Chapter 20
Kian was gone when Sky woke in the morning. He tried not to be upset about it, tried convincing himself the kiss last night and falling asleep in the alpha's arms were merely a part of his imagination.
Tried to pretend like it didn’t matter.
He was doing a shit job of it.
Which was why he slammed the door with more force than necessary as soon as he entered the apartment he shared with Elm an hour later.
His best friend startled from where he was lounging on the couch, playing a game on his multi-slate. The burnt mustard colored piece of furniture somehow brought out the red in his auburn hair, and the university uniform—a pair of tan pants and a white t-shirt—gave him a boyish type of charm.
He and Kian were nothing alike, despite having grown up together, raised by the same parents. Living with the eldest Erskine son was going to be an adjustment period. Sky doubted he’d have to worry about the same things he’d been bothered by where Elm was concerned.
Like the pair of dirty socks left on the floor by the coffee table.
Elm had always been a slob, but Kian was notorious for putting his things away and tidying up after himself. As for him, Sky fell somewhere in between.
Was he going to be the one getting on Kian’s nerves?
“Yo, it’s about time.” Elm shut his device off and tossed his legs over the side of the couch. “Check your multi-slate. I called like a dozen times. How the hell did you end up in bed with my brother?”
Sky shrugged out of his jacket—the one Kian had left draped over him this morning—and hung it on the hook by the door, only recalling the marks all over his body after the fact.
Elm gasped. “What the fuck!”
He tried to pull away when his friend practically lunged for him, but he was too slow.
“Who did this?” Elm demanded, glaring at the bites. The second skin did a good enough job to conceal them from a distance, but their apartment wasn’t that big, and they’d already been too close.
“They’re mostly healed.” He wouldn’t say it was fine, because it obviously wasn’t. They both knew what the marks meant.
“Did my…” Elm seemed unable to finish that sentence, swallowing audibly. “He didn’t, right? Or maybe it’d be better if he did…It wasn’t Kenta, was it?”
“No.” Sky frowned. “Why?”
“I thought it was a little weird when you texted me saying you were with Kian, when the last time I’d seen you, you were with a different alpha. But then the James family went missing, and I started to get worried.”
“Wait, they’re all missing?” Sky felt his blood go cold. Kenta was dead, and he’d figured Kian wouldn’t want the body left lying around where anyone could find it and attempt to link it back to him, but…The whole family? Why? How?
“No one knows for sure, and the investigation was wrapped up pretty quickly once evidence was found linking Kenta’s dad to an underground sex trafficking ring.
” Elm’s mouth twisted into a look of disgust. “I can’t believe people like that exist. He abused his position and took bribes.
Between you and me? I hope the bastard got what he deserved.
” His eyes flashed to his neck once more.
“But it’s more likely he packed up and ran.
Kenta seemed like a decent person, but—”
“He wasn’t,” Sky said sourly.
“Yeah, I know. As soon as the news broke, three of his exes came forward about how abusive he actually was. They’d been silenced with money and threats. The apple didn’t fall too far from the tree with that one.”
“Kenta didn’t claim me,” he reassured, knowing his friend was nervous for him. This was a lot of information to unpack, but Sky shelved it for now. “In honor of our friendship, I won’t demand you call me brother-in-law.”
Elm blinked at him a second before his eyes went comically wide. “No shit, seriously?”
Wow. Sky tried not to feel offended, but it was as hard as forgetting how warm the alpha had been last night when he’d cuddled Sky between the heated blanket and the thick comforter.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but after all this time, I didn’t really think it would happen.” Elm blanched. “Those don’t look like normal markings. He only needed to bite you that hard once. Your neck looks like it’d been turned into mincemeat before you got treatment.”
Despite his words, it was clear Elm wasn’t surprised by Kian’s level of violence.
“How well do you know him?” Sky tipped his head and forced himself to ask.
Elm ran a hand through his hair sheepishly. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about his condition.”
“His condition?” How much did he really know?
“His personality disorder,” Elm reiterated. “The diagnosis was made a long time ago, and our parents swore us to keep it on the down low. They didn’t want it to affect Kian in school. Kids can be cruel, and all that.”
“We’re grown up now,” he pointed out. “You should have told me.”
