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“I’d rather teleport her home,” Derikles said. “He’s vulnerable like this, and it sounds like Rukia didn’t even wait until Gideon was confirmed dead before assuming his role.”
“What are you saying, Derikles?”
“Think about it, Jaeda. There are only two explanations as to why she’s here: one, she’s power hungry and wants him as a mate, or two, she wants to secure Isaiah’s trust—his allegiance—before going after the people who killed Gideon.”
His words were bitter, brutal, and mind-numbingly logical. With a handful of words, he’d punched a hole in her gut, leaving her raw and aching. But were they true?
“And how are you certain it’s not because they genuinely enjoy each other’s company?” Jaeda asked. “That they found comfort in each other?”
Rukia found herself hanging on his response.
Derikles didn’t reply, and Jaeda spoke again. “Regardless of the story you’ve spun in your head, Derikles, Isaiah explicitly asked her to stay.” A hum of laughter. “Please don’t make her drown you. It’d take forever.”
Battered and beaten by his words, Rukia quietly withdrew into the darkened space of Isaiah’s room and took off her jeans. Sliding into the coolness of the sheets, she curled up against his pillow and breathed in the faint scent of evergreen and spice.
She missed him already.
Chapter Eighteen
Nightmaresfueledhersleep.
Every second spent in the depths of sleep was a terrorizing hellscape where she was trapped, unable to save Gideon from inevitable doom. She’d sat bolt upright in bed as the screams echoed in her mind, her body coated in a layer of cold sweat.
Falling back against the damp sheets, she stared at the ceiling, eyes wide open. She was wholly unwilling to return to dreamland, viscerally fearful of what she’d see if she returned.
Instead, she threw her legs over the side of the bed and sat, pensive. The floor below her was quiet, no sounds reverberating up the stairs.
She pulled on her jeans, admitting that anywhere else was better than alone in her mind. Tiptoeing down the wooden stairs in a whisper of sound, her eyes adjusted near instantly to the dark. The second floor where Isaiah lay unconscious was almost deserted—except for Jaeda.
The healer was still curled up on the couch perpendicular to Isaiah’s, her nose deep in a book despite the obvious darkness. As Rukia rounded the corner of the staircase, Jaeda looked up with concern.
“Can’t sleep?”
Rukia shook her head as she walked silently over the concrete floor and drew up next to Isaiah’s couch. She looked over the handsome features of the unconscious Raeth. “Where is everyone?”
“Derikles and Tien are on a perimeter run; Xedrix ‘ported home for a bit.” Jaeda’s attention returned to her book momentarily before she looked back up, her expression somber. “I’m sorry about Gideon.”
Caught off balance by the unexpected comment, Rukia’s façade dropped completely, her eyebrows pinching together in earnest grief. Waves of melancholy rolled through her, her eyes watering before she could stop the involuntary reaction.
“Isaiah—he took care of me the night after …” Her breath caught as her throat welled with emotion, choking her briefly before she swallowed her grief. “He brought me here because I needed to get away. Needed to leave.”
“You’ve gone through great trauma, Rukia.” There was nothing but forgiveness in her gentle voice. “It’s okay to run for a little while.”
Rukia fought back the myriad of emotions that threatened to suffocate her, her arms wrapping around herself as if to fend them off. But her gaze was still locked on Isaiah, wishing he could be here to hold her.
“He wouldn’t mind, you know.”
Snapping her head toward Jaeda, Rukia frowned. “Wouldn’t mind what?”
Jaeda’s attention never left her book. “If you want to crawl under the covers with him. The couch is big enough. He wouldn’t mind.”
Stock still, Rukia stared at the female Raeth. Then, determining Jaeda to be of sound mind, Rukia did just that. Conscious of Isaiah’s wounded shoulder, she gently lowered herself to the couch next to him and tucked into his body. She carefully draped one leg between his and coiled her arm protectively around his core as he’d done the last two nights.
Nestling into his body, Rukia closed her eyes and simply rested in the comfort he brought her, intentionally or not. The blanket was pulled up over her shoulders moments later, and even with her eyes closed, she’d known it was Jaeda.
***
Rukia awoke to find herself curled into the heat of a Raeth, the bright light of morning beaming down on them. As she blinked into consciousness, she found herself happily surprised that she’d actually slept, and that no one had turned her into a frog when they’d discovered her with Isaiah.
