Chapter 21
Rafe
“Back off,” Zephyr snarled.
I held my hands up placatingly, stepping to the side easily. Zephyr shoulder-checked me harder than necessary before grabbing Skye and pulling her into his arms, turning his back to the room as he spoke to her.
“I didn’t know,” he murmured. “Skye, I swear. I didn’t know.”
Skye let out a wet sniff before shamelessly wiping her face on her brother’s chest, and I frowned at that, then blinked several times.
Did I…
Yep. I really just wished she would have wiped her snotty face on me.
Hmm. That was pretty weird, even for me.
“How could you not know?” Wyatt asked. “I don’t understand–”
“Give it a fucking rest,” Zephyr snapped. One of his hands was on the back of Skye’s head, holding her face against his chest to hide her obvious tears. “I wasn’t raised as a Healer, Wyatt. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know how to tell if my affinity was working or not. I…”
“You never suspected it?” Wyatt prodded.
“Did you suspect it?” Skye whispered, her voice muffled.
Zephyr sighed. “I did once. I thought it was just me, but as we started our reading and studying…it wasn’t making sense.
We should’ve been making progress. And then you kept bitching at me about the air conditioner, and I was like, there’s no way I’m the one turning it on and not remembering, especially not when it’s cold out.
And then…you were gone one weekend and it was on, and… ”
I furrowed my brow.
The air conditioner? Wyatt may have blown everything out of the water, but the siblings suspected something was amiss because of the air conditioner?
The basement is cool during the summer but too warm during the winter, Skye explained. Aiden and Wyatt reacted, just barely, which meant she’d spoken to the three of us.
“He just…he always knew too much,” Zephyr trailed off into a whisper.
Levi’s gaze was trained on his legs again, and I told myself it was out of shame that he wouldn’t look any of us in the face. Maybe that’s why he never met his children’s eye. Maybe he lived in constant shame, a different sort of agony.
“Everything we did,” Skye said softly, breaking the silence. Her voice shook. “All those hours we spent…”
Zephyr tightened his hold on her almost imperceptibly, but my Link-mates and I all straightened up. She was definitely about to–
A burst of fury struck me right in the chest. Wyatt’s knees buckled slightly, and Aiden sucked in a sharp breath.
“All those times we cried, thinking Zephyr wasn’t strong enough. All those times we were so depressed we could barely get out of bed, but we did it anyway because we had to feed you. All those times you fucking ignored me!”
Skye lunged around Zephyr, and Aiden caught her smoothly, pulling her tight to his chest as she fought him. She easily could’ve gotten out of his hold, but she chose to struggle, trying to pry Aiden’s arms from around her while scrambling to get to Levi.
That was one of the most ironic things about this entire situation.
Levi had put such pressure on Skye as a child to control her affinities, and insulted her as an adult, as if her control could’ve been better.
The fact that she wasn’t squeezing him to death right now was the perfect testament to her control.
Even now, in the throes of emotion, she wasn’t using her affinities to attack him.
I cringed, a few shadows slithering around the floor as if they could do something to help. Zephyr was stone-faced, watching his sister but not really seeing her. Something told me if she made it to Levi, he wouldn’t stop her, either.
“All the mornings I spent down here for breakfast, talking to the fucking wall,” Skye’s sob devolved into a shriek. “All the days I spent shaking so bad I could barely function at the café, all those times you wouldn’t fucking look at me!”
“Baby, you’re scaring me.” Aiden murmured into Skye’s hair as she shook uncontrollably.
Levi moved. Wyatt and I whipped toward him, ready to stop him by any means necessary.
The fucker was lucky no one had accidentally killed him yet.
Shadows wrapped around his ankles, pulling him to the floor with a thud.
He sat up quickly, leaning back against the edge of the bed while Wyatt and I stood in front of him, arms crossed, giving him matching glares that could’ve lit a fire.
Even now, in the light of his betrayal, he was defiantly staring us down. He wasn’t apologetic. He hadn’t even tried bargaining with Skye, or arguing. Not a word to defend himself.
I took a good look at him.
He looked just like his son, though Zephyr’s skin tone was a touch more bronze, since he saw the sun. Levi’s dark hair was neatly braided back into cornrow braids. He looked tired, but that wasn’t abnormal.
My eyes skated over him, freezing on his legs.
Wyatt felt the shift in my demeanor, and he side-stepped a few inches closer to me. His voice was soft as he asked, “What is it?”
“That’s quite the pair of toned legs for a man who’s just spent a dozen years in a fucking bed. Wouldn’t you agree?” I practically snarled.
Skye sobbed behind us. Shadows moped near my feet.
