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Malachi is sitting on my left, a quiet kind of aura about him, and I wonder if he’s had a long day at work. He’s been a little distant since I got home, and it’s not like him. Normally, we’re trying to find all the extra ways we can spend time together.
I squeeze his knee, and he glances down at me with a soft smile.
“Are you okay?” I murmur, and he nods. I reach up to kiss him, and he makes it short and sweet before pulling away.
“He’s weak,” Cevon says, talking to Griffin. I don’t think he was talking about Malachi, but Mal snarls anyway.
“You’re weak,” Malachi says, shrugging as he regards Cevon. “You always have been.”
“I’m not weak,” Cevon snaps. “I’m stronger than everyone at this table.”
“You say that,” Fin says, drawing their attention. “But didn’t Nora manage to stab you?”
I groan, putting my head in my hands to hide from this conversation. Fin’s bursting with excitement, and I know he’s been waiting to share this story since he learnt of it yesterday.
I can’t blame him, even if I hate him for it.
“What?” Voss demands eagerly. “You stabbed him? With what? When? Why? Please tell me you’ll re-enact it. I’ll even be your willing victim.”
“Bloody hell,” Micah gasps, looking at Voss. “Are you okay, bro?”
“It was an accident,” I snap, and Cevon gives me an upside down smile as a patronising expression fills his face.
“An accident? I was lying in bed asleep, little darkling. It’s not like we were in the kitchen cooking together,” he says, reaching across the table to move my knife away from me.
“Okay, so I was going to kill you, but then I felt guilty and changed my mind,” I mutter, and Micah gazes at me with pure adoration in his eyes. I thought me killing someone would make him upset, he’s a bit sweeter than my other mates.
It seems I was wrong.
“You could’ve done us all a favour if you killed him,” Atticus says dryly. He’s sitting between Malachi and Griffin on the end of the table, with Devoss directly opposite him.
The teams that have been so evident, seem to have collapsed.
“Fuck off,” Cevon says, rolling his eyes. Thankfully, he drops the issue and doesn’t try to fight with his brother.
“How was therapy?” Mal asks, handing me my knife back, much to the amusement of the others.
“Good,” I reply, accidentally kicking Orson who is on my right. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry,” Orson says with a smile. “It seems accidental abuse is your MO.”
I groan as the others laugh.
“But therapy went well?” Atticus asks, and I nod.
The words burn on my tongue as I try and gather up the courage to say them. They can scent the changes in my mood and know that I’ve got something to say, but they’re giving me the chance to work it out on my own first.
“I don’t want to go back to work.” I don’t make eye contact when I drop those words, and, instead, I shovel some pumpkin into my mouth so I don’t need to talk again.
I’m not sure why those words were so hard to say, but I’m terrified about them.
During my session with George this morning, we talked a little about everything. We talked about my weekend with Cevon—the condition I was thinking of is Stockholm syndrome, but George reassured me that doesn’t really affect things since he’s my fated mate—about the results of my blood test, he reassured me again that nothing is wrong with me.
Just the standard stuff, you know? But another issue we talked about was work. My sick note runs out at the end of this week, and he wanted to know if I wanted another note or if I wanted to go back.
We’re down to two therapy sessions a week, or at least, we were before today. We’re squeezing an extra one in this week—on top of the one I squeezed in last night on the phone—just to get me through things.
He thinks this weekend has been good for me—not that I’m going to share that with anyone. Atticus might actually lose his shit, and it’ll inflate Cevon’s ego to dangerous levels.
