Chapter 16 Kieran
Why did I offer my room?
I mean, other than it being cleaner than Jace’s room and warmer than Silas’s room… It felt like the right thing to do.
But I should have shown her where the necessities were and walked away to give her privacy.
I should force myself down the hall to the nearest spare room like any sane person… Close the door. Sit on the edge of the bed, and pretend I’m not one wrong breath away from doing something irreversible.
But I don’t.
I stand on the threshold of my bedroom door, wondering if she’s comfortable.
Not the cluttered guest room a few doors down, the one Silas miraculously cleaned up in thirty seconds flat. Or his room... Or Jace’s room.
Mine.
Eris didn’t even glance toward the other doors we passed.
She just glides through the hall, bruised by exhaustion, as she comes down from the adrenaline, and steps into my room like gravity pulls her there.
Like this door was always the destination.
I move around her, stepping into my closet to grab her a t-shirt. It’s one of my favorites, soft from a hundred washes, faintly smelling of cedar and rain and me. She takes it without a reaction, as if it already belongs to her and I’m simply returning it to its rightful owner.
Now she’s in my bathroom, shower water so hot steam seeps from under the door. And I’m pacing the hallway like a guard dog who hasn’t decided whether he’s protecting her or worshipping her.
Jace brings a bottle of water, deposits it on the bedside table, and leaves without a word, his hand fisting in his hair. The slight pain on his scalp is the only thing making him believe she’s really in our home.
Silas stands at the end of the hall, arms crossed as he leans against the wall. His eyes are daggers, lost in concentration as he waits for… something.
Maybe me.
Maybe the fallout.
But all I do is loiter outside the doorway.
The water turns off, and I hear Eris shuffling around, mumbling too low for me to understand.
The door clicks so loudly when it opens that I snap to attention and Silas shoves off the wall, ready to… I don’t know what.
Eris steps out of the bathroom in my shirt, the hem grazing the tops of her thighs. Her bare legs seem to stretch for days, and her damp raven black hair is down for once, creating a curtain of messy waves around her face.
And I forget how to breathe, split between the quiet beauty Eris exudes and the nerdy little kid stuck in my brain screaming about his real-life Shego.
Yeah, Kim Possible was hot and all… But Shego was the real main character when she was on screen.
“Thank you,” Eris says, her expression stripped of everything except quiet exhaustion.
That’s all.
Two simple words.
Sincere.
Soft.
Direct.
I don’t deserve them.
None of us do.
I can’t even trust myself to speak, so I nod, swallowing around a knot lodged in my throat.
Eris climbs into my bed like it’s familiar, as if she’s done it a hundred times in a hundred different versions of us. She tucks my dark quilt around her shoulders and closes her eyes with a heavy sigh.
I stand there for a full minute, like a man caught between devotion and madness. She doesn’t tell me to leave, and I contemplate staying, but I don’t want to push her.
Eventually, I force myself away to join Silas and Jace in the living room.
The loft is dimly lit this early in the morning, tense as we observe the sky shifting colors with the rising sun. It’s the type of quiet that feels like there’s something waiting to be spoken aloud.
Silas pours a drink without looking at either of us. Jace sits on the arm of the couch, foot restlessly wiggling as he stares into the hallway with a haunted expression.
No one speaks for a few minutes.
Jace breaks first.
“Is she asleep?”
“Yeah.” I shrug, holding my hands out. “I think so.”
He huffs and turns his attention from the hallway to me with a grin. “I would have gone to your room, too. Your bed is the most comfortable.”
There’s no jealousy or surprise in his tone. His expression is one of acceptance.
Silas sets his glass down, leaning forward so his elbows rest on his knees. “Did she say anything?”
“Just ‘thank you.’ But nothing else.”
“We don’t deserve that,” Jace mutters under his breath.
“Is she unraveling?” Silas sighs and stretches his neck, rolling his head left and right. “Or did we intrude on something? I feel like we only have half of the story.”
“If she’s unraveling, then she’s not the only one,” I admit, dropping into a computer chair at the desk. “But it doesn’t feel like she’s falling apart at all. It feels like… like she’s dug her feet in, shouldering the storm.”
Both their eyes lift to me.
“She didn’t hesitate,” I continue, searching for the right way to explain. “Not when we showed up. Or when we touched her. Not when we told her we’d been watching her.”
“That’s not good.” Silas’s voice drops, and he stares into his empty glass. “That’s not good at all.”
“No,” I agree. “It’s worse. It means she already suspected it was us. Who knows? Maybe she wants to give this a chance.”
Jace leans back, arms tucked behind his head, the look in his eyes dark and certain. “Then we protect her. We finish this shit with Daniel.”
“And her questions?” Silas asks. “She’s going to want answers soon.”
“We give her real ones,” I respond, glancing toward my bedroom with a frown. “We stop hiding and lying. Telling the truth isn’t a difficult task. Best to do it now, while she’s here, and not after she figures more out on her own.”
Silas nods once, a slow tip of his head in acknowledgement, though I’m not sure if it’s acceptance or reluctant surrender. It’s hard to tell with him sometimes.
Jace stares down the hallway at the thin strip of light under my door. He’s as drawn to her as I am, neither of us able to keep our eyes from roaming toward her every few minutes. Silas is showing better restraint, though I wonder how long he’ll hold his composure before he breaks.
“She’s in your bed,” Jace mentions, a brow raised as he grins at me.
“Yeah,” I drawl, tapping my fingers on the arm of the computer chair.
“And you’re out here.” He points at the floor. “Why?”
“I wanted her to sleep,” I say, shrugging. “She needs space. You know… That thing people need when they want privacy?”
But the lie burns like fire in my throat.
The truth is... I’m not in that bed because if I were, I wouldn’t be able to leave it.
Not tonight.
Maybe never.
Jace nods as if he can read my mind, though none of us verbalizes what we’re thinking.
We don’t need to.
She’s already ours.
And we won’t let her go.