Hell's Belle - Eve Newton Page 0,76

what I’m feeling right now.

Annabelle and I were flirting, I’ve fantasized about her on numerous occasions, I feel something for her, but she kind of blindsided me with her statement.

I look at her now, in her bedroom, surrounded by the men that she clearly has sex with and feel so inferior, I want to run and hide.

“Where is Sid?” she asks suddenly, looking at me as if I have the answer to this.

As it happens, I do. Sort of. “He said he was going back to the cube.” I have no idea what that means, but she does.

She nods and smiles her thanks. “We should talk,” she says, coming to me.

“We have time for that later. You’re upset about your brother. You need to deal with that first.”

“I don’t know what to do,” she says quietly. “I betrayed him, and he wants to leave me.”

“Let him go,” I advise her as I have nothing else to say. “He will return, but even if he doesn’t, he is his own person, uhm, being. Doesn’t he deserve to do what makes him happy?”

The other men are staring at me in horror. I get why. They think that Annabelle is going to remove my head with her teeth for being so bold. But she won’t. She listens to me, she said it herself in front of all of them and her mother.

“Of course!” she exclaims, getting agitated. “But why can’t he be happy here?”

“I can’t answer that. You need to find him and speak to him, clear the air.”

“He doesn’t want to speak to me,” she pouts.

“He will. You are his…other half,” I say carefully. I don’t know if these men are aware of the bond between the twins, but I highly doubt it. Annabelle wouldn’t risk her brother’s life with such pillow talk.

Her eyes widen in warning, but when she realizes that’s all I’m saying, her face relaxes. I can’t help but feel mildly smug.

Not so inferior now, eh, Gregory.

I clear my throat at my inner voice’s triumph. A small one, but if I’ve learned anything by being thrust into this situation, it is that a win is a win down here.

“You’re right!” she says determinedly. “I’ll make him talk to me.”

“Weeelll, maybe tone down the “make him” part,” I venture. “Just go to him and see why he wants to leave. It wasn’t a snap decision, he has been thinking about it for a while, that much was obvious.”

“I prefer my way,” she growls at me, not liking what I had to say.

“All ways are your ways,” I say with a soft smile. “My Queen.”

She preens at me, happy with the affirmation of her place here. I know that she is feeling like she is being torn in half. I know that her fear of Shax being hurt out there without her to protect him, is eating at her. I know that she feels like she is losing herself if he leaves and that she can’t afford to wobble, especially right now. She needs support and I will give it to her. I want to be what she claimed me to be.

Hers.

But I don’t think it is something that we can just jump into. Or at the very least, I can’t. I’m not like them. Not that I really know how these Hell creatures work, but I doubt they feel love the same way I do. The Seven Deadly Sins will be the same for us all. That much I am sure of, but the rest? No, my human self has deeper emotions, a deeper psyche, morals, a conscience. Taking a leap of faith with her is one thing, but I have to know that I’m doing it for the right reasons, that I love her and that I will renounce any life that I had back on Earth to be with her. I have to be sure before I can allow this to move forward in the way that I think she wants it to. That’s something else I need to clarify with her. What is she expecting of me?

“Can we have a bit of talk before I go and find Shax?” she murmurs, somehow picking up on my thoughts.

“Sure,” I say, knowing it’s important to her or she wouldn’t have said it. It’s one of the things that I admire about her. She speaks her truth. Okay, so she doesn’t have consequences to deal with, not like the rest of us anyway, or maybe just humans do for that