Chapter 12 Quinn
Quinn
I trailed behind Ezra, who didn’t say a single word to me.
The Twilight Zone theme played in my head as the dragon zoomed in circles around us, definitely not helping my sanity.
Rowan told me XanRa worked tirelessly to save me.
Ezra hadn’t left my side while I was unconscious.
His voice pulled me out of Alex’s delusion, and our kiss when I woke burned into memory.
I’d been awake for two days, and if I hadn’t tagged along with Cayden just now, I still wouldn’t have seen Xan. They were avoiding me, and it stung.
Yes, I’d pushed Ezra away, but he had to know it wasn’t about him.
And sure, I’d turned Professor Holiday into a dragon with jeweled rainbow spikes that literally farted sparkles. But no one seemed upset about that, so I doubted it was the reason he was giving me the cold shoulder.
Ezra opened his door and motioned me through. I buried my shaking hands in my hoodie. It was hard not to notice how he only seemed to like me when Xan did, and the Architect couldn’t give a flying fuck at the moment. So much for the ‘between us’ line from the mixer. The collar burned on my throat.
I brushed past Ezra. He snagged the dragon and hurled it into the bathroom before it could start sniffing around the room. Squeaks, roars, and the crash of breaking things echoed until the shower hissed on. After one final roar, a suspicious silence descended. Ezra and I exchanged raised brows.
The quiet afterward felt heavier than the noise. I should’ve joked, should’ve said anything. Instead, Ezra slid to the door like he expected an attack, and I stayed mute, suffocating in everything unspoken between us.
Words were never our strong suit.
I focused on the room. It felt like I hadn’t been here for years. My three days of pretend marital bliss stabbed me in the gut. I could almost see the three of us moving around the space before everything got so complicated. My gaze landed on the neatly made bed, and a zing of lust shot through me.
I peeked at Ezra, and though he watched me from his position in the door, his face hadn’t changed expressions. Of the four men in my life, he was the only one who hadn’t tethered me. He couldn’t feel my emotions.
“How did you talk in my head if we didn’t have a tether?” I asked.
“Can Xan talk in your head?” Ezra asked, not at all thrown off by my seemingly out-of-the-blue question.
I wrinkled my nose. “I mean, probably he’s a mentalist. But, no. He doesn’t.” The extra reminder that Xan and Ezra’s connection was special, and I wasn’t a part of it stabbed me hard.
“I heard you in Alex’s loop.” I gritted my teeth and refused to be hurt. “That’s all I was trying to say.”
Ezra rested his hand on his sword hilt, as if talking to me was a battle.
I sighed, anger draining. I was just tired, tired of all of it.
“Let’s just get these maps.” I turned my back on Ezra and really looked around the room.
“Magic is energy,” Ezra explained, not helping me look at all. “As is the magic of the mind, though not in the same tangible way. I was in your shadow when you broke the collar. We can assume our connection was a byproduct of proximity.”
Hurt stabbed into me. I’d clung to his voice, and it was just a byproduct of proximity.
Suddenly, I hated this room—the happiness I’d felt, the longing I still had for men who turned cold in an instant.
The pile of rolled-up maps sat on the far side of the bed. I gathered them into my arms, busy work or not, and turned toward the door. Ezra still stood there, watching me with his plum-purple gaze.
I was suddenly so tired of this entire situation. “What do you want from me?” The question came out of me before I could think about it.
Ezra’s chest rose and fell. “I want you to be ours.”
My jaw dropped before I snapped it shut.
“Actually, I believe that.” White-hot fury coursed through me, and I forced my voice to stay even, though venom cut into every low word.
“You want a toy that you can put on a shelf and play with at your convenience. Xan was asleep, so I wasn’t worth a single conversation.
” Tears blurred the shitty room. “I thought all of you were just figments of my imagination. I mourned you. But you wouldn’t know that.
Since our kiss, you’ve not said two words to me.
” I hugged the maps to my chest as if they were a shield.
“I don’t know what I did to piss you off, but it doesn’t matter.
I deserve better than being kicked around like this. ”
Ezra rushed forward and enveloped me in his arms. The maps exploded, unraveling as they dropped to the ground.
He pulled me close. Before I could react, he had my head tilted up and crushed his lips to mine.
Pure lust raced across me. He dropped his hands to my ass and lifted me, only to deposit me on the edge of the bed and fell to his knees.
Fire and need, new and old, pebbled my flesh and turned my core into molten need.
He rested his hands on my knees. “We’re not kicking you around.”
