Page 21 of Illusory (The Marked Saga #8)

Once again, I awoke to a lightless room and a throbbing ache in my backside, followed by an irritating feeling of Déjà vu. You would think that I would’ve gotten used to bloodsharing by now and figured out some way to not lose consciousness, but apparently, that was beyond my current capabilities.

Groaning, I turned onto my side in search of my phone and found Gabriel sitting in the armchair beside my night table instead, seemingly waiting for me to wake up. Again .

This was starting to become a really bad habit.

“What is it with you Huntington boys and watching me sleep?” I asked groggily, only partially kidding.

Gabriel cleared his throat and shifted around awkwardly as though I had just called him out on some deep dark secret he hadn’t wanted to share. Had there been any light in the room, I was certain there would’ve been color in his cheeks.

“That isn’t what I was doing. I wanted to make sure you were okay after the…after your…” He trailed off abruptly as though he didn’t know what to name whatever had gone down in the basement earlier.

“After my blood offering?” I finished for him, opting to go with something a little more sophisticated than what had actually occurred. “Or are you referring to my ass hitting the concrete floor after I blacked out?” Frankly it could have easily been either one that had him all flustered and worried.

“Both.”

“Well, you’ll be happy to know I’m good on all fronts,” I said and pushed up into a seated position, my hand moving up to my temple as a throbbing ache started to form there. “Just a little weak from, you know, the blood loss and all.” But still so damn worth it.

“I figured you would be.” He eyed me curiously as though searching for the answer to a question I hadn’t even heard him ask. “Well, anyway, that’s the other reason I came up here,” he said as if he still needed to defend himself against my ‘watching me sleep’ dig. He bit down into his wrist and then scooched in closer, holding out his arm for me to take. “You should heal.”

I stared at his wrist but made no attempt to reach for it. Even though I was extremely appreciative of his offer and grateful that he cared enough to wait by my bedside to heal me, I couldn’t help but wonder why it was him doing it and not Dominic, especially since this whole thing had been his idea to begin with. Seemed to me that it should’ve been him up here healing me and not Gabriel.

“Where is he?” I asked quietly, still staring at his wrist.

“Which one?”

I cringed despite it being a very fair question. “Dominic. I already know where Trace is,” I added under my breath as I picked at my cuticles, avoiding his eyes.

He lowered his arm, resting it on his knee. “He’s still downstairs with Trace.”

“Alone?” My brows rose as I met his eyes again. “Is that a good idea?”

“Probably not.”

Smiling, I nodded and then lowered my eyes again. “Did he send you up here to heal me so that he wouldn’t have to deal with me?”

Gabriel swallowed noisily and then shook his head. “No. Of course not.”

He didn’t sound very convincing, and it must have shown on my face.

“It just made more sense for me to do it since he’s busy going over the new protocol,” he said, sounding as though he barely bought the story himself. That or he just wasn’t fully on board with the change of plans regarding acclimating Trace to his new way of life.

“Right.” Somehow, it felt like there was more to Dominic’s absence than even what Gabriel knew. I guessed not much had changed since last night after all.

It felt like forever before either one of us spoke again. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?”

“You and my brother.

I shifted awkwardly and then shook my head. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“It didn’t look like nothing,” he noted quietly. “I thought things seemed…better,” he added cautiously, as if to keep my spirits up, but I could hear the uncertainty in his voice, like he knew more than anyone that looks could be deceiving. Especially when it came to me and Dominic.

“Really? Is that what you gathered?” I asked sarcastically. “Because I’d say they’re worse than ever.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You mean besides the fact that he won’t touch me or kiss me or feed from me? Trust me. He’s made it very clear that he’s not interested in me in the slightest bit anymore, no matter how many times I throw myself at him.” Gabriel’s jaw tensed at that, but I was too depressed and angry to feel embarrassed by it. “He’s basically been gone since the night I got my wings. What does that tell you?”

“I’m sure he had his reasons.”

“I’m glad you think so because he sure as hell hasn’t bothered to share them with me.”

He ran a hand over his face as he thought it over. “Well, he hasn’t left town,” he pointed out, grasping at straws for the sake of my wounded heart. “He’s here now, isn’t he? That has to mean something.”

“Maybe…or maybe he just has a vested interest in making sure this mess with the Roderick sisters and the Son of Perdition doesn’t end in an all-out apocalypse.”

It was the only thing that made sense to me. Why else would he have come back here, especially when he clearly had no romantic interest in me. Anyone who knew Dominic knew he never did anything without a very good reason for it and he definitely never did anything from the goodness of his heart.

