“Fine,” I huff.
“Fine?”
“Fine. We’ll do things your way if you feel I’m really in danger. But no more hiding things from me, ok? I’m not so fragile anymore.”
Dorian pulls my body against his so we’re chest to chest, our heartbeats thrumming together in synchronized harmony. “No, not fragile. But I can still break you.”
WE STEP OUT into the living room to find that we’re alone. A wave of relief washes over me as I realize that our raucous shower session may not have been audible for both Alexander and Niko. Not only that, the room is completely restored into its usual meticulous state. The mahogany hutch is no longer reduced to a pile of splintered wood against the wall. Lamps and vases are neatly placed in their designated spots, fully intact. And the grand chandelier hangs above us, affixed with a thousand crystal teardrops.
I shake my head at the sheer brilliance that is my Dark Prince. Even if he is a little OCD, he is mine. Besides, his neurosis pales in comparison to my colorful circus of crazy.
“Nikolai and Alexander left to handle the…body. They’re waiting downstairs in the car,” Dorian says, grabbing his butter-soft, worn leather jacket. It’s overcast today, and with this many Dark forces inhabiting the town of Colorado Springs, I wouldn’t be surprised if it started pouring down rain.
When we arrive at Paralia’s gates, Niko pulls over to the shoulder before we can cross the threshold.
“You have to let Alex in, D,” he says from the driver’s seat. “You know he can’t get through.”
Dorian stares daggers at the back of Alex’s head from his seat beside me in the back. “Do I?”
I nudge him with my elbow. “Yes. You do.” I don’t understand his misplaced animosity. Alexander is his best friend, and my father. Why does he seem so wary of the man he spent the better part of a century with?
Dorian peers down at me from the corner of his eye, and the edge of his mouth twitches before he leans forward to grasp Alexander’s shoulder. The backseat window beside him descends just as a clap of thunder rattles the sky, slicing open the heavens. He closes his eyes, drawing strength and energy from the rapidly brewing storm, and begins to chant, a low hum in the Dark tongue.
“What’s he doing?” I whisper, scooting closer to Niko.
“Opening the ward and extending it around Alexander. Watch.”
As soon as he says the words, a pearlescent sheen manifests around the perimeter of the apartment complex, extending for almost two blocks. I watch in awe as it bends and shimmies, almost pulsating in an array of muted color. Dorian calls out to it, concentrating furiously to avoid breaking it as it stretches like a rubber band around the vehicle.
“See, Gabs,” Niko whispers, his own gaze full of wonder. “It’s delicate—fragile. You can’t just call out a few commands and expect it to yield. Magic takes patience and finesse. You have to nurture your power and it will work for you.”
The glimmering pastel glow around the SUV draws back towards the edge of the gate until it snaps back into place. Then it dims from sight, returning to its role as an invisible defense. Niko takes his Range Rover out of Park and drives through the gated entrance, waving at the guard. When we pull up to my apartment and get out, I realize I don’t have my key.
“Shit. My purse…all my things. I had it yesterday in the parking lot.” I knock on the door, but don’t hear shuffling on the other side. I look to the parking lot and spot my roommate’s red Mustang in her usual space. “Morgan’s car is here. She should be awake by now.”
“Let me,” Dorian says.
Before I can turn to respond, he’s unlocking and opening the door for us…from inside. But I don’t even get a chance to react. Alarm tingeing his bright blue eyes, Dorian grasps my body and spins me around, placing my front to his back.
“Something’s wrong.”
No.
No no no no.
Both Niko and Alexander instantly go to stand at Dorian’s sides, shielding my body from whatever danger lies ahead. I try to peer over them, and I catch the sight of our living room, completely destroyed. Couch cushions have been tossed to the floor. Magazines, CDs, books, photos all have been ripped from their homes and left in a disheveled mess. Dolce is in his kennel, yapping and whining for relief. That’s not right; Morgan loves that dog. There’s no way she’d leave him locked up at this time of the day.
“Morgan,” I barely croak out, fear constricting my voice. “Oh my God, where’s Morgan?”
