Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
RAZAR
How the hell did I manage to get myself into these situations?
I felt like I was about to lose my goddamn mind because my beautiful Arabella was being watched by far too many fucking people. I wish I could say it was because of the three of us that we were drawing attention, but I knew the truth.
Arabella had always shone with a vibrancy that even my shadows couldn’t eclipse.
Not that I would ever want to, it was absolutely intense and overwhelming to be around and one of the many reasons that I loved her.
The woman wasn’t some metaphorical light; she was instead like a neon glow in a dark room, so I could hardly blame people for looking at her.
I didn’t have to fucking like it though.
Why had I agreed for us to go to this damn mall? Because it made her happy. It was the reason I did anything and everything. Well, clearly not everything, since her words from earlier and the memory of the frustrated expression on her face coursed through every part of me.
I knew I was screwing all of this up, but I had no idea how to express that everything about this was against my nature… Well, that also wasn’t completely true.
The issue with Arabella’s words was that they were factual.
There was a large part of me that loved marking her, and an even larger part that wanted to hunt her down, scare her, and pin her to the wall while fucking her until all she could say was my name.
The issue? There was my guise of humanity that I was having issues reconciling my nightmare urges with.
I’d been raised by a human, and while I had always been around nightmares, it wasn’t the same.
I didn’t mind nightmare nature, but when it came to giving into it myself, I’d always struggled.
Mostly because I got so into my head about the right and wrong of it that I ended up twisting myself up and just not doing anything.
Why couldn’t I just let go? Why couldn’t I handle this like the others?
I had been so damn jealous and angry at Saint, and then I’d felt…
Well, I wasn’t sure how I felt about her and Blackwell.
I wasn’t jealous, because I knew a part of Arabella would always be just mine, but to have that experience with her, one that I’d been pining for my entire life, to finally have that connection with her and then to have them do it so easily…
I just felt so much frustration towards my teammates.
Why the hell did they get to have that? So what if they loved her?
I wanted to be selfish. I wanted to be so goddamn selfish, and when Saint and Amun had started arguing, I hadn’t hesitated to go into the back room and let my terror form out, wrapping her up completely.
Those moments, when she was wrapped up in my arms, sometimes felt like all I would be able to have of her.
When I’d woken up this morning and found her running her hands over my form, I’d been startled but also happy that all I had seen on her expression was heat, curiosity, and more than anything, affection.
Love. So much damn love that it had the power to bring me to my knees.
I was fucking this up. I was fucking all of this up, but I was scared that if I gave in, if I believed what they were saying and what was clearly true, that there would be no return.
I was already so goddamn obsessed over Arabella that any sense of self-preservation was nearly gone.
I had never expected, never let myself hope, that this would be a possibility.
Now everything I could ever want was right in front of me, and I couldn’t fucking grasp it.
I just didn’t understand what was wrong with me.
Maybe we needed to go back to the institute to figure this out first. I mean, it wasn’t exactly safe here.
Although…it wasn’t very safe there either.
I knew if I tried to take her back, she would view it as me wanting to cage her, and that wasn’t the case…
mostly. I just wanted her safe. Her safety was my goddamn obsession.
Which was why it made no goddamn sense why my terror practically preened at the bruises and marks we had left on her skin from when I’d pinned her against her bedroom wall.
Now that they were gone, healed somehow far faster than normal, I found myself wanting to re-mark her.
Which was why I had to keep a distance from her.
That was the only solution. Although, it wasn’t much of a solution, because the minute she even offered me a smile or her lips for a kiss, I was completely and utterly gone.
“What store are we going to?” she asked as she and Zain walked ahead, hand in hand.
Amun walked silently next to me. We had decided that it would just be the four of us to go while the others prepared for the possibilities Love could throw at us.
We were wearing casual clothing and were mostly blending in, but it was probably smart that it was us three with her and not Damian, who had literal horns and a tail.
