| |
Everything was not fine. As the effects of the candy began to wear off, I noted things about my friend. She wasn't her happy-go-lucky self. She wasn't quick-witted like she had been, and she seemed to be nervous about being away from those guys back there. I couldn't help but wonder what fuckin’ happened to her.
It simply took a little prying to discover the horrific event she’d recently gone through. She had found her mom's family, if you could even fuckin’ call them that, and who she was: a descendant of Anna Caldwell, who created a curse. The same curse that had caused her and me to be sick. Then she was kidnapped in her weakest state by one of the shitty Lydent councilmen greedy for higher power, and he attempted to take her life, her light. During her rescue, people died. The Spirit Whisper (that was the goddess’s name) summoned her to the same place I went to with all the pictures, and she saw her past.
“Why do you think we went there?” I asked, thinking maybe she knew why we were picked and not others. “I was told that it’s special to go there. Rare.”
“I don't know,” she answered softly.
We gazed up at the midday sky, still spread out on the trampoline. “I don't know why these things are happening to us or why it is this way. I went to that same room you did and saw the Spirit Whisperer. I don’t think it’s the last time we’ll see her.”
“Carly thinks we’re a part of something big,” Hannah admitted.
“Carly?” I repeated, twisting my head her way. Hannah kept her gaze at the clouds. “That same woman you wanted me to look into?”
“Yeah. She carries a rare talent. That's how she found me. Hooks-”
I raised up on an elbow, wanting her attention. “Who's Hooks? One of your guy friends?”
She shifted my way and shook her head. “No, he was an ancient man. A man that did everything he could to right a wrong and to turn things back the way they should be.”
I lifted off my elbow, peering around my backyard, now more aware of how out in the open we were. “Was he a dark light?”
She sat up, doing the same thing. “Not when I met him, but at one time I suspect he might have been.” She really was not her usually spunky self, and I knew talking about all this was upsetting her.
“Hm.” I gave her a shoulder bump, switching the subject. She needed the unexpected, something to make her laugh. “Tell me about your guys. Have you done the deed yet? And how many of them.”
She snorted and tossed me a mischievous glance. “Are you still trying to get me to fess up?”
I threw her a smirk. “Do you have something to fess up?”
“No,” she claimed in a firm tone. “Not yet but hoping to soon. With five of them, it’s not going to be a quick thing.”
I snorted. “Not if you took them all at once.”
She shoved me, and I laughed.
Coyly, she passed the question back. “How about you? And don't tell me you don't have any guys panting after you, or you haven’t caught yourself a harem like you had said so openly on the phone.”
My grin faltered as I reflected on how messed up it was with the guys. “It's not as entertaining as I figured it would be,” I said truthfully, not actually answering her question. “In fact, it’s pretty damn confusing. You have five; I merely have four—well, technically two—but the other two have staked their claims and one of my” – I brought my fingers up, making quotations – “‘bondmates’ is having a rough time with it,” I explained, shrugging. “If I had to say there was some difference between the four of them, I couldn't, but I recognize a difference between them and other Lydents... like Naylor. Even though he’s handsome, it’s different.”
Hannah drew back, her face scrunching up. “Naylor. What kind of name is that?”
I tossed her a grin. “I know, right? It's like Sailor and Taylor put together. He's the Sailor Taylor who’s gonna nail-her. Get it? Nailer? And you know, being out to sea all that time... Sailors like to get them some-some when they get home.”
She giggled and shoved my shoulder until I tumbled over. “Stop. Stop with the puns.”
“Hey, I have them,” I told her, righting myself back into a sitting position. “Got to get them out somehow.”
She sighed and reached for my hand once again. “So, are you good, now? No more crazy hyper stuff?”
I did a self-check and concluded that I was indeed better. “I'm good. What are we going to do when we go back?”
“Did they talk to you about going to Hydrent?”
“Yeah, Myra brought it up. Did you know she's one of the owners of Frost clothing? She took me shopping, and I got all these new clothes.”
She squeezed my hand. “I know you want to stay here, in this little bubble of ours, but it's time to go back. Our guys are probably frantic trying to figure out where we are.”
I scoffed. “Nah, mine just want to control me.”
“By the way,” she questioned slyly. “You still didn’t answer my question. Have you gotten down and dirty with your bondmates yet?”
“I can't...” I shrunk back into myself, struggling to figure a way out of this conversation. I avoided her gaze. “It’s time to go back to the lodge.”
She clutched my hand, her gaze worried. “Trace, this isn’t like you. What’s going on?”
Nope. I wasn't going there. Not now. “I don't want to talk about it.”
“But I told you everything about me.” She sounded hurt, and her concern was evident by the drawing in of her eyebrows and downward tilt of her mouth.
Yeah, she’d told me everything, but this was different. She was tied up and feared for her life, but I was tied up and paralyzed while someone did things to me, things I didn’t want them to do. It wasn't something I wished to look back on again. It was... personal. And it was the reason I was hesitant of actual sex. That I was broken.
“Trace,” she murmured.
With her still gripping my hand, I thought of the lodge and we appeared in the middle of the entrance lying on the floor. I drew my hand back and bounced up. “I’m not ready.”
She stood as well. “Fine. But when you’re ready, I’m here.”
I acknowledged that, keeping my focus on the stairs in front of us.
“So, I can eat whatever I want now...” she hinted from behind me.
I swung back around to find a rebellious light within her eyes and smirked. “Yeah?”
Her lips quirked upward. “Mm-hm. How about we wash away our problems with ice cream? You do know where the ice cream might be, right?”
Laughing, I captured her hand and dragged her to the kitchen. “I don’t know where it is, but we can do some searching.”
***
That's where the guys found us, in the lodge kitchen searching their freezer for the very thing they seemed to lack—ice cream.
