Chapter 36
Skye
My phone buzzed for the millionth time, once again waking me up just as I managed to doze off. I wanted to throw it against the wall.
A loud bang had me sitting up straight in bed.
My phone was on the ground, and there was a dent in the drywall above it.
My phone…had just flown into the wall.
I stared down at my hands, imagining my affinity was shrugging at me.
“Ms. Aria?”
Oh, good Lord. Was that Isaiah?
“Yeah?” I called weakly.
The bedroom door pushed open slowly, and I moved to grab the covers, then realized I was wearing one of Aiden’s hoodies and some sweats. I stared at my clothes, wondering when I’d changed, but then realized Aiden must have changed me.
Isaiah peeked into the room, relaxing when he saw me sitting up in bed. I thought I noticed him holstering a gun before he stepped into the room.
“What happened?” he asked.
I cleared my throat. “I uh…my phone hit the wall.”
We stared at each other for several seconds while he decided whether or not to ask more questions, then he nodded curtly, dropping his gaze to eye the uneaten trays of food stacked near the door.
I cringed. There were a lot more trays there than I’d thought. Wyatt had gotten me to eat something yesterday. Or the day before? I couldn’t remember.
“Not hungry?” Isaiah asked lightly, like this wasn’t a serious issue.
I shrugged. “I could eat.”
He nodded. “What do you feel like? I’ll order it.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said, moving to stand and nearly collapsing. My affinity locked my weak legs just in time so that I didn’t crumple into a heap. “I’ll just make a grilled cheese.”
Isaiah didn’t reply for a second, clearly thinking something over. “I…could make that for you.”
I raised my eyebrows, but gestured for him to go ahead. I wasn’t about to turn down food I didn’t have to cook. I missed my brother cooking for me most nights.
Isaiah nodded awkwardly, then shuffled back into the hall.
Thirty minutes later, I was a new woman.
I’d showered, shaved, exfoliated, and washed my hair. My arms felt like they were about to fall off, and my head was pounding, but I no longer felt like a creature.
I left my damp hair to air dry, not even wanting to use my affinity to pull the water out. I pulled on a clean set of sweats and an oversized sweater I found in the closet before padding barefoot down the hall toward the kitchen.
The smell of cooking quickly morphed into the smell of something burning as I drew closer to the kitchen, and by the time I made it to the dining room, I realized why.
Isaiah was cursing viciously to himself, tossing a smoking black brick of…something into the trash can. The something was suspiciously grilled cheese shaped. I snorted.
Isaiah jumped a mile in the air, spinning around so fast his hair moved.
“Skye!” He coughed, then looked like he couldn’t decide whether or not to settle into his usual stance. “Ms. Aria. I didn’t hear you.”
I snorted again, giggling into my hand. “What the hell happened?”
“I uh…I’m unfamiliar with this stovetop,” he stammered. “It heats up a little quicker than I’m used to, so…I…well.”
He stopped, slumping slightly in defeat.
“I don’t care if you know how to make a grilled cheese,” I said, moving into the kitchen. “But I do actually want to eat something, so I’m gonna have to take over.” I examined his ingredient choices before swapping a few things.
I turned the burner off and pulled out a new pan, moved to a cold burner, and started the whole process over.
The food was done in about ten minutes, but it took me another ten minutes to convince Isaiah to not only eat with me, but also to sit at the kitchen island with me like a normal human. He opted to sit several seats away, but at least he sat.
Rafe’s extra pulpy orange juice had been growing on me, and I happily sipped on some while looking around the kitchen to see if anything was amiss since I’d been…
hibernating. Everything looked the same.
Through the wall of windows, I could see the sun was shining bright today, and the trees were a little brighter green.
I sighed, then paused as a flash of blue caught my eye from the dish drainer.
What…
“Who drank out of that?” I almost snapped.
Isaiah looked like a deer caught in headlights, his sandwich halfway to his open mouth before he glanced toward the sink. “The blue mug? Mr. Craig. He favors it.”
I narrowed my eyes at that. That was my mom’s mug. It was my favorite mug. Well, maybe Wyatt using it wasn’t so bad. He was the only other real coffee drinker among my Links. Come to think of it, why had he never asked me to make him coffee again?
I pressed my fingers into my temples. What the hell was I going to do with Wyatt? And Rafe. Zephyr had admitted to them that his affinity had changed, and the two of them just ran with it instead of telling me.
Was I any better? I hadn’t told anyone about my affinity. Or River. I…didn’t even know if I wanted to tell them about River.
“Ms. Aria?”
