Chapter 27
Along silver sword comes toward me and slams straight into my stomach. Pain, sharp and hot blazes through me.
My knees hit the ground as darkness surrounds me. My head quickly follows as an icy cold infiltrates my body and mind, slowly consuming it.
“Sena?” Cyrus appears in front of me in the dark. His panicked gaze flitting over me. “Wake up, Sena. WAKE UP!” he shouts.
I jolt awake with a gasp and find Cyrus in front of me, his eyes glued to my stomach as his hands reach out to touch it. I whimper the minute his finger grazes it and glance down to find a deep wound about two inches wide.
The dream… Shock filters through my system making me think that what I’m seeing isn’t real.
Logically, it shouldn’t be possible to be harmed in a dream.
But I guess I don’t live in the logical world.
I’ve been attacked before in dreams. But that was before I learned how to use a shield that somehow protected my dreams too.
I thought it was the thing protecting me from whoever attacked me then. But I guess they were just lying in wait.
My body trembles as Cyrus works hard to heal me. But for some reason it doesn’t heal as fast.
I glance around my dorm room at Ember, Maia and Remi. Luckily, they’re all still asleep.
Keeping my eye on them, I bite my lip to snuff out any sound that may slip out and hope they stay asleep.
All I need right now is them finding out that I was just attacked and there would be a list of endless questions I’m not ready to answer.
A sigh of relief slips through my lips as the pain finally starts to subside.
Cyrus’ worried gaze flits to mine before staring at my stomach and continuing to silently heal me. A couple more minutes pass, and I’m completely healed, but he doesn’t lose his worried look or say anything.
Instead, he slides his arms under me and lifts me up, wraps his shadows around us and silently carries me out of the room.
A blur of trees and buildings flash across my vision before everything slows down, and he brings me to their old barracks.
Cyrus walks inside and places me gently on one of the single beds before he gathers some items, returning to clean the red blood off my stomach.
Red blood… I reach up and thumb the pendant Cassius gave me.
At least it’s still working, concealing my gold blood and energy. Not that I really need to worry about it with the guys.
My top and underwear are completely ruined, but Cyrus already has one of his t-shirts beside me.
He starts cleaning the blood off my stomach while I try not to look at the shitty room they’ve been placed in.
“I hate that you are all forced to stay in this disgusting place,” I tell him.
He shakes his head like it’s no big deal. “It’s fine. It’s only a place to sleep. Don’t worry about it.” He cleans off the rest of the blood before turning to clean his hands.
My throat closes up, my eyes stinging. “Why does he still have you all here? Haven’t you already paid your punishment enough. Why—”
“Sena,” he says with a heavy sigh as he turns to me. “You just got attacked in your dream. I don’t give a fuck about a room. It’s—”
“Do not tell me it’s fine. It’s far from fucking fine. How—I mean, why?!” My heart breaks the more I look around the room. “Animals would be treated better than this.”
Cyrus moves over to me and pulls me into the warmth of his body. “It’s a shitty room, yes, but we’re close to you, that’s all that matters.”
Warmth fills my chest with his word. But no matter what he says, this is still wrong.
Levington is really going to fucking pay for the way he’s treated them.
“Where is everyone?” I ask.
“Malakai and Theon are out training in the senior camp. Knox is doing a little… surveillance.”
I try to reach out to Knox but pause when I come up against a wall.
I look at Cyrus. “I can’t reach Knox. It’s like he’s blocking me out.”
Cyrus’ brows dip. “He wouldn’t,” he says with complete confidence. But something is happening with the connection between us all. And from the look on his face, Cyrus agrees with me.
If they’re not blocking me out, and I’m not blocking them out… At least, I’m not blocking them out on purpose.
I remember the split with my Alita side. And if that happened because of the switch, maybe it also messed up other things inside me.
Like our bond.
My stomach drops at the thought, but I need to tell him. “Maybe it’s me? Maybe there’s something wrong with me—”
Cyrus dips down and places a kiss on my lips silencing my worries. “You’re fucking perfect. Every inch of you. There’s nothing wrong with you. Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.”
I smile at the little angry frown directed my way and reach out to smooth it before giving him a worried look that makes him pause.
