Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Xavier shakes his head and blinks rapidly at the loss of Latham’s power. Latham smirks before pecking his lips quickly.
“Better?” Latham asks him, and Xavier nods before reaching for a towel and draping it over Bella in his arms.
“I will help you dry her,” Xavier says, walking out of the bathroom.
I quickly shower before shutting the water off and stepping out.
Wrapping a towel around my waist, I walk out to find Latham tucking Bella into bed as he climbs on it with her.
Xavier comes over to me before kissing me.
I reach up, clutching the back of his neck and deepening the kiss before letting him pull away.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters against my lips, his cheeks turning a light pink.
“I’m sorry, too, but Latham’s right. We need to be careful with her. We need to keep our heads.”
“Practice makes perfect,” Xavier says, and I chuckle.
“Indeed it does,” I tell him before he walks to the bathroom.
Grabbing a pair of pants from the drawer, I slip them on and watch as Latham drapes Bella over himself.
She stirs, burying her face into the crook of his neck, and I love watching how gentle he is with her.
Bella brings out a different side of him.
Latham, to everyone else, has always seemed calm and outgoing, but I know the darkest parts of him he’s kept hidden until he became ours.
He knew we could be trusted with the parts he wanted no one else to see.
We have and always will be his safe place.
I just hope Bella doesn’t put a strain on him to remain so tense, unable to let go of the desires that plague him.
While those are important to keep in check around her, I don’t want him building it and then suddenly exploding.
“I will let her see it. She has to get used to it if she wants to be with us.”
“Does she have a choice anymore?” Latham chuckles and looks over at me.
“Not anymore,” Xavier says, and I feel excitement bubble up within me.
Not only would we get Bella, but our dark prince. He would remain and not leave us when he gets too scared of who he is; that means he is all in and I know he would never leave her on her own. Never leave us again as long as she remains with us.
“Don’t think like that. You know how I feel about you both. It's the same way I feel about her.”
“And what is that?” I ask him.
“I love her, just as I love you and Xavier.”
I smirk. Latham is a man of few words when it comes to emotions; he is more the silent I-will-show-you type, not one to express things so openly, but I have noticed he has been more willing to admit his feelings since Bella.
One mistake cost him dearly, and he has never forgiven himself for it.
I wondered if he would, and I hoped Bella was his way of letting the past go and forgiving himself for what had happened to her.
He could never have prevented her death, he had no way of saving her, yet he blamed himself for it.
When Latham and I first found him, he was trying to implode himself with his own power to kill himself.
The only thing that stopped him was Xavier and I feeding off him enough to weaken him before knocking him out, and he nearly killed us in the process.
We shouldn’t have harnessed that much darkness; it was lethal for everyone but him.
“I will never be that weak again. She will never suffer Myra’s fate,” Latham answers simply while he brushes strands of hair from her face and kisses her forehead.
“So, can I climb in, or do Xavier and I get the couch?”
“Have I ever made you sleep on the couch?”
“No, but I don’t want to disturb you while you seem—”
“Seem what, Blaine? Don’t be afraid.”
“I don’t know, satiated, in your element with her. I don’t want to impose,” I admit.
“She will be yours, too. You have every right to be near her, to be near me, Blaine,” Latham tells me, and I nod before crawling onto the bed.
Latham moves over to the middle so Xavier can lie on the other side, yet when he comes into the room from his shower, he crawls in beside me and wraps his arm around my waist after tugging the blanket up.
“Is she alright?”
“Yes, just tired. I am not using my power on her now. She is asleep on her own,” Latham says, and I know he’s right because I can’t feel it.
Xavier leans over me and kisses her before pecking the side of my mouth and lying down behind me again.
“You blood-sifted her earlier. What did you see?” Latham asks me.
“Nothing, absolutely nothing. I saw the same as you,” I tell him.
Latham seems to think for a second.
“We need to visit her old home. We have no choice but to take her back.”
“So you believe a demon mark taints her?” Xavier asks, and Latham nods while thinking.
“No, he hasn’t marked her to him, but I believe he has touched her so he can always find her.”
“Why, if he was just going to disappear?” I ask.
“Exactly, he knew he needed to go for some reason. I would bet he was always going to come back for her,” Latham says while instinctively wrapping his arms around her as though afraid someone would snatch her from his grip.
“We will find whoever it is, and when we do, we will kill them,” I tell Latham.
“But after we take Bella home. I think it is time we take Bella home to Soya. She will be safest at your place.”
“You aren’t going to run off on us if we return home?” Xavier asks, having missed our earlier conversation.
“Never. No, once we get back to Soya City and are safe, we will mark her soul, and then…”
“And then what?” Xavier asks curiously.
“We make her immortal,” Latham answers simply, though I have my doubts.
Humans tend to value their humanity. The idea of forever could be daunting to most. But watching how gentle Latham is with her, I don’t think she would have much of a choice.
I’ve always been certain that forever would be inevitable.
She would never escape us, and a selfish part of me is excited for that, excited for the four of us.
I have never wanted something so bad since finding Xavier.
Never craved another the way I do Latham.
She truly is sin and I would burn over and over again for the mere mortal on his chest.
But first, we need to find out what is chasing her, what marked her soul for keeps, something I won’t allow. No, her soul, mind, and heart are ours to covet, even if she doesn’t truly understand what that means. She is our drug, and soon, we would be hers.