Page 26 of Illusory (The Marked Saga #8)

Tears spilled down my cheeks as I ran away from the basement and the mess I had made, and I kept on going until I was all the way upstairs, standing in front of the wrong bedroom door. I’d meant to go to my room and hide away like the drama-causing, boy-switching harlot that I was, but somehow found myself standing at Tessa’s door instead.

I needed a break from bloodsharing and protocols and fighting and all the horrible things it was making me feel, and I really just needed my sister.

“Tessa?” I whispered as I knocked softly against the door and then put my ear to the wood to listen for any signs of life on the other side.

Hearing nothing, I turned the door handle and then peeked my head inside.

The dark red walls were the first thing I saw. Pretty sure they were new, although I couldn’t technically remember the last time I’d been in my sister’s room or what color her walls had been then so they very well could have been this color since the day she moved in.

In my defense, her door had generally remained closed and locked in her absence anyway and since this wasn’t our childhood home, I had no need to open it up and stroll through an empty memory lane.

“Why bother knocking if you’re just going to come in anyway?” asked Tessa as she lay on her bed with her back propped up against the black velvet upholstered headframe.

“Sorry,” I said and shut the door behind myself, leaning my back against it and peering around the room. As uninvited as I felt, it was still better than being cornered by Trace and Dominic, which was undoubtedly what would have happened had I gone back to my own room.

There wasn’t much furniture in the space other than her bed, a black dresser and a strange contraption with rubber bands and steel bars that looked like it was either one of those home gym apparatuses, or some kind of kinky sex equipment. I decided that it would be gym equipment for the duration of my visit.

Her brows banked together as she looked me over. “What happened? Did you get more news about the Incubator?” she asked, mistaking my duress for something far more dangerous, but not nearly as ruinous.

“No. I haven’t heard anything yet.”

“Oh.” She narrowed her eyes, studying me harder. “Did the blood-desensitizing thing not go well?”

I shook my head. “That part went okay actually.” Up until it went really wrong anyway.

She blinked a few times, waiting for me to elaborate. “So, are you going to tell me what’s the matter or should I just keep guessing here?”

“The matter is that I suck.”

“Right.” She nodded. “Makes a lot of sense. Thanks for clearing things up.”

“You’re welcome.” I shifted my weight onto my other foot but didn’t move after that.

“Can I ask why you suck, or is this just like a general consensus?”

I arched my brow at her. “How else would you describe someone who’s in love with two guys at the same time?”

Her expression relaxed when she realized this was about my love life and not an actual life or death situation—even though it felt like one to me. “Why are you suddenly in your feelings about it? It’s not exactly a new development,” she said as though she were already bored of that soap opera drama.

“No, it’s not, but living under the same roof together is .”

She paused to think about it. “I think I’m getting it now,” she said and then tapped the spot next to her on the bed. I pushed off the door and dragged my feet all the way over to her bed before climbing in under the comforter beside her.

“So, what happened?” she asked as she pulled out a bag of potato chips from under her blanket like it was a totally normal place to have them stored. “Did they start punching each other’s lights out again or something?” she asked, a little too excitedly for my taste, I might add, and then shoved a few chips into her mouth.

“Seriously, Tessa? What the hell?” I gawked at her stuffed mouth and then lifted the comforter, craning my head to see what the hell else she was hiding under there. “Since when do you eat in bed?” I asked, completely baffled.

For as far back as I could remember, Tessa had two rules about her bedroom. One: stay the fuck out of it. And two: If you do happen to ever get invited in, never ever under any circumstances attempt to bring food in with you. And that included chewing gum. It was like some kind of nervous tick she had.

“I don’t know. Since now, I guess,” she answered nonchalantly like it wasn’t the huge deal that it was, and then packed a few chips into her mouth as if to solidify the point. “So, was there blood?” She waggled her brows.

“No, there wasn’t any blood.” I shot her an irritated look. “It wasn’t that kind of argument.” Thank god they were at least mature enough not to start swinging at each other.

“Well, what’s the problem then? It’s not like they ever liked each other or got along before anyway.”

“The problem is we’re all stuck living here together and I’m pretty sure they’re going to end up killing each other at some point,” I snapped because she clearly wasn’t understanding how dire the situation had become or how badly the guilt was eating me alive. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see them going at it. This is the worst I’ve ever seen them and it’s only going to get worse the longer this goes on.”

“Then stop letting it go on.”

“Really, Tessa? And how exactly do you suggest I do that?”

“By ripping off the bandage and picking the one you want to be with, for crying out loud,” she said, like it was the easiest thing to do. Like it was even remotely a possibility.

“I literally fucking can’t, Tessa! That’s the whole goddamn problem. I can’t do that. I can’t choose between the two of them without feeling like I’m losing half my heart either fucking way.” I hated that I felt that way, that I couldn’t simply have loved one a tiny bit more, but that was just the way it was. The way it had always been. Her telling me to pick one wasn’t going to make it any more possible for me to do it.