“He probably used the gym while his children slept after fucking providing for themselves all day,” Wyatt sneered. “That explains the air conditioner. Had to do it quick while Skye wasn’t home, right? Her affinity would’ve caught you.”
“You didn’t even need that fucking tube,” Zephyr muttered, looking defeated. “All those fucking weeks we spent…you got all those infections!”
“Infections he blamed on me,” Skye screeched, shrill enough that she made herself wince. “There was one time,” she went on, sounding a bit hysterical, “He had one really bad infection. I was like, sixteen. He blamed me, and then wouldn’t let me feed him for a year. A year!”
Aiden’s arms visibly tightened around Skye’s shoulders, and he eyed me over her floating hair, tilting his head pointedly as some of his waves began to rise, too.
“Skye,” I said lowly.
“You keep riling her up, and she’ll kill us,” Levi muttered. “Zephyr ever tell you about his fingers?”
“Dad,” Zephyr whispered, his expression bewildered.
Skye’s silver eyes flashed, and I quickly stepped in front of Levi.
I knew she wouldn’t hurt me, but I couldn’t say the same for him, and she would feel bad about it later if she hurt him.
Even now her hands trembled, making Aiden wince as she squeezed his shoulders, but he also didn’t move out of fear that she’d attack someone.
“She split the porch once,” Levi went on, looking to Wyatt. “Did you know that?”
I sneered at him as shadows began to vibrate around my feet. Trying to sow discord in the Chain?
Wyatt crouched down so that he was eye-level with Levi.
“Split the porch?”
“Yeah,” Levi nodded vigorously, his shoulders deflating a bit in relief that someone was listening to him. “Zephyr was teasing her. Made the whole house groan. Not surprised she never told you. There’s a lot of things about her you don’t know.”
“You wanna know what I do know?” Wyatt said, then continued before Levi could interject.
“What I know is that woman held up a building a few days ago. Thousands of pounds, and she wasn’t struggling.
Then she held my ribs in place while your son fused my bones back together.
I also know she crushed the men who’d hurt you, then restarted your heart and teleported you to safety.
She sacrificed her teenage years to care for you while you ignored her, and glared at her, and made her feel as if she’d done something wrong – all while she grieved the loss of her mother. ”
Wyatt grabbed the collar of Levi’s shirt, and Zephyr lurched forward, stopping when I caught his shoulder.
“I was grieving, too!” Levi cried.
Wyatt shook Levi, his rage barely contained as he spoke through clenched teeth. “You are the most selfish man I’ve ever met.” He threw him down. “You’re lower than low to me.”
“Well you’ll have to forgive me. The son of a lawyer calling me low doesn’t exactly bother me,” Levi snarled as he sat up.
“I did what I had to do to keep us safe. I always did what I had to do to keep us safe, and if Iris had listened to me…” He looked back at the concrete floor, scrubbing a hand down his face.
“Why?” Skye demanded. “Is this really because I don’t belong to the Chain?!”
“Skye…of course you belong to the Chain…” Zephyr’s expression crumpled.
“You knew something was wrong and you didn’t fucking tell me!” Levi was shouting by the time he was done, and the shadows had hit their limit. “You lied to me!”
Darkness enveloped him as Skye screamed in frustration. “You scared me! I thought you wanted to fucking kill me half the time!”
“Half the time, I fucking did!” Levi shouted back.
“You don’t belong here, you never have! Not in my Chain, anyway.
But your mother didn’t belong to me, either.
She chose me, and then she didn’t. And then I had to raise someone else’s daughter with some cursed fucking affinities, and when it came down to it, you didn’t fucking save any of us. Iris is dead because of you!”
Before any of us could react, Zephyr lunged, punching his father in the face. Levi’s head hit the metal bed frame behind him, and his eyes rolled back before he righted himself, nearly unconscious. He scrambled to stay upright, and then…
Levi disappeared, because of course…Zephyr’s incorporeality was genetic.
All hell broke loose.
Shadows filled every corner, searching for his form. Zephyr and Aiden began waving their arms in front of them as they tried to find him. Wyatt only stared at the place where Levi had been, shaking his head in disappointment.
Skye screamed.
Another scream of frustration, and then it was as if she were a bomb that exploded, sending medical equipment, monitors, and even the armchairs careening through the air, slamming into the walls in one big boom.
Levi was gone, but I wish he’d stayed.
Once again, even in the throes of emotion, Skye hadn’t harmed any of us with her affinity.
Zephyr dropped to his knees beside Skye as she hid her face in her hands, and he pulled her close, not afraid of her in the slightest.
“He’s wrong. I told you before, I’ll tell you everyday. He’s so wrong.”