A Portrait of Pain

by Jane Washington

  I had absolutely no idea what time it was. It had been dark when I had woken up, but Noah and Cabe had said that Miro and Silas would be back tonight, so I couldn’t have woken up very late. Many of the lights were still on in the windows of the mansion, too. We took the elevator up to the top floor, heading straight for Miro’s old room. I knocked on the door once before pushing it open, surprised to find that Tariq wasn’t alone. Sophie and Sophia were both lounging in the sitting room, reading. Tariq was sitting at a desk pushed up against the wall, writing something. He glanced up when the door opened—as though it opened all the time, admitting people in and out, but he paused when he saw me, his pen clattering to the desk.

  “Seph?” He sounded unsure, his voice quavering.

  The Sophies both jumped up, and Tariq stumbled out of his chair, launching across the room to pull me into his arms. Behind me, the guys tensed. I wondered how long it would take for them to calm down.

  “You’re okay?” Sophia asked, joining in the hug—apparently too impatient to wait her turn. It made me smile.

  “You look okay,” Sophie added. “But … you …”

  I didn’t want to hear about it, so I quickly tugged the other woman into a hug and then pulled back, returning to Noah and Cabe. They visibly relaxed, each of them placing a hand against my spine.

  “I’m okay now,” I told them all, warmth blooming momentarily inside my chest.

  “Am I imagining shit?” a voice called out from the hallway.

  Clarin appeared a moment later, pushing past Cabe to get through the doorway. He stared at me for several seconds before bursting forward, a curse dropping from his mouth. He swooped me up, and an audible growl sounded from one of my pairs. He carefully set me down, glancing over his shoulder before squeezing my arm and taking a small step away from me. He must have recognised the seriousness of the sound just as I had. Noah and Cabe were nowhere near as in control as they looked.

  “I can’t believe you’re standing here right now, mouse.” Clarin skipped back to the hallway, shouting out Poison’s name.

  She appeared a moment later, wearing only a bathrobe, her hair still damp from a shower. She blinked when she saw me, and then she was flying at me the same way everyone else had. The hug barely lasted half a second before she was torn off me and I was sandwiched between two very tense males.

  “What the hell?” she blurted, concern painting her features as she glanced between the three of us.

  “Sorry,” I said, laying a hand against each of them. “It’s been … difficult for them.”

  She nodded, accepting my response as though she should have thought of it herself, and then we all simply fell about the room, taking up spots and looking at each other. Occasionally someone would bring up a topic of conversation, but it quickly fizzed out. They were all still in shock, the same way Noah and Cabe had been. We were curled up on one of the armchairs now, Noah anchoring me to his lap while Cabe sat on the arm of the chair, his hand in my hair. His fingers were tracing across my skull gently, his nails occasionally scraping, reminding me of the sharp bite of his teeth. I shivered with the memory, my eyes seeking out Noah’s. There was already heat in his expression, as though he had felt the sudden change in my body. His arms wrapped tighter around me. Cabe’s hand flexed in my hair.

  “You’re a hero now,” Clarin announced, distracting me from the spell Noah and Cabe had been slowly weaving over me.

  I blinked, turning my head. “What? How?”

  “You’ve gone from the most suspicious person in the country to some kind of dark angel rising from the ashes of a difficult life to save a whole bunch of people.”

  “I … what?”

  “Turns out the humans are really good at manipulating the media,” Poison explained. “They started reporting that all those videos of you that were leaked have actually been edited, and then they showed different footage, apparently the real footage, making you out to be a hero.”

  The door flipped open before I could form a reply, and Jayden strode in. His eyes fixed on me immediately. “I heard your voice,” he blurted out.

  “I’d get up and hug you, but …” I glanced down as the arms around my middle tightened again.

  “Understandable.” Jayden flicked his eyes to Noah and Cabe for a moment, and when he looked at me again, I could see the astonishment and wonder in his eyes, mixed with grief and pain and so many other things. “I got a call just now … I was coming to tell everyone.”

