Page 45 of Illusory (The Marked Saga #8)

The air seemed to still around us, every sound muted under the weight of their frozen stares. I lifted my hands to my face as if I could somehow feel the glow that was emanating from my eyes, but of course, I couldn’t. Only the cool remnants of my anxiety slipping from my skin and the heavy beat of my heart thumping in my chest.

Trace’s lips parted slightly, his eyes tapering as if he were trying to uncover some hidden message within the glow of my eyes. “Is this…is that supposed to happen?” His voice was low, laced with a perfect blend of concern and fascination.

Dominic released Trace and slowly started toward me, his gaze never leaving mine. “This isn’t the first time this has happened, is it?”

Trace’s eyes shot to Dominic.

“No,” I answered truthfully.

Unlike Trace, I wasn’t surprised that Dominic had already figured that out. I could never keep anything from him. Somehow, he always knew—every truth, every subtle gesture, every hidden part of me, no matter how hard I tried to bury it.

“When?” asked Dominic, his tone autocratic.

“It happened once before with Gabriel.” I wished I could’ve offered them something meatier on the topic, but the truth was, I hadn’t given it much thought after it happened other than using it as confirmation that I was in fact a freak of the highest order.

“What does it mean?” asked Trace, a sharp line appearing between his brows. “Do you think it has something to do with her Nephilim blood?”

“That would be my guess,” answered Dominic as the two of them continued to stare at me, their eyes stripping me bare with a haunting intensity.

But this time, for some inexplicable reason, it didn’t make me shrink back or feel uncomfortable. In fact, it did the opposite of that.

Maybe it was the blood I’d lost tonight. Or maybe it was because I knew, without a doubt, that they were looking at me with love and not disgust—with wonder, not fear. Any doubts I had about myself were mine alone, and honestly, I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do that would make either of them look at me differently. I knew that now.

They had proven it to me time and time again. Hell, just being in my room with them at that moment—not just co-existing, but actually working together—was proof of that. Because when it came to my happiness, there wasn’t much they weren’t willing to do or sacrifice.

“Was there anything in Elspeth’s grimoire about this?” asked Dominic.

“Nothing that I saw, but I wasn’t exactly looking for it.” I shook my head as a cold chill trickled down my back. “I guess we’ll know for sure tomorrow, one way or the other,” I added softly as if saying it any louder might speed up time.

The room buzzed with unsaid questions that neither of them seemed ready to ask, but I knew that they were thinking the same thing I was. That my Ascension was tomorrow. That this was just a small taste of what was to come.

That come tomorrow, everything could be different.

Feeling uneasy, I shuffled over to my dresser and pulled out a fresh, oversized t-shirt and then slipped it on. “Tonight was…a lot. I think we should call it a night and get some rest,” I suggested, my hands falling back to my sides as I tried to regain some semblance of normalcy. But there was none to be found in the room saturated with unspoken truths and unfulfilled expectations.

“You ought to heal first,” said Dominic as Trace worked his jaw muscle. “You lost a lot of blood tonight.”

I shook my head because healing meant choosing, and choosing only ever brought them hurt. Besides, drinking vampire blood at this hour would only energize me, and frankly, I was already miserable and unsatiated enough without throwing that into the equation. “I think I’ll just wait until morning. Who knows, maybe I’ll heal the old-fashioned way.”

He studied me for a long moment, as if trying to read what lay beneath the surface, before finally nodding. “Very well, angel. As you please.” He knew me well enough to know I wasn’t going to change my mind tonight. Instead, he gave me a subtle nod and gestured toward my bed. “After you, then.”

I paused, my brows knitting together as I glanced between the two of them. After me ? Did he think he was spending the night in my room? He couldn’t possibly think he was—I cut the thought off, knowing that was exactly what he was thinking. “You’re not sleeping in here,” I announced, half laughing, half terrified at the thought of it.

Being around them as much as I had been lately, without actually being able to have them, was torture enough. My hormones were already spiraling out of control, and I really didn’t need to add to my suffering.

“I most certainly am.” A crooked smile tugged at his lips as he walked over to the leather armchair and settled in it. “Your Ascension is hours away, and after the little stunt you pulled tonight, I won’t be letting you out of my sight again. Of that you can be sure.”

“I’m staying too,” added Trace as he crossed his arms like he had no intention of moving from his spot either.

I looked between them again and then dropped my shoulders, not even bothering to put up a fight this time. For one, I knew I wasn’t going to win this one no matter how hard I stomped my feet, nor did I have the energy to do it. But that wasn’t the only reason I gave in so easily.

My Ascension was just hours away and I’d be a liar if I said that didn’t scare me…just a little bit.

“Fine. Suit yourselves,” I said with a forced shrug as I strutted over to my bed, feigning indifference. “That armchair looks mighty small for the two of you, though.”

I may not have been able to kick them out of my room, but I definitely drew the line at my bed.

Trace looked over at Dominic as if to assess the armchair’s maximum weight capacity.

“Not in your wildest dreams, Romeo,” said Dominic as he made himself more comfortable.

“Why the fuck do you get the comfy chair?”

“Because I sat down in it first,” answered Dominic, a smug smirk playing on his face.

Trace’s dimples pinched as he looked over at me and frowned. “I guess I’m taking the floor then.”

A wave of guilt slashed through my stomach at the lost puppy dog look in his eyes. I knew what he was doing, and it was very close to working. He walked around to the other side of my bed and then paused to stare down at his cold, hard sleeping quarters.

