Not his.
Only mine.
And I would have to live with it, at least for now.
“Gretchen?”
I glanced up, meeting his pained expression. His shoulders were slumped forward, and his hands were clenched at his sides. The tendons in his neck strained, and his cheek twitched, stress showing in the muscles of his jaw.
“No.” I couldn’t explain past that, not without letting it all out, and I wasn’t ready to do that.
He sank into the chair at my desk and ran his hand over the worn fabric cover of Little Women. Without a word, he picked it up and turned to the first page. His voice rumbled softly. “ ‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,’ grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.’”
Anger surged through my chest, burning across my ribcage like a firestorm. I wanted to scream and tell him to put it away. That book was my safe place. It had been my favorite story since the very first year I’d met him in the library when I was eleven. He’d placed it in my hands after returning from a mission that had kept him from Sanctuary for over two weeks—a mission that had made him miss my birthday and our annual reading of the story. Now he was reading it while I was broken and angry and scared. He was ruining it.
“Stop.” My voice broke. I climbed from the bed and ripped the book from his hands. “You can’t fix this with a story.” I hugged the book to my chest, tears burning trails of fire down my cheeks.
“I don’t want to fix you. I just want you to feel safe. This book has so many good mem—”
“And I don’t want them tainted with this.” I waved my hands in the air. “I’m ruined, broken, dirty, and I won’t let you destroy the memory of this book by mixing it into…this.”
His cheek flexed, and I saw his arms move, but I couldn’t react. Not fast enough. Those big strong limbs of his wrapped around my shaking, angry body, and I screamed, terror overwhelming everything inside me that wanted him to touch me. That wanted his comfort. I couldn’t. Not yet, maybe not ever.
He released me instantly, and his voice shook as he spoke. “You are strong, and I love you, and you are mine.”
I backed away from him, shaking my head. “It hurts too much. I can’t live this way.”
“I will do anything to help you, Gretchen. I would die right here, right now to save you from another second of agony. Please don’t call yourself ruined or dirty. You aren’t those things. You are my beautiful mate with sunshine in her heart and a smile on her lips. You are everything to me and always will be. No matter what you choose to do, I support you.”
“You heard me.” I climbed to the center of my bed, wrapping myself in my blanket like the cocoon of fleece would somehow insulate me from anything outside of my bedroom.
“I did, and I want you to know it is your choice. I want you to feel safe and whole. I don’t want you to suffer a moment longer than you have to, and if what you want is to forget, then I’ll find someone who will do that for you, but if you make the choice to heal on your own, I am with you. You are brave, even if you don’t believe it. You are strong, even if you feel weak. Bailey was right about one thing.”
“What?”
“You are not alone.”
I curled into my bed, contemplating his words. Exhaustion claimed me a few minutes later, and I drifted to sleep, knowing he was watching over me from across the room.
When I woke again, my room was once again inhabited by a Protector. This time it was Javier.
His blue eyes glinted at me, cold and discerning. He had no affection for me. No affection for anyone. All the Sisters called him an asshole and a sadist. One of the Sisters was into that kind of masochism, but mostly, he played with a few of the unattached Lycan females in town. I’d seen a few of his scenes over the years. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if the pain of his lash would erase the pain in my heart. Maybe Bailey was right, maybe there was a way to heal without erasing anything.
“It won’t.” He crossed his arms and frowned. “Hiding from pain with more pain is like slapping a Band-Aid on a stab wound. It might cover the hole, but the wound beneath will rot and kill you all the same.”
“How did you know what I was thinking?”
“Everyone who goes through trauma thinks about it. I made the mistake of using a woman once who wanted to hide from emotional pain by burying herself in physical pain, but I’ll not be making it again.”
“What happened to her?”
“She had to face her shit.”
“You’re an ass.” The words tumbled out before I could stop them. I’d never been so purposefully ugly. I wanted to hurt him.
“So I’ve been told.” He chewed on the inside of his cheek and cocked his head toward the hallway. “Still doesn’t change the fact that you tried to talk Bailey into whitewashing your brain, which she can’t do, by the way.”
“I know. Will you do it?”
He nodded, and a strange fluttering of excitement made my hands tremble. “Alek sent me in here to talk to you. First, do you care about Alek at all?”
My chest clenched, and I turned from Javier’s hard gaze. My heart pounded in my chest. Of course I did. I loved Alek more than anything in the entire world, but I was so scared that I couldn’t think straight. It was irrational, but it was my reality. I didn’t want to be scared, but I was. That’s why I was trying to get my brain reset. “I’m so scared.”
“Of him?”
“Of how his Gryphon reminds me of—” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t compare him to that monster. They both had talons the size of my fingers, though Alek would never hurt me. I knew that. Deep down in my soul, I knew he would never…but I couldn’t shake the memory of Xerxes. Of the way he’d used that against me. The way he’d compared himself to Alek. He’d purposefully planted the similarity in my mind, and now I couldn’t shake it.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” He crossed to the door and opened it. “There are some things we need to discuss before you make this choice. Bailey didn’t lie when she said magick comes with a price.”
