Chapter 114: Chapter Twenty

Hope

With every step I took away from Alex, a tingling sensation burned down my arms, like a low-level shock to my skin. I clenched my fingers tightly and kept walking until I reached his bedroom door.

When I placed a hand on the doorknob, another jolt had me resting my head against the sturdy wood before I was finally able to turn the knob and pull the door open.

Why was I so weak?

And why did it feel like I was getting weaker?

That was why he hated me.

I represented nothing but weakness to him.

But how was that my fault?

How was any of this my fault?

The burn transformed into a slow pulsating hum as I glanced one last time over my shoulder to see Alex pull out an old-fashioned kitchen timer and turn it a few times.

“Cooking a ham?” I tried joking. It was either that or actually face the fact that I’d been completely screwed in more ways than one by one of the most beautiful creatures I’d ever laid eyes on.

I’d been a loner all my life.

And yet in that moment, I’d never felt it in such a suffocating way. Maybe it was the warmth he gave off, for one split second I felt beautiful, flawless, important.

Wanted.

I gulped back tears and straightened my spine.

I might be physically weak.

But showing him my emotional weakness was out of the question.

That was mine.

And I wasn’t going to give it to him— even if my heart felt shaky with every breath I took.

“Sex clock.” Alex winked. I hated his wink. It made my legs turn to jelly and my body burn with desire. It would be easy to hate him if his smile wasn’t so perfect. If his scent didn’t roll off of him in waves, tempting me, teasing me with every inhale.

He would be easy to hate if he was anything but a siren.

“Sex clock,” I repeated dumbly as my body roared to life.

“I like to be punctual in all things.” He crossed his toned arms over his bronzed chest. He almost looked normal. If normal meant he had diamonds for eyes and hair with shots of shimmering rainbow colors that changed with each movement—each breath. And his lips, full, tempting, made for sin, like they had a mind of their own. How could something so normal, albeit hot, make him stand out as something far more than human? Even now my body betrayed me, but what was worse, he felt—like home. Right. Like all my life I’d been missing a piece and finally found it, only to get told I was wrong. “When the clock strikes….” His grin grew as he moved his fingers in a little come hither motion. “You come… running.” He paused. “Amongst other things.”

My body was completely in agreement with that plan.

My heart hated my body.

And my mind hated everything.

Even him.

I closed my eyes briefly before I opened them again and said the only thing I could say. “I have plants to water.”

His expression fell.

And for a second, he looked like he was going to say something, like he was going to reach out and pull me against his chest and tell me he’d been kidding, or that he couldn’t handle another second without touching me.

Instead, he reached into his pocket, tossed me a pair of keys and said, “Take one of Ethan’s spare cars, it’s right out front. Not the first time he’s been forced to share, oh and Hope? Make sure you shower before you’re in my bed again… I don’t like sharing your skin with dirt. Gets on my tongue… understand?”

I had a sudden vision of chucking the keys at his head or maybe just shoving them into his heartless chest—instead, I shrugged and said, “I’ll be back when my job’s done if I’m too dirty you can always find some other human to torture.”

His predatory glare was back. “Why would I waste my time on another human when I’ve spent all day training you?”

Just when I thought he couldn’t get any ruder, any more cruel.

I didn’t hang my head.

I didn’t cry.

Maybe because I knew it was too good to be true. A siren.

And a glorified gardener.

Who had elf blood.

Whatever that meant.

Green thumb?

Yeah, right.

More like, it was the only job I could get.

I think.

The memory was fuzzy.

Like all of my memories lately.

I ran out of the room before I did something stupid like cried—or worse, begged him to kiss me again.

As I stumbled down the stairs, keys clenched in my right hand, a jarring slice of pain struck between my ribs as though I was having some sort of serious heart attack.

With a cry, I fell down the last three stairs and with a loud crack landed on both kneecaps.

That was going to bruise.

“One reason,” a gruff voice said as two legs appeared in my line of vision. “Give me one reason not to rip his head from his shoulders.”

Strong arms pulled me into the air, nearly sending me into the ceiling before placing me on the ground.

Mason sniffed my neck and then knelt before me, his gruff hair covering most of his face as twigs and leaves poked out from the sandy brown mess.

“Be still,” he demanded in a low voice before his mouth descended just inches from one knee. He blew across the ripped part of my leggings, exposing one bloody knee, and then did the same to the other. Within minutes, the stinging stopped, and then the crazy wolf man licked me.

Twice.

I tried to jerk away, but his strong grip held me firm.

When he stood, the pain was gone.

The burning in my body—still sadly there.

I didn’t realize anyone else was in the room until a hand appeared from my peripheral and slowly slid up my neck. “I can only stop it for so long.”

I turned and saw green.

Bright green fire.

Ethan’s eyes locked on mine before he very casually touched his lips to my neck while Mason held my hand.

A brief pain stabbed me in the neck.

And then.

The burning increased before steadying off into a pleasant hum that didn’t make me want to scratch my skin off.

“What did you do?”

And why was I between two immortal men like a sandwich?

“Fighting fire with fire.” Ethan lifted a shoulder casually. “It will get better, give him time, it’s a very—” His eyes went back to normal. “Tedious process.”

“That?” I pointed back up the stairs. “That was tedious?”

“It’s harder for sirens.” Ethan spoke the words slowly before sharing a look with Mason.

“Sirens.” Mason spat the word. “Are always hard. Never soft.”

“That’s the point I think.” Ethan offered a slight smile while Mason let out a low growl.

“Thank you.” I rubbed my arms as I stepped away from both of the overwhelming men and then tried to find my way out of the house.

By the time I reached the front door, it had been at least fifteen minutes.

The car was exactly where Alex had left it.

What was I even doing?

Going back to work?

Like that was going to make everything suddenly better? Like my life would make sense again?

But it was all I had.

The monotony of a job.

I had to get away.

From all of them.

But especially from him.

I glanced back at the house and slowly looked up only to see a curtain fall from the window.

Alone again.

Only this time, I knew what it was like to be a part of something — to belong. So the pain at getting in the car and driving away wasn’t only acute.

It was a painful awareness that I really didn’t fit in anywhere, that there was something wrong with ~me~, not everyone else.

He didn’t want me.

I was a means to an end.

I closed off my mind to the feelings he’d brought out in me and focused on the road.

Drive to the immortal compound.

Water the plants.

As I had done since the day I was hired.

I tried to conjure up the memory and was left seeing an image of myself at the compound listening to the human training coordinator rattle off instructions. But how had I known about the job?

How had I even gotten there?

Already being with the immortals was muddling my mind if I couldn’t even remember what I had been doing two years ago!

Or was it days?

Panicked, I turned up the music and pushed all thoughts of Alex and the immortals away.