Chapter 48
SABLE
Something anchors me to the bed, a bar over my stomach, heavy but not entirely uncomfortable.
My eyes open slowly, and once again I have to think hard to remember where I am.
When I blink, the room starts coming into focus, and I see a very tattooed arm with long, beautiful fingers wrapped around my stomach.
Soren.
He was so out of it last night. My skin breaks out in goose bumps just thinking about what would have happened if I hadn’t arrived in time.
Was he really trying to kill himself? Whether he was or wasn’t, I fear gravity would have done the rest of the work for him.
What the hell did he mean when he said what she did to me?
His body is so warm and comfortable, and it feels so right to have him here.
I’m not sure how long I slept, but I know it was more than I did since…
since goddamn Hadrian was drugging me. I graze his knuckles with the pad of my thumb and breathe in his scent.
This is so fucking comfortable it’s unfair.
“You’re real,” he says, his voice heavy with sleep, making me smile. I turn in his arms and face him.
“As much as I enjoyed being called Fantasy Sable, I’m afraid I’m real.”
His eyes trace my features, and I see fear stamped there. Not many people are scared of me. I feel very powerful for a minute, but it all falls apart when his hands shake while holding me.
“What did she do, Soren?” I ask a question he once told me I wouldn’t believe the answer to, but I’m ready now. My voice is low and soft, as if I don’t want to spook a wild animal. Soren’s eyes close, and his whole body hardens.
“There’s nothing to say,” he lies, trying all of a sudden to avoid looking at me. He tries to put space between us, but I don’t let him. When he rolls away, I go with him, straddling his body.
“I knew something was going on. You were trying too hard to keep me away,” I say from above him. I grab his wrists, and he’s strong enough to fight me off if he really wanted, but he doesn’t.
“Let me go,” he says instead. “I promised to stay away from you.”
I laugh, settling over his hard cock and feeling my pussy light up in response. “Change of plans. You stay where you are and tell me what really happened.”
“You deserve better than hearing my excuses,” he grits out.
“I agree. No excuses, just tell me what happened that day. You texted Arabella? You went over to hook up? You—”
He explodes. His hands grip my waist, and he flips us both over, shoving me into the mattress and getting the upper hand on me in an instant.
If I thought I was wet a moment ago, that was nothing.
Shallow breaths move his chest too fast. His eyes are too bright, wild with some pain I can’t understand if he won’t fucking tell me. “I didn’t do any of that.”
He pushes off me, immediately rising from the bed and patting down his pockets.
One hand sinks into his thick dark hair as if he’s ready to pull it all out, and the other grabs a pill bottle from his pocket.
He pops it open quickly and drops a few into his hand.
Before he can swallow the three pills he has in his palm, I spring into action and slap them away.
“That’s why you were fucking high last night?”
“What the fuck?” He kneels in desperation, eyes scanning the floor for the pills. I step on one, forcing him to raise his head and look at me.
“Forget the pills and start talking.”
His hands ball into a fist, and he stands up at his full height, angrily eyeing me. He’s much taller and stronger than I am, yet I don’t step away from the stare down. I want answers, and I want them now.
“What difference does it make if I tell you she drugged me, Sable?”
I suck in a breath, but I don’t dare to make a face. I barely move as I ask. “Did she rape you?”
The word triggers him. He shakes and doesn’t answer right away, but I know better than to think silence is a negative answer. He simply can’t say it. I step forward. My chest brushes against his, but I don’t touch him otherwise.
“That bitch drugged you and raped you, and you think it doesn’t make any difference to me?” I ask, a new type of pain I’ve never experienced ripping me open. Fuck, this is worse than thinking he ran back to her.
His nostrils flare, and his jaw sets. “You saw what happened. The whole school did.”
“What?” I ask. I know what he means about what I saw. I literally saw the assault happening and didn’t know how to stop it. “What do you mean the whole school?” I insist, tears made of pain and hatred gathering on my lashes.
Soren lets out a groan and steps away from me, heels of his palms pushing against his eyes.
He knows better than to think I’m going to just step away and not ask questions.
If Nina was right about anything, it was this.
I have never asked enough questions about the guys or Bellthorn.
No. The season of me being quiet, complacent, and asking too few questions is over.
