Chapter 24 In love with Lys
A tornado was broiling deep within me.
It made the floor shift beneath my feet. Painted my vision a crimson haze.
And thoughts I had not allowed myself to think in years now warred in my head. How easy it was to break one of these mortals. How fragile they were, bones so thin I could snap them between my fingers like twigs.
Pushing open the door with the silver-plated DR, Morgan Chen. Internal Medicine pinned to it, I shoved vampire-boy into the empty office, head first.
Hale hurried in before I could shut the door, and stood between us.
“Let’s get this straight.” I could barely get the words out in my rage. “Have you met before, did you perhaps know her from somewhere else?”
Vampire-boy had an innocent look on his face now, like he had not just gone against my most important rule. Never touch my possessions!
Unless I decided to share.
And unlike Hale, he had limited privileges to my possessions. Not when he had firmly locked me out, locked me out for years.
I was nearly blind with searing hot, jealous rage. Hale knew me best and calmly said, “Finn, speak.”
He responded promptly enough, another bitter reminder that he would always prefer Hale. Always do anything he wanted without questions.
But with me, I was lucky if I even got him to stay half an hour in the same room with me.
A cruel fist of jealousy squeezed around my heart. And I was no longer certain who it was for.
“No.” he at least had enough shame to keep his eyes pinned to the floor.
“So you met her for the first time yesterday, and today you’ve already had her first kiss?” I moved closer. Hale looked like he was barely holding himself from stopping me.
Always protective of him as usual.
“Do you know why she is living in our house right now?”
It was a stupid question. Because in all these seven years, it had just been the three of us in that house. He knew that she was there right now because she was the woman of the decade.
He nodded, head still bent.
Hale tried to speak then, but I raised my hand, staring at the boy I had watched grow into a man, the one who loathed me as much as I desired him. The one I had gone to war for and will do so again.
“She’s not just any girl.” My voice dropped into a husky whisper, “You know this, because I told you we were leaving for the wedding two nights ago. I kept nothing from you.”
I could not hurt him. Despite that nasty temper, he was a good lad, honest, maybe too honest.
That fatigue from earlier washed over me suddenly, “Why?”
“I love her.” He finally raised those aqua-colored eyes to me. No matter how many times I saw those eyes, they would always knock the wind out of me.
You never get used to seeing eyes like that.
“Love?” I whispered, confused.
You only had to live with him one day to know how passionate he could be, wearing that passion boldly where everyone could see. So much so, he never hid his desire for me despite making it clear he loathed me just as much.
But even then, this made no sense. Love?
What did he know about love? I have loved a woman for centuries, loved another man for half of it and would give my life for them, but neither of them happened in twenty-four hours.
“I do.” A new strength was creeping into his voice, neck stiffening in defiance. “I love Lys. I know she means nothing to y’all.”
His eyes moved between me and Hale.
“That she’s just another pretty little thing for your entertainment, but please, can it not be her?” His eyes were glassy despite the stubborn lines on his face.
“I’ll find someone…”
“Go home.” I cut him off.
He had worked my patience thin and I might just hurt him even though I would hate myself for it later.
“Go home, Finn.”
I felt his pause, surprise, because I never called him by name.
“You’re selfish.” His voice was a disappointed whisper, and then he walked out and banged the door shut behind him.
Ignoring Hale’s pointed stare, I walked toward the doctor’s seat and sank into it.
“We could tell him, you know.” The elegant man spoke finally.
I looked up at him, and thought he was the kind of knight people wrote poems about. So bloody handsome his face was art.
I shook off the temptation to pull him over the desk, “No.”
He raised a questioning eyebrow, and I turned to stare out the window. Where could my Lunar Queen be right now?
“I’ll not have someone who wouldn’t choose us without questions. He can go on thinking us monsters. I don’t care.”
“Do you remember when you were his age?”
I scoffed.
“There!” He moved to one of the visitor’s seats across from the desk. “You have lived so long you have forgotten what it’s like to be young and foolish.”
I pulled my eyes away from the window. “You should be a coach at some teenage camp, or something. You have the patience of a monk.”
The dashing knight. He was graceful.
The way he walked, spoke, and dressed, every custom-tailored suit impeccable, hair swept off his brows in a tidy wave.
His response to this was a smile. “Why do you think I’ve been re-elected Mayor over and over?”
“But Finn is no teenager. Did you see how Wolf-girl pleaded to be with us even when she thought we were hideous monsters?”
Hale laughed merrily. “She’s human, Daine. An ambitious human with goals. You should know how they are with these things. Her decision had nothing to do with us. She would have jumped in hell to walk again.”
“I thought you both were friends?” My eyes narrowed. Whispers of doubts settled at my core.