“Gabriella, I want you to go back to the car and lock the doors,” Dorian orders in a serious tone.
“No, Dorian. I’m not leaving. I don’t care what you say. Where is Morgan? I need to find her!”
“I smell her,” Niko says, although I get the feeling he wasn’t talking to me. “And…”
“Yeah,” Dorian nods. “I smell it too. A lot of it.”
“What does that mean? Where is she? Is she here? Somebody answer me!” I screech, trying to force my way through the tiny space between their bodies. The three of them are strong, and being the novice that I am, I can barely get them to budge.
“Gabriella, I told you—”
“Fuck what you told me!” I scream, pushing at Dorian’s back. “Morgan is my best friend. I am finding her, dammit!”
I finally break through the wall of rigid muscle and dart down the hall to Morgan’s room. I feel Dorian right on my heels, but I’m already at her door, turning the knob, shrieking in horror, surprise, fear…
“Oh my God, Morgan!” I scream, rushing to where she lays on the bed. I cradle her limp body in my arms as gently as I can, but I’m shaking uncontrollably. “What did you do, Morgan? What did you do to yourself?”
Morgan turns her head to look up at me, yet her vision is far away. She gives me a weak smile and slowly touches a bloody finger to my face. “I tried to call you, Gabs,” she replies in a hoarse whisper. “I tried to call you all night.”
Dorian rushes over to wrap her wrist in cloth to stop the bleeding, but I know it’s too late. We’re too late. Morgan has already lost too much blood. Her once beautiful, mocha complexion is ashen with blood loss, and her skin is cool to the touch. Much too cool for a human. A kitchen knife lies amongst the sea of crimson that was once Morgan’s bed, along with an opened bottle of prescription pain meds, all of which are gone.
“Why, Morgan?” I cry, rocking her body in my arms. “Why would you do this? Why would you hurt yourself like this?”
She makes an effort to swallow and her dry lips crack and split. “All night I called you, Gabs. I was so scared. They kept…coming. They wouldn’t leave me alone. So many…so many of them.”
“Who, Morgan? Who keeps coming?”
Morgan makes a throaty humming sound before letting her eyelids close. “I’m so tired, Gabs. I tried to call you.”
Anguished tears cloud my vision as I watch my best friend slip away. Why would she do something like this? If anything, Morgan and narcissism go hand-in-hand. She loves herself too damn much to ever try to commit suicide.
“The house is clear,” Alexander announces from the doorframe. “No sign of intrusion. Not even a trace of another human for several hours.”
Niko comes to stand beside us, checking her vitals while Dorian keeps pressure on the deep, 3-inch-long laceration on her wrist. “You have to heal her, baby girl,” he says to me grimly. “If you don’t do it soon, she’ll die.”
“But I don’t know how,” I cry, shaking my head. I turn to Dorian who looks just as grave. “Please help her. You’ve done it before; maybe you could do it again.”
“I wish I could, baby. But I healed you out of love and the agony of my own heart breaking. I couldn’t go back to that place inside me unless it was you. And even then, I probably wouldn’t be able to do it, seeing as I failed earlier. I’m so sorry.”
“But you can, Gabs,” Niko urges. “Just like we talked about earlier. You have to nurture your power; you have to romance it. You can’t do it out of fear.
Channel all your feelings for her. Think about everything you’ve been through together and what a great friend she’s been to you. Focus on the times you’ve laughed together, cried together. How she always knew just what to say to make you smile even when you didn’t want to. Even when the world was so dark and bleak that you couldn’t bear to.”
Niko touches my face, brushing away a tear. I look up to find his own emotion brimming his eyes. “Save her with love, Gabs. If anything can bring her back, it’s love.”
Although I’m confused by his heartfelt candor, I believe every single word he speaks. I can feel his truth stir deep inside me, warming my rapidly beating heart until heat radiates down my arms to my fingertips. I touch them to my eyes that somehow feel unbelievably cold, freezing the wet sorrow that rolled down my cheeks just seconds before. What is happening to me? The question is in my head, yet my body moves all on instinct, as if it is no longer mine. As if I have relinquished all control to the magic coursing through my veins. As if I have become it.
