Page 94 of Illusory

And he still wasn’t letting me go.

“This isn’t your fight—”

“Yes it is! Yes it fucking is! I did this, Gabriel. I’m the one that did this,” I wailed in anguish, my eyes burning and blurring with guilt and shame and terror.

All I could see was the blood. So much blood everywhere that it looked as though it were the tiles that were bleeding. As though Hell itself were weeping bloody tears at the sight of them ripping into each other.

“They’re not going to stop unless we do something. Can’t you see that?” I said, a strangled sob lodged at the back of my throat. “Do something, Gabriel. Stop them or I swear to God I will never speak to you again!”

I didn’t care that this wasn’t his fault or his responsibility or that my threat wasn’t fair to him. I couldn’t let that matter. Not when they were trying to kill each other. All I cared about was stopping them.

Gabriels muscles flexed as though he were weighing out his options, as though he were deciding if I’d follow through with my threat, and then he released me. An angry noise sounded from him as he shoved me behind himself and then lunged forward at the two of them, dodging punches and hits as he tried to wrangle his way in between them.

“That’s enough,” snapped Gabriel as he fought to gain some sort of grip on either one of them, his feet slipping awkwardly on the bloody floor. It felt like forever, like an actual eternity burning in the depths of Hell had come and gone before he managed to get an arm in between the two of them, slowing down some of the hits that landed.

But they weren’t done. They were still going, still swingingover Gabriel’s head, still refusing to stop for anything or anyone.

“Please stop! Both of you!Please,” I begged as I moved up behind Gabriel, my arms flailing and my feet sliding as I tried to shield Gabriel’s head. “JUST STOP!” I finally screamed, the words ripping out of me with so much force that I was sure they’d slashed my lungs.

Using the momentary distraction my outburst caused, Gabriel clasped both his arms around Trace’s torso, locking him into some sort of bearhug and then hauling him back and away, the two of them skating all over the bloody floor and then nearly tripping over a chair that had been upturned on the floor.

Dominic tried to chase after them, but I was right there in front of him, pushing him back the other way, desperately trying to put myself in his sightline, to distract him so that all he saw was me.

“Move,” he growled as I shook my head and stood my ground. “Get out of my way or I will move you myself,” he warned, his breath ragged and stretched impossibly thin.

“It’s not him you’re angry at,” I said, my hands splayed against his chest and then fisting into the fabric of his shirt as sticky tears ran down my face, mixing with my shame and sweat and remorse. “It’s me. It’s my fault. Take it out on me. Be mad atme,” I pleaded with the whole of my heart.

As painful as it was to say out loud, to acknowledge, every single person in this room knew it was true. I was the one responsible for this mess, the one who had blindly led us here, fueling the flames of the fire over and over again by never choosing, never letting up with either of them, and I was the only one who deserved their wrath for it.

But I was going to fix it. My days of running from the bullet were over.

“I hope you’re both happy with yourselves,” snapped Gabriel, glaring at the two of them.

“Not particularly,” answered Dominic, his dark eyes still pinned on me as he swiped away a trickle of blood from a lip wound that was already healing.

“We’re supposed to be working together,” scolded Gabriel, trying to be the voice of reason. “Or did you forget why we’re even here in the first place? The last thing we need right now is to turn on each other. That’s precisely what they want. To divide us and conquer. Did either of you even bother to consider that while you were pounding each other’s faces in?”

Dominic’s gaze darted over my shoulder. “Should I have considered that before or after he ported her without her permission?” he retorted, alternating glares between Trace and his brother.

“What’s the matter? Can’t handle a little competition?” heckled Trace from across the room, apparently still out for blood. “Are you scared you can’t manipulate her anymore without your bloodbond tying her down to you?”

Dark, vicious eyes narrowed on Trace. “I’m not the one who needed to kidnap her to some cabin in the woods in order to be able to get a minute of her attention,” he said sweetly as a cunning, lopsided grin curled his mouth at the corners. “She already gives me all her attention quite freely. But you already know that good and well, don’t you?”

I cringed, dropping my head as I shoved my hands into my hair and cleared the matted strands from my face.

“And yet you still can’t close the deal.” Trace snorted mockingly. “I’ve been mostly fucking dead for how much of this year? And you still haven’t been able to win her over. What does that tell you?”

“That you ought to learn how to stay dead?” offered Dominic still smiling.

Trace smiled back, shucking off Gabriel’s hands and rolling his neck, his furious eyes never leaving Dominic. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? That way you don’t ever have to look at the truth.”

“The truth?” Dominic arched his brow like a question.

“That you don’t have what it takes to make her happy.”

“And you do?Deadas you usually are.”

Trace’s jaw muscle ticked. “I’m here now, and I’m still her soulmate.”

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