23. Gideon
Chapter 23
Gideon
“ Y ou’ve got to be kidding.”
Luca’s shock was quick and expected, but he didn’t stop walking. If anything, he closed the half-step between us into a quarter.
“I didn’t think you’d mind a chance to see Daren again.”
His next protest died sharply on his tongue, as I knew it would.
“Gideon,” he said instead.
“There’s not a single thing about you that I don’t know, Luca. I may not like this life, but that doesn’t mean I’m not living it.”
Luca cleared his throat, averting his gaze. “I didn’t…we…”
“Stop,” I warned.
I knew enough, but not all of it. I knew he’d spent more than one night with Daren Moore and I knew the encounters had ended as soon as the two of them stepped into their respective roles alongside Fletcher and me. Whether it had been by choice or by need, their connection had been severed and their loyalties—at least Luca’s—seemed to hold true.
“Every ritual has an offering,” I explained, “and I’ve chosen to offer you.”
“I didn’t know…”
“That’s the point, Luca. This night is as much a test of my command as of your loyalty. How much are we both willing to give?”
“Hasn’t it been enough?” He raised his hand and covered his heart where the brand would be if it were his.
“It’s not enough until they’ve sucked us dry,” I said simply.
“What if I don’t want to?” he asked,
I raised a brow, sincerely shocked at the request. I wondered if things with Daren had ended as badly as they had for me and Fletcher.
“We both know it doesn’t matter.” I sighed, letting out a breath until my chest was hollow enough it felt like my ribs would cave in. “And better you and me than someone new, someone who doesn’t understand this life.”
Luca made a sad noise in the back of this throat. “Do I have to fuck Sinclair?”
“You have to do whatever he wants,” I said. “But take the moments you can and hold on to them, and never forget where you’re going to end up when the night is through.”
“You have my loyalty,” he whispered, almost mechanically. “My place is at your side.”
Across the clearing, three figures came into view, and I recognized Fletcher immediately. He was taller than I remembered and far broader across his chest. He didn’t have on a shirt, his chest and knees covered in dirt. To his left was his deputy, Daren, and further still, a man I’d never seen before, smaller than both of them and dressed in clothes that looked like they’d once been white. His shirt was torn on the shoulder and his golden hair disheveled. It was reassuring to know Fletcher hadn’t changed. Still ruining everyone who dared to come into his life.
“It’s one night,” I said softly, offering him more explanation than I was technically allowed to. “The exchange is meant to remind all of us that one cannot exist without the other.”
“If you’d fucked someone else after the branding, would…” Luca’s question died off.
“They would be offered instead of you.”
“Is this a favor then?” he whispered. “These moments.”
“It’s an apology,” I told him truthfully, “for all the things that are yet to come.”
Luca cursed under his breath, steadying himself as we came to a stop in the center of the clearing. Fletcher and the other two stopped ten feet away from us, and I chose instead to focus on the way Daren’s eyes widened for the briefest second when he saw Luca beside me and not a random first year initiate. The weight of Fletcher’s stare was impossible to ignore for long though.
He always knew how to suck the air out of a room.
Or in this case, a forest.
“My oath is sworn,” he said, voice deeper than I recalled.
“As is mine.”
“I offer you the proof of my charge,” he said, fixating his stare on me with such a weighted intent I worried I would collapse the way Luca had done on our walk out.
“I accept.”
Daren pressed his palm against the middle of the third man’s back, giving him a shove into the empty space between our delegations.
“I offer you the proof of my charge.” I said the line expected of me, and Luca stepped forward without being told.
“I accept,” Fletcher rumbled, his piercing blue stare still focused on me. Life had either been good to him, or not. I didn’t know him enough anymore to tell the difference.
Luca and the other man changed places, and it was impossible to not see the aching and desperate love between Luca and Daren. Even though they couldn’t touch, their bodies swayed close, almost like Daren could sense the guilt weighing Luca down and trying to bury him in the ground.
Had Fletcher ever felt that way about me?
No, it would have been impossible because instead of helping me stand, he’d chosen to dig the pit and throw me into it himself.
“Take him back to the house,” Fletcher demanded. “I’ll catch up.”
Daren and Luca were quick to leave, and I hoped he’d taken me seriously when I told him to absorb the moments. I needed his discretion, but not for nothing.
“Come,” I said to the man whose name I still didn’t know.
I’d ask him later, but not in front of Fletcher or anyone from the Thorns.
Tearing myself away from Fletcher was like ripping off a Band-Aid, the way he’d dragged his stare from my toes to my hair, up my arms and down my neck, lingering on the insignia Luca had just seared over my heart. The pain from the brand had hurt so much for a split second and then…nothing. The brain was a miraculous thing, blocking my receptors from registering the temperature, the charred skin. On the other hand, Fletcher’s body bore no visible scars or marks from his initiation, and I tried to imagine what could have been worse than talking your most trusted confidant into marking you for life.
The man came close to me, shorter than Luca, shorter than Fletcher. He blinked up at me with tired, angry eyes, took one step past me, one step away from Fletcher, then he came to a stop.
“Gideon,” Fletcher said my name like an apology and it made me want to rip him limb from limb.
“You don’t get to speak to me with that voice,” I warned, pivoting away from him and giving his offering an urge toward the edge of the clearing.
“Gideon,” he said again, tone less forgiving.
“The Gideon you knew is dead, Sinclair.” I threw the barb over my shoulder as I headed home with the worn-down offering by my side. “And you should know that. After all, you’re the one who turned me into The Beast.”