Page 15 of Celestial Alphas (Nexus #2)

Chapter

Fourteen

M y car door is yanked open the second Aleksander pulls up in the garage under the hospital. Hollis is his usual bright cheery self, looking like he’s eaten a load of cupcakes made of pure happiness and joy as he frowns at me. He leans in, his arms resting on the top of the car. “Did you get it, then?”

I roll my eyes. “It’s lovely to see you too, Hollis, really. A brilliant welcome back to the city. You could start off by asking are we okay? That’s usually what people do when someone has gone and done something really fucking dangerous for them.”

He smirks. “You didn’t do it for me, you did it for Rhodes, because Rhodes looked at you and didn’t see what I did. He became your friend and wanted the bond.”

“What do you see, then?” I question, climbing out of the car and putting us way too close. There isn’t an inch of space between the car and him, and he doesn’t let up. I hear Aleksander swearing and getting out the other side of the car, but I don’t dare take my eyes off Hollis and the silent challenge.

“A monster.” He cocks his head to the side. “What else?”

Alek grabs his shirt and pulls him straight up to his face. Hollis uses his power and pushes him away, sending Alek stumbling. “You’re a fucking prick, Hol.”

“Enough,” I snap at them, shutting the car door. “You’re right, Hollis.” It actually hurts to agree with him. “This is all about Rhodes. I have what we need. Let’s go up.”

“Fine, I’ll escort you there and back down here,” Hollis offers. I know he isn’t offering to protect me or to be nice, but to make sure it works.

“I can only take one of you to hide.” I rub my face, looking at Alek. “Will you wait here?”

“Of course I will. Go and wake Rhodes, tell him everything and that we will keep you safe.” He comes over and tugs me into a hug. I like his big arms wrapped around me, holding me so closely, and it feels like no one can hurt me for a second when he is protecting me. It’s cold again when he steps away, looking at Hollis. “Keep her safe and look after our mate, Hollis.”

“She’s not my—” He cuts himself off. I ignore the jab of pain in my chest from the rejection, and my Nexus feels mad.

“You don’t have to be such an asshole about it,” I mutter to him as we walk to the lift, and I keep my eyes darting around, ready to grab his hand if anyone so much as looks our way. The sun’s barely even risen in the sky, and it was a long night of driving for Aleksander. I’m glad he is taking a moment to rest down here. I could do with a nap myself when Rhodes wakes up. He will wake up. This has to work.

“I do.” He pushes the door open and looks through before nodding for me to go in. When we get to the lift, Hollis grabs my hand, and we go in together. It’s awkward holding his hand as the lift goes up. It only opens once, letting in a woman who frowns at the space and the fact that it’s stopping on another level, talking to herself about it. When the doors open to Rhodes’s floor, I’m careful not to touch the lady and freak her out as we slide around her. Hollis leads the way straight to Rhodes’s room, and only when it’s completely quiet outside do we go in. I shut the door behind me before yanking my hand out of his and cutting off the power. Hollis looks at his brother, turning to me. “Go on, then.”

“Please let this work,” I whisper to myself as I walk up to Rhodes’s bed. I pull the vial out of my pocket, glancing at the cut on my palm and what I gave up for this cure. I climb onto the bed, kneeling next to him, and pull the lid off the vial. I gently tug his bottom lip down, making enough space to pour the vial straight into his mouth. It fades, disappearing like vapours almost the second it touches his lips, almost like it was never there.

Seconds tick by where nothing happens. Seconds feel like minutes, the minutes feel like hours, and my heart is racing the entire time until Rhodes suddenly opens his forest green eyes. He coughs, gasps a few times, searching around the room before his eyes lock with mine, and his shoulders drop. He looks at me with warmth, so much warmth. I don’t even know what to do with someone looking at me like that. “Rhodes…” I just burst into tears. I don’t know when it happened or when I ever started being the person who cries as much as I do right now, but I can’t help it.

He reaches for me and pulls me to his chest, curling his arm around my waist and holding me as I sob on his shoulder. “I thought you were gone; I thought I was never…” I’m not sure he can even understand me through all the crying. Rhodes is pale when I look up at him, but alive. Alive and awake is all that matters.

He curves his hand around my cheek. “I was never leaving without you.” His vow washes over me like a marking brand right on my heart, and he kisses the top of my head, holding me tightly to him. “Wait, everything is slowly coming back to me. The house was bombed at the party by Vian?”

“What else do you remember?” I ask. I run my eyes over his features, over everything that makes Rhodes. His smile that shows his dimples off—how did I not notice how cute they were before?—the glow of his green eyes, and the light of his blond hair that is sun-kissed even with a week in a hospital bed. He is so much paler than usual, and there are bags under his eyes, but it doesn’t take the light from him. Rhodes is pure light, and nothing will ever change my mind about that.