“Can I get a pillow at least?” he asked sadly, and then met my eyes, his fingertips resting on his hips.

I picked up the one next to mine and tossed it over to him, feeling incredibly terrible about it the whole time.

He crooked his brow. “Blanket?”

I looked around my bed and then yanked the comforter up from right under me. “You can take this. I don’t need it,” I said and then shoved the bunched-up fabric to the corner of the bed. I still had my regular sheet and with how hot my skin was feeling, I probably wouldn’t need that one either.

He bent forward and adjusted the comforter and pillow into a makeshift bed before straightening out to peer down at his work. I crawled to the edge of the bed and looked over to see what he’d done.

“Not bad,” I mused, feeling a little less guilty. “Looks comfier than the chair.”

At that, he flashed a dimpled smile at Dominic before meeting my eyes again. Reaching back, he grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it off his body. Thick, rippling muscles stared back at me like a fucking offering from the Gods of Fertility.

“Want to join me?” he asked huskily.

Fuck did I ever .

Dominic scoffed under his breath, knocking me out of my stupor.

“I…uh. I think I should probably stay where I am,” I said, barely able to hide the disappointment from my voice.

He licked his lips and then shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

As we each settled into our separate sleeping quarters, so did the darkness, pressing in over the room as thickly as the silence had. A light rapping sound trickled against the windows, lulling me into a peaceful calm. As strange as it was to be lying there in my bed with both Trace and Dominic in my room, I couldn’t deny that there was also something oddly comforting about it.

“This is… nice ,” I said, though I think I’d meant to say weird.

“It’d be nicer if I was in bed with you,” grumbled Trace from somewhere on his floor-bed.

“Indeed,” agreed Dominic as he repositioned himself in his armchair and clicked his tongue. “So much wasted space.”

I couldn’t help the yearning that fluttered through my belly at the idea of them both lying in bed with me, but I staunchly shoved it back down and buried it. One of us needed to stay rooted in reality here.

“Oh yeah, I’m sure you’d both love that . Being in bed with me while watching the other one cuddle me— touch me,” I said with a snort, envisioning how well that would go over.

When neither one answered, I saw it as an opening to keep going. To try to knock some sense into their head. “Is that what you’ve been imagining, or would it be more like borrowing a library book? You sign some card and check me out for the night while the other one sleeps alone… listening from the other room?”

More silence.

“ Yeah, I didn’t think so,” I said smugly. The idea alone was horrifying. They’d kill each other before the night was over. “I’m guessing neither one of you bothered to think your little offer through all the way to the end, huh?”

Dominic shifted again, the leather protesting beneath his movement in the dark as he said, “I assure you, angel, we most certainly did.”

“Doesn’t sound like it from where I’m sitting. It sounds like a desperate attempt to keep something going that clearly isn’t meant to keep going.”

“And what would you have us do instead? Let you go? Walk away from you after everything we did to be with you?” asked Dominic, his tone apoplectic.

“Yes,” I answered simply as Dominic laughed like I was being absurd.

“I didn’t come back from the dead— twice —just to fucking lose you, Jemma,” informed Trace, his own tone irritated that I’d even suggest it.

“So you came back from the dead to share me with Dominic then, did you?”

“Fuck no.”

“Yet that’s what you’re trying to convince me you want,” I pointed out.

“That’s not what—” He blew out a sharp breath. “Look, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want you for myself. That the thought of you loving him, fucking him, wanting him, doesn’t still make my blood boil with jealousy. That I’d much rather take you out of this place and never have to see him again. No offense,” he called out.

“None taken,” answered Dominic.

“Because I’d be enough,” Trace went on sorrowfully, his voice strained and broken then. “But we both know that I’m not. Fate fucked us over, and this is where we are now.”

The most suffocating wave of guilt slammed into my chest and took me under. “You’re not supposed to just settle, Trace. You deserve more than that. More than this ,” I said, gesturing around to my room, as though it was indicative of the horrible situation we were in. “Both of you do.”

“This isn’t settling,” he said quietly, though I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince me, or himself. “Settling would be trying to be with someone else—to love them even a quarter of what I feel for you. Settling would be accepting my life without you in it. I’m not settling, Jemma. I’m taking what’s mine .”

Butterflies slashed through my belly at his words, even though I didn’t want them to.

“I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Despite the near-pitch darkness in my room, I rolled my eyes at Dominic anyway.

“You ought to just accept that neither one of us is willing to give you up, angel. Not now. Perhaps it would have been different had you been able to make a choice,” he continued, his voice low. Confessional. “As excruciatingly painful as it would have been, I would have forced myself to let you go if you had chosen him. But you didn’t.”

“Give me a break,” muttered Trace before I could say anything in defense of myself. “Don’t act like you’re some martyr. We both know you weren’t going anywhere, even if she did choose me. You’re restraining-order level obsessed with her.”

“I resent that.”

Trace snorted. “You’re not denying it, though.”

“Of course not, though I’m certainly not any more captivated or unwilling to let her go than you are,” he promptly fired back.

Trace didn’t challenge that, and I was left lying there, my cheeks burning with heat and my stomach twisted in knots, grateful that it was too dark in the room to see anything.

The way they were bickering, so casual and almost…friendly, it was downright scary. I wasn’t sure what had gotten into them or how long it was going to last, but all I could think about was how much I really liked it this way, and that was the scariest thing of all.