Chapter 35
Idril
Iwalked out.
Without asking if I could leave. Without giving them an explanation or a reason. I just… walked out. I’m not sure that I even looked any of them in the eyes.
Certainly not Dax. Not after he took all the good memories I had of my mother, ripped them to pieces, and set them on fire.
I’m exhausted. Physically, mentally, emotionally.
It’s settled into my bones and marrow and refuses to leave, making every movement feel like I’m walking through water.
My stomach cramps with hunger, and the headache I’ve been staving off all day is now pulsing behind my eyes in steady waves of pain.
I press my hand over my stomach, where Cage shoved me into the crates yesterday. It still aches, but not nearly as bad as I thought it should. Not nearly as bad as my heart, after what Dax spat at me in the library.
I feel like I’ve been ripped apart, forced to show my insides, and then sewn haphazardly back together again. I feel exposed in a way I never have before.
When Riven defended me, and Dax and Vae actually seemed to listen to him?
I had hope. I gambled everything on that hope.
And I lost.
I can’t even tell myself it’ll never happen again, or that I’ve learned my lesson after today, because that wouldn’t be true.
Optimism is a part of me. One, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully kill.
I hate it because it always costs me something, but I think it’s also what reminds me that I’m not simply surviving.
As long as I continue to hope, there’s still a chance things might get better.
I spent the years after my mother died following my father’s orders like the good little Omega he wanted me to be. I convinced myself that if I were good enough, if I were quiet and obedient and useful, then maybe he’d love me.
If he loved me, maybe he wouldn’t kill me the way he killed my mother.
Meeting Caelan had shone a light on the darkness I’d been living in. I’m finally able to admit how bad things were once, now that I know how wonderful they can truly be.
With my father, it had been easier to pretend like I wasn’t dying a slow death up until those final days. Like my instincts weren’t constantly screaming at me that something was wrong, wrong, wrong.
It was easier to tell myself a bunch of pretty stories until I forgot that they were lies.
Now, here, the pain is acute. Constant. Always there, no matter what I do.
And underneath it all is that flame in my chest that just keeps on burning, refusing to go out no matter how often it pushes me to stand up for myself and demand better.
It’s burned hotter over the last few days, and there are moments I swear I can feel it pulsing in time to my heartbeat.
It’s there—demanding and insistent and alive. I don’t know how much longer I can keep it contained. I don’t know how much longer I can keep beating back the desire to do something stupid that I know will only end in more pain.
I pull my knees up to my chest, trying to curl into a tighter ball. I changed my leggings as soon as I got up here, and the blanket is now covering the marks on the floor, but that had been the final straw when I finally made it to the relative safety of this room.
I don’t know what’s happening to me. I have no idea what I am, or what’s wrong with me, or how to stop it.
Whatever it is, it’s not normal.
I’m not normal.
‘You’re special.’
Father’s words echo through my memories, but with a completely different undercurrent than they’ve ever had.
Is there a chance he knows why these things are happening?
The memories from the night of the attack are fragmented and blurry at best, but sometimes I wake in the middle of the night with the echo of windows shattering and the floor cracking apart, and screams.
My screams.
A knock sounds on the door. It’s hesitant but loud enough to startle me. I consider pretending I’m asleep and ignoring it, but I know I can’t hide. Whoever’s out there can surely hear me sniffing and shifting around. Can probably tell by the cadence of my heartbeat that I’m awake.
The knock comes again. Louder this time.
“Y-yes?” My voice is dry and raw. I don’t mean to sound so tired, but I am. Gods, I am so, so tired.
The huge oak door creaks open on rusty hinges, and I sit up on my makeshift pallet.
When he sees me, the tentative smile drops off his beautiful face, and shame unfurls through my limbs.
“Hey,” Vae’s voice is cheerful, but forced. Like he, too, is pretending like his entire life isn’t burning.
”I, uhhh…” he hesitates, gaze bouncing around the attic room and landing on my sleeping pallet. It moves to the small stack of clothes folded neatly in the corner, then settles on the water bottles he left that I’ve refilled and set next to the wall.
You have nothing to be ashamed of. That wild flame inside of me snarls. They did this, not you.
That part of me is correct, but that doesn’t mean much when I’m hungry, tired, cold, and still healing from a wound serious enough to have me coughing up blood less than a day ago.