“Hollis. Is he…” he asks, and I nod, turning to look at Hollis but not removing myself from Rhodes’s bed.

“I’m here,” Hollis answers. Hollis looks at us together, and I swear it hits him that we have a bond. I’m not sure he ever really saw us together before and really accepted that I’m going to be in his brother’s life now and his too. I think he hoped I would run away and just leave them all alone, and I did want that for a while…but something has changed. Everything has changed now. I’m in more danger out there where the Vian, Severi, they can get to me. Onyx’s dad is an issue, but I don’t think he will give me to Severi again, not when my mates know what he did now. They could make it public and ruin him. This is a mess, but it’s a mess everywhere I go, and I get people killed. Harry can’t happen again.

Disgust lingers on Hollis’s pretty face, and he clearly hates me being held by his brother. Not out of jealousy, not out of any care for the bond between us, between our Nexus. But he just hates me. “How are you?”

“Good.” Rhodes sounds anything but good, but neither one of us calls him out on that. “I remember I woke up after the bomb went off, and I saw you, Gwen. You were fighting Vian, and I was trying to get to you when one of them touched my neck from behind. Everything was dark after that.”

“They could have killed you…” What I leave off is I have no idea why they didn’t. Vian having restraint isn’t something I’ve heard of.

“I’ve never been caught off guard by them before, but you were fighting better than any ranger I’ve seen before.” He grins at me. “I was so proud. I am proud.”

My heart leaps.

“Proud? What of her distracting you and nearly getting you killed, Rhodes?” Hollis explodes. “For fuck’s sake, no woman is?—”

“Careful what comes out of your mouth in anger, Hollis,” Rhodes cuts him off with a lethal snarl. “It’s not her fault and never say it is. It was mine, and she saved me. You should be thanking her, not judging everything.”

Hollis groans. “You don’t know the whole story, brother, and when you do, you might not want to be holding her like that.”

“I don’t give a shit what the full story is. I want her, whatever the story is, and you need to get your head around that.” Rhodes nods at the door. “Until then, get the fuck out. It’s her I want here, not you when you’re acting like this, brother.”

Hollis actually looks hurt more than angry, and I see it. I see something different from him for a second, and I don’t know what to make of his reaction. His feelings. I’m kinda glad he is back to his angry self when he growls at me. “You’re poison!”

“The only poison is whatever has turned you from the brother that I used to know into this. You were never like this!” Rhodes growls right back at him. “What the hell changed you?”

Hollis walks out, slamming the door shut behind him, and I flinch. “We’re kind of all being hunted right now. He shouldn’t walk out there without my power hiding him.”

“He can look after himself.” Rhodes strokes my arm. “Just stay. I want you here.”

“Is that true, what you said? Hollis wasn’t always like this?” I question after a long pause of silence.

“Yeah. Hollis, he was kind,” Rhodes gently explains.

“I find that hard to believe,” I mutter. “People don’t change that much.”

“Some do,” he quietly whispers back to me. “Now tell me everything, Gwen. I need to be caught up.”

Where the fuck do I even begin? “You said once that I could tell you anything and you would not hate me, you would…you’d still be here for me. What if I told you my Nexus is a monster, and it just kills? Even hunts for sport? What if I told you that I’m swimming in the blood of innocent lives that I’ve taken? What if I told you I am out of control and a danger to society, to everybody, but I don’t want to be that way? When I was at the academy…I want that …I want normality.”

I clear my throat before continuing. “My parents hated Nexus. They taught me to and told me not to trust anyone from here and to never get caught. I’ve broken all the rules that they dedicated years to teaching me, and I keep doing it. They taught me that everyone here deserves everything they get, and they…” I pause. “I don’t know whether their beliefs and mine are different now, but I do know that I felt at home in the academy and safe. I found Annie and you guys. I’m really not very good with feelings, emotional things, or discussing feelings at all, but nearly losing you and everything that’s been going on recently…I want to try before I can’t. That’s enough for now, right?”

“It’s more than enough.” He looks happy. Like he has been waiting for me to say this. “It’s really more than enough. I must be dreaming. Or I’m literally in some version of heaven with you opening up to me. I don’t fucking care if your Nexus wants to kill everyone and everything. I care about you.” I grin at him. “Now, if you kissed me, I know I’m dead and very happy.” I laugh, I can’t help myself, shaking my head at him. Rhodes still knows how to make me feel better. He’s woken up from a coma, and he’s making me feel better. I lean down, just ready to kiss him, when the door opens with a bang.