  Silence met his statement, until Sophie finally stood. “What happened?”

  “Danny is dead. We’re not entirely sure how, but we think he might have turned his power inwards and killed himself. There aren’t any wounds.”

  “When?” A numb feeling had crept over my body and my eyes were clinging to Jayden’s. I could see the confusion inside him as easily as I could feel it inside myself. The confusion over whether to grieve or embrace numbness.

  “About an hour and a half ago,” Jayden replied gently.

  The irony hit me all at once, a laughing sob escaping me. “An hour and a half ago,” I repeated, the world turning a little hazy around the edges as my mind began to spin.

  An hour and a half ago, my twin and I had both won our fights against death. I pictured his young face, the terrified tears tracking down his cheeks.

  ‘Die,’ he used to plead with himself, pressing his hands against his chest and willing the power to end his suffering.

  He had finally succeeded, just as I had finally succeeded in clawing myself back to life, fighting off the cloud of death that had hung so insistently around me.

  There was something horribly heartbreaking about that coincidence; something that had me weeping for the little boy who had once been my family.

  “He’s gone,” I whispered, looking up at Jayden again.

  “But we’re not,” Jayden countered, a solemn look in his eyes. “Because of you.”

  I nodded, and felt my eyes drawn toward Tariq. I wanted to throw myself across the room and hug him again, but I didn’t want to cause my pairs any more strain than necessary. It didn’t seem to matter; Tariq smiled at me, his eyes understanding. The warmth he emanated, the familiar gangly way he held himself, and the fact that he still didn’t brush his hair … it was almost too much. I wanted to burst into sobs and thank him over and over again for staying alive. For not succumbing to the darkness and the terror of the world the way the rest of us had.

  An hour later, the doors burst open again, but I had been prepared for it this time. I had felt my other pair drawing closer. They must have been chasing the same feeling, leading them to the top floor of the main house. Silas reached me first, tearing me out of Noah’s arms. For the first time, Noah and Cabe both released me willingly, and I felt no tension from them as I embraced Silas. Miro didn’t want to wait, pulling one of my arms around his neck, his arm wrapping around me just as Silas’s was. They both drew me off the ground, and I tried to cling to them at the same time. I was pressed between them, not even a breath’s worth of space left inside my lungs as they crushed me in their arms. The whole embrace was wordless, and when my feet hit the ground, Miro was the one to finally speak.

  “I’m sorry, but we need to go.”

  Even though he was still staring at me, he seemed to be talking to everyone else in the room. Noah and Cabe rose, and Silas tossed me over his shoulder, not even giving me the option of walking. He didn’t offer an apology like Miro did—he simply exited the room and carried me toward the elevator. He didn’t set me down when we exited the main house, or even when we passed into my cottage. He carried me all the way to the second level and then started tugging his clothes off.

  I felt my eyes widening, and I took an involuntary step backwards. I had been fairly certain that I could handle Cabe and Noah in my weakened state, but a wound-up Silas was a completely different story. His lips twitched, almost a smile, like he was reading my mind.

  “Not tonight, angel. We just need … contact.”
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br />   I nodded, my hands moving to my shirt. For the second time that night, I undressed myself, but this time all four of them were watching. I pulled the shirt off, leaving my tank on beneath, and Miro started to undress too. Silas’s muscles bunched as he kicked his boots off and tugged his belt free, and I tried to avert my eyes to Miro, my fingers shaking too much to finish the job of undressing.

  They were making me nervous.

  Cabe was at my side in an instant, his hands shaping to my face. He smiled at me, his face transforming, reminding me of the warm glow of sunlight. He kissed my lips, and my body immediately relaxed. I felt Noah at my other side, his fingers brushing the bare inch of skin below the hem of my tank. He slipped my shorts down, leaving my underwear on, and then he and Cabe both backed off.

  Clearly, more than a few seconds had passed while Noah and Cabe distracted me, because Silas and Miro were both already in my bed, the covers up around their waists. When I didn’t immediately move to him, Silas flipped back the cover and grabbed me, drawing me to the bed. I was relieved to see him wearing the stretchy sleep shorts that he usually wore to bed, but I was also distracted with the question of where they had come from.

