Chapter 20

“Still awake?” Asire asked quietly enough that if I were sleeping, I wouldn’t have awoken.

“Yeah,” I said.

“You want some ice cream?” she asked.

I laughed. “Sure.”

She hopped up and disappeared out the door before I could even sit up. While she was gone I found that same terrible channel and put something ridiculous on. She came back with two pints of ice cream and two spoons. “Do you want raspberry with chocolate chunks or strawberry? I’m out of cookie dough.” This last was said apologetically, as if I would get angry over the lack of chocolate.

“I’ll take the strawberry,” I said.

She handed it over and sat down on the bed next to me. “Ya think after so many sleepless nights I could get some sleep.”

“I normally don’t have this many troubles away from home,” I said absently.

“Just away from home?” she asked.

I almost froze, but then thought around giving her too much information. I didn’t want to tell her things that no one else knew. I barely knew the girl, after all. And though she was entertaining, I didn’t know if she could be trusted with any kind of secret.

“Yeah, just away. I don’t sleep well when I’m in my own bed. I don’t know. Maybe it’s the travel that knocks me out,” I said, lying to her for the first time.

She eyed me, like she suspected I wasn’t telling the truth. But she didn’t call me out. Just dug out another chunk of ice cream and popped it into her mouth. “Maybe.”

I felt terrible for the lie, for reasons I couldn’t fathom. I’d spent my whole life lying. To keep my Family safe. To keep my sister with me. To keep people from realizing a teenager was running a prominent security company. Lying was part of my nature and it shouldn’t have mattered that I had just done so with Asire.

I stared at TV screen as silence descended in the room. The awkward kind again.

Yup. She knew.

My stomach bottomed out and I almost apologized and told her the truth. I shook the urge off though, sticking with all my reasoning. Plus… I don’t know. Asire was bound to know that Eve was dead, but my mate still felt like a private thing. Something just for me. And if I shared her with Asire, it would be betraying Eve somehow. I didn’t want to open up to this girl.

Even if that meant I’d never know about the scar on her leg. Because if I didn’t open up to her, I knew there was no way in hell she’d volunteer information to me. Lying wasn’t just in my nature. It was in hers too.

We finished our ice cream in the awkward silence. Both of us watching the television so that we wouldn’t have to acknowledge each other.

It wasn’t until almost two in the morning that I glanced over at Asire. And found that she’d fallen asleep. She had been propped up against the pillows, but her eyes were closed and her breathing even. Dark lashes were fanned across her cheeks and her head was tilted to the side. So that it was facing me.

Carefully, so not to disturb her, I got out of the bed. I didn’t bother covering her up, because I didn’t think for a second that wouldn’t startle her awake. However, I wasn’t sleeping in the same bed with her.

I went over to the cot and tested out its sturdiness. I wouldn’t fit comfortably on it, but I thought it would hold my weight. So I laid down and pulled the comforter over my body. The entire room smelled like Asire. Her shampoo and conditioner were apple scented and it mixed wonderfully with her natural aroma. The pillow on the rollaway bed was almost entirely her smell. An assault of apples and hair.

I took a deep breath before I realized what I was doing.

Then immediately felt guilty.

It was ridiculous. Any attraction I had for Asire was purely sexual and I wasn’t worried about that going anywhere. Reggie made it clear that Asire wasn’t interested in sex, and neither was I anymore. I hadn’t been with anyone since Eve died four years ago. The very idea felt like I was betraying her.

It also wasn’t like being attracted to Asire could be considered strange. She was gorgeous. So the guilt didn’t do any good. It just made me wish I could have gotten a hotel room, so I didn’t have to deal with any of this.

There wasn’t another woman for me. Eve had been everything. I could still remember her face with perfect clarity. All the small features. Her slightly upturned nose. Those blue eyes that danced with mischief whenever she was aroused. She had been my mate for the same amount of time that she’d been dead.

And it still felt like a knife wound to the chest when I realized she wouldn’t be there when I got home. When I realized that she was long gone.

When I woke up to an empty bed.

There was nothing in me that wanted to fill that space she had occupied. Even for a night. Even on hellish nights.

The only thing I wanted was to keep my Family safe.

They were the only thing that got me through her death.

After she died and I woke up again, I had been in our medical room. Her body had already been removed, but I remember picturing her on the bed next to me. Her tiny form lying on her back. Blankets brought up around her. She had been so pale and her hands had been resting on her stomach. Her blonde hair had turned dark from blood and dirt. Her eyes looking up at me. Begging me to make it all go away.

