Chapter 12 Jasmine #4
“Red, please. I’m sorry.” His internal voice makes my skin hum. “I can take this.” He nods down at the invisible tendrils cocooning his body. “But don’t block me out. Don’t ignore me. I can’t handle it… it’s unbearable.”
“Unbearable?” I scowl. “Like when you made it so I couldn’t touch myself?” His markings dull. “Or is it only unbearable because you’re so used to having what you want, when you want, that now you can’t stand that’s it’s just out of reach?”
My tendrils loosen enough to let him feel my words without any other influence. He hears them. His markings pulse softly, always staring at me with those piercing eyes.
I swallow. “You can endure it, and you will wait your turn.”
All the men study Sai with a mixture of looks, but Julien is the one to ask, “Sai, what is she referring to—”
Dark vines erupt all over Sai’s body, exposing to the others what he’s been secretly enduring. I wasn’t going to reveal it so soon, but sometimes improvisation was important.
I’m still waiting for Sai’s response, and without dropping his gaze, he nods.
“Good boy.” At my sour, patronising praise, he drops his head, chin to chest, and releases a low groan.
I let that sound linger before shifting my attention back to Ezekial, and he doesn’t make me wait.
“I knew you were our bond when I touched your mark,” Ezekial says, immediately, without hesitation.
“I was overcome with rage from the memory of you being taken. I couldn’t see clearly, didn’t understand why I felt that way, what it really meant.
” He stares down at the table, studying a wisp of grey floating by.
“When I was in the Pit, once I’d been grounded, I finally began to understand. We voted and we decided—”
“Voted?” I interject, sharp. Those silver eyes have never looked so wary. “Whilst I was being beaten within an inch of my life, you decided to vote over something I had every right to know?”
And to add more injury, I play them a fragment of a memory. I work hard to school my expression when the kicks to my ribs are repeated, again and again, but I manage.
The men, however, do not.
The temperature plummets and shadows rip free from corners, splintering into fragments that whirl violently around the room. One lands on my hand, and dissolves.
“We had no idea that was happening. We thought you were in the Capital house, we thought you were safe,” Ezekial grits out, eyes now a pool of black smudged with grey. “Not that it excuses what we did, or what you went through. We should have returned immediately.”
He draws in a slow breath, sparks of silver attempt to pierce the dark.
“I’ll never forgive myself for that. I’ll never forget that I was the reason you suffered.
The image of you chained, beaten, bleeding in that cell…
” The control in his voice slips, thread by fraying thread. “I’m so sorry, Jasmine.”
I can’t hold his gaze. Not when he sounds like that, and looks so… heartbroken. And it’s so much harder to be cruel to him, knowing his past, even just the snippet Kane shared.
When he remembered me in that cell, did it remind him of himself? Trapped in The Divide, enduring a torment I couldn’t imagine.
Or did he picture... her? His sister.
When he saw me hanging from that ceiling…
“Partly.” That voice. I turn to the man whose dark gaze once inflicted terror. “And if we were a moment later… if you had died, my brother wouldn’t have returned from the dark. None of us would.”
Everything in me softens, until I realise Kane heard me. He’s been listening to me.
I glare at him. “Those thoughts were not for you. What else did you hear?”
“Nothing. Those were the first and only.”
The others must know we’re talking because their powers press at the edges, trying to peer in, but only Kane has managed to pierce through.
“I always knew you were our bond,” he suddenly says, aloud. The darkness of his eyes keeps me in place. “But I denied it. Thought it was a lie. A trick.”
I hold the silence, needing it to focus on my breathing.
“How do you know it isn’t?” My voice is too quiet.
“You died,” Kane says, the words so soft. “That’s what we thought. We felt it. The loss. And it felt…” His gaze drops, brows furrowed, like it pains him to look at me.
No. It’s more than that.
He can’t bear to remember it: the moment, the feeling. He can’t put it into words. But he doesn’t need to.
When his eyes sweep up to meet mine once more, I’m met by a version of Kane I’ve never known. I look into that endless stare and I know something has changed, a wall has dropped.
For the first time since we’ve met, he’s letting me in. Truly in.
He’s letting me feel him.
I gasp, clasping my chest as cold pierces my skin, burrows into my ribs, slices my lungs and clings.
And then it comes.
The ache.
Dull. Throbbing. Unbearable.
“This…” My nails claw into my skin, desperate to rip out the agony festering there. “This is... what it felt like?”
I could block, alter it, latch onto another emotion to ease the pain. But I don’t want to. I want to feel it. Him.