Plus, we were only a block or so away from Eros, so if we needed to get back, it would be fairly easy.
“Right here.” Zain flashed a smile as we approached what could only be described as a massive shoe store.
Actually, it wasn’t even massive—it just had very tall ceilings and everything was white, outside of the shoes that lined every single surface.
I had to give it to Zain, he knew Arabella really well, and the smile and small squeak of excitement she let out had me knowing that our RV was going to be home to several boxes of shoes until we could get back to the institute.
This was also a fantastic way of getting her mind off of everything.
“Hello!” A human greeted us at the front of the store, her eyes roaming over the three of us, fear entering her gaze before focusing all her attention on Arabella. “Can I help you with anything today?”
Arabella looked around the store and smiled. “Not positive I will need help with anything except carrying my purchases out.”
“We can do that.” Amun frowned slightly, causing Zain to chuckle. I still didn’t like Amun, per se, but I would admit that his inability to grasp sarcasm, some humor, and things like that were amusing.
That was all it took to get our woman started, and before I knew it, she had a massive pile of shoes next to her to try on, the two other women in the store helping her select things in the correct size.
I watched how happy Arabella looked, her cheeks bright pink, and it had me wondering if we had done her a disservice by not having her leave the institute before this.
More so…maybe being around some humans wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
Most of them were horrible, but these women didn’t seem that way, and Arabella almost seemed nearly high off her interaction with them.
They instantly took to her, almost doting on her, making me wonder if that was part of her special type of ‘magic.’
Arabella had always had an ease with others, and I particularly remembered an instance where I’d nearly lost my shit over a nightmare trying to get close to her.
It was in part because of our age at the time, but there was a larger part of me that was furious, because instinct told me he didn’t belong with us.
It was completely different from the feeling I’d gotten when Zain had arrived.
“Arabella?” I called out, my voice echoing through the large room the Director had set up for the tutor that was coming in this week. Normally, either James would teach the three of us, or we would work through it ourselves.
Honestly, I didn’t see much value in education—and neither did Zain, especially considering his background—but the two of us wanted to spend time with Arabella, and it was the perfect excuse.
“In here!” Arabella’s soft voice held a thread of tension, and I snapped right next to her, causing our tutor to nearly jolt and fall back on his ass from where he was standing over where she was seated at the table.
I let out a low growl, immediately categorizing the nightmare as probably a Class C, maybe even D. His face went completely pale, and I let out a low, threatening sound because it was very clear that he had been trying to get close to her.
That wasn’t allowed.
In fact, the only males of any kind that were allowed near Arabella were Zain, the Director, and myself. That was it, and I had a feeling that it wouldn’t change any time soon.
“You must be Razar,” he bit out.
“And you must be our tutor,” I offered, my eyes narrowing as he took a nervous gulp.
“I thought it would be just Arabella and me. You have no need for formal education—”
“Hey!” she growled, “If he wants to take classes, then he is going to. Don’t tell him what he needs.”
“Maybe this is a bad idea,” I suggested as sweat started to form on his brow. “I am positive that we can handle anything like this ourselves.”
“I need to have a word with the Director.”
I smirked as he stormed out, and I looked down to where Arabella sat, shaking her head and narrowing her eyes at him.
“Can you believe that? Trying to convince you to not do something. What a joke.”
What a joke indeed.
Honestly, I was just glad she had wanted him gone, because when he had ended up dead two weeks later, no one had questioned it.
I could have always said it was a dominance fight, but I think everyone would know differently, especially if it came out that Arabella was involved.
Ever since realizing my feelings for her were not just friendly, I had made it all too clear to other nightmares how I felt.
“Where is she?” I asked James in confusion, having arrived at his office early.
It was Arabella’s fifteenth birthday, and I had purposefully made sure to order special coffee, her favorite cinnamon donut flavor.
I also had a gift to give her, but that part always made me a bit nervous.
The woman could have anything, and I was always worried I would mess up and give her something stupid.