  “Have you guys been living here?” I asked, as Silas tumbled me onto the mattress between him and Miro. “Here as in this house?”

  His hand landed on my stomach, his body pressing up against the side of mine. Miro claimed my other side, his fingers tracing down the inside of my arm.

  “Of course we have,” he muttered, his fingers reaching my palm. His nail scratched from the center of my palm down to the base of my middle finger, and for some reason that made me shiver.

  Noah and Cabe pulled out the mattresses from beneath the bed, and Cabe switched off the lights. I guessed it was bedtime.

  “Should we talk about everything that happened?” I asked the dark room.

  In answer, Silas half-rolled over me, his mouth claiming mine. The kiss was rough and almost vicious, ending as quickly as it had begun. He trailed his lips over my jaw, his voice rough in my ear. “No.”

  “Okay …” My voice wavered, my hand brushing against his shoulder. He kissed his way to my chest and then slumped against me, half-covering my body.

  A hand slid along my jaw, turning my head to the side, and I was caught by another pair of dark eyes. Miro didn’t speak, only watched me as the breathing of the others evened out with sleep. Noah and Cabe went first, and Silas shifted against me once, his hand settling on my stomach before he became heavy.

  I wasn’t tired—not after sleeping for a week straight—but it eventually became too much for me to keep my eyes open under the weight of Miro’s careful stare. As soon as I closed my eyes, I felt a touch against my lower lip. His hand had shifted up, his thumb dragging across the sensitive skin of my mouth. I kept my eyes closed, enjoying the curious touch. He parted my lips briefly, the pad of this thumb pressing against my teeth. He slid closer, his breath mingling with mine.

  “Do you know how hard it is not to take you right now?” he whispered, his finger dragging up to the corner of my mouth and then tracing up the slope of my cheekbone. When his long fingers threaded into my hair, gripping my skull, I had to swallow against the urge to climb over him and ask him to do just that. “I thought we were about to lose you for good,” he continued, pulling my mouth to his. The kiss was brief—just as Silas’s had been. He pulled back, but he didn’t go far, only far enough to meet my eyes again.

  It was on the tip of my tongue, the need to ask him why, but he must have seen the question in my eyes.

  “I can’t be gentle right now,” he said, pulling his hand away from my face. “Not the way you need it. We need to calm down first.”

  We both grew silent, and I considered arguing with him. On one hand, I felt the same urgency that they did. That need to claim and merge, after so much had threatened to tear us apart … but I was weak. I was afraid that I would actually pass out during the act, so I kept my mouth shut. When his eyes finally closed, I leaned forward and brushed my lips over his cheek. After an hour, he was asleep, and another hour passed before I followed him into oblivion.

  When I woke up, the room was empty, the sheets on either side of me cold. I could feel Silas close by, but I couldn’t see him, so I simply closed my eyes, clinging to that uneven pattering of his heartbeat beside mine, until the bed dipped and the smell of coffee hit me. I lurched up, my eyes snapping open. He was setting a breakfast tray against the side of the bed, but he froze at how quickly I had moved.

  “You’re awake,” he noted.

  “You cooked me breakfast,” I returned, my eyes riveted to the tray, the shock in my voice plain to hear.

  “Nobody told you?” He quirked a brow. “We’re celebrating. The humans have agreed to not arrest you and try you for murder, under the special condition that you report your visions to them.”

  “Report my visions?” I parroted, as he moved the tray to the bedside and sat beside me instead.

  “That’s right. They want you to focus on tracking down other terrorists like Danny for a while.”

  “Danny was a terrorist?”

  “According to them.” Silas inched forward, his hand moving to the other side of my thigh, his face hovering closer. “And you’re the preventative measure they need.”

  “That’s a lot of pressure,” I pointed out, trying not to get distracted by the feel of his chest brushing against mine.