She studied my face for a moment as she chewed. “You can’t seriously mean to tell me that you love them both exactly the same amount. There’s no way I’m buying that. You must be leaning more toward one than the other.”

“Don’t you think I would have already put us all out of our misery if that was the case? Do you think I like hurting them? That I like feeling guilty and shitty and torn all the goddamn time? Because news flash, I really don’t. I don’t want to love them both. I just…I just don’t know how to make myself stop .”

“Why don’t you try making a list of all their best and worst qualities? See which one stacks up better,” she suggested and then tossed a few more chips into her mouth.

“Honestly, Tessa.” I gave her a hard double take as I tried to remember why I had thought it was a good idea to talk to her about this of all people. “I’m not going to make a Pros and Cons list and tally them up against each other like they were a couple of used cars. It’s no wonder you’re still single.”

“Single by choice,” she corrected pointedly. “Besides, you have enough boyfriends for the both of us.”

I turned around and glared at her.

“Too soon?”

“You’re seriously not funny.”

“Come on. I’m a little bit funny.” She eyed me again, studying some unknown marker on my face I couldn’t see. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, Jem, but if you don’t figure out some way to choose between the two of them, you’re going to end up losing them both.”

“I know that. And you’re not helping,” I added softly and then let out a heavy breath that somehow hurt my lungs and heart and head at the same time. Because deep down, I knew she was right. Hell, I already felt like I was losing Dominic, and honestly, I suspected Trace probably wasn’t that far behind him.

The whole thing felt very poetic, in a tragic kind of way.

I flopped back against the pillow, trying really hard not to cry again. “Maybe that’s what I deserve,” I mused, the irony not lost on me in the least.

She picked up a couple more chips and then paused. “Could that maybe be what you’re waiting for?” she asked tentatively. “For them to get fed up and make the decision for you?”

I frowned as I thought about it.

Was that what I was doing? Was I waiting for them to finally get sick of me and my crap and walk away from me so that I wouldn’t have to be the one to do it? I shrugged, not really sure of anything anymore other than the heaviness in my heart and the tears that were constantly screaming to be released.

I supposed in a way it would be easier to pass the buck on to them, but I really didn’t see how that would fix the whole living with half a heart problem.

“Just tell me what to do, Tess. Tell me how to fix this without destroying them both in the process.”

“I wish I could, little sis. I can fix a lot of things—a flat tire, an open Hellgate, a hive of demons running rampant on an unsuspecting city—no problem. But this…” She shook her head. “This really isn’t in my wheelhouse.”

I nodded, staring up at the ceiling as tears dripped from the corners of my eyes and into my hair. “I just know this is going to end badly for all of us.” I could feel it in the hollow depths of my soul.

A quiet beat passed between us as she reached over and swiped away at one of my tears. “Have you maybe ever considered the alternative?” she asked quietly. Cautiously .

I turned and met her eyes. “What alternative?”

“That…” Her eyes bounced back and forth between mine. “That maybe you’re not supposed to be with either one of them?”

I stared at her for a long time, feeling as though her words had knocked the air so far out of my lungs that I might never be able to pull in a full breath again. Because I hadn’t ever considered that. The thought of losing one was agonizing, but both? Unfathomable .

And yet, after she’d said it, it was suddenly the only thing I could think about for the rest of the night.

* * *

While my talk with Tessa hadn’t exactly solved any of my relationship problems, and even though I had left her room feeling even more confused about what to do than when I’d arrived, it had still been nice to be able to just hang out with my sister and do nothing but pig out in her bed and watch old movies together. Especially since Gabriel had essentially banned the idea of going to a theatre altogether.

As nice as it was, though, it was also very un-Tessa like.

Because Tessa never took days off. Even during our summer away, there was always something to hunt or vanquish or get intel on. Something to plot or learn or train for. And when there wasn’t, we were gone, back on the road on our way to the next town. She was like Slayer Barbie on crack and honestly, it had mostly just been really annoying, at the time, especially when I was trying to slip away to meetup with Dominic.

I couldn’t help but wonder what had sparked the sudden change in her.

Closing her door behind myself, I dragged my feet across the hall to my room, fully intent on crash-landing into my bed and staying there for the rest of the night. Even though I’d opted to skip dinner earlier, I had spent most of the evening gorging on Tessa’s impressive stash of chips, chocolate bars, and baked goodies that looked suspiciously like they’d come from Isa and was fairly certain I wasn’t going to need to eat again until next year.

Groaning and cursing my lack of self-control, I opened my bedroom door and then flicked on the light switch, my gaze immediately falling on Dominic. He was seated in the armchair with his head tipped back against the headrest and a glass of something dark and expensive looking in his hand as he sat there waiting. For me. In the dark.