Alek walked in, his face somber and etched with pain. “Please give us a moment.” Alek’s tone was soft, beaten.
“No, don’t leave.” Each word a struggle. Another man. I was surrounded by men, but I needed him to help me. I needed him to fix me.
I winced, pulling my comforter tighter around my shoulders. Javier’s words stung with truth, but this was the best option. I didn’t see an end to the pain or the fear. I couldn’t live and be afraid of the man I loved. Everything had been perfect, was perfect, until it wasn’t.
I’d ruined it with my stupid choices.
Now when I looked at Alek, I saw the beast first instead of the man. A scary beast, not the beast that I’d found amazing and strong and wondrous, and now I didn’t want to be touched.
“I’m sorry.” Alek knelt at the side of my bed, setting down a fresh glass of water.
“I need you to move away from me.” My voice shook with each word. I trembled from the tips of my fingers to the end of my toes. Every few seconds I would steal a glance at his hands, waiting for them to change into the deadly talons I knew existed beneath his human facade. My mind had created a monster where my heart knew it didn’t exist. It wasn’t fair.
He nodded and backed away from the bed, taking up residence once more in my desk chair. “I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have. I’m so sorry. I just needed to touch you, and I thought if you could just feel our connection—”
“I want to forget. I can’t live like this. When I think someone is going to touch me, I freak out. I feel them, Alek. I feel their hands and…everything. I’m not strong enough to heal on my own.”
“Javier.”
The vampire stepped toward the bed again.
Alek turned back to me. “I told you I would die to save you from another moment of suffering. I meant what I said. You are more important than anything to me in this entire world. This can heal you. This can take away your pain. This can give you back your
life, your spirit, everything. If this is what you need, I want it for you with my whole heart.”
Relief flooded through me. We could just go back to that night, to when the world was perfect and right. There were no monsters behind my closed eyelids, behind every sound, in every touch.
Javier took a seat on the other edge of the bed. “I have to touch your head to do this.”
I swallowed my fear and nodded, inching closer until I was within arms-length of him. This would be worth it. I could do this. I could handle his touch long enough to give me a second chance to be in love with Alek, to belong to him the way I’d wanted for so long.
Javier placed his fingertips on my scalp and temple. “Look directly into my eyes.”
“Okay.”
“Before I start, I have to warn you. This is not an exact science. There’s always a chance that more will be taken than what you might want to lose.”
“What do you mean?” A new fear shot through my body. I’d lost so much. Losing this pain felt like the answer, but the tone in Javier’s voice stilled my heart.
“You might not feel the same way about Alek after this. You might not love him. You might not remember things about him. Memories are tricky, and taking them away is one of the most challenging things a vampire can attempt. We don’t really worry about the men who come back and forth to the castle. They’re expendable to some extent.”
I glanced at Alek, expecting him to call the whole thing off. Part of me wanted him to make that choice for me. On one hand, I wanted nothing more than to forget all that had happened to me since I crawled out his bathroom window. On the other, I didn’t want to lose him. What if I forgot him and was left with this aching hole in my heart that I couldn’t explain or fix?
“You won’t lose me, Gretchen, no matter what. Even if we have to fall in love all over again, you have my heart. Rose said that’s why the marks came. Part of my soul is inside you, and part of yours is in me. That’s the light that shines when the marks glow. We are forever bound. Memories or not, I will always love you.”
My stomach twisted, and my fingers shook in my lap. He was right…we could fall in love again, would fall in love again. Like he said, we were bonded. These marks on my collarbone linked us at a level I didn’t even pretend to understand.
“Look into my eyes.” Javier’s voice cut through my whirling thoughts.
I snapped my gaze to his and then jerked away from his hands. No. “No. I can’t. I won’t risk losing you, Alek.” Tears welled in my eyes. “I don’t know how I’m going to get through this. I don’t know when I’ll be ready to touch you or anyone else again…ever.”
“Are you sure?” He came out of the chair and squatted beside the bed. “Javier can make it so you don’t have to live with any of it. Even if you lose some of our memories, we can start fresh. It will be okay.”
“No. I can’t lose you, too. They took my dignity and my confidence and most of my sanity. The only thing I still have in my life that’s good is you. If this magick backfires and steals that good away along with the bad, then I’ll lose the only thing that ever mattered to me.” I backed away from Javier and wrapped myself into my comforter again. “As scared and confused as I am, I’m still not willing to live without our memories.”
“I’ll let you guys talk.” Javier stood and left the room, closing the door behind him.
“I’m going to need time. I can’t even begin to guess, but I—”
“It doesn’t matter, Gretchen. Anything you need, for as long as you need, no matter what.”
“What if I’m always scared? What if I can’t get past it? Ever?”
“It doesn’t matter. I will love you forever.”
I nodded, trying to make myself believe the promise he’d declared more than once, but my head was swimming, and I needed to be alone, at least for now. “I need to sleep. I’m so tired.”
He stood and started to reach for me, but stopped his hand halfway. “Do you want me to stay? Or send someone else to sit with you?”
“I just want to be alone for a while.”
He nodded. “Of course.” His words were soft, but I could still hear the worry lacing the edge of his tone. “I’ll check on you in a little while.”
