Page 51 of Firedrake Betrayal
I get up.
I’ve tossed and turned in this bed for long enough. As I swing my bare legs off the bed, my eyes latch on the small white alarm clock on the bedside table. 2:15 a.m. I wince.
It’s been four hours since I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and borrowed a white T-shirt from Shep—ignoring Dominik’s compressed lips when he overheard my request—and I haven’t slept a wink.
I’m tired, and I could do with the sleep, but the second, the verysecondI shut my eyes, I’m plagued with what ifs and maybes and doubt. Endless doubt. Abouteverything.
My belly rumbles as I stand, the hollow sound reminding me that I ate precious little of the pasta and jar of sauce that Shep pulled from a kitchen cupboard.
I walk downstairs to grab a glass of water, hoping the task will distract me enough to actually go to sleep. Doubtful, but maybe?
The house is quiet. I think I’m the only one still awake until I reach the kitchen doorway and stop.
Shep must have had the same idea.
He’s in a pair of navy shorts, nothing else, as he leans against a counter chugging from his glass. It takes superhuman effort to stop staring at his tanned, muscled chest.
His eyes meet mine once I’ve stopped staring, and he places his empty glass on the counter. “Couldn’t sleep?”
I shake my head as I try not to notice the way his hooded gaze is drifting over my body. “No.”
He silently refills his glass and offers it to me.
I drink from the same place as he did, my eyes still on him. After one quick glance at my mouth as I drink, he doesn’t look again.
“Did he hurt you?” he asks quietly.
I lower my half-empty glass from my mouth. “Who?”
His gaze is searching. “Dominik. You’re avoiding him.”
Of course he noticed the way I’m determined not to come within two feet of Dominik. How could he not? “I’m okay.”
His gaze sharpens, amber rather than wolf-gold. He’s not angry. Or aroused. Yet. “That’s not really an answer.”
“I guess not,” I respond. “But I’m trying not to think of him or the pregnancy. I’m shelving it. The bond, his betrayal… Dad. It’s too much to think about right now.” I offer him a smile and it’s so weak it soon slips. “Just when I start to get used to something, everything changes.”
He doesn’t return my tepid smile. “You’ll get through this.”
The back of my eyes prickle. This,this, is why I’ve been trying not to think of things. “I don’t know how to be strong. I don’t know how to be a mother. And I don’t?—”
I choke back the rest of my complaints, hating myself for my whining.
I got out of the compound. The girl with the blue hair and the terrifying shark-like teeth might not have. So many people could have died when Dad blasted the top of Atticus’s compound open and freed us from the trap we stepped into.
I’m free.
I should be grateful that I am. But it’s so hard to be grateful when my life keeps changing and changing and I wish it would juststop. I went on a carousel at an amusement park years and years ago. After it stopped circling, I slipped off my metal horse, stepped off the platform and… tipped. Dad caught me back then, but he isn’t around to do any catching now.
Ever since I left the attic, that’s how I’ve felt. Off center and dizzy.
I need everything to stop.
I walk over to the sink to empty the rest of the water I no longer want.
After placing the glass in the sink, I look at the water splashes, listen to the slow drip from the faucet, and try to accept that soon, something else will change when I’m sick to death of things changing every five minutes.
“Jade?”