I shut the door behind myself and then locked it even though I had meant to tell him that it wasn’t a good idea for him to be up here anymore. For some reason, my mind, body, and heart were dead set on running their own agendas, no matter how hard I tried to get them to be on the same page.

“Did you enjoy your evening with your sister?” he asked without lifting his head or meeting my eyes.

“I did,” I said, my words coming out on a tremble as I pressed my back against the door and studied him. “I’m sorry for what happened earlier,” I said, feeling that tightness in my chest again.

“I’m the one that ought to be apologizing.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He chuckled, a bitter sound with no humor in it. “Didn’t I?”

I hated seeing him like this. All down and out and distraught. He didn’t deserve that. Not any of it. “You’re the only reason he’s made as much progress as he has. If it weren’t for you, he’d probably still be months away from even stepping foot out of that cage without killing someone.”

I knew that wasn’t what he was talking about, that he was probably referring to what happened between the three of us downstairs and how that related to what he had said to me this morning, but I chose to pretend otherwise.

He lifted his head, but only to take a long swig of his drink before dropping his head back down against the headrest again. “You know it’s your birthday soon,” he said lowly as he mindlessly swirled the dark liquid around in his glass, still not meeting my eyes.

“Counting down the days until I’m officially legal?” I asked teasingly even though my heart sped up at the realization that he’d remembered my birthday, especially since I’d been so busy with everything going on that I hadn’t even remembered it myself.

“That hardly ever stopped me before,” he said, his gaze cutting to mine then.

I bit down on my lip, liking the way his stare made my body warm. “No, it definitely didn’t.”

He took another sip of his drink and then lifted the glass to me in offering, his eyes half-cast as they raked over the length of my body.

I stared at him for what felt like hours before finally pushing off the door and crossing the room to him. Mostly because I was afraid that I would lose control of myself if I got too close to him. Or worse, do something embarrassing again, like ripping off my clothes and throwing myself at him like a dog in heat. It could easily go either way.

Taking the glass, I brought it up to my lips and slowly finished off the rest, wincing as the Whiskey burned a hot trail right down to the bottom of my stomach.

He smirked at the empty glass when I held it back out to him, like he was somehow proud. And, god, had I missed that smile. And those cunning lips. The way he tasted…

As torn and guilt-ridden as I was over what had happened between the three of us earlier, and as much as I still couldn’t picture any sort of good way out of this mess, it apparently didn’t stop me from still wanting him. Or loving him. If only it could have. Things would have been so much easier.

“I miss the way it was before,” I admitted softly, feeling that choking knot at the back of my throat again.

Dominic’s fingers closed around mine still holding the tumbler. A long beat passed and then he pulled the glass back toward himself, drawing me with it as I folded easily onto his lap.

Heat pooled low in my belly as I looked into his eyes, neither of us saying anything as we both held onto the glass as though it were the only thing still keeping us together. I wanted to kiss him then; to throw my arms around his neck and beg him to do all the things he did to me that always made me feel alive. That made me feel like I was flying so far and so high above the earth that nothing bad could ever touch me again.

But I didn’t move, and I didn’t say anything, too afraid that he would turn me away again and shatter the dream I was still hopelessly clutching onto.

“Are you going to let go?” he asked, and I wasn’t sure if he was talking about letting go of the glass, or of him.

I shook my head. “No. I don’t think that I will.”

His eyes narrowed for a split second as he searched my face, his own expression unreadable.

Slowly, he pried the glass from my fingers and then set it down on the armrest, his smoky eyes taking me apart as though he were still trying to decide what he wanted to do. I could see the turmoil in his eyes, the conflict pulling him in two completely different directions. Because while he wanted to do right by me, whatever that meant to him in his mind, he also just wanted me.

I could feel it in the way he raked his fingers into my hair and pulled me down closer, see it in the way his eyes briefly closed when he breathed in my scent like I was his favorite fragrance in the world.

“Dominic—” I reached up to touch him, to see if his face felt as velvety smooth as it always was, but he caught my hand and held it there between us, his eyes holding mine captive in his sharp, knowing gaze.

“Don’t say anything, angel,” he said as he lifted his other hand to my face and brushed the back of his knuckles against my cheek, making my heart flutter wildly in my chest. “It’ll only make it more difficult.”

“You mean more difficult to leave me?” I tested because that was what he had said he intended to do. It didn’t matter that he thought he was doing it for my benefit. He would break me just the same.

“What would you have me do instead?” he asked, his eyes still locked on my mouth as he traced the seam of my lips with his thumb.

“Not leave me. Stay with me,” I offered as he parted my lips and then hissed lowly as I ran my tongue along the length of his thumb. “Give me what I want.”