“Soren? You need to tell me what you mean.” My tone is firm, nearly the same one I’ve used on the other guys when practicing my new dominant role with them. In exactly the same way, Soren responds to it immediately.
“The whole school got a video of it.” His admission is tinged with pain, and I have to work to modulate my own rage. I’m not trying to make anything worse for him, but it’s hard to breathe. I’m so angry. I could have stopped it, and I ran away.
“She recorded her own crime?” My eyebrows rise.
“The angle… it was someone else. Maybe a tripod, I guess, but the camera zooms at different points. I think someone was operating it.”
“She’s working with someone. That’s obvious from the fact she got herself assigned as the Offering.” Too many things have been going her way lately, and I’m going to personally put a stop to her winning streak.
“I don’t remember any vulnerable points during the day, but it makes more sense if there are two or more of them.” Clearly, he’s given this a lot of thought. Why would she do this to him? I thought he would be untouchable as a Rook, but perhaps that’s exactly why she’s done all of this to him.
Soren looks awful. Cheeks sunken, eyes crazed and empty.
This is someone deteriorating right in front of me.
I cross the room to him and fish the pills from his pocket.
He tries to take them out of my hand, and I slap him right across the face, shocking us both.
It’s not hard enough to hurt him, but I’m not fucking around anymore.
“Enough of this now,” I tell him, grabbing him by his collar and planning to make a point if I need to.
“Do you think I can exist without them?” He laughs and tries to take them from me.
“Yes, obviously,” I say, tugging them out of his hands and heading to the bathroom with him on my heels.
“What are you doing?” he says, a hint of panic pitching his tone. I’ve already got the bottle open, and I’m standing over the toilet ready to flush them.
“Sable… please,” he begs, and he asks so nicely that my heart breaks for him. He doesn’t try to take the bottle from me even though he’s much bigger, but I could dump it before he reaches me. He just stands there at the door, eyes shining and voice low.
“They almost killed you last night.”
“It wasn’t them,” he argues. “It was me. I knew you all would be better off without me.”
“I wouldn’t be better without you.” I shake my head because it hurts me that he could even say something like that. “Damn, what do you think would happen to Orion?”
“He hates my guts, Sable.” He rolls his eyes.
I chuckle. “He’s having a tantrum.”
“It’s a lot worse than that, and you know it.”
I sigh, as that’s a fair assessment. “Things will change for him once he finds out the truth. Can you imagine if he found out after you killed yourself? If you don’t want to stay for me, at least do it for your brother. For the rest of your friends. None of them deserves that guilt.”
“I’m not ready for them to know the truth, Sable.” His gaze is heavy and so incredibly serious.
“That’s fair, they don’t need to know right now, but they will eventually. And this?” I shake the pills. “This can’t keep going. You scared the hell out of me last night, and I’ve lost too many people to deserve this.”
My wrist flips, turning the bottle over and dumping the pills into the water. Visible pain twists his features as he watches me flush, but it’s too bad. I know the truth now, and this shit is done. No one is going to hurt him again, not even him.
“You just flushed two thousand dollars,” he says in a flat voice.
I whistle. “Damn, it’s expensive to kill yourself. I could have sworn there are cheaper ways.”
“The drugs were expensive. The fall was free.”
I would laugh if I wasn’t actually so terrified for him. “Tell me you won’t get anymore. Tell me I’m not going to have to mourn your death too.”
“You’re asking me to live in hell.”
“I mean, that depends on your definition, I guess.” I step closer to him, and he watches me with uncertainty.
“You might think this changes things, but at some point, you’re going to remember what you saw. It’s going to replay inside your head like it plays in mine, and you’ll remember how sick I make you.”
He trails off, shaking his head and moving away from me. His eyes go around the barren room for the first time. “Where the hell are we, anyway?”
“No changing subjects. Do you think I’m going to punish you for being raped?”
“Why does this look like a founding family apartment?” He turns to me as he connects the dots. “Is this the fifth door? How?”
“Magic, now back to the topic at hand.”
“Which is?” he demands.
“Us.”
“There’s no way you can look at me the same way after what you saw. I can barely look at myself in the mirror. Fuck, I don’t want force you to do it. Just leave it be, Sable.”
His head is so twisted if he thinks this doesn’t change everything. I step closer to him, my hands over his chest feeling his heart against my palm.
“Fuck you if you think I’m leaving you again.”