applies to me too. He is mine. Which is exactly the way that I wanted it when I marked him.
“Lead the way, Wolf,” I tell him with a cheeky grin and a wave of my arm into the house.
Torrez’s half smile morphs into a full-blown grin, and he swings a duffle over his shoulder and steps past me.
His shoulder brushes against mine, and it sends a dusting of goosebumps all over my body. “Torrez?”
He turns his deep brown eyes to mine.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I admit.
I raise my hand and brush the tips of my fingers against the black scruff on his cheek. His molten gaze takes me in for a moment before he leans into my palm. He turns his head and kisses the inside of my hand softly before moving down a hallway to our right.
“Ooh bunk beds,” he shouts out from the room he just disappeared into. “You want the top or the bottom, Witch?”
I laugh and follow him further into the house. The smile I’m once again wearing tricks me into feeling soft for a moment, hopeful. Maybe this won’t be the cluster fuck that I’m worried it will be. Maybe Valen’s right, and with a little bit of time, it will all blow over. Then the faint sound of arguing permeates the walls of the house, and I release a deep exasperated breath. Who am I kidding? This is going to be a fucking bloodbath.
5
I wake up cold, my cloudy breath in the air, my body just on the verge of a shiver. I crack open my eyelids. The light in the room is muted. It looks like either the sun hasn’t come up yet or just now dipped below the horizon. I’m disoriented and not quite sure if I’ve crashed for only a little while or if I’ve slept the day away. I’m alone, and I look around the room, taking in the piles of blankets strewn about the makeshift bed situation.
Apparently, king size beds are an American thing, because the biggest bed we could find in this house was a full. Not satisfied with that situation, Ryker and the others pulled all the mattresses they could find off the beds and Tetris-ed the shit out of them on the floor of the biggest bedroom in the house. So now this room is absent of all furniture and has been redecorated with a very minimalistic and modern mattress floor.
I sit up and stretch out my arms and my back. I feel run down as fuck, which really shouldn’t surprise me after everything that’s happened in the last few days. I wipe the sleep from my eyes and get up, bouncing from one mattress to another until I’m standing in the doorway that leads to the small attached bathroom. My bag has been left right next to the doorframe, and I silently thank whoever put it there as I dig out a clean set of clothes and my toiletries. I’m in and out of the—thankfully warm—shower in less than ten minutes, and then I’m brushed, magically dried, styled, and ready to go in under fifteen.
I step out of the room and head down the hall into the kitchen, where I find all of my Chosen leaning against the counters, whisper-growling back and forth.
“Don’t be a fucking numpty, Knox, this is Vinna and Vinna’s magic we’re talking about,” Sabin chastises.
“Oh that’s rich coming from you. You did everything you could to keep all of us apart in the beginning because you didn’t trust the situation either.”
“Yeah, but that was in the beginning. After she marked us, it was like I could feel her intention and the purity in what her magic had done. Don’t sit here and tell me that you didn’t. You’ve always gone on and on about how you knew she was for you, right from the beginning.”
“So it’s official, you don’t trust me now?” I ask, my calm voice like a cannon in the room amidst all the aggressive whispers.
Five heads snap in my direction. Torrez keeps his eyes on the floor as he shakes his head. He’s probably been aware of my movements and exactly where I was in the house from the minute I woke up. I wonder how annoying it would be to have sensitive hearing like that and not be able to turn it off like I can. Although, if this is how it’s going to be with my Chosen these days, maybe I should keep my extra hearing