44. Julian
It took all night and most of Sunday, but they managed to get most of the color out without damaging her hair. She’s going to have to do one more treatment in a few days to get the last bit out, but I’d say that’s more than she was hoping for before.
We sit at Dimitri’s kitchen table as she sleeps.
She’s exhausted both mentally and physically, and it took everything in me to come to the table and not go to her.
The urge to hold her, offer her comfort and security.
I see the way she craves it, but everyone keeps letting her down, and I need to deal with that before she gets hurt again or worse.
She’s not alone, though. Nolan sits at the end of the couch, asleep and still holding her leg, her feet resting in his lap.
She’d insisted he rest because he has his qualifier today, and while the rest of us know he could qualify even if he’d been up for days and been beaten within an inch of his life, I can’t deny it was cute as hell to see her worry about him.
He’d been surprised, and it was so cute I wanted to squeeze them both.
“You need to get your shit together and either walk away or tell her the truth,” I say, turning my attention to Dimitri. I could sit and be a creep all day, watching her sleep, but I should probably use this time wisely.
“What?”
Clearly, I’m going to have to hold his hand.
“You might be able to get away with this shit right now while she’s distracted and distraught, but Wren’s smarter than that, and you know it.
” I lean forward in my chair, holding his gaze; he can’t hide from this.
“You already hurt her with this shit with Gavin, and if she finds out you're the guy she’s been texting, and that you knew it…” I shake my head, falling back in my chair as Nolan, Titus, and Felix turn wide eyes to him.
“It’s not that easy,” he grumbles, his jaw clenched, and his hands fisted on the table.
“I didn’t say it was, but you did this, so you’re going to fix it. I won’t let you keep hurting her.”
“Who are you to tell me, Julian? You’re not exactly available.” He gestures to Titus, who sits beside me, as if I didn’t know he was there.
“Wren is aware of my relationship, and while she and Titus are more likely to claw each other's eyes out than get along, I have faith our future together will be eventful, if not sexy as fuck, someday.” Titus rolls his eyes but doesn’t comment, and I send him a little mental “good boy” for behaving so well, which he also ignores.
But he didn’t lose his mind at the thought or get violent, so maybe there really is hope. He’s still here after all, and while he can say it’s for me, I’m not so sure anymore.
Something feels different lately, and while I can’t put my finger on when it happened, I see it in the little moments.
His stalking her, going so far as to carry her home to safety, leaving her medicine in the morning for her head, and being the one to crawl into the shower to pull her out without being so much as asked.
Yeah, he can say he hates her, but sometimes hate sex is just as good, and fuck me, there isn’t much I wouldn’t give to get to watch him fuck her.
Then he could fuck me while I fuck her.
I wonder if I could convince her to fuck me while he fucks her…
Crap, now I’m painfully hard.
“Besides, I’m not the one who bonded her emotionally and never told her about it only to start swapping saliva again and pretend like it never happened.”
“I’m not pretending it never happened.”
“What?” Titus is very much paying attention now as he looks between the two of us as if we've lost our minds, and maybe we have.
He opens his mouth and holds up a finger before he shakes his head and lets his hand fall back to the table.
“Nope, we're going to have to rewind and explain because I’m no longer following.”
“I didn’t know you wanted to follow along to begin with.” I raise a brow in challenge, but he ignores me, instead turning to Dimitri for answers.
He doesn’t, and honestly, I’m not surprised he’s in hot water, and anything he’s about to say is probably only going to make it worse.
“At some point, I’m assuming he met Pookie, probably during one of the nerd-offs.
Her being her irresistible self drew him in, and he probably accidentally formed a bond because I can’t see him doing it on purpose, especially not years ago.
” The hard glare is my only answer, but with Dimitri, that’s as good as a written confirmation, and since I’m on a roll, I decide to keep going.
“I’m going to assume this was some years ago, though, given she doesn’t seem to recognize you.
Though I guess since you’re already bending the rules, you might have tampered with her memory, but it doesn’t feel like that’s the case.
No, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume you all met prior to this, Dimitri.
” I wiggle a finger at his appearance, and while that doesn’t really explain much, we know what I’m talking about.
A handful of years ago, Dimitri was under his father's thumb and had a very different appearance, one that fit his biker gang lifestyle.
It’s also why coming to him was our best bet for fixing Wren’s hair; he has experience. Hell, he’s the one who dyed my hair the first time years ago. I’d seen the colors in his hair and knew I needed that.
I’ve had colored hair ever since; it’s almost as if it’s become a part of me.
I could have magicked my hair color, but I enjoyed the process; it was exhilarating and made me feel whole. But all I ever did was throw on a new color; I’ve never needed to take it out, and I couldn’t magic hers out, not without potentially harming her or getting us all in trouble.
Though, if it had only been about the rules, I would have been willing to risk it, if I’m being honest.
“So you met her, accidentally bonded with her, left her, and years later stumbled upon her?”
Titus seems genuinely confused, and honestly, I can’t disagree.
It all seems a bit off.
“Were you just feeding off her all this time?” The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind, but now that it has, I can’t say I love it.
Thankfully, Dimitri seems just as appalled by the thought as I feel.
“What? No! I would never do that to her, or anyone, for that matter. Being bound to someone, even if just emotionally, is taxing. It’s like having a whole other set of emotions that you have no control over.”
That does sound rough. I have a hard enough time with my own half the time; I don’t need other people's, too. I don’t know many incubi personally, but even so, thinking about how many I’ve ever heard of forming emotional bonds… Well, the answer is zero.
“It was just before I finished college, about three years ago, right before we ran. We went out to Starview College for one of Gavin’s things.”