“Look at me, Morgan,” I say, my voice not quite my own. Her eyes open instantly and peer up to me like I’ve flicked some unseen switch. One hand cradles her face so our gazes are aligned, while the other hovers over the wound in her wrist, surrounded in an auburn haze.
And then I feel it.
My mind touching hers. My thoughts, my emotions, I press it all into my friend, willing my power to heal her. For my magic to seal the wound in her right wrist and purge the drugs from her system.
I can do this; I can be strong enough for the both of us. Morgan has always been what I wish I could be: fearless, glamorous and undoubtedly confident. I can’t lose her. I can’t let her go when I need her so desperately. Maybe even more now than ever before.
“It’s happening,” I hear Niko say, but I can’t look to see for myself. I can’t lose the connection.
“I’ve never seen it happen before. I didn’t realize just how…amazing…it would be,” Alexander gasps with astonishment.
“She’s amazing,” Dorian says. I feel a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Strong. And she’ll continue to get stronger. Her magic will be the most magnificent that this world has ever seen.”
Morgan twitches in my arms as I fill her with myself. My essence touches her marred flesh, pulling it together and sealing it with fresh skin. The toxins from the pills she popped seep from her pores and dissipate into sick-smelling vapors.
When every last drop is expelled from her body, I let my strained eyes closed, breaking the link. Morgan falls into a peaceful sleep, sagging in my arms with exhaustion.
“Let’s get her cleaned up and move her,” Dorian says, slipping his arms under her back to hoist her up. “She won’t want to wake up to this.”
Alexander follows Dorian out of the room to help. I grab Niko’s arm before he does the same.
“Thank you, Niko,” I say weakly as a wave of exhaustion washes over me. “How did you know? How did you know all that stuff back at the hotel, and just now? Have you done this before?”
“No,” he shakes his head. “But I tried to. And I would have given my life for it to have worked.”
His eyes drop to the floor and he escapes out of the blood-covered bedroom, leaving me with the scent of death and even more unanswered questions.
AFTER DISCARDING MORGAN’S clothes and changing her into a loose nightgown, we leave her to rest on the couch while Niko and Alexander pick up whatever they can salvage of our belongings. Dorian insists on ushering me to my room to clean up, following me like a shadow.
“What?” I ask, peeling off my blood-soaked clothing. His hovering is really starting to irritate me.
“How do you feel?”
I shrug. “Fine, I guess. A little tired.”
“That’s normal. Do you need me?”
Need him? At first I think he means sex or cuddling or some other form of human comfort, but then I get the connotation.
“No,” I shake my head. “I’m fine, really. Plus, I took so much of you earlier.”
Dorian chews his luscious bottom lip, his baby blue gaze falling to the ground. “Do you want…Nikolai?”
I pause from the task of removing my jeans mid-tug and frown. “What?”
“Would you rather breathe him?”
I roll my eyes in exasperation. “Dorian, what are you talking about?”
He takes a step toward me, yet he doesn’t look me in the eye. “You two have a connection. It’s obvious. He seems to bring out your abilities, and you feel at ease with him. Maybe it’s him you need.”
I narrow my eyes in confusion, unsure of what I’m hearing. Dorian Skotos is the most self-assured man I know—human or supernatural. He’s eons beyond any woman’s wildest fantasy and more than I could ever dream of deserving. How the hell could he be insecure of the strictly platonic relationship I have with his younger brother?
It was Dorian who ordered Niko to watch over me when he ran off to play house with Aurora. He was the one who trusted his brother to stay with me because he was an asshole that couldn’t control his goddamn hormones and made a sex tape with said super-bitch. Niko has been nothing but trustworthy and understanding. How could Dorian ever doubt him? How could he ever doubt me?
I huff out my aggravation as I kick off my jeans and walk over to him, still wearing my blood-stained undergarments. “There’s nothing going on with your brother and me, Dorian. You said you trusted me.”
His crystal blue eyes meet mine. “I do.”