Happiness and hope die in my throat when I see three guns pointed straight at us, not at me though, at Rhodes’s chest. The glowing green laser light lingers on his chest before Beta Guili steps through the rangers with the guns, his hands in the air. “We know there’s no point shooting them at you, because you could kill all of us and walk out of it quite easily. But Rhodes will be shot if you don’t come with us willingly back to the trials and you put these handcuffs on to control your Nexus.”

“Get the fuck out of here and take those guns off him!” I shout, trying to climb off Rhodes, but he links his arm around my waist.

Rhodes’s gentle voice is a breeze against my ear. “Leave, now. Kill them if you must, but just get out of here.”

“Rhodes, I’m disappointed.” Beta Guili sighs. “Gwenieve knows that she won’t be able to stop the bullets. She’s not that quick, and she also knows I do not want to hurt anyone.”

“Fine, I’ll come with you, but don’t you dare touch Rhodes,” I warn, and Beta Guili nods once. “How did you know I was here?”

“Hollis came straight to us once his brother was awake.” Beta Guili picks up handcuffs from one of the rangers.

Rhodes is shaking his head as I climb off the bed. “Hollis wouldn’t do that?—”

“He did,” I say, stopping him. “Hollis hates me, and I’m not surprised. He just wanted you awake, and he got what he wanted. I’ll be okay.”

“You will and I’m coming with you,” Rhodes begins, pulling wires out, but there are so many attached to him. Beta Guili snaps the handcuffs on my wrists, effectively silencing my Nexus and making me feel like I’m swimming in a fog in my own mind. Beta Guili grabs my upper arm, leading me to the door, and I’m tired. I’m so tired of fighting this that I don’t say goodbye to Rhodes. I just do nothing but let Beta Guili take me out of his room. “I’ll get you out, Gwen! I’ll be there!”

Hollis is standing with Rochelle, her slender arm hooked through his. He smirks when I walk past, and that look cuts through my heart, severing the piece that connected us forever. I’m done with him. Rhodes is wrong. There is nothing good about Hollis, and he is dead to me. Rochelle is too smug for her pretty face, which would look better with my fist planted right in the centre of it. I snap my teeth at her, making her jump back a little. I’m pretty satisfied by that and smile as Beta Guili shakes his head at me in disappointment. Rochelle laughs. “Have fun, monster bitch!”

“Rot in hell, the both of you!” I calmly respond, keeping my tone empty and cold.

“You’ll get there first, I bet,” Hollis’s taunt echoes to me, and I close my eyes for a second, letting myself feel all the pain that my mate wants me dead. My stomach’s turning when we get into the elevator and go down to the first floor, through the entrance hall where every Nexus and human here stops to stare and whisper. Three black cars wait out front, and Beta Guili drags me into the middle car. The second he climbs in next to me and shuts the door, it speeds off. “You shouldn’t have run, Gwen. What happened? And be honest, I am here to help you.”

Only an idiot would think that. He is a powerful man, and there is no way he is on my side. I don’t think he is evil and a shithead like Onyx’s dad, but he isn’t good either. He likely walks the line of the grey, tipping from side to side, not caring as long as he is in his position of power and wealth. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” He sighs at my answer. “You do realise that your Supreme Alpha is an utter fucking dickhead? And that while he’s ruling you, well, the whole of Starlight City will burn quicker than it would if you let my Nexus free. You’re judging me when you should be looking at him.”

“I don’t disagree, but there isn’t anything I can do,” he admits. “I’m on your side, and it would help if you gave me all the information you can.”

I look away before I can say anything else, like fuck off, lying prick . I’m done trusting anyone but myself.

“Answer me. Do you know why you’re here?” Paavo’s friend, who I can’t remember the name of, asks again. Paavo isn’t at the trial, apparently, but he will be here soon, and until then, his second is standing in. He keeps repeating the same question, and I’m not answering. They dragged me here the second we got to the building, and told me they aren’t risking leaving me in a cell because I’m a flight risk and clearly the Vian have an interest in me. “You’re here to be tried for the murders of—” He starts listing them all and I yawn. It’s been a long day. “These Nexus are dead, and you have been deemed to stand trial and be judged for their deaths. Do you understand, Miss Autumn?”

“No, repeat it again?” I deadpan, the lie feeling like razors clipping down my throat thanks to the spells in this room.

One of the betas shouts. “She’s a killer and a monster! I order for her to?—”

“Careful, Beta. One more word about my mate that isn’t singing her fucking praises for surviving a horrible childhood, a Nexus being that is out of control, and the rejection of her mates to save them…well, you won’t have a tongue to speak with anymore.” My head shoots to Onyx, who just walked into the trial like he owns the place.

