Chapter 36: Chapter Thirty Six.

Jhelani's POV:

"Tell me. What do you hate exactly? Hiding stuff away from me and keeping me in the dark about what you really are, or do you hate yourself for it? Make a choice, Damon, so I would know what I am really dealing with." My voice was breaking, but I fought hard not to let the tears out more than I already did as I squeezed my fists.

"Everything. I hate myself for everything," he said, taking a step towards me, and I took another step away. He glanced at the space between and raised his gaze back to me, his lips pursed in a thin line.

God, I felt my heart beating so fast I couldn't keep up with it. I was choking. The emotions I felt at the moment were killing me. The tension was palpable, the wind howling around us, the sky growing increasingly gloomy.

"But, we had no choice. I had no choice, Jhelani." He continued. "I had to do what I could to keep you, the pack, and everyone else safe. I had to hide the truth away from you because if I didn't, then I would be breaking the rules I made by myself, and that's most definitely the dumbest thing any leader could do. Making rules and breaking them...stupid," he chuckled bitterly in both amusement and regret.

I chewed on my inner cheeks painfully. That's reasonable. But I had no idea why I felt that they were hiding something more from me. When Damon, Kian, and Jace transformed, they looked exactly like the wolves that always appeared in my dreams.

I remember the wolves telling me in my dream to run away from here, to leave Town, and that I was killing more people by breathing the air here. I could recall the red dress and the dead wolves and animals around me, the way I felt guilty from just staring at them even though I didn't actually kill them with my bare hands, yet it felt like I had something to do with it.

"What else are you guys hiding away from me?" I asked, my eyes on everyone of them, gauging the look on their faces as I continued.

"Because I know this can't be all. I saw it in your eyes each time you told me to leave. You don't actually want me to go, do you? You want me to stay, but I knew there was someone or something that was making you say that, and it's beyond that bunch of fuckers who tried to harass me. So tell me every fucking thing. You guys were the ones who always appeared in my dreams, yes?" I asked, tilting my head with my eyes strained on them.

"You're hunting my dreams to get me scared, creating terrible nightmares so I could run from here right? And Jace, what the fuck happened to my memories? Why don't I recall ever kissing you on the night of prom? What the fuck did you really do to me?" I demanded.

Jace scratched the back of his neck, laughing nervously. "Don't get mad at me, but well, I had to erase them for some good purposes." He said casually while I stood there with my eyes wide in shock.

"You did what for some what, Jace? You got my memories erased? What the fuck is wrong with you, man?" I yelled at him, fury in my voice.

Then there's Kian at the side who was struggling to hold in his laugh.

"Hey, hey, hey. Calm down, girl. You can't put all the blame on me now, can you? C'mon guys, why are y'all so quiet? Say something," he said to Damon and Kian but they didn't look like they'd be saying anything with how quiet they currently were.

"They forced me, okay? They made me do it. I fucking didn't want to erase such a good kiss from your memory, Jhelani. It was a moment I want us to remember for the rest of our lives. Sadly, I had to wipe it out using magic despite knowing that magic wouldn't hundred percent work for something like that and it has its downside which is that you might still be getting some fragments of what happened or something worse than that. But at least you wouldn't get to know who you did it with and that's the real deal."

I turned to Damon and Kian, my gaze hard and serious. Kian had to stop laughing while Damon still had that look in his eyes that showed he was regretting all of this.

"Is that true?" I asked them, and after exchanging glances for a second or two, they then slowly nodded. "Why? Do you know what?" I asked. "Just spill it out. All of it. I may be running late to work on my first day, but I have more than enough time as long as I get some answers from you guys. And don't fucking hide a thing from me. Nothing at all," I said in a threatening voice.

"Fine. We will tell you everything, but we need to get out of here first. We can't afford to let anyone else know about this." Damon said. He moved his gaze to Jace and then gave him a signal using his eyes.

Jace nodded with a smirk. "Been waiting since forever to do this shit though. You know, it's not all the time we need to transform. A little magic could do the trick," he chuckled, stepping forward with his hands stretched out to me. "Hold my hand, Fox Eyes," he wiggled his brow at me, gesturing to his hand.

My mouth was open without any words coming out as I stared at his hand in confusion. "What's happening?" I asked. Jace took hold of my hand.

"We're eloping. Just me and you. Together. Because we're in love and no one dares to stop us. Not even them..." he said, referring to Damon and Kian, and I almost rolled my eyes. He always finds a way to make a laugh from the most serious situations. He could be serious too, but only in very rare cases.

"Enough of the jokes, Man." Kian butted in with a grumble. He clearly wasn't having it because Jace was hitting on me and threatening to have me flee with him. Meanwhile, Damon was just there with his very straight face, but I could see the annoyed look in his eyes.

Damon and Kian held Jace by his shoulder while Jace held my hand and suddenly pulled me close, way too close that my boobs bumped against his chest as his arm snaked around my waist in a grip.

"Hey," A little shaken gasp left my lips as I stared up at him.

"Yes, Foxie?" He winked at me, glanced around cautiously, and before I knew it, a strong wind wrapped around us. I felt myself floating in the air.

"Jace, what's gay?" I screamed as I shut my eyes tightly, my nails digging into his arms as I hugged him, then the next second we were out of it. Everything felt normal again with my feet on the ground.

I heard a low reverberating chuckle.

"It's okay, baby. It's alright. We're out of ear's reach now," Jace said while patting my head.

"Where are we?" I asked, my eyes fluttering open and looking around. I realized we weren't in the lonely area anymore. In fact, they brought me to their house. No. It didn't look anything like the Safehouse. The apartment structure was similarly close to mine. Just a few little details that made it different.

"Where is this place? Why does it look relatively like my house?" I asked slowly, then a realization popped into my mind as I paused, turning to Jace. "Hold on a second, how the fuck did we even get here?"

"You should probably know the answer, Snowfire. So don't act so surprised," Damon said casually, striding and taking a seat on one of the couches there. "Jace is the only one here who deals with the power of magic, so he can practically materialize and appear wherever he wants to. His mother was a witch. She handed over tons of her books to him. So far, he has only mastered a few of the spells in the books and still, he is imperfect with them. Such a lazy ass man. One of the reasons why the magic he performed to erase your memory didn't work fully."

"Okay, that's enough there, man. You don't have to bring me out like that. I know I'm not that good, and besides, there's always room for improvement. No one is perfect by the way," Jace said with a shrug, flashing me a grin that didn’t reach his eyes this time.