His brows banked together, his eyes softening with something that looked a lot like sympathy. “He searched for you, Jemma. He stayed by your side all night and hasn’t left this house since.”

My cheeks burned. Did everyone in the house know that he’d stayed in my room all night? The poor sentinel watching over his troubled little Slayer. Fuck that. “Again, vested interest in me staying alive.”

“And compelling Isa? Making sure that you were properly taken care of in his absence?”

Feeling my heart flutter, I doubled down on my refusal to feel anything but slighted, because every time I let myself feel even an ounce of hope, it was promptly crushed to smithereens in the very next breath. “I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for that too.”

“And helping with Trace today?” he continued, refusing to let me wallow in my certainty.

“I…I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore,” I finally admitted, feeling more confused than ever. “All I know is what I feel, and what I feel is that everything is messed up and wrong . No matter what I do, he just keeps pulling further and further away from me, while somehow also…”

“Also what?” he asked when I didn’t finish.

“Pushing me toward Trace.”

He sat back against the armchair and stared out across the room. “That doesn’t sound like something my brother would do.”

“Exactly my point.” I blew out a harsh breath and then turned to him. “First, he tells me that Trace’s feelings for me haven’t changed, and that if anything, they’re only heightened. He assured me that Trace is only staying away from me because he’s afraid to lose control and hurt me. And then if saying it wasn’t enough, he decides to take action and fix the whole damn thing for me like he wants to get us back together. I mean, you saw for yourself what he did downstairs. It’s like he’s trying to repair the rift between me and Trace or something.”

“Maybe that’s exactly what he’s doing,” he offered plainly.

I jerked back at his casual assertion. “And why the hell would Dominic want to fix anything between me and Trace?”

“Why does Dominic do any of the things he does?”

“The hell if I know.”

Gabriel smiled. “He does them for you. The only time I’ve ever seen my brother do anything kind—show any kind of love or human emotion—was for you. To have you, to protect you, to love you.”

My heart squeezed at his words as though the chambers were suddenly overflowing with hope. But I was too afraid to take it in, to let it fill my head with fairy tales that were doomed to fall apart. “Then why won’t he touch me or kiss me anymore? Why is he pushing me into Trace’s arms instead of keeping me for himself like he’s always done?”

He’d helped me in the past countless times before, put my well-being and my heart ahead of his own, time and time again, but he’d always done it without letting me go. Why was this time different?

“I’m…not sure,” he said, and I could hear the sincerity in his voice. He truly had no idea and was just as much in the dark about his brother’s state of mind as I was. “Maybe that’s something you should be asking him.”

“And throw down the last of my dignity? Just like that?”

He smiled at that. “At least then you’ll know if it was all worth it or not.”

I nodded, letting his words burrow in. How else would I know the truth if I didn’t come right out and ask him? To demand that he tell me where we stood so that I could know once and for all whether to close the door on him.

Not that I had any idea how to close the door on Dominic.

Or Trace.

But that was a pickle for another day.

Gabriel bit down into his wrist to reproduce the puncture wounds that had already healed and then he extended his wrist to me again. “Go on,” he urged when I didn’t immediately reach for his wrist.

I gazed at him for a moment, grateful as all hell that I had a friend like him. A best friend. And then I took his offering with both hands and an appreciative smile.

After I was done, I cleaned the corners of my mouth and then offered my own wrist to him so that he could have a small pick-me-up as well. He tried to shake his head at first, to pretend that he didn’t need it, but I could tell by his stretched pupils that he really wanted to.

“You’re taking some and I’m not accepting no as an answer,” I informed, knowing that he would never admit it on his own.

Despite having accomplished our goal of forming a bloodbond to temporarily override the one I had with Dominic, there was no need to cut him off from the good stuff now that I had what I needed from him. So, I decided I wouldn’t. As long as he still wanted what I had, I would always happily give it to him.

Besides, if I were being totally honest with myself, it had been nice having a bloodbond with someone like Gabriel. Someone I felt safe and comfortable with. Not that I didn’t feel that way with Dominic, but ours had been a completely different dynamic. The love and attraction I had for him—the deep-rooted need to be consumed by him—it had always made our bloodsharing a dangerous game of cat and mouse.

But it was different with Gabriel. Less like the turbulent seas and more like a calm, peaceful lake.

I set my extended arm on his knee and gestured for him to take it. With a small, timid smile, he picked up my wrist and then slowly brought it to his mouth, giving us both a little bit of the thing we needed most then.

The pain and pleasure came and went as it always did, but the connection I had with him in that moment…I knew that would last long after the bloodbond was dead and gone.