But then it’s amplified, not by me or him, but by the others.
They’ve all dropped their walls.
I wince as I’m swept into a storm of emotions. Despair. Dread. The frantic need to find me, poisoned by the horror of what they’ll discover. The rage at being so powerful, yet absolutely powerless.
The overwhelming fear of losing me. The grief that they have.
The regret.
Gone.
Forever.
Eternity without me.
The need to soothe them, ground them, touch them—tell them I’m here. I’m right here.
“It’s real,” Kane says quietly into the silence, his gaze fixed on my cheeks now wet with tears.
All my built-up chagrin, my bitter anger, my plan for revenge—it all melts away. Because that’s how they felt when they thought I’d died. When I was in that cell. That’s how they really felt.
All of them.
It is real.
My shadows fall away from Sai’s body. “Thank fuck,” he groans.
“I never thought... I didn’t know you felt like...” I stumble over my words. My resolve, my well-practiced facade, crumbles. “Do you feel like that now?”
“No.” Kane shakes his head. “But we feel something similar when you’re not near us.”
Similar? My fingers still rest against my chest, but now they’re clinging to something, wrapped around a small rock I convinced myself was nothing but a tactic.
Their eyes all drop to it, and without their walls, emotions flood the room.
There’s too many. Too raw, all unrestrained. I can’t tell where their pain ends and mine begins. Everything’s muddled, tangled, and one emotion always reigns supreme over others—
“And how do you think I felt?” I snap. Hot rage pumps through my veins, eradicating my constructed restraint.
It all just… shatters.
“I was always told to stay away from enforcers, that you were dangerous, merciless, that you’d take me away.
” Tears slip free. “Then I meet you and there’s this…
this ache I can’t explain, this pull I can’t fight, and suddenly I’m carrying this secret I don’t understand, with no one to talk to and no way to trust what I’m feeling because I didn’t even know if those feelings were mine! ”
My heart pounds, buzzing fills my ears. “I’ve never felt so…
so powerless, so confused, so alone.” I pull on the chain.
“I couldn’t control my emotions. Nothing made sense.
And every day, I doubted the people who raised me, I doubted everything I’d been told.
I felt like I was being torn apart because my heart was screaming one thing and my head was screaming another.
” Metal links dig into my neck, the rock pulses within my fist.
“And not one of you said a fucking word.”
It all leaves me in a shuddering gasp that trembles too close to a cry, but I make sure to look at them, each of them.
Then my gaze drops to the table.
I need the reprieve, taking a moment to steady my breaths.
“You could’ve helped me,” I say, voice quiet, burning rage easing to an ember. “I never knew if what I felt was even mine. Do you understand what that does to a person? To not know if you feel anger, or happiness, or lust? Wondering if you’re just latching off someone else?”
I still can’t meet their eyes, but I feel every one of their looks.
“If you had just told me, even if you weren’t sure. Maybe then I wouldn’t have felt so alone, ashamed… crazy.” Slowly, my fingers uncurl from the small rock, and it settles back against my chest. “I just needed to know what I was feeling wasn’t wrong. That it was real. Mine.”
My final word fades into the silence.
They wait. Patient but brewing. Desperate to speak but just as desperate to prove themselves.
“You’re right.” It’s Sai who breaks first, and when I look up, every piece of him has paled. “I took what I wanted, told myself you knew enough. I should’ve told you, I should’ve waited, but I didn’t. I’m sorry, so sorry.” His gaze drops as he adds, “You deserve better.”
“There’s no excuse,” Julien says quietly, hands folded on the table, knuckles white. “I should have had more restraint. I let the silence harm you more than truth ever could.” He meets my gaze, holding it. “You needed honesty, and I failed you.”
“I should have stopped it,” Ezekial murmurs, eyes sweeping to me.
“I knew you were struggling. I could see it in how you looked at us, how confused you felt. I should’ve made them tell you.
I should’ve told you myself. I let the people I love choose silence over truth. I’ll never let that happen again.”
“It was me.” Kane’s voice stings, dark eyes set on mine.
“We voted. They won. But I convinced them not to tell you. I poisoned them. Said it wasn’t real, that we didn’t know for sure.
But I knew. I just couldn’t accept it, couldn’t accept that someone like me would be given a chance of having someone like… ”
He breathes in sharply, but his voice stays low. “I let my fear dictate your truth. I didn’t protect you, I didn’t trust you, and I don’t expect forgiveness. But I will carry this. All of it.”