“Something happened to me just before we all started talking again.” I frown thinking back to the moment. “I went for a walk to clear my head and my Alita side just kind of took over.” My eyes flicker to Cyrus’ to find him watching me with nothing but soft patience in his eyes.
“It was like I had this out of body experience and she… I mean my Alita side told me we were split because of the switch. That my powers are unstable because of it.”
Cyrus’ brows dip as he brushes a stray piece of hair behind my ear. “What can we do to help?”
I shake my head. “Don’t you understand? The connection not working, blocking us out from one another at random times might be all because of me.”
Not a lick of worry coats his face as he pulls me closer to him and glides his hands up my back, soothing every tense and stressed muscle and bone.
“It doesn’t matter because we’ll figure it out. Once we’re together.” He places a kiss on my brow. “In the meantime, is there anything we can do to help with your Alita side?”
I smile and shake my head. “No. She said it’s basically up to me. That us merging will happen when I’m ready. I just have to be open to it.”
“Then there’s nothing to worry about,” he points out and I nod, completely relaxed and at ease with his arms wrapped around me.
His words ease something inside me, but then my eyes fall on the room around me, and I mentally recoil at the image. “I still can’t believe you all have to stay here.”
Cyrus shrugs. “We’ve lived in worse.”
I pull back and raise a brow. “Your house at the Shadow Academy was twenty times better than this.” I glance around the room again and my stomach drops realizing the only reason they’re here is because of me.
“And I took you away from it. I—” He kisses me again, this time longer until I’m left breathless.
He pulls back to look at me, his eyes soft and full of love.
“We may have had a nice house, but we were barely surviving. All of us were hanging on by a thread. The madness was closing in around us, slowly suffocating us. But from the minute you showed up, something settled inside us. Being around you and your light, slowly lured us back from the dark. This…” he glances around before looking back at me.
“Is just a place. But you… You are our home.”
His words immediately chase away any worries or doubts and instantly fill my chest with warmth and relief.
His lips brush my brow. “Get changed and let’s get some sleep.”
I step away from him and grab his tee and head for the bathroom and close the door over. But it won’t budge.
I glance back at Cyrus, and he gives me a little shrug and smile.
Instead of trying to find a place to change, I start to strip and watch as Cyrus’ gaze darkens with heat.
“A gentleman would turn around,” I tell him, but he makes no move to turn away.
Instead, a hungry look flickers across his face. “There’s nothing gentle about me.”
A warm shiver brushes down my spine as I throw on the tee. I try to ignore his heated stare as I discard my destroyed underwear and glance around for something to wear under the tee.
I catch the glint in his eye and narrow my eyes on him. “You seem to have forgotten something.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.
” His smile it outright devilish as he moves over to me.
Stepping into the small bathroom, his eyes trail down my body before finding mine while his hands skim up my thighs.
He hauls me up and places me on the small counter and my legs immediately wrap around his back as he hardens between us.
“So fucking perfect,” he breathes against my cheek before sliding his lips down my jaw and neck.
Heat pools low in my stomach as I absorbed the feel of him.
God, I want him. I tilt my head back to give him better access, and he takes full advantage of it, brushing his lips and tongue across every inch of my neck and jaw.
Every thought, worry and fear of the last few hours disappears with his touch, I don’t care that I’m completely naked under the tee, only needing to be closer to him the more I feel the heat of his body against mine.
“When will the others be back?” I curl my fingers up into his hair and tilt his face to look at me, but my eyes keep flickering to his lips.
“Not until much later,” he rasps before capturing my lips in a long, liquid kiss that has my blood humming in my veins.
“Tell me to stop…” he breathes against my lips before moving to my jaw and cheek.
“No,” I reply too quickly and feel his smirk at the side of my face. “I want you,” I tell him as pleasure licks at every sense and nerve.
He freezes and pulls back to watch me, and whatever he sees has him groaning this low husky sound that slides down my back like silk.
His pupils expand nearly covering his entire iris. Almost like his shadow side is more in control. But I know he’s not lost to the madness, so it must be his Shadow nightmare side.
Without leaving my eyes, he takes the edge of my t-shirt and rips it in half before pulling it off my body and throwing it to the floor. Stepping back his gaze roams over every inch of my bare body, his eyes lingering on his marking at my hip a second longer before he gets to his knees.
“Cyrus…”