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“Hey,” I say softly. “Breathe.”
Her chest continues to rise up and down at a steady rate.
“Take a breath for me, okay? In through your nose. Keep your eyes on me. Out through your mouth. Take another one, in through your nose, out through your mouth.” I mimic the pattern with her. “Good, that’s good.”
After what feels like an eternity, she starts to calm.
“You know you’re not being punished, right?” I keep my hands resting against her shoulders, selfishly not wanting to let go and grateful she hasn’t yet pulled out of my grasp.
“It feels like it.” She exhales and takes a step back.
The ghost of her touch haunts my empty palms.
“What’s this really about?” I rub my neck in an attempt to busy myself from the loss of her closeness.
She lowers her voice. “I don’t even know. Not really. I just feel so…” She pauses to find the right word to say. “Alone.” June glances up at me. “Which is stupid, considering I’m never fucking alone.”
I take no offense to the fact that she’d rather I not be around. It’s not her fault she’s stuck with me. Even though I’m grateful for every fucking second of it. Sure, there are other things I could be doing with my time, but when I lost the throne to Dominic, everything else paled in comparison to where I really wanted to be—at her side.
This isn’t how I wanted it to happen, but beggars can’t exactly be fucking choosers.
"What can I do? To help you not feel that way." I quickly add, "Except for no longer being your bodyguard."
“Probably nothing, considering the guys hate you.” She crosses her arms over her chest but turns more toward me. “They don’t tell me anything at all. And I mean, they never really did, but there was this short while where they kind of did. Like they included me, wanted me to be part of their world. Now? Fucking crickets. I can’t even get minor details. Even Magnus is evasive, and he was never like that. He was always the one to put faith in me. He believed I could handle it. And honestly, it all just really pisses me off. They think they’re protecting me, but all they’re doing is…”
She doesn’t finish her train of thought but I know exactly where it was heading.
"You almost died…can you imagine how terrifying that was for them?" For all of us. For me specifically. I held her in my arms, her blood pooling all around me as I maintained pressure on the wound, all while praying to any fucking God that would listen to keep her with me. Terrified doesn't even scratch the surface of the sheer magnitude I felt surging through me.
Moments prior, the same woman had a knife poised to my heart, and that was nothing compared to what I experienced when I thought I might lose her.
“But I didn’t die. I’m right here. And I’m going fucking crazy.” Her hands ball into fists. “I’m so angry, I just want to…”
“Punch something?”
“Not something.”
“Someone?” My teeth clench. “Who?” Because whatever name comes out of her mouth, I will track them down and deliver them on a silver fucking platter the same way I had done to Vincent—the man that kidnapped and tortured her.
“That’s the thing.” June shakes her head. “I don’t even know who. I just want to fucking hurt someone.” She lowers her voice. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”
I breathe in a lungful of relief. “Nothing, June, you’re just…” A grin forms on my face at the thought of this sadistic vixen in front of me.
“You’re smiling, right now? Really?” She shoves me again, and I welcome the touch like it was a gift sent from the heavens. “You think I’m fucked up, don’t you?”
"Not at all, actually." I skim my gaze along the delicate features of her face. Her entire exterior is a contradiction to the evil begging to be let out. I saw it that day in the warehouse when she took pleasure in carving up the man who had hurt her. I wondered whether it was an isolated incident—only an equal retribution, a settling of scores. But throughout our time together, I've seen it rise to the surface, pleading to be let free.
“Then what?” she asks me.
“You’re stepping into your villain era.”
“My what?” June plants her hand on her hip.
“You know, when the good guy turns bad. When the hero of the story realizes there’s much more fun in being the villain.”
“I was never the hero or the good guy.”
“Said like a true villain.” My mind races at the possibilities. “I think what you need is a little bloodshed.”