I remember that; it was one of the times I hadn’t been able to go. I’d been back at court with my parents... yippee.
We didn’t always go to every event together; there were far too many of us doing too many things, but we tried to stick together. We’d formed a brotherhood of sorts when we were younger, and while Dimitri and Felix are older than us, they’d been part of it too.
Life did a damn good job of tearing us apart where it could, but something tells me Wren might be the only thing that can get us all back on the same page.
I look around the room from Dimitri to Titus, back over to Nolan, and finally to Felix, who sulks in the corner, hidden in his shadows, unable to leave, the same as the rest of us.
The difference is that he can’t be around her for her own safety. Even beyond Titus’s fear that Felix might harm her, she’s a dud, which makes her weak in our world. Everyone knows that the Miller coven is run by means of cruelty; their father is the worst of them all.
If he got a whiff of Felix’s clearly growing feelings…
I shudder to even think what he might do.
The only person missing is Gavin, and he can huff and puff all he wants, but I know he’ll cave, eventually. I’ve seen the way he looks at her when he thinks nobody’s watching, seen the change already after just a few weeks; he’s just stubborn.
“She wiped the floor with him, and he was so mad. He spent hours bitching about how she was cheating in the room, and I just needed five minutes, so I slipped away for a smoke.” He waves a hand through the air, and I see it.
I’m not sure if it’s his sorcerer abilities or his incubus, but it’s like I’m there, standing in the middle of his memory.
He jogs down the stairs and out the back door. It’s no wonder she was drawn to him, in his leather jacket, dyed hair, tattoos, and piercings. He’s younger by a handful of years and has that bad-boy look all the girls always fell all over themselves for.
Hell, there was a time when I thought he was a gift from Mother Earth herself.
Everything changes when he walks out that door, and on the stairs sits a young Wren, crying and alone.
“She wasn’t out celebrating, didn’t have a single friend. She just sat alone, crying on the stairs.”
My chest aches at the memory, even if it’s not my own.
“I couldn't just leave her. Even if I knew I probably should have, it was like something was pulling me to her.”
“She has that effect on people,” I assure him, because I know all too well what that feels like. From the second she came knocking at our door, I’d been drawn to her, even after I realized who she was.
We watch as the night plays out, how she comes out of her shell, smiling and laughing with him.
She’s still just as beautiful, but something about her then seems lighter. It takes me a few, but as they walk the path, I realize this must be who she was before Jordan died.
I didn’t know he was dead, her twin, and according to her, it was at the hands of her aunt.
There’s a lot to unpack there, but now isn’t the time. Right now, I just want to help her get through this showcase in one piece, which seems like it will take more work than it should.
We watch as they kiss before he waves the vision away, and I pout my lip.
“It was just getting good.”
He shakes his head at me and rolls his eyes but doesn’t disagree.
“So why didn’t you break the bond after? Why keep it all this time?” Titus asks, though I have a feeling he knows the answer.
“I couldn’t.” It’s impossible to miss the strain in his voice, as if the very thought pains him.
He doesn’t say why, offers no explanation, and we don’t push him for one.
“So, why not tell her it’s you?” I ask instead because that bit doesn’t make sense.
He rubs ?the back of his neck and looks down at the table, a tell that he’s uncomfortable, one I haven’t seen in a while.
“I might have fucked that up a little. It was right before we ran, and I had to focus on Gavin and getting us in here to be safe and…” he sighs, dropping his head into his hands as his shoulders slump.
“I didn’t mean to let her down, but I did, and then she showed up here, and it was like I had another chance, but I knew if I told her she would be upset, and I just…”
“Bitched out?”
Dimitri turns to glare at Titus but doesn’t argue with him.
“You either need to break it or tell her,” I tell him, feeling like it shouldn’t have to be said, but here we are.
“I know.”
We talked a little more, and by talked I mean argued about how Felix needs to stay away from Wren before he simply disappears, ignoring us, and honestly, I’m not surprised.
“I’m not sure why he’s so drawn to her, but I don’t think we’re going to be able to stop him. We’ll just have to continue to keep her away.” I wipe a hand down my face, already exhausted at the thought.
I’ve never seen Felix want something for himself. For as long as I’ve known him, he’s either been all about his family or alone. This is new territory, and something tells me his stubborn nature runs in the family.
“That didn’t seem to work out great last time,” Nolan says as he stands from the couch, gently setting her feet back on the couch where he just was so as not to wake her.
“No, but we don’t have much else we can do, and he’s dangerous,” Titus says as if we don’t know that.
And we do. We all know why Titus is so set on keeping him away from her, but what if…
No, we don’t have time for what-ifs right now, especially when being wrong could put her in very real danger?
“We’ll do what we can.” Dimitri pushes to stand, going over to the coffee pot to pour another cup.
“We? So, are you going to tell her?” He pauses at my words, and I see the way his posture goes rigid before he slumps in defeat.
“Yeah, I will. Let’s just get through the showcase first.”
I don’t love that answer, don’t like the idea of us keeping things from her, but I also know she’s already going through so much.
How much is too much? I can’t say I want to find out. No, I’d rather shelter her from everything, but I also know that’s not possible either.
“Fine.” I turn to Nolan, and he gives me a nod that lets me know he agrees, as does Titus.
At least that’s something, I guess.
“Headed to your meet?”
“Yeah, just preliminaries today. I’ll be back later.” He waves me off as he walks out the door. I know that means he doesn’t think it’s worth wasting our time on. Unfortunately, that’s no longer up to him or even me for that matter.
Our girl has been spending a lot of time with him, watching him swim, giving him tips, and taking all the pictures.
No way will I let her sleep through this.