Hannah was sitting on the counter behind me offering encouraging support that there might be some in there... deep at the bottom. Her reasoning? It was a freezer. All freezers had ice cream. I held up a bulk size bag of frozen green beans with my head still inside the freezer while continuing to look for that cold treat. "Damn, babe, all they have are vegetables! The damn green things and carrots, peas. Shit, not one ounce of sugar! I'm telling you," I declared, pulling my head out of there and feeling more like myself, "they aren't huma-" I froze because my best friend had neglected to tell me we had company. Mate kind of company.
You'd think being in a room full of the guys that followed me around was intimidating, well when you had Hannah's and mine? It was an "oh shit" kind of moment. Nine. Nine guys stood in this spacious kitchen and dominated it.
The five guys I didn't know surrounded Hannah.
I dropped the bag of green beans back inside the freezer and shut the door. Mine? Well, Justin and Cameron were behind the fridge door, which I didn't know until I closed it.
"Whoa." Startled, I backed up until hands met my hips. I tensed.
"Watch yourself, Sweetheart." Nox.
"Yeah, what were you searching for anyways?" Thad.
Damn. I frowned over to Hannah who seemed amused, as if she couldn’t hold onto her laughter. "You were being pretty vocal there, my friend," she snickered.
I fired her a playful glare. "What happened to the friendship loyalty pact?"
That caused the dam to break as she twisted her head into a giant of a guy’s shoulder and laughed. "It was sooo worth it to see your face!"
My lips twisted, and I folded my arms. "That shoulder’s not hiding the fact you're laughing at my expense."
She laughed harder. "I-I-I know."
My lips twitched.
"As much as I'm enjoying this fucked up situation because Hannah's laughing, what the fuck is going on?" the redhead with a bad attitude, tattoos, and ear piercings—not to be mistaken with his obvious twin who was a preppy boy with a clean slate and pretty boy clothing—growled. He was the one standing beside the black haired tall dude Hannah was laughing into.
I scowled at him and he glowered back. "Fuck you. I was looking for ice cream."
Hannah was still laughing, and her guys were glancing nervously at her as if she was going crazy.
Nox squeezed my hips. "Settle down."
"No." I was totally milking this for all it was worth. "We need ice cream. She needs it because she can now have sugar and there's a ton of flavors I want her to try, and I need it because I was sulking and needed a pick-me-up."
"Ok," Thad said, coming in hot as he shoved Nox out of his way and spun me around to pick me up. Like a kid!
I whacked his shoulder. "Thad!"
He slapped my thigh. "Quiet."
I wriggled around while he still held me and sought out Justin. He didn’t look mad or even angry, but I knew he wasn’t going to help either. I peered over to Cameron who put a hand behind his neck, avoiding my gaze as he glanced over to the rest of the crew. "So, are we all getting ice cream?"
"Yes!" Hannah yelled from somewhere out of my eyesight.
I tapped Thad’s shoulder. “Turn around.”
He chuckled and did as I asked.
"Ah hell," one of her mates voiced. It was the one with the blond-ish colored hair who looked like he had a stick up his ass.
That's when the tall dude Hannah was leaning up against asked about school.
"Fuck school," the badass twin growled as he gestured to all of us. "What the hell was your friend doing coming and fucking grabbing Hannah like that?" He shifted to my friend. "Is she like you?"
Thad tensed from beneath me as I struggled to get out of his grip. "Fuck no, nu-uh." I jabbed Thad in the chest hard enough he let me slip down so my feet touched the ground, but he still had a hold on me when I went to charge after the asshole who’d blamed Hannah for all of this. "You can't fuckin' blame her when it was Thad's fault!"
“I wasn’t totally at fault,” he muttered.
Badass twin swung his gaze to me, and his eyes flared. "I wasn't fucking blaming her!"
Hannah jumped off the counter with her hands up to badass and me. "Whoa-whoa-whoa. Let's all just calm down."
"Good luck with that," his twin muttered.
She threw him a glare before she turned to me with a slight smile. "Look, Trace, they’re good, okay? You don't have to protect me from them. They'd never hurt me."
I struggled to relax. "He shouldn't talk to you like that."
Someone snorted. "He wasn't talking to her like anything. He was dishing it at you. You just took it the wrong way," Justin explained, glaring at the badass twin. "Which I'm not too sure I liked either."
The two of them were standoffish before bouncer dude, almost the same build as Nox and Thad, spoke up from the back of the group. "I don't know about all of you, but I'd like to grab some names and an explanation. So, since we're all fighting except me, I'll go first. Quinn Abbott. Hannah's favorite bondmate."
"Hey!" Hannah twisted around just as preppy fellow and his twin hit him.
Quinn grunted, stepping back but not in time as badass caught him. "Asshole."
The blondish haired guy tipped his head to us. "Jamison Hooks."
He was followed by the tall one. "Drex."
"No last name?" Cameron challenged, lifting an eyebrow.
His jaw ticked, sparing Cameron a glance. "No." Hannah patted his shoulder with a smirk playing on her lips. There must be a story behind that one.
"Win Churchill." Preppy boy waved.
His twin twisted back from Quinn and rotated his shoulders, scowling at me. "Snowden Churchill." Then he gave a chin nod to us. "Your turn."
Cameron went first. "Cameron Moye, but you can call me Cam."
"Nox Harnail," Nox supplied.
"Justin Grist."
With each name, Hannah's guys’ eyes flew wide.
Thad tightened his grip on me. "Thad Wherry."
"Wherry, Grist, Moye, and Harnail?" Win choked while his twin seemed thoughtful. The others around them looked at one another. They knew something.
"Yeah," Thad growled. "Now I'm ready for ice cream. Who's coming?"