Chapter 50 Threat
THREAT
CYN
In. Out. In. Out.
I focused on my breathing, fighting the urge to shift and eliminate the threat I sensed lurking in every corner as I entered my darkened bedroom.
I yanked my shirt off and tossed it into the basket at the foot of my bed.
Turning on the bedside lamp, I stalked across the room, stopping at the dresser near the ensuite door when my reflection caught my attention. Twin voids stared back from the mirror. So much for control.
I scoffed.
I didn’t need control the way Ezra did.
I needed structure. Certainty.
Not whatever Raelynn brought into our lives.
Of the four of us, I was the unpredictable one. I created chaos. I knew my short fuse and accepted it. To hell with anyone who didn’t.
At least I knew my chaos. I knew the fallout.
Others changing the script? That was the problem.
I didn’t do uncertainty. Uncertainty brought threats.
Threats to safety, sanity, and my family.
With Raelynn came uncertainty.
Raelynn was uncertainty. She threatened to tear apart our brotherhood and splinter the grip I kept on my own life.
She didn’t shy away from my violence—much. She challenged me.
No one challenged me.
For twenty-two years I’d made my peers and elders cower when I needed them to.
But this one little human?
I licked my lips.
With a proud lift of her chin and defiance sparking in her stormy eyes, she stood toe-to-toe with me, calling my bluff.
My muscles tensed as memories of soft skin, wet heat, and desperate panting assaulted me. I staggered when her low, stifled moans echoed in my head. Recalling her eager mouth and pliant body when we kissed made my cock throb.
The fucked-up part? I could count on her bending to me, and I’d fall into her as soon as the fragile thread linking desire, hate, and need snapped.
No.
I couldn’t accept it.
She tricked us.
I slid open the dresser drawer and moved my socks aside to find the small box hidden there. Pulling Raelynn’s necklace free, I held it in my palm, the crystal warming at my touch.
I didn’t know why I kept the jewelry after stealing it from Roandra, hiding it instead of reporting it to the council.
Even if Raelynn knew nothing about the summoning, she still possessed something she had no business owning. Using her dead mother as a convenient excuse did nothing to help her case.
Still, something was off.
A dangerous tug in my chest urged me to question everything as I remembered the pain in her eyes while she told us what happened to her family.
You couldn’t fake that kind of pain.
It was the kind of quiet pain that, no matter what people saw on the surface, it couldn’t compare to the damage inside.
Her eyes revealed a hidden scar I wasn’t sure the others saw. But like recognized like.
That made her the biggest threat of all.
Soon, she wouldn’t be a problem. Then I could stop thinking about it—about her.
I put the necklace back in the box and tucked it away, then retreated to the ensuite bathroom to end the conflicting emotions battling for dominance in my gut.
After showering, I stepped out of the bathroom to find Zeke sitting on my bed, his platinum hair damp from a shower. His blue plaid pajama pants and white T-shirt were a bright contrast to the black bedding beneath him.
“I don’t want to talk about her,” I said before he even had the chance to say her name.
“Why do you hate her so much?”
I studied the dark circles under his eyes. “You need sleep.”
“Cyn.” He sighed. “Come on. It’s just us.”
We’d already discussed Raelynn when we stayed at her house. I didn’t want to keep talking about her. But I also couldn’t stand to see the disappointment in Zeke’s eyes.
Exhaling a rough breath, I chucked my dirty clothes into the basket by the door and gripped the dresser’s edge, bracing for the talk I didn’t want to have.
Zeke wanted the truth. So I’d give him the truth. Even if it felt like dragging red-hot coals across my vocal cords to get the words out.
“I don’t hate her. But I don’t exactly like her either.”
I tried to keep my face impassive, resisting the urge to cringe at his wide-eyed expression. He looked like I’d declared undying love for the infuriating woman, not given a simple truth.
“What?” The bite in my tone made Zeke flinch. “What?” I asked again, softer.
“You’re lying,” he said in surprise, gaping at me.
“Say what?”
“I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.” He laughed, his expression brightening for the first time since we’d left Earth. “I get it now.” He nodded as if confirming something to himself.
I sure as hell didn’t get it.
“Get what?”
“It’s okay, you know,” he said, tone cautious. “I care about her too.”