The silence that follows is unlike any we’ve ever shared. Every wall’s been lowered, every mask shattered, and what’s left is only truth, bloody and bruised, but real.
They’re just sitting here, wide open, and maybe… maybe that’s all I ever needed.
Not promises or grand performances. Just this. The truth.
My gaze drifts over each of them, and they wait. It’s that patience, that respect, which undoes the tightness in my chest.
“Thank you, for telling me the truth.” I press my palm flat to the table, my fingers curling slightly against the stone. “But—”
“Just give us a chance, Red.”
Sai’s no longer pale. His markings blare brightly, beautifully, surrounding him in crackling blue, and his eyes pierce me with fierce determination.
“Please, baby.” When he stands, all the men lock onto him, but Sai only looks at me. “We’ll make it work, we’ll never lie, never hurt you.”
My heart thuds at his earnest tone, his intense gaze, how he begs not just with words but his entire body. Even his fingers crawl closer over the table.
I glance away. Shit. I can’t look at him. Not when he sounds so… feels... “I don’t—”
Crackling dances over my legs, I look down and Sai appears, beneath the table, on his knees, staring up at me.
I never saw him move. But he’s here and he’s… wincing. Dark slivers and fingers—Kane’s—grip his hair, tugging at his curls and holding him just out of arm’s reach.
“You idiot,” Ezekial hisses. Metallic flickers swirl around Kane’s darkness, adding another barricade.
When Sai continues to strain, Ezekial tries again. Softer. “Sai, this isn’t going to help.”
“And you standing there saying sweet fuck all is?”
They glare at each other, but I stare at Sai. I hadn’t seen him this close in… weeks. He’s beautiful, always, but there’s an edge to him that’s sharpened. The grit of his jaw, the fire in his eyes, the darkness threading through the blue.
And somehow I know he’s holding himself back. That he could break free from the brothers if he chose to veer closer to the dark.
But he hasn’t. Isn’t. He’s proving himself to me, and maybe a little to them.
“Let him go.” My order creates a long pause, followed by pure silence.
Then the slivers withdraw from Sai’s hair, slowly followed by Kane’s fingers.
“Let him try,” Julien says, sounding closer than before, to the side where Ezekial is sat. “Sai.” His eyes briefly flick to Julien. “Convince her.”
All through that brief, silent conversation I wasn’t meant to be privy to, my eyes stay locked on Sai. He remains on his knees, staring up at me with those blinding eyes, and my fingers itch.
“Red, I know we don’t deserve you, but just let us try. We’ll do whatever it takes, whatever you want.” When a curl falls over his eye, it aches to keep my hand still. “Tell me what you want, baby, and I’ll give it to you.”
I stay silent. Not knowing what to say. Not knowing what I really want.
His markings pulse, somehow matching my racing heart. “You wanna hurt me? Done.” My breath catches, but he doesn’t stop. “I’ll give you my blades. Make me bleed. Carve your name into my skin. Any. Thing.”
But I don’t want that. I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to hurt any of them. The thought makes my stomach curdle, and I find my fingers latching again to the stone beneath my blouse.
Sai’s eyes drop to it, and the room darkens.
Kane leans closer. “Sai…”
“You know we’re immortal, Red.” His voice is lower, deeper. It crawls over my skin as his gaze drags back up. Now, it’s black. “You’ll have to kill us. Because we won’t stop. I’ll never stop.”
Kane’s black bindings return in an instant. “Ground yourself, or I’ll remove you.”
Sai’s gaze hazes over, he sways a little, but then shakes his head, steadying as he blinks away the black rupturing the blue.
“Whatever it takes, we’ll do it, Red. Just give us another chance, let us try and fix this.” It’s Sai’s voice again, but gritter. “Please, baby. Just… please.”
I can’t look at Sai. I can’t look at any of them because my darkness is too close to the edge, bubbling, eager to reach out and take all that Sai promised.
“Whatever you decide, we will accept your decision, Jasmine,” Kane says, and I know it’s only to me.
Any decision? Even if I chose to leave? To be without them?
Knowing now how that makes them feel, the ache… They’d be willing to feel like that... forever?
“No matter how hard I try...” I start, but their reactions crash into me. Pure and aching, thick with expected grief.
I’d planned this part of my speech, to let vague words and drawn-out pauses punish them.
But now… I don’t want that. I don’t want to hurt them. Ever.
“I can’t imagine a life without you in it.” I look at each of them: Julien, Ezekial, Sai, and then Kane. “All of you.”
And just like that, the cold ache ebbs away.