His touch was careful. Too careful. My fire guttered out.
“Right.” I bit my lip. My voice dropped instead of rising—flat, almost bored. “Kick me around, then gaslight me. Nice, Ezra.”
Ezra furrowed his eyebrows.
I stood, and Ezra backed up, standing as well. He gave me space like I might explode. That stung more than if he’d reached for me.
“You know, maybe you're right.” I poke his unyieldingly hard chest. The contact was sharp, deliberate. “Xan’s been asleep. You always use the word ‘we’ as if you and Xan are the same person. I even call you XanRa in my head. But you’re not.
” I inhaled slowly. Controlled. Precise.
“I’ll rephrase what I said. You, Commander… ”
His gaze flashed unhappily. I’d never used his title before. I met him before I even knew he had one, but he couldn’t just kiss me and fix this. I deserved more.
“…look at me like you want to devour me one moment and forget me the next. You, Commander, kissed me, and then piles of shit happened, and you didn’t reach out once, not even as friends, to see how I was doing.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You saw that altar the Prophet put me on.” I forced myself to breathe.
In. Hold. Out. This was still so raw, but I needed to let my emotions out.
As much as I hated it right now, Ezra still felt safe.
“Every second I was in that compound, they spent attempting to break down my spirit and make me think I was worthless.”
My voice dipped quieter, the words scraping out instead of landing clean.
“Before that, Horax took me. Do you know why?” I didn’t wait to see his response.
“Because it would hurt the Architect. I was irrelevant. He couldn’t sell me fast enough.
” Tears squeezed out of my eyes. I hated that they did.
“This feels like the stupidest thing I’ve ever said, but no one even kidnapped me for me, for who I am. ”
I laughed once, sharp and ugly. Disdain, not humor. “I was an object. Even Alex doesn’t care about me; I’m a body to imprint his perfect future into.”
‘Our perfect—'
“Shut up, Alex!” I yelled. “There is no ‘our.’” The collar chilled, not enough to hurt, but enough to remind me who could be in control.
I couldn’t tell if I was about to laugh, cry, or rage. For the first time, there really was a second person in my head. Maybe I really was losing it. I balled my fists and scrubbed my eyes. My hands shook harder the longer I tried to stop them.
Finally, once spots filled my vision, I met Ezra’s plum-purple gaze. The depths shimmered with emotion. His hands floated as if he suddenly didn’t know what to do with them. He started to reach for me, then stopped.
“Alex faked my waking up in my time after my brain surgery.” Silent tears streamed down my face.
I couldn’t stop them. “He tried to convince me, this castle. You. Everyone who existed here had only been in my head. And I believed him. But your voice helped me realize something was wrong. And the more I looked, the more I saw.” Bitter pain laced my every word.
“Do you know what I didn’t see? Flowers.
A card. Nothing, because no one existed. ”
I grabbed a map. “You have feet. You can shadow step. You run this entire castle.” My laugh broke this time, bitter and cracked. “Fuck, you could’ve sent an enforcer with a scrawl, as my TB’s broken.”
I jabbed the rolled-up map into Ezra’s shoulder like a sword. He stepped back as if I’d hit him.
“But you didn’t,” I said, voice low now, stripped of heat. “You acted like I didn’t exist. And now you tell me you want me to be ‘ours’?” I reached for another map. “Fuck off and go find someone else to be your plaything.” The words tasted sour. Final.
I picked up another map and used the back of it to wipe more tears from my eyes. I couldn’t tell if I was angry or devastated.
I didn’t look up.
If I did, I wasn’t sure I’d keep standing.
His TB buzzed. We ignored it. Part of me wanted him to pull me close. The other part remembered I’d just told him to fuck off.
His TB buzzed again. This time, I peeked at his face, only to find his gaze unfocused, as if he were speaking with Xan in his mind.
“You’re needed immediately,” Ezra stated.
He stood and, after a brief hesitation, offered me a hand. “We’re not trying to hurt you. Xan’s a mentalist who tethered you without consent. We need people to see you act of your own free will.”
Nothing about his feelings. Just what ‘we’ needed.
I bit my lips together. At first, I’d adored how woven together Ezra and Xan were.
It had been romantic, powerful, and everything I’d thought a healthy relationship should be.
But, the more time I spent with them, the more the romantic picture darkened.
“But you’re not a mentalist.” Instead of taking his hand, I attempted to give him the maps. “If you’re only acting to make others happy, does that count as free will?”