Finding My Breaking Point

by C. C. Masters

  Chapter 8

  Anna

  I yawned as I thumbed through the old journal for the one millionth time and tried to keep my eyes open through my exhaustion. I kept hoping that some kind of new revelation would pop out at me from the pages, but I wasn’t making any progress. Caleb had abandoned his workstation and was lying on the bed next to me, scrolling through yet another useless article on the fae that he had found online. Neither of us were willing to give up, but we also realized that what we were doing wasn’t working. I really hoped that Ingrid would be able to lead us in the right direction when she got here, because we were spinning our wheels right now.

  Austin had taken the news of Emily’s death better than I had. He had seemed resigned when I explained what I had seen in the vision. Even though Austin might tell others that he knew Justin was a bad guy, I think deep down he was still hoping that his brother was innocent in all of this. But there was no way to defend a guy who murdered a teenage girl just because he hadn’t gotten what he wanted from her.

  Because there was no longer any doubt in my mind that Justin was capable of murder, I was sure that Justin was somehow responsible for Blendel’s death. Austin still wasn’t convinced, because he thought that Justin was too much of a racist to ever agree to work with witches or the fae. But what if Justin was too far gone to realize he was being controlled by the fae?

  My head snapped up as I heard Cody yell from the hallway. “You’re both being complete idiots!” Caleb and I exchanged a glance – what had the twins done now? I don’t know if I’d ever heard Cody raise his voice in true anger like this before tonight.

  “Well, I think you’re an idiot,” Jason’s voice slurred. I walked to the door but hesitated to open it. Was this something the guys needed to work out between themselves?

  “Anna!” Cody yelled. Well, that solved my dilemma.

  I opened the door and cautiously stepped out. Cody looked furious and was holding Jason up while Mason staggered beside them.

  “Are you guys drunk right now?” I asked in disbelief. “We don’t have time for this with everything going on. Our pack mates are being murdered.” The vision of Emily’s body flashed across my mind and I felt even angrier. The twins going out partying was not going to help us take Justin down.

  “The guys just got back from a year overseas,” Mason said defensively as he swayed and almost went down. “They deserve a couple drinks to celebrate their return.”

  “That might be why they’re drinking, but what’s your excuse?” I asked heatedly. The twins would have had to drink a lot of alcohol to get this tipsy. Wolves had a much higher metabolism than humans and it couldn’t have been easy for them to get this drunk.

  “They’re both being fucking morons,” Cody muttered.

  I glared at each one of them, but the sadness in the twins’ eyes gave me pause. Maybe this wasn’t about having a good time, maybe this was about using alcohol to numb the pain. Their actions were still stupid, but it made my anger fade and be replaced by an ache in my heart. The twins had known Blendel much better than I had, so maybe they were taking his death harder than I had thought they would.

  I grabbed Mason’s arm and helped steady him as Cody practically carried Jason. “Uh, Cody?” I called out as we passed the guys’ rooms.

  “The three of you are going to work your shit out,” he declared as he opened my door and maneuvered Jason inside. I helped Mason inside in time to see Cody dump Jason on my bed. “Anna, I hope you can talk some sense into their thick skulls before I have to beat it in,” Cody called over his shoulder as he strode out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

  “Okay,” I murmured to myself. “I guess this is happening.” I hadn’t spent much time in my room since this was the scene of Talen’s death and the battle with Gemma. The guys had fixed everything so that it was better than new, but that didn’t erase the memories.

  Mason crawled on my bed and brought my pillow to his face so he could inhale my scent. I doubted it was very strong, because I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept in my own bed.

  “Are you guys going to tell me why you’re being a couple of man-babies right now?” I asked both of them with a stern look on my face.

  Jason laughed and rolled to the edge of the bed so he could look in my direction. I stepped forward to keep him from rolling off but froze when I caught the scent of a female on him. “What the fuck, Jason?” I snarled.