I dragged my hand down my face. “What are you talking about?”
Understanding Zeke’s thinking could be a drawn-out process, but I usually caught the gist of it. Right now? Not a damn clue.
“Can I ask you something?”
The corner of my mouth quirked. “You’ve never asked to ask a question before. But sure, go ahead.”
He dropped his eyes to his feet, flexing his toes against the gray hardwood. “If Rae weren’t human, would you still be against it?”
I knew what “it” meant.
I shut my eyes, willing my heart to stop racing. One question was enough to bring back the anxious feeling I’d experienced earlier.
“Cyn?”
“She’s human, Zeke. It’s a nonissue,” I said, trying to deflect from the subject. I could silence anyone else with a glance, but not Zeke. I couldn’t treat him like that.
“But what if?”
If she weren’t human, it’d be hard not to believe what her boss said.
As much as I hated it, the way we reacted to her lined up with what I knew about Nyrith pairs. If she weren’t human, I wouldn’t have acted the way I did toward her in the beginning. Her humanity made all the feelings inside of me confusing—and unwelcome.
“What if?” I snorted. “Maybe things would’ve turned out differently, but you’ll only hurt your own feelings dwelling on the what-ifs in life.”
I understood the pain of holding onto the what-ifs all too well.
What if I weren’t bound?
What if I could be honest?
What if I could confirm the glimmer I saw in his eyes wasn’t just my own desires reflected back at me?
I pushed off the dresser, slamming the mental door shut on that train of thought. “I’m tired. You sleeping in here tonight?”
“Yeah. Don’t wanna be alone,” he mumbled, giving up on prying more out of me. He stood as I approached.
His gaze lingered on my skin for a second too long, and I reminded myself he’d never been with anyone. He’s just curious. I doubted he knew his preferences.
I wouldn’t wreck our relationship by scaring him with my desires.
He was the first male I ever wanted—which wasn’t saying much since I’d loved him since childhood. Still, I hadn’t desired another man since. Women aroused me but never reached me on an emotional level.
My black heart belonged only to Zeke.
I wasn’t prepared to lose him when he inevitably said we couldn’t be more than friends, and that my feelings made things awkward because he was straight—or so I thought.
I turned on the fan at the foot of the bed and slid beneath the covers, reaching over to turn off the light. I swallowed hard when Zeke curled against my side. “You okay?”
He moved his head from side to side, his soft hair brushing against my skin. “I don’t want her to die,” he whispered.
I lifted my arm so he could burrow closer to me, wrapping it around his shoulder. With a sigh, I spoke a truth I’d denied even to myself. “I don’t think I do either.”
Zeke mumbled something unintelligible before his breathing evened out, leaving me alone in the dark with my thoughts.
Even if I wanted more time to investigate Raelynn and what brought her into our lives, the council wouldn’t allow it. She posed a threat to their rule by existing.
Ezra said his father believed as much. And if Cornaith believed something, it was as good as law. He’d never allow anything to exist that made him appear weak before the Elyrdin people.
While I agreed Raelynn posed a threat, I didn’t think she deserved to die for it.
Not anymore.
Not after what happened in her kitchen when I took her necklace away.
The memory of her face twisted in grief still haunted me. It messed with my head. I didn’t know what to believe anymore—and the more Zeke and Ash pushed, the more confused I got.
I loosened my fingers on Zeke’s arm when he made a small noise of discontent after I tightened them. His stomach gurgled, and I prayed he wouldn’t wake needing to vomit.
It was possible Raelynn made us sick. Not because she was our mate.
She was the infection.
As soon as the thought formed, I dismissed it.
While she burned through my system like a virus in ways no illness could, the others didn’t see her that way. They wouldn’t accept our sickness as another sign of magical manipulation, because they no longer saw her as the evil we thought she was days ago.
Ash and Zeke probably never accepted it. I didn’t even know if I believed it anymore, even knowing she was a threat to us.
I glanced down at Zeke’s face. The moonlight from the window was enough for me to make out the furrow in his brow and the grim set of his lips in sleep.
Raelynn remained a threat, just maybe not in the way I originally thought.
I closed my eyes.
None of it mattered. Tomorrow she’d die, and I’d go back to the way things were.
Predictable.
Safe.
A lie I almost believed.