“You really need to start calling me by my name,” I said as I turned back to him.
Isaiah pushed his empty plate away. He cleared his throat. “Skye,” he tried, his eyes darting toward mine as if this were a trick and he were about to be punished. “What do you want to do about this situation? Ms. Iykos has called on you several times.”
I ran my hands down my face. Rafe had brought Lana back to campus because she didn’t want to be around Zephyr after our revelation.
Apparently, she hadn’t known he was involved with Willow and Mia, and Willow and Mia hadn’t known about Lana.
Zephyr was caught in the middle of three women who very much didn’t mesh well.
Idiot.
Poor Lana, though. She’d lost her entire family. At least when my parents died, I’d had Zephyr. Lana didn’t even have Landon.
“I don’t know,” I groaned. “I’ve never fought with my brother before.”
Isaiah nodded, keeping his gaze on his plate for a moment. “I fought with my brother,” he said. “All the time, actually. He was a Key and I wasn’t. He thought that made him better than me. Our parents thought that, too.”
“Dicks,” I muttered.
Isaiah smiled. I blinked. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him smile. He really wasn’t a bad looking guy.
“Our father was a Key. Why my brother got to be one and not me…well, I stopped wondering a while ago.”
“Where are you going with this?” I asked.
“If I’m being honest? Your brother needs to do his testing,” Isaiah said as he stood. “That will solve a lot of the bullshit that’s going on right now.”
“Willow told me he’s not hers,” I said as Isaiah took my plate.
“Okay. But why can’t he belong to Ms. Iykos? Or vice versa?”
I groaned again, covering my eyes.
“Would it be so bad?” he asked. “I put my results into the system years ago hoping to find someone. The worst that happens is that no one pops up.”
“That what happened to you?” I asked carefully as he moved to take my plate to the sink.
He faced away from me, shrugging tightly.
“Is that why you wanted this job?” I hedged further. This was the most we’d ever spoken. I was beginning to feel a little bad that I hadn’t tried to talk to him more. Rafe was the reason Isaiah followed me, after all. It wasn’t Isaiah’s fault he was my stand-in shadow.
Isaiah snorted, looking at me in surprise like he couldn’t believe he’d made such a sound. I giggled for a second. He shook his head, then sighed.
“There weren’t a lot of job options for someone like me. We’re from the edge of the Gulf mainland, near Corpus. One of my fathers died working on an oil rig. That wasn’t what I wanted for myself.”
“Shit,” I breathed. Zephyr had considered going into the same line of work at one point in time, but my anxiety eventually convinced him he’d be better off alive with a decent salary than dead and rich.
Isaiah shrugged again. “He was the Key. My parents broke up after that.”
“My family Chain had issues, too,” I said softly. “The more I speak to people, the more I realize it’s more common for family Chains to be fucked up.”
Isaiah nodded, leaning against the kitchen island.
“There was a big push back when our parents were young,” he said.
“The Royals believed people should stick with their God-given Chains. But there was a group advocating for people to join together however they wanted. They believe true Chains are overrated.”
How ironic. Of course the Royals had been telling people to stay with their Chains while the young Princess was hiding a fake Link.
My stomach soured as I stared down at my glass of orange juice.
“Which side are you on?” I asked.
Isaiah scoffed. “My brother and I had different fathers in the Chain. If my parents were all truly meant to be together, they would’ve stayed together once he died.
People should be with whoever they want, regardless of whether or not they’re meant to be.
If you really love someone, it won’t matter if they were meant to be yours or not.
And you’d certainly never break up a family over the death of a parent, or ostracize certain children.
That’s not how families are supposed to operate. ”
That was the longest string of words Isaiah had ever said to me.
And I agreed with him. I buried my face in my hands.
“Have I overstepped?” he asked softly.
“Nope,” I replied. “You just hit the nail on the head is all.”
My buzzing phone drew my attention again. I glanced down to see Willow was calling, but I hit ignore.
A moment later, the elevator buzzer sounded.
Isaiah and I looked at each other. “Is that…”
Isaiah moved toward the elevator first, on full alert.
Willow called again, and I answered.
“Um…hey?”
“Skye, open the door or I’m breaking it down.”
I scoffed. “‘Breaking it down’?” I repeated.
I could hear the heavy wooden door begin to vibrate even across the penthouse, and I sat up straight. “Willow, stop it right now. Isaiah, let her in.”
Isaiah’s eyes were wide, but he listened, moving toward the foyer.
Willow stormed inside, her footsteps echoing down the hall. She appeared in the kitchen a moment later, her face red.