I walk out of the bathroom toward Knox, and when I’m about five feet away from him, I drop my towel. There’s a collective intake of breath in the room.
“Oh, okay. I guess I’ll just have to go without,” I say to Knox, and then I bend over to pull my foot through my leggings. I put my other foot in and then do an exaggerated shimmy to pull them up my thighs and over my hips. I grab my heather-gray shirt and pull it on, and my hard nipples are very prevalent through the knit jersey fabric. I run my hands down my front in an oversexualized smoothing motion and then look up to heated stares. A couple of them adjust themselves, and I shoot Knox a wink and then run and belly flop on Siah’s bed.
Knox gives me a hungry growl and rubs his face with an exasperated huff.
“Serves you right for making me go commando.”
“Fuck, Killer, don’t say commando right now. I’m too tired to punish you properly.”
I laugh at Knox’s words, and Ryker gets up from the mattress on the ground and crawls into the bed next to me. He lays his head in my lap, and I bend over to kiss his temple. He looks exhausted. We all do. I run my hands through his hair, and he relaxes into me.
“Can someone set an alarm for four hours? I need to go relieve Nash so he can sleep,” Ryker asks, and then the next thing I know, he’s breathing heavy in my lap, down for the count. I lean back against the headboard of the big bead and quickly follow Ryker’s lead and leap into oblivion.
29
Pain demands my attention, and I’m pulled from sleep by the flash of fire in my body. The first thing that runs through my mind is that I’m still in the cell. Do not fucking tell me that all of that was some kind of messed up dream. Panicked, I claw at my throat. I will rip this fucking collar off of me if it’s the last thing I do. A sob stutters out of my chest. Hands grab mine, and I whimper in frustration.
“Squeaks. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe with us in the room.”
I go still as Ryker’s words permeate the pain and fear, and I try to breathe through the panic and agony coursing through my system. I open my eyes and relief mixes with the burning inside of me as I see that I am, in fact, in Siah’s room. I look for him and find him writhing in pain on the mattress on the ground. I move to go to him, but a new wave of agony seizes me, and Ryker pulls me into his lap and pushes my sweaty hair out of my face. “It’s okay, Vinna, we’ve got him,” Valen reassures me, and I slam my eyes shut and groan-screech through whatever new runes are showing up on my body.
“It’s okay, Squeaks. You’ve been there and done that more than any of us, and you know it will stop hurting soon. Just breathe through it. I’ve got you. I’ve always got you,” Ryker comforts, and I fist my hand in his shirt and press my forehead against his chest.
I really should be used to this by now, but maybe no one ever really gets used to pain. Adapt, maybe. Work through it, if I’m lucky, but I don’t think getting used to it will ever be in the cards for me. Bastien announces that Siah’s runes are starting to appear, and I force myself to look and see what’s showing up. It’s not just his Chosen marks. My Sentinel runes rise slowly to the surface on his arms and chest, and I’m glad at least that we’re now all connected. It feels right in a way I don’t have words for, and I feel a pure sense of peace sink deep inside of me and settle there.
There’s always been this underlying drive in me that was searching for something. Home, my place, purpose, I could never quite put my finger on what I felt was missing. But as the pain flairs one last time and then starts to recede, I realize I have all of those things with me right here and now. My runes light up, and everyone else gasps when theirs take on the same ethereal glow. Bastien and Valen both hiss in pain, and I turn my attention to them,