“How was I going to do that, huh? When would have been a good time to stop you and say, ‘Hey, you know how you crush on my brother? Well, he likes to cut small animals open for fun sometimes’.”
Sky felt bile rise in the back of his throat. “He what?”
“Well,” he shrugged, “it was only one time that I know of, actually, but still. That was how our dad found him, and why he took him to get checked by a professional in the first place. Pretty sure Kian was six at the time.”
Which meant Elm was too young to really remember anything on his own. This was a story he’d heard from his parents, or possibly even straight from Kian.
“The problem is, the diagnosis was also…wrong? Sort of?”
Sky frowned.
“Basically, they took Kian to several doctors, five out of eight said his brain functions differently, but that they couldn’t say without a shadow of a doubt he fell into the category. He wasn’t psychopathic enough for them, so to speak. Passed too many of their empathy tests.”
What exactly had those tests entailed? Sky’s curiosity was insanely high.
“And the other four?” he asked, deciding he should make a mental list of questions and ask Kian about this directly later.
“Oh, they all said my brother was a danger to society,” Elm replied flippantly.
“What did your parents do after hearing all of this?”
“They had him in behavioral therapy for a while. Our mom informed the Emperor, and he was the one who suggested Kian be allowed to meet the Imperial twins. Arbor and Avi are also different, for lack of a better word. I guess the Emperor and our mom thought the three of them would either balance each other out or learn from one another and hide it better.”
“You can’t grow out of a personality disorder,” Sky said.
Elm hummed his acknowledgment but then sighed. “Why are we even talking about this? It’s not making you feel any better, is it?”
“Better about what?”
“Sky.” He held his gaze intensely. “This is me here. No one knows you like I do, and I can tell that you’re totally freaked out right now.
Is it because my brother isn’t who you imagined him to be, or…
” A dark thought seemed to hit him and he scowled.
“Did he hurt you anywhere else? Do anything you didn’t want?
Mating bites or not, if he hurt you, I’ll go find him and kill him myself. ”
Kian may be the leader of a mafia, but Elm was anything but a fighter. The guy even hesitated to kill bugs he found in the house, constantly calling Sky into the room to deal with the situation for him.
“I don’t know what he was thinking,” Elm continued, oblivious to Sky’s train of thought. “He’s never shown any interest in taking a mate before, and—don’t take this the wrong way—you don’t have anything to give him.”
“Ouch.” He was right though. Sky was about to graduate from college, and while he didn’t have any debt thanks to his parents' financial status, he didn’t exactly have a dream life set up and waiting for him.
His studio would keep him busy for a few months, then he’d focus on the business aspect of it and getting things together.
But businesses like that failed all the time. The arts weren’t known to be lucrative careers. He didn’t own any property, would never make millions, and while he was set to inherit his parents' money, it was a small fortune in comparison to what Kian claimed to have in his bank account.
Everything had been moving too quickly, and Sky had been too focused on the fear and the adrenaline to process much of what Kian had said to him aside from promising to give him space and time, but now…
The alpha had said he’d wanted him. Not just the night of the carnival. He’d admitted that he’d wanted Sky for a lot longer than that, long enough that desire had driven him to force Sky’s presentation.
Glyphians prided themselves on their ability to separate instinct from reason.
They considered themselves better than their Synastry counterparts because they’d built a society supposedly above the impulses of their nature.
They weren’t slaves to their constitution.
Didn’t allow themselves to be ruled by base cravings.
Sky was a good Glyphian.
At least, he’d tried to be.
He thought of Kenta and inwardly sneered. Maybe there were no good Glyphians. Maybe it was just a fairytale they told themselves so they could feel superior.
Maybe no one was better than anyone else, and they were all just going through the motions, as confused as Sky was, just better at hiding it.
“Did you know Kian is a Dominus now?” he blurted, wanting to know how deeply rooted Kian’s deception went before he made any real decisions on how to proceed. He knew he was trapped, but that didn’t mean he needed to give in—not to his own desires, or the alpha’s.
Sure, Sky could admit to himself that he found Kian’s possessiveness kind of sexy, but he was worth more than that.
It was time to weigh the pros and cons and see where he truly stood in this world, and if he was going to survive this, he needed his best friend.
Which meant getting a read on how much, or how little, Elm and his family knew about the eldest Erskine son.