  “But you can do it from here, and you never have to get involved in any of their wars, or ours … ever again.”

  “So that’s why you’re celebrating,” I said.

  “Obviously.” He ducked forward, stealing a kiss and then mumbling against my lips. “If you really need to fight with someone, you can fight with me.”

  I found my smile curving, but he kissed it away, gently opening my mouth with his tongue.

  “You know my valcrick can hurt you,” I panted, when he came up for air. “If I really want it to. You’re not completely immune.”

  “Try me,” he goaded, his lips taking mine again.

  Maybe he thought I wouldn’t, but his kisses were lowering my inhibitions, so it wasn’t hard to let the valcrick slip out. It poured out of me, draping over his shoulders, drawing a groan from his throat.

  “Wrong emotion, angel.” He pushed my legs apart, moving over me fully, his kiss demanding more from me all of a sudden.

  I pushed my body up against his, the urgency from the night before returning to me with a rush. My hands slipped beneath his shirt, clutching at the muscles that ridged his abdomen. He grabbed my hands before I could explore further, separating from me. I thought that he would leave, but he was only tearing away the barriers of clothing that remained between us. When he settled between my legs again, we were both bare, and a rumbling sound vibrated from his chest.

  “If you’re not ready—” he started, but cut himself off with a hiss when my hand wrapped around him. “Yes. Fuck.”

  He pulled my hand up beside my head and pushed inside me, swallowing my whimper of pain in another kiss. I loved that feeling, and already knew that I would crave it again as soon as it was over. I was beginning to feel as though my whole world was made up of beautiful things that had been born out of pain. As Silas pushed me closer to the edge, I knew that this would be one of them. Each drag of pain was followed by a wave of such strong emotion that I began to realise that I had never truly known ecstasy until that moment. Until Silas was begging me to let go, until he was holding himself inside me and releasing a groan into my neck, sharp with mingled relief and pain. When the sweat dried on our skin and he dragged me from the bed to the shower, I knew that it would take a long, long time for the smile to finally fall from my face again.

  There used to be a place inside my mind that didn’t belong, a place that I tried my best to ignore. It was overruling and underrated all at once—it had the power to stop a heart, but it was as subtle as a whisper along my spine. I made excuses for it, satiating its unsp
oken need to flee recognition and stalk, unseen, claiming the darkness all around me. I used to think that there was safety in simplicity—that the electricity dancing across the backs of my eyelids and the sparks slithering over my consciousness were a damning mutation; that the terrible chill of premonition within my paintings would lead me into a life of pain. But I was wrong.

  Pain had never been a stranger in a painting, or a shock of feeling jarring through my heart. Pain had been with me from the start; it was the very shadow that dogged my steps.

  I had mistaken it for peace: my quiet, violent little hell-hole of a life. I had thought that if I stayed quiet, if I stayed hidden, unknown, and unassuming … peace and pain would simply merge and become one.

  I had never considered the possibility that pain could heal, or that peace was something that happened after. What I had been feeling had not been peace, it had been calm. Specifically, the calm before the storm that would rip my life apart.

  It was the sparks that brought me back to life, the visions that led me to love.

  And my pairs. They were the ones who eventually gave me peace.

  I swiped my finger beneath the slope of a hill, catching a drip of the watercolour paint and smudging it upwards, shading in the angle of the setting sun over the landscape. Miro was sitting only a foot away, his back to me, his attention on his own canvas. He had no idea what I had just painted, and that made my smile grow so wide that it almost hurt.

  I jumped off the stool, tossing my brush back into the cup of water. The scene spread out before me, sparking something beautiful up inside my chest. The hills were a familiar sight to me: it was the view from the middle cottage of our home—we had built interconnecting walkways bridging the three houses that we had claimed at Le Chateau, even though Jack had begged us to move back into the main mansion. We had all refused, preferring the paint-splattered floors and the murals. The memories. The warmth and comfort of something that we had nursed back to life with our own hands. The sense of a home that had heard so much laughter over a beautiful stone castle echoing with death.