Kai. Neither of us would stand for that behaviour now.
Camille had become too tense, and it was clear from the way the reinforced window shook and the pressure on my ribs that any more from me might tip her over the edge.
“When do you leave?” I asked as I flattened my palms on her mattress, forcing my feet under me so I could stand.
“Before the Selection Ceremony. I don’t want to be here when… You know…”
I looked down at her as I adjusted my collar and cuffs. “When we what?”
She avoided my gaze, staring at the duvet that covered her knees.
“Bond with your new omega,” she whispered.
A light silence passed between us, and Melanie’s conversation came to mind. Despite her insistence, I would find a way to bond with her. My chances were so much greater now she and Kai had exchanged bites.
“I see,” were the only words I gave as I flattened my lapels, and the silence continued. “Did Caspian not tell you he had no plans of biting her?” I asked eventually.
“There’re the things Caspian says he’ll do, and the things he actually does. From the way all three of you looked at Melanie, I don’t think her neck will remain bare for long.”
Her small smile was completely at odds with the darkness crowding her face.
“Believe what you will.” I nodded. “But please take your time to think about this. You don’t have to leave with Michael.”
She dipped her head again, though I caught her scowl.
“This conversation has been a lot. I need to rest now,” she said.
I rose to say a proper goodbye, but she turned resolutely towards the window again.
There was nothing more to be said. If Caspian already knew she was leaving, it would only be right to tell Kai. It might help balance out his mind, though he had refused to talk to me thus far.
My bigger concern was Caspian, and what would happen when the three of us finally had a discussion about fully bonding with Melanie.