And I hadn’t been able to.

I had done everything for her that was medically possible. Stitched her wounds. Hydrated her. Held her hand. It had all been for nothing. The devastation in her eyes and the way her lip trembled. She couldn’t comprehend how everything had gone so wrong. The way our lives had been derailed.

It was then, looking into her eyes, that I knew she was going to die. That I knew my precious mate wouldn’t survive what had been done to her.

I stayed with her in the room anyways. Denying the knowledge. There wasn’t a part of me that believed I could keep going without her. There wasn’t a part of me that believed life would matter without her.

She died quietly. All the damage to her body was too much. No matter how many times we tried to stop the bleeding or keep her breathing. At some point, while I was holding her hand and Dovie was giving her CPR, I felt her drift away in the purest kind of agony. My entire body had lit up, as if it was just realizing what pain was.

I had gone down and I went down hard.

Later, much later, they told me that I never let go of her hand.

When I came too again, still in the medical room, I had been alone. In every sense of the word. Despite knowing that I shouldn’t, I had climbed to my feet and shuffled around. I had looked for Eve. My body and eyes and brain told me she was dead, but my heart still had some kind of sick hope.

While I had been looking, Billy walked in to check on me. Her glasses had been askew. I remember that. And her braids were messy. She froze upon seeing me, and her royal blue eyes widened in surprise. She rushed over and guided me back to the bed and sat me down. Then she just held on until I had stopped shaking.

She told me that I would survive Eve’s death. The shock wouldn’t take me down with her. The look on her face while she said it had been so strange. Like she didn’t know how to be happy for me, but couldn’t stop herself from being relieved that she wouldn’t lose me too.

They watched me in shifts. Making sure I didn’t do anything stupid. Not that they needed to worry. I’d survived this.

Even when I hadn’t wanted to.

Mostly I’d been numb. Unbelievable that I had lost the one I loved most and our future. And that I still had to go on.

It wasn’t worth it.

It wasn’t right.

But I still had to go on.

The numb state had lasted a long time.

My Family had watched for even longer. During all the big anniversaries, they still didn’t feel comfortable leaving me alone. The anniversaries of when I first met Eve, the day we were mated, the day she died.

The memories sucked all the energy out of me and I finally felt myself drifting off. Into a peaceful void. To the sound of the television, Asire’s breathing and steady heartbeat. The last followed me into sleep. The rhythm was strangely comforting and though the thought brought guilt, I was too far gone to stop listening to it.

Before I was fully asleep, I was shocked awake again by a cracking sound. Before I could figure out what it was, the rollaway bed collapsed under me and sent me sprawling across the floor.

Asire shot straight out of bed and landed by the foot, facing the door in a fighting stance. It took a moment, but she eventually woke the rest of the way up and turned around, finding me on the floor and the bed in shambles behind me. There was a hole in the center of the thing, so that the mattress was caved in.

And my ass hurt.

Asire blinked and rubbed her eyes, as if trying to figure out what the hell happened. When she looked again and saw that everything was still in disrepair she muttered, “I should put money on this.”

I laughed.

“What happened?” she asked.

“You fell asleep and I didn’t want to move you,” I explained while getting up. Talk about embarrassing. She sees me break some Annihilist apart earlier in the day and now she gets to see me do the same to a bed.

She smirked. “I told you you’d turn that bed into kindling.”

She had, hadn’t she? “Sorry. What do you wanna do?” I asked.

With a shrug Asire glanced at her bed. “Guess we’ll have to share tonight,” she said.

Funny. She didn’t sound any happier about it than I felt. Not that I could blame her. We’ve only known each other for a couple of days.

I sighed and eyed the floor.

“Don’t even say it.”

“What?”

“You aren’t sleeping on the fucking floor,” Asire barked. “I’d forget you were there and kick you in the face when I got up in the morning. Neither of us wants that.”

I didn’t want to share a bed with her either. But I didn’t say that because some irrational part of me demanded that I not hurt her feelings. Even though, if I did, I could probably get moved to another room and not have to worry about any of this.

Any of what? Why was it important that I not be in a room with her?

When no immediate answer came to me, I gave in. I went to the other side of the bed and climbed in. She shuffled under the covers and turned her back on me without a word. Thankfully. This could only get more awkward the more we acknowledged it. Spending time with her has been difficult enough today.

It was almost enough to make me miss our easy rapport the night before. But my gut told me that it wasn’t safe to think that.

Yet, I couldn’t help but notice how much easier it suddenly was to fall asleep, with Asire’s body heat slinking through the covers and onto me.