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KILLIAN
Who am I? I don’t know how to answer that question but Aeron is waiting for an answer. They all are. The silence is loud, ringing in my ears, demanding me to respond. Say something. Anything.
And yet…
Who am I?
No one has ever asked me that before.
As if in a trance, I reach out, hoping that something or someone will catch me. The darkness threatening to consume me explodes into nothingness as my fingers graze Samael’s thick arms and I’m pulled into his chest. The man offers a safety that only he can bring.
Cuddled into his embrace, my head tucked against his shoulder, I can finally breathe. Dark and Daemon are silent. Lucy is purring.
I’m safe.
My breaths come easier and my mind clears. Whatever fog took over us has begun to dissipate.
Someone is saying something. I think it’s Slash. He sounds scared. Is it for me? Or is it of me? The thought terrifies me but I don’t want to dwell on that.
I recognize Aeron’s fingers in my hair and Slash’s grunt from the corner but I focus on Samael’s heartbeat as he tugs me closer.
1. 2. 1. 2.
Rhythmic. Soothing. Perfect.
With every moment I am pressed up against my protector’s chest, my ear to his heart, my body against his, the uncertainty and fear fade away.
He doesn’t know it yet. None of them do.
But they’re saving me from myself.
SAMAEL
Killian curled tightly into my chest as I banded my arms around him, shock overtaking any other rational thought. He thinks I’m safe? No one ever thought of me as safe. Protective, overbearing, terrifying—sure. But safe? His words made no sense to me. He felt so fucking frail in my arms, so easily breakable. He had seen what my hands could do, the death I caused when I let my anger rule my actions, and yet, mine was the chest he snuggled into when his demons got the best of him. Aeron and Slash crowded around me, all three of us trying to understand the kid pressed against me, shivering from the weight of his demons.
His cat curled up at my feet and even that I found strange. Animals weren’t my forte and I definitely didn’t keep them around but somehow the furball found me safe too.
“Do we call someone?” Aeron mumbled as he slid his fingers through Killian’s hair. Our cannibal was still lost in his own head, fighting back the dark emotions he’d been dealing with in Killian’s absence over the weekend. Even with our lover back with us, there was still a long road ahead to repair what had been broken.
I didn’t answer Aeron because this was so fucking far out of my expertise. We dealt with our own demons privately, which meant feeding them to keep them quiet. With Killian and his alters, I didn’t think that was going to work and yet he had brought three ruthless, terrifying men to their knees with his innocent smile.
If we were better men, we would seek out help, but I never professed to be anything other than what I was, and I wasn’t going to start lying to myself now. A heavy breath tumbled from my lips as I looked over at Slash to understand what he was feeling. His expression was tight, confusion and anger lurking beneath the surface. Hardened amber eyes shifted their focus with short repetitive movements as they cataloged everything about Killian, trying to make sense of it all.
Slash dealt in realities. Killian was an unknown and I could see how much it terrified him. The only unknowns Slash enjoyed was the unexpected chaos of a kill. “He’s fucking crazy,” Slash finally said, dragging a hand down his face. The usually put-together surgeon was falling apart, his world out of control.
Aeron shook his head, “No crazier than us.”
Slash burst out laughing, leaning back on Killian’s poor excuse of a bed. “Seriously? Are you sure about that? There was enough darkness in this room to dull the fucking sun a moment ago.” I couldn’t disagree with him, but I also wasn’t going to start throwing around the idea that Killian needed any more help than we did.
A quick glance at our fourth showed me the same twisted innocence that I had fallen in love with—that was the only explanation for Killian and Dark’s presence—however, there was something more. Something other than Daemon and I had no idea if it was another alter or Killian just trying to cope with his demons.
Aeron’s tortured expression darkened, his strokes through Killian’s hair becoming more insistent. I could see him counting in threes before starting up the rhythm again. Even lost in his head, everything had to include a pattern. “Tread lightly,” he mumbled, leaning forward to press a kiss to Killian’s forehead. The kid shivered beneath the touch and curled into me a little tighter, mumbling incoherently. I could only imagine what was going on in his head right now.
Slash saw things differently than Aeron, and we usually had to bring him back from whatever chaotic theory he had set his mind to before someone ended up dead. “It’s a learning curve. We figured out our issues when we were much younger. We have to be patient.”
The hypocrisy in my words was loud. We had no business hanging on to the hope that we were what was right for Killian and his future. Some part of me knew that he needed more help than we could offer, that maybe his father was right in some regard and that I needed to stay away from his son. However, I couldn’t. He had edged his way into my soul, right alongside the others, and the thought of him anywhere else but right here, in my arms, was unacceptable.
A threatening growl erupted from Slash’s throat, his eyes flashing with an emotion I didn’t recognize. “How the fuck are we supposed to combat voices?” Oh, it was fear. He was scared of losing Killian and, in the process, losing a piece of himself.