  He reached out for me, but I took a step back and watched him crash to the floor. Mason laughed as if that were the funniest thing he’d ever seen, but I wasn’t amused. I crossed my arms over my chest as Jason struggled to get back up and glared at them. “One of you had better start talking,” I growled. I was so furious that I was practically seeing red. “Why do you smell like another female!?!” My last word ended in a scream of rage and both of the guys looked shocked. I tried to calm myself down because I knew I wouldn’t be reacting this strongly if I wasn’t close to going into heat, but my hormone-soaked brain didn’t seem to want to listen.

  Jason grabbed at his shirt, sniffed it, then pulled it off and threw it across the room. “I’ll burn it, Anna.” He struggled to get to his knees and inched closer to me. I avoided looking at his now bare muscular torso, because I didn’t want to be distracted by his six-pack.

  And I wasn’t appeased by his action, getting rid of the evidence wouldn’t help him, I wanted an explanation. “You avoid me for weeks, and then you show up in my bed with the stench of another female on you?” I asked him pointedly, proud of myself for getting the words out coherently.

  “No, Anna,” Jason pleaded. “It’s not like that.”

  “There was this blond chick there that kind of looked like you,” Mason said as if that were an explanation. I let out a growl to let him know that it wasn’t.

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” I said quietly with rage simmering just below the surface. “You’re really not helping yourselves; I need you to give me one reason why I shouldn’t kick you both out of here right now.”

  Mason finally seemed to realize how serious the situation was when my magic started crackling around me. “Jason was staring in her direction because, from behind and all the way across the room, we thought it might be you.”

  “She took it as an invitation,” Jason muttered.

  “We’d already had a lot to drink,” Mason added. “And as soon as she turned around, we obviously realized it wasn’t you.”

  “Well, I hope so,” I spat angrily.

  “Jason tried to be nice about it,” Mason explained. “But she wouldn’t take no for an answer and rubbed herself all over him. Jase pushed her away and she tripped and fell,” he said regretfully.

  “That’s what started the barfight,” Jason added as he heaved himself back on the bed.

  I took a deep breath and stared at them both. Did I doubt the truth of their story? No. I could tell that the woman’s scent was only on Jason’s shirt and not on his skin. I also hadn’t smelled her on Mason, so I really couldn’t be angry at him for anything but being present when it happened.

  I sighed and sat on the edge of the bed as most of the steam left me. “Tell me about the barfight,” I said quietly. “Is that why Cody was so pissed?”

  “One of the reasons,” Mason murmured.

  “It was a free for all,” Jason told me. “Smashed chairs, broken bottles, and I think just about every guy in there was involved.”

  “Cops were called at some point,” Mason said. “There was no way to cover up what happened, but the guys in bad shape all made it out the back, and the rest of us denied being involved.”

  I eyed them warily. “So, you told them that your ripped shirt,” I said as I pointed to Mason. “And your bloody knuckles,” I gestured at Jason. “Had nothing to do with an explosive bar fight?”

  “Yep,” Jason said, oblivious to how ridiculous that was.

  “It probably helped that James was buddies with a couple of the cops that respo
nded to the call,” Mason admitted.

  “James has buddies?” I asked dubiously.

  Jason laughed. “Yeah, they all enjoy sitting silently in a dark room while they drink whiskey and occasionally glare at anyone who comes too close.”

  I sighed. Jason closed his eyes and I heard his breathing start to slow. “Nope,” I said as I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “Stay awake.”

  Jason blinked sleepily but sat up.

  “Okay,” I told both of them. “It’s time.” I had been putting this discussion off because of my guilt over what happened with Gemma, but it was time to face facts. Every day that passed without us talking honestly about what happened put more distance between me and my two best friends. I had to come to terms with my part in Talen’s death and I needed to tell the twins that I was sorry for what my ignorance had allowed Gemma to do to them. It would break my heart to hear that they were harboring resentment for me, but avoiding it wouldn’t make this less painful. We needed to get everything out into the open. I needed to hear why they had cut me out of their lives.