The beta who shouted coughs on thin air and blurts out, “You are not allowed in here! Your father’s position does?—”

“My father has decided to show her mercy and have us train her. She will be a defence to the Nexus, a protector of Starlight, and a hero by the time her years at the academy are over. We have a solution and a plan…none of which you can overturn or prevent. I was sent here by him, and he signed these as proof. She is free of her crimes.” He walks towards me, confidence dripping off him. He stops in front of the block, snapping the lock and letting the door swing open. He offers me his hand, and my heart races. “Trust me. One more time, trust me, please. I won’t ever let you down again.”

His please breaks my heart open, tears it to pieces, and even when I don’t know how to ever trust him, I take his hand. “Am I really free?” He nods, tugging me with him to the door. To my surprise, the rangers move out of the way for him, and no one stops us as we get outside and to his car parked up with the key still in the ignition. He opens the passenger door and lets me in before getting in himself. Onyx spins right out of the council main buildings and through Starlight, heading to the outskirts until I can see the academy. It’s strange how it feels like going home now.

Onyx is silent, and I find myself looking at him more than once until we go through the gates of the academy and inside. The sun is bright above the academy, and it’s normal. No one is even looking our way. I don’t know how he did it, but it feels like everything could be back to how it was before the trial, and I might have a chance to go home again. He parks by the front of the steps and leans his head back.

“Thank you. I don’t know how you did it, but thank you.”

“This comes with conditions, Gwen.” He looks at me. I can’t read his expression, and it’s strange. He picks up my hand and pushes up my sleeve. His hand glows bright blue as he draws something on my wrist and lets go. A blue glowing rune is left, the same one I had before that connected us. “My father never put the first rune on you. It was mine. I hid my power from him, and he didn’t know. I knew if he was aware of the extent of my powers, he would want more from me, and I was focused on finding you first. It’s not just you that’s good at lying to protect those we care about.” I open my mouth, but he shakes his head. “Tap the rune. Tell me you’re okay as often as you can, because you won’t see me for a while now. Six months, to be exact. It’s part of the deal I made to get you out and give you a life. You won’t be allowed to leave the academy.”

Six months? I shake my head. “I didn’t ask you to do that. Why would you do that?” I reach for him, but he pulls away. “What about Finnegan and what he did?”

“Because you’re mine and you want normality. I’m giving you this.” He nods at the academy. Annie is waiting on the steps, holding Nibbles, who is wiggling like crazy to get to me. I smile as tears fall down my cheeks, and I turn back to Onyx as he continues. “We can’t be together. That was part of the deal, and that is permanent. As for Finnegan, he is an assassin, and my father doesn’t want to lose his talents. He has been excused too, and all evidence of your crimes has vanished. You have other mates, and you can be happy…and you hate me, so this shouldn’t matter, right?”

“Onyx…” I whisper, reaching for him, but he gets out of the car. I watch him walk around the car and open my door, my heart racing. I don’t know everything he has done to get me out, but it changes so much between us that he did. I climb out and walk up to him. “I forgive you since you’re letting me go, and I’m asking you to stay here with me. We can fight your father together and fix it all, but stay. I never hated you. Can’t you see that?”

“I want you to hate me.” He takes my hand. “It makes it so much easier for me to walk away. Please, don’t say anything else, and let me do this for you. You protected your mates for years and sacrificed everything you had. Now it’s my turn to keep you safe and give you a life. Walk up to Annie and train, smile and laugh. Be normal and let the academy teach your Nexus with your other mates, as she doesn’t want to hurt them. You will be everything you’ve ever wanted, Gwen, and our people won’t shout monster, they will shout for you to save them when a war comes. Give yourself a chance to be that.”

Just before he lets go, he slides a note into the palm of my hand, and my Nexus clamps my hand shut around it. I shake with a sob as he gets in the car and drives away. Only when he is gone, really gone, do I open up the note and read the single word. “Diomi.”

Annie rushes to me, wrapping me in a tight hug, and Nibbles attacks my face with kisses until I take her from Annie. “Are you okay?”

“No, yes. No,” I whisper, smiling softly at Nibbles. “Do you have a phone? I need to google something.”

“Sure.” She passes me her phone, using her Face ID to unlock it first. I quickly type the word into google, but nothing comes up. “What are you searching?”

“Diomi. Do you know what it means?”

The wind blows my hair around my shoulders. “Yes, it’s a star constellation that our very best scientists have tracked as a possible area our Nexus came from. It’s a love story. The word is for our brightest stars. They have a connection between two of them that is timeless and looks like a shadow holding them together. One is a heart, and one is a soul, perfectly in sync and inseparable, even when the sky is pulling them apart.”

I feel like collapsing as I spin and look at the walls in the distance and the direction Onyx has gone. He did this all for me, and he lied. He might be gone for now, but he is always my mate, and we are inseparable.