A gravelly purr rumbled out from his chest, as though, deep down, he wanted to do exactly that. As though he had been picturing it right then and there. I shifted in his lap, repositioning my legs so that I was straddling him on the armchair. Dark shadows liquified in his eyes as I slowly sank back down onto his lap, feeling his hard length pressed up against my middle. It was all I could think about then. Me. him. This chair. All the ways he could take me on it. The too many layers of fabric still between us.

“Finish what you started,” I rasped, practically begging him for it—begging him to have his way with me.

Another rough exhale hissed through his lips. And then the fire in his eyes diminished, snuffed out by something far more lethal and destructive to both of us. “And then what?” he asked, an almost tangible sadness creeping back into his eyes as though he were being haunted by it.

I furrowed my brows at him, unsure if he was asking me literally or figuratively.

“Are you going to choose me tomorrow, angel? Is that what you’re telling me now? Because I don’t think that it is.” He chuckled darkly, his face so close to mine that I could practically taste him. “So where does that leave us if not precisely where we are right now?”

All I had to do was pout my lips out and they’d be on his. “I happen to like where we are right now.”

He pressed his forehead against mine and closed his eyes, breathing me in like I was the only thing that could fill his lungs with life. “And what of tomorrow, angel? What happens then when you’re still in love with the both of us, and I’m still in the way?”

My throat tightened, as though reality had reached out to choke me with its gangly, unforgiving fingers again, and then the fire inside me was gone too. “Stop saying that,” I demanded as a mixture of sorrow and anger crept in to burn its reminder under my lids. “Stop saying you’re in the way.”

“Why not? It’s the truth,” he stated simply, as though it were some sort of fact we couldn’t erase. “He’s your soulmate, angel, and I am not. The Fates didn’t deem me worthy enough this time around.” His lips twisted into a sad smile as he grazed his knuckles against my cheek again, my tears chasing his hand all the way down my face. “All I had holding you to me was our bloodbond, and soon, he will have that too.”

I jerked back, as if to put space between myself and his words. As if the whole of my body needed to reject them. “ No . That’s not true . That’s not what’s holding me to you, and you know it! And I won’t drink from him. I won’t seal the bond. I’ll never seal it.” I had no idea why I’d said that or even what I thought I was trying to prove to him.

All I knew was that I didn’t want to lose him. That every time he pulled away from me, it felt like he was taking a piece of my soul with him. That I was slowly breaking apart in a way that I knew could never again be mended by anything or anyone but him. And I hated it. I hated all of it. The unfairness. The hopelessness. The way it made me want to sob and scream and rage against all of it.

“That’s a nice thought, angel, but what will that change?” he asked regretfully, like he already knew the answer. Like it wouldn’t change a damn thing.

“I…I don’t know.” But it had to mean something. It had to. “I just…I want this all to stop. I want us to go back to the way it was before. I want you to love me the way you did before,” I said as tears gathered in my eyes like a storm cloud, blotting out the firmament as they readied themselves to pour down and drown me in their sorrow.

His lips coiled into a smile made entirely of remorse. “I cannot do that, angel.”

“Why not? Tell me why we can’t go back?” I pleaded, feeling the world mercilessly closing in on me faster than I could track.

“Because I don’t love you the way I did before.”

At his words, the clouds broke, and mounds of sorrow rained down my cheeks because that wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear. I reared back, trying to climb off his lap, desperate to get away from the pain that was gouging out my heart, but he tightened his hold on me and kept me in place.

“You’ve misunderstood me,” he said as he swiped his thumb across my cheek and wiped away the tears, making my entire body melt back into his arms. “I could never love you the way I did before because it was less before. I have only ever fallen deeper in love with you every day that I have known you, and I know with devastating certainty that tomorrow, I will love you even deeper still.”

My heart raged against my ribcage as I tried to focus on him through the blur of tears that distorted my vision.

“But the deeper I fall in love with you, the harder it is for me to love you selfishly. To recklessly take the thing I desire most in this world.” He eyed me then like I was the thing he was talking about, and for the first time in my life, I knew that I was. “I think that perhaps if I loved you the way I did before, I might be able to still do that—to take you selfishly. But it’s not yesterday anymore, angel, and I can never love you less now.”

A thousand tears fell from my eyes then, falling freely into a bottomless chasm of despair that I knew would only continue to grow every day that I was without him until the day that it would eventually swallow me whole.

Because he was right.

The only way that I could end this pain and stop him from drifting further and further away from me was to say those impossible three words to him. To choose him.

But he knew as much as I did that I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t say those words to him any more than I could say them to Trace. What I had with them before, that was over.

Yesterday was gone, no matter how much I wanted to live there again, to freeze time and stay in my bubble with the two men I loved most in the world, where I’d never have to choose between them or fathom the agony of living even a single day without them in my arms.

Those days were gone forever now. All we had was today and today wasn’t nearly as good as it used to be, and frankly, tomorrow wasn’t looking all that better either.