  “Uh, Anna, that’s kind of ominous,” Jason said with a nervous laugh.

  I hopped up on the bed and sat cross-legged so I could rest my elbows on my knees. “I’m serious, Jason, this has gone on long enough.” I gave him a threatening look and his eyes widened. “There’s a reason you two are getting shit-faced drunk when you should be on your toes, and we’re going to talk about it right now.”

  “We just need some time to work out our shit,” Mason mumbled.

  “Time’s up,” I said sharply. “And for the remainder of this discussion you aren’t going to be the spokesperson for both of you,” I admonished Mason. “Jason is going to speak for himself, even if I have to separate you two.”

  The twins both stared at me with surprised faces, but I wasn’t going to let them off the hook. “Why are you freezing me out?” I asked in frustration. “Why won’t you open up to me?”

  “Because we’re fucking useless,” Jason said angrily. “We almost got you killed with the whole Gemma thing.”

  “And we actually did get Talen killed,” Mason added despondently. “We knew this discussion was coming for a while, but I thought time would make it easier.”

  I shook my head. “It’s making it worse because the silence between us is corrupting what we had. We need to get everything out in the open or it’s going to keep eating away at us. And why would you think it was your fault? I’m the one who was tasked with protecting the pack from magic.”

  “No,” Jason said as he shook his head. “We welcomed Gemma in, and we were the ones who spent time with her every day, we should have known something wasn’t right.”

  Mason cleared his throat. “He’s right. We were the closest ones to her and looking back, there were so many signs. She was a fucking Trojan horse and we were the idiots that opened the door and guided her in here.”

  “She kind of reminded us a little of you when you first got here,” Jason admitted. “She seemed so lost when we met her, and we thought we could help put her on the right path.”

  “She played you,” I said softly. “The three of us share a special bond because of our shitty childhoods, and she realized that was the way to worm her way into your life. Gemma was a fae who could manipulate your minds and feed off of you. There was nothing you could have done to stop her.”

  Mason shook his head. “We should have been with you instead of her. We allowed her to get close and it was our weakness that hurt you.”

  “We’re the weak links in the pack,” Jason said sadly.

  “No, you’re not,” I argued. Jason sat alongside of me and I took his hand in mine then turned to do the same with Mason. “Jason, Mason, I need to say that I’m sorry for failing you.” Jason’s mouth dropped open in surprise, but I pushed on. “I’m the one who let an enemy into our home, and you paid the price for my ignorance. Don’t be so hard on yourselves, because it’s me you should be blaming.”

  They both looked like they wanted to object so I kept speaking before they could interrupt. “I need you,” I confessed with tears in my eyes. “You guys have become such an important part of my life, you can’t just step out whenever things get rough. We’re fighting an enemy that we know nothing about and I’m in way over my head. I can’t do this alone.”

  “What help are we?” Jason asked in frustration. “We’re just extra weight for you to carry. A couple of fuckups who are too stupid to even see an enemy right in from of them.”

  “Do you think I’m stupid?” I asked them angrily. “Do you think that I don’t replay Talen’s death over and over in my mind? Do you think that I don’t constantly relive every conversation I ever had with Gemma and kick myself for being so oblivious to what she was? Talen tried to tell me more than once!” I shouted as tears ran down my face.

  Mason pulled me close and wrapped his arms around me as I sobbed. I had been struggling with this for so long, but I’d kept internalizing it. This was the first time that I actually said the words out loud. “Talen died because of me,” I whispered.

  Mason rubbed my back. “You’re still learning. Everyone makes mistakes the first time they encounter a soul-sucking fae who is trying to steal two of your mates to feed off of.”

  I snorted and curled up between the two of them. “If you’re going to forgive me, then you have to forgive yourselves,” I told them.

  “That’s harder to do, Anna Banana,” Jason murmured.

  I sat up a little and pulled Mason’s face towards me. “I love you.” I twisted so that I could look in Jason’s eyes. “And I love you. Because I love you, I’m not going to give up. I’m going to spend every waking moment trying to be better for you.” I turned back to Mason. “If you love me, you’ll fight to do the same. I need you to fight for me and I need you by my side in the battle that’s coming.”