“How fast do you heal?” I ask, the question slipping out before I can stop it.
A genuine smile curves Vae’s lips. That’s obviously all the invitation he needs because he steps inside. He shuts the door behind him and leans against it, crossing his arms over his muscular chest.
“Why? Thinking about trying to off one of us?” He teases. “I’d really suggest Dax, if you are. He’s been way meaner than me. Plus,” he adds with a devil’s smile, “I’m prettier. That’s just simple math, really.”
Despite my confusion over his appearance and wariness of him in general, I find myself biting my lip to keep a laugh from slipping out.
It’s not fair that he’s so charming on top of being so beautiful.
It’s disappointing that his cruelty overshadows his charm and beauty.
I clear my throat. “Uhm, no. That wasn’t… I was just wondering, as a vampire, how much faster you heal than a human.”
Vae shrugs. “Depends on the last time we fed. If it were recent, I could heal from a stab wound in an hour. If not, maybe a day or so. Why?”
It’s my turn to shrug. “Just… thinking.”
There’s no way I can tell him the truth. No way to explain that I’m suddenly healing as fast as a vampire when I’m obviously human. They already don’t trust me. Telling him would be suicide.
“Yeah?” He narrows his eyes, like he can tell I’m keeping something back.
I decide a subject change is in order before he starts pressing, and I blurt out the first thing that pops into my head. The moment the words are out of my mouth, I want to snatch them from the air and shove them back down my throat.
“How soon do you think that Cae—”
Perfect, Idril. Great subject change. This is much safer.
I cut myself off, well aware of the fact that no one wants to give me any updates. But that hasn’t stopped me from begging everyone I can—staff included. It’s all I think about. All I pray for.
I just want to know how he is.
I thought asking a member of their staff would be safe. I was wrong. It only took two hours for the Alphas to find out, and the next thing I knew, I was hauled in front of their entire daytime staff, being forced to apologize.
Not for asking a question. Not for breaking a rule. For “trying to manipulate the staff.”
It was humiliating, standing in front of a dozen people who all looked at me like I was the scum of the earth. Who had been fed lies that painted me as some kind of femme fatale Omega who’d lured a male they respected and cared for to his death.
All those years I spent imprisoned in my father’s house, and I’ve never felt more alone than I did in that room full of Alphas and Betas, Staff and Warriors.
Surrounded by people, but knowing there was no help coming. There was no one that cared for me. No one to stick up for me.
No one to turn to.
Vae’s voice is hard, yanking me out of the memory. “What?”
“Nothing,” I whisper, wrapping my arms tighter around my legs and hoping he’d just leave.
What is he doing here, anyway? The males never come to my room when I’m here.
Vaelenor certainly wouldn’t be caught dead with me on purpose. He might drop off a snack, but he does it quietly. So no one else will find out.
And I’m not about to call him out on it—not when most days I’m only provided a single meal as it is.
I peek up at him under my lashes. He sighs and pushes off the door, boots scuffing along the stone floor. I curl the toes of my still bare feet in response.
“You need socks,” he grunts. “I’m not sure who gave you your clothes, but you should have been provided with socks.”
I shrug again, because what else am I going to do? There are a lot of things I should have been given since the day they dragged me here.
Respect, for one.
I’m not blind to how I’m being treated. Being quiet doesn’t mean I’m not furious.
Neither of us speaks for a long while. I don’t know what to say, and it isn’t like I can just ask, ‘Hey, any chance this little visit had a point, or did you just stop in to remind me that I have no socks?’
I get my answer a few minutes later when he exhales a tired sigh as though just being near me exhausts him. I bite my cheek to keep from pointing out that he’s the one who came up here.
I don’t. I’m not a masochist. I already have one vampire who takes every opportunity provided to cut me down. I’m not about to leave an opening for another to do the same.
Vae turns on his heel and throws the door open. I straighten, sure he’s decided to leave. Instead of walking out, though, he bends down and pulls something through the doorway.
Something big.
When I see what it is, my whole body freezes.
A blanket.
Not just any blanket. It’s the white fur-lined blanket that Dax taunted me with in the library my second night here. The one he tried to barter for answers before throwing a whiskey glass at the wall behind me.