I lay down, buried my face in my pillow, closed my eyes, and waited for him to leave. When the door opened and shut, I opened them again and glanced around the room. He had left. Just as he’d said he would.
Relief and sadness swelled in my body at the same time. Nothing about the choice I’d made was going to be easy. I had to be okay with that. I had to be okay with taking it slow. I had to trust that he was telling the truth. That he was okay with slow, too. My gut said he wasn’t lying, but I still worried. I couldn’t help it.
I was broken. Even if I managed to glue all the pieces back together, the cracks would always show. They would be part of me.
Forever.
Chapter 24
ALEK
I opened the door onto the main club area of the castle basement floor and nearly collided with Bella.
“How is she?”
“She chose not to erase the memories.” My chest tightened painfully, and my heart pounded behind my ribs, reminding me how much I’d wanted her to choose what I’d thought would be the easiest way for her to heal, to move on. To somehow be okay with something that would never be okay.
I gritted my teeth against the tears welling in my eyes and the overwhelming urge to fall apart. How was I going to handle never touching Gretchen? I’d almost reached for her when I left. I knew I’d do it again. I needed her, craved her touch. “I told her that no matter what she needed, no matter how long it takes, I will be there for her.”
Bella tipped her head to the side and met my gaze, her blue eyes filled with compassion and understanding. The pixie said it would be hard. She’d warned me this could happen.
“You need to let it out. Go fly, Alek. For a few minutes at least. You’re no good to Gretchen or yourself or anyone here depending on you in this state.”
My body shivered from head to foot. My Gryphon wanted to scream, wanted to weep, but I couldn’t show weakness. I didn’t want those damn soldiers to report back to Xerxes that he’d won.
He hadn’t won.
We were still here, and we were still capable of fighting. That bastard wasn’t going to get away with this, with any of this.
“I won’t be gone long.”
Bella nodded.
I hurried through the rest of the club area, up through the ground level entrance, and out into the green space and courtyard of the castle.
“Alek.” Jared’s voice carried across the open space.
I turned toward my friend. Calliope stood at his side along with Bailey and Erick. Her eyes were red from tears, but her mouth was hard and the tips of her fingers were blackened from her claws straining to get out.
“What?” I asked, crossing the lawn to join them.
“We’re going to get Eli’s body,” Calliope said, her voice tight and drawn like the string on a crossbow.
We were all on edge. I only needed the smallest excuse, and I knew I’d explode.
“And Rose’s, we need to bury them. They shouldn’t be left in the open.”
“Let’s go.” I leaned forward, putting my hands on the grass, and called my Gryphon forward. I shifted over the span of a few moments then shook my head, ruffling the feathers along my neck.
I leapt into the air, pumping my wings, and watched the others jump the wall. Erick grabbed Jared around the waist, and Bailey looped an arm around Calliope’s waist, following Erick’s lead. Both vampires cleared the high stone walls with their passengers in fluid movements that appeared effortless. Once clear, they moved swiftly through the town with the unnatural speed only a vampire possessed. I flew hard, but wouldn’t have had a chance in hell of keeping up had they not been purposefully running at a slower pace I could match.
There were no signs of any remaining Djinn or Lycan soldiers, not in Sa
nctuary or the surrounding areas. For the time being, they’d pulled away.
About ten minutes later, we reached the scarred and burnt encampment where Xerxes had been holding Gretchen. There were no signs of any soldiers, a blessing and a curse. I was glad not to have to fight, but I wanted to rip them to shreds. Not today.
Today was for our fallen comrades. Today was for mourning what we’d lost.
Swooping low, I landed in front of the collapsed building where I’d seen Eli die, his body lay beneath the rubble. I opened my beak and shrieked, the sound waves barreling through the broken bits of concrete and wood and steel. It moved slightly, and I loosed another cry, this time with enough sonic force to blow half the rubble a dozen yards backward.
Bailey and Erick rushed forward, moving the smaller pieces of concrete and steel beams like they were made of plastic. A few moments later, Erick climbed out of the center of the destroyed building with Eli’s body in his arms.
“What about Rose?” Calliope asked, climbing over a large piece of crumbled concrete.
“Her body isn’t here. I found traces of her blood everywhere, but he must’ve taken her body,” Erick said, his tone angry. “Bastard won’t even let us bury our dead.”
“Maybe she’s not dead.” Bailey crossed the rubble to stand next to Erick. “We don’t know for sure. Alek left when she was still alive.”
I nodded my large head, affirming her statement, and then pawed the ground, motioning to Eli’s body.
Erick laid the mangled, beaten body of my friend on the ground in front of me, and I pumped my wings just enough to lift myself a few inches from the ground. I scooped up Eli’s body with my front legs and tucked him tightly against my chest. Then I rose into the air, hovering long enough to make sure the rest of the group was headed back with me.
Erick and Bailey each grabbed their respective passengers and blurred across the landscape, though not going as quickly as they could have. They matched my flight speed, and we returned to the castle courtyard with haste.
My Guardian Gryphon (Sanctuary, Texas Book 5) Page 21