“And you trust your brother, right? Since you obviously trusted him with my life.”
Dorian nods, and a lock of black hair falls over his forehead. Under normal circumstances, I would brush it back, just to feel the soft, silky strands between my fingers, but his suspicion has me feeling less than warm and fuzzy.
“Where is this coming from, Dorian? Your behavior towards my father—your best friend—and this doubt you’re having with Niko? I don’t get it.”
Dorian rests his hands on my shoulders, fingering the bloodied bra straps. He slides them down slowly before caressing the indentions left behind in my skin. I feel the clasp on my back come undone, one hook at a time, without his fingers even touching it at all. When I am completely topless, my breasts heavy and on display, he quirks a crooked grin.
“I can’t help but be possessive of what I have. Look at you—have you any idea what you do to me? How crazy and out of control you make me feel? How I count the minutes…seconds…until I can touch you again? Feel your skin against mine, burning me. Marking me with unrelenting desire?”
With a wicked gleam in his eye, he palms my breasts, running the pads of his thumbs over my quickly pebbling nipples. I know exactly what he’s doing—distracting me. Not only making me release my irritation, but forcing me to forget why I was even annoyed in the first place.
I’m arching into his touch, my body begging for his distraction to erase all the bad that’s happened in the last hour, when there’s a knock on my bedroom door. Before either of us can answer, Niko pops his head in, getting a good look at me almost completely naked, my swollen breasts in his brother’s hands.
“Oh shit, um, sorry I didn’t realize…” he stammers, trying to look away, but failing.
“What do you want?” Dorian grits out, jaw tightly clenched. He maneuvers his body to block mine, but I’m sure Niko has already gotten more than an eyeful. Wouldn’t be the first time. He’d already undressed me when I was too distraught to do it myself after discovering a very explicit home video starring Dorian and Aurora. If he was truly interested in my body, he probably could have had it already. He could have had me. Considering my mental state that night, I would have done anything to numb the pain. Sad, but true.
Niko shifts uncomfortably at the door, battling with the impulse to let his crystal blue eyes find my naked skin. “I thought you’d want to know…Morgan is stirring. She’ll want to see you when she wakes up.”
“Thank you, Niko,” I respond, looking up at a stone-face
d Dorian. “We’ll be out in a minute.”
I’m still too stunned to respond. And even if I could, my words would be like gasoline on an already kindling flame.
“Understand this,” Dorian says to me as soon as we hear the click of my bedroom door close. “I am a patient, rational man, Gabriella. But there are things that can, and will, cause me to act irrationally. You are one of them. Do I make myself clear?”
Then he’s gone in a haze of grey smoke, leaving me speechless and dumbfounded. I shake off his chilly demeanor and hop in the shower to quickly wash away the remnants of Morgan’s flaking, dried blood. I don’t have time to deal with Dorian’s mood swings. I can’t consider his fragility right now, not when I have to think about the ones that are really fragile. The ones that slice open their wrists from their palm to their forearm, just to bleed out all the fear and pain.
I emerge from the bedroom to find Niko and Alexander hovering silently over Morgan’s body. Dorian isn’t in the immediate area, and part of me thinks it’s for the best. I may have to lean on someone other than him for strength—both mentally and physically—and I don’t want it to spark even more friction between us.
Ugh. Happy fucking birthday to me.
“Where’s Dorian?” Alexander asks, a small frown lining his forehead.
“Don’t know,” I shrug, sitting in the space beside Morgan on the couch. “How is she?”
“Her vitals are steady,” he answers, touching his fingers to her wrist. He looks up at me and gives me what I’m sure he deems an encouraging, fatherly smile. “She’ll be fine. You were incredible, Gabriella. You saved her life. I’m so very proud of you. Your mother would have been too.”
I shrug, my cheeks warm. “Thanks. And thank you for being here…for helping with my friend.”
Alexander nods before laying a timid hand on mine. He flinches at first, still not accustomed to the feel of my skin, but he doesn’t pull away. He’s here for me. My father has fought to survive…for me.