  “Nothing would ever make us give up,” Mason told me. “But if stepping back would protect you-”

  “It won’t,” I said harshly. “You can’t protect me if you’re not here. And losing you would break something inside of me that could never be repaired. None of us are perfect and we all have our flaws, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t deserve love. I love you both with every fiber of my being and being mates means we’re partners in life and and we work through difficult times together. It means that we inspire each other to be better every day and pick each other up when we start to falter or doubt ourselves.”

  “Fuck,” Jason cursed. “You just inspired the shit out of me.”

  I laughed through my tears. “So stop being assholes and love me, goddammit.”

  Mason let out a low growl and nuzzled my neck. “I love it when feisty Anna comes out to play.”

  “You’re not off the hook yet,” I warned him before I softened my tone. “I understand more than anyone where all of this is coming from. My uncle did everything he could to teach me that I was a worthless piece of shit who would never deserve love.”

  The twins had a terrible mother who had locked them in a cage for days at a time when they were pups because she couldn’t be bothered to take care of them. I’m sure there was a lot more that they hadn’t told me about, but I understood the feeling of being abandoned, neglected, and abused. There had been days where I honestly believed the world would have been better off without me in it.

  “But now you have us,” Jason said fiercely.

  “Do I?” I asked him gently. “If you guys are going through some shit, then you can’t cut me out. You need to talk to me and trust that I can help you through it.”

  “You’re right,” Mason said quietly. “We put Cody through some shit when we were teenagers, but he’s never cursed at us the way he did earlier tonight.”

  “I’ve never heard him that angry,” I admitted.

  “We deserved it,” Jason mumbled. “I could have smoothed things over when that girl fell, or I could have simply walked away before throwing the first punch. But I wanted… I don�
��t know.” He buried his face in my hair and squeezed me tight.

  “You wanted to feel pain,” I whispered. “Believe me, I know.”

  Jason raised his head and I could see shame in his eyes. “But do you also get the urge to cause it? I wanted an excuse to smash my fist into something.”

  I smoothed my hand through his hair, and he leaned into my touch. “I feel just as frustrated,” I admitted. “I want to crush Justin and whatever creepy fae power is influencing him, and I hate that I’m just sitting here like a useless lump of flesh. But I want to be smart about our attack.”

  “We’ve never been great at the planning stages,” Jason admitted.

  “Or the waiting part,” Mason added. “But point us to a target, hand us a weapon, and we’ll destroy it.”

  “That’s part of the problem,” I said in frustration. “We haven’t found the right weapon. It’s almost painful to admit this, but if we go after him now, we’ll lose. Ingrid is on her way and once she gets here, we’ll be able to use her experience to make a plan. Plus, she’s also a white wolf and a guardian of whatever this thing is, so I’m hoping that together, we’ll have enough firepower to take it on.”

  “We’ll do it together,” Mason murmured.

  “We’re sorry, Anna,” Jason said regretfully. “Let us make it up to you?”

  “Just be there when I need you,” I said softly. They both murmured their agreement and we sat there in an embrace. I knew there were still things we needed to work on, but it felt damn good to have my twins back.

  “Are you sure there’s nothing else?” Jason teased me.

  Jason slid his hand over my thigh while Mason trailed feather-light kisses down the side of my neck. “Um…” I said breathlessly. “Maybe I could think of a few things?”

  Mason chuckled and the deep timbre in combination with his hot breath close to my ear caused my lower belly to clench. Jason parted my thighs to kneel between them and I didn’t object. Heat was pulsing in my core and I knew that they could smell my arousal. Austin had told me that the scent of a female this close to going into heat had as strong of an effect on male wolves as the smell of a bakery would have on a starving man. But right now, I felt like a starving woman in the window of that bakery. Everything I needed to satisfy the craving that was tearing me apart on the inside was right here within my reach.