Total pages in book: 194
Estimated words: 187754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 939(@200wpm)___ 751(@250wpm)___ 626(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 187754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 939(@200wpm)___ 751(@250wpm)___ 626(@300wpm)
“It’s called Dissociative Identity Disorder, but yes.”
“Seth, that’s crazy.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“No, I’m sorry.” Her light brown becomes flushed. “I didn’t mean it like that. I-I’m sorry. That was rude.” She starts trembling in my arms, too afraid that I’ll hurt her.
“Shh. It’s okay.” I turn my head and kiss her small hand that’s still holding my face. “It sounds pretty fucking whacked to me. One day, I just woke up in this body with no idea of who I was, where I came from, or why I was being tortured. I had no memories. All I had was Ezekiel.”
“Tortured?” she gasps.
I kiss her nose and say, “Later.”
“So this is his body, and you…”
Aurelia leaves me to fill in the blanks. “Bane and I protect him.”
“Bane?”
“You don’t want to meet him,” I warn. My grave tone makes her eyes widen. That guy freaks even me out, but I don’t want to scare Sunshine, so I leave it at that. Aurelia’s lucky it was me that Ezekiel woke up that day and not his guard dog.
“Is he scary?” I nod, so she peers at me curiously. “Scarier than you?”
I don’t like hearing that she’s scared of me, but I guess that’s fair. “Oh, yeah.”
Her voice is casual as she drops her hands from my face to my shoulders before sliding them down my chest. She touches me willingly for the first time, and maybe that’s why I think nothing of it when she asks, “Are Thorin and Khalil afraid of him?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm. So if you all share the same body, how do you protect Zeke?”
The swift change in subject confuses me for a moment, but I go with it. “I take his pain. Zeke is…fragile. He wasn’t always, and it’s not as bad as before Thorin and Khalil got him out, but he has a setback every once in a while.”
“Out? Out of where?”
“The Seeds of the Undying. Zeke’s father had another son. The brothers met when Zeke was nineteen. Isaac tracked Zeke down in Nevada and convinced him to visit his ranch in New Mexico and hang out for a while. That’s how Isaac phrased it at the time, so Zeke went, but it was bullshit.”
“It didn’t go well?”
“No. It did not.” I can feel the darkness and pain rising inside of me, but one look into Aurelia’s trusting eyes as she lets me hold her, and I push it down.
“What happened?”
I nuzzle my nose in her neck and say, “Another time, remember?”
“Fine. It’s just hard to believe that Thor and Khalil let Isaac take Zeke. They seem territorial. Protective,” she admits reluctantly.
My lips pull back from my teeth in a silent snarl. “That’s because they weren’t there,” I say with more than a decade’s worth of resentment. “Thorin and Khalil left Zeke all alone to make better lives for themselves elsewhere—without him. I don’t care much for Zeke’s friends, but I have to give it to Thor and Khalil. They love him. Had they been there, they would have seen through Isaac’s bullshit and protected him. Zeke was always too trusting, always going with the flow. It was irresponsible to go with Isaac.”
“Is that why you hate Thor and Khalil? Because they weren’t there for Zeke?”
“Yes.”
“Seth, you know that’s not fair, right?”
“Maybe.”
“No, Seth. It’s not their fault Zeke’s brother was a monster, and it’s not Zeke’s fault his heart was open to love. It’s what we do. We give ourselves over to love and hope we don’t get hurt.”
I bite my lip to keep from telling her that it feels exactly like what’s happening between us, except I know I’ll get hurt because she won’t stop trying to leave. “I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“You mentioned setbacks before. Like what?”
“Like you.”
She looks shocked when she says, “Me?”
“Zeke was the one who found you that day. He was afraid you were here to hurt him, so he woke me.”
“He woke you?”
“When one of us retreats, another alter takes over. Zeke is the only one who can wake up at will. We can keep him suppressed but not for long, and it’s not easy.”
“So what do you do in there while one of the others are out here?”
“We sleep.”
“You’re not aware of anything that’s happening around you? Like at all?”
“Only what we choose to share with each other.”
“Oh.”
I dip my head and run my nose down her neck. I wonder if she knows that it was my soap she used in Thorin’s shower today. She smells like me. “Don’t worry, Sunshine. I’m going to tell him about you. I won’t be able to resist. You’re my girl.”
“I’m not your girl.”
“Oh.” This crushing feeling settles in my chest at her rejection. I should be used to it by now, but I don’t think I ever will. It fucking hurts. “I get it.” It kills me to put some space between us, but I have to because it feels like I’m splitting into two pieces, and I still want nothing more than for Aurelia to claim them both. Is this what heartache feels like? “You like Thorin better.”