Chapter VI
He hated her presence in their life.
It had been only been the two of them for the longest time, and life had finally found some normalcy after all the darkness. S?ren was content with what him and Arien had achieved. Content with where they were now.
Until her.
Now everything felt unstable again.
He'd known one day they would find a mate and choices would have to be made, but somehow his mind had firmly placed this reality into the distant future. And the mate they had received was nothing close to what he could deem acceptable.
Firstly, she was in bed with some seedy characters, the exact type of people he wanted nowhere near their life. Secondly, she had some sort of unusual upbringing for her knowledge on their kind was sorely lacking. But most importantly - she had tried to harm Arien.
S?ren couldn't quite discern whether his anger at this point was more owed to the fact that she dare do something to his brother, or that she dare betray her own mate.
Even if she didn't quite understand the concept of mates, she would have still felt the pull, a connection towards Arien upon seeing his face.
And she had blatantly ignored this instinct.
A cardinal sin.
These were all her faults. She was not good enough for them - definitely not for his brother.
But his conscience couldn't help but gnaw at him despite these judgements. The distasteful truth that loomed over his head was that, he too had broken the mate bond. Irredeemably harmed it, harmed her.
Soleil.
S?ren forced these thoughts out of his mind as he stalked into his study. He'd done what he had to do. He'd do it again. Anything to keep his brother safe. Keep their life together safe.
Instead of ever lingering on the wrong he'd committed, he instead reminded himself of her faults and failures.
The final one being that she was now damaged.
Irrevocably so.
Arien kept trying to talk to me, spend time with me, he seemed to just generally exist in his own delusional reality it seemed.
S?ren on the other hand was no where to be seen, I only ever caught unwanted glimpses of him in passing.
He very evidently didn't want me here. After finally learning the truth of them being twins, the more incredulous I felt.
They were literally night and day - absolutely no resemblance between the two.
I guess, the first nine days of me being here made that pretty clear.
Shit. Why didn't I think of that before?
He didn't want me here.
I just had to convince him to once again release me, convince him of how much he hated me and couldn't trust me or whatever. Also, S?ren didn't seem like the type who cared about what other people wanted. As long as this was what he wanted, and I already knew it was, he'd do it.
Deciding not to overthink and then inevitably think my way out of doing this, I hurried out of my room and made my way to the study Arien had led me to.
Upon arrival, I paused at the door and clenched my fists, my nails biting into my palms.
My inadvertent stop took me by surprise.
This new anxious feeling that constantly clung to me, never failed to take me by surprise. Doing and trying used to come so easily to me. Maybe even more so after arriving in this town, Gideon forced me to toughen and wise up, like my life depended on it.
Well, I guess it kind of did.
Even when I'd have to undertake something scary or seemingly insurmountable, it still came with a hint of a thrill. And now...now I had to force myself to breath and push away both thoughts and emotions of mine that I would usually embrace.
I hated that they'd done this to me. That they'd changed that part of me that was infinitely more important than my physical. My only consolation was that they'd never know, they'd get no satisfaction from me.
I steeled myself and forced my clenched hands open, shoving the large door ajar.
S?ren's sharp look up made me realize my spiraling thoughts had caused me to forget to knock.
Shit.
My pulse just continued to thump behind my eyes.
Refusing to look any weaker by apologizing, I simply took a deep breath and began my request.
"I came to see you because I know you don't want me here. Which means you can release me like you were planning to. I was hoping we could come to a compromise, whatever you want."
My words rushed out beneath my beating heart and I hoped I hadn't jumbled anything or said too much or not enough. I'd remained by the door without shutting it. I was brave but not that brave.
S?ren took his time responding as I drank in his features.
Somehow he almost seemed to fill out the room with his imposing form.
Not only was he tall and solidly built but there was more.
..an underlying current, or simmering power.
Maybe it was his dark eyes and sharply carved features but it almost hurt to look at him.
Like having a staring contest with a lethal animal.
And I instinctively knew I should be more scared, my old lingering survival skills recognised the danger.
But there was also something else. Something that drew my eyes back to him.
"That's no longer an option." His voice pierced through the haze that had settled over me from my staring episode.
I wanted to scream. That was IT!? That was all he was going to give me. I kept a steady hand on my rising hysteria.
"You have to let me go. This won't work – everything is royally fucked up because of you and your impervious brother. My life doesn't belong to you, you can't just keep me here! "
He simply stared back for an agonizing minute before cutting me with his next words, "Let's get one thing clear in case it wasn't," he leaned back in the process, looking lethal, regal somehow at once, "You have no say, no power here.
I sure as fuck don't want you here and if you hadn't already been suitably punished, I would have made your life much worse.
Instead, you don't exist to me. But you do to Arien.
You belong to him now and I can't take you away from him any longer. "
He was sinister and dangerous and I could still recognize that he wanted to hurt me.
I needed to keep as far away as possible from him, for my own self-preservation.
Fear gave way to something more, my world spun and spiraled and felt more out of control than ever.
I reached for the chair in front of me as if to anchor myself, my thoughts.
He made it sound so final. I knew it was final. S?ren didn't throw words around lightly.
I was stuck here , in this future for as long as they kept me here. Forget how hard I tried to take control of my life with Zodiac, how many months I planned my eventual escape.
It was all gone now, entirely out of reach.
Maybe it was my rising panic or the great finality of everything that caused my mouth to open and these words to spill out – I for one did not know the origin of my thought.
"Keep me here and I'll kill him. I'll kill Arien."
S?ren gave a surprising sardonic laugh, one tinged with venom nonetheless, "Forfeit your life if you wish, because then there would no longer be anything standing between me and your death."
I turned on my heel to escape his mocking, he didn't think I was capable of it.
Oh, I was capable of it.