Page 19 of Sustaining
My chest aches both from want and from all the things he just said to me.
The cracking dip of my whisper stings my throat when I finally reply. “We lost so much time because of Kreedence.” We lost ourselves. I lean my head on his shoulder, and his palm slides along my neck, holding me and stroking my skin, making me shiver with every slow move of his hand.
“The night he removed the curse outside Agatha’s house, he told me he wanted me to suffer like I deserve one more time.” Sinister’s accent is thick and clouded with anger. “He said he wanted you to see me once more just to torment us both. He was so sure of his actions that night.”
My eyes feel heavy, but the sick feeling turning my stomach wakes me the more and more he talks about his brother. I hate the toxic relationship Sinister had with him. My time with Kreedence was short, mere months compared to the lifetime Sinister had spent with the man. I know his mother never wanted Sinister to be like his father. That’s why he’s never seen Hell. Kreedence surprisingly kept that promise to his mother after she’d died.
But a part of who Sinister is was crafted because of who Kreedence was. Sinister strives to be everything Kreedence wasn’t. I think because of his mother, he tries so damn hard to be the opposite of what people expect.
And he is.
“Why do you think he did it all? He was obsessed with building my magic when we were together. He got me to promise him my heart, and if I had given it to him, he would have held impossible power over me. And in the end, he led me to Myla’s house. Why?” My voice shakes, and it doesn’t take long for two quiet shifters to climb up the ladder and stand at my side just from the trembling tone of my words.
Chaos’ big hand slides over my knuckles, and Sinister never stops his slow caressing of my collarbone, throat, and jawline.
Rime, on the other hand, only watches me intently, his mind clearly reeling but his jaw held tightly closed. No one speaks for a moment, and the sound of the slashing sea fills that silence. Until Rime finally says what’s tumbling through his mind.
“Do you ever think Kreedence and Ellise were connected?”
There’s no emotion to his words, but I can tell by the careful way he watches my reaction that this isn’t the first time he’s thought about it.
“I’d never met Ellise until Valencia. If she was a part of the demon’s life when I was with him, I—” I want to say I would have known. But I didn’t know anything Kreedence didn’t want me to know back then. He was who he wanted me to see him as on the surface. He controlled me in ways I never even realized. He controlled my emotions most days. If he was happy, everyone was happy. If I was angry, he was angrier. If I was hurt, he was the victim. And suddenly, I don’t even remember the real facts of my own relationship.
“I guess it’s possible,” I say on a voice so quiet all three of them lean a little closer. I take a deep breath of the salty air and steel my spine against the knotting feeling in the pit of my stomach. Fuck those memories, and fuck the demon who gave them to me. “What would either of them gain by manipulating a damaged mage?”
“A damaged mage, nothing.” Rime’s gaze narrows, his calculating attention sweeping across my features. “You’re not a damaged mage, Tamer. You just grew up in a damaged society.” His long fingers push along my knuckles until I tangle my fingers through his, and then I warm deep inside myself as I realize I’m surrounded by the three of them. That support I told Sinister about is all around me now.
“Did he ever mention Ellise?” Chaos’ bright eyes cut to Sinister, and we’re all hanging on the silence that slips by.
I lower myself, sitting on the rooftop while a thousand messy memories clutter my mind. The three of them sit, still surrounding me but giving me a little space that I didn’t even realize I needed until now.
“Kreedence never mentioned anything. We’d talk, but it was mostly …”
“What?” I ask, pulling back to peer into his downcast eyes.
“It was mostly him taunting me and testing me to see if I’d fucked you.”
My lips part, and a little piece of my heart clatters down and drops into my stomach.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Rime’s jaw tics, and for the first time since the two men met, he looks like he’ll murder the demon if he says the wrong thing. If I was some sort of sick game to Sinister, I fully believe Rime will kill him without hesitation.
“Kreedence knew I liked Arrie. He knew I stuck around too much to watch after her, and when I told him Arrie would never see me as anything other than a friend, it seemed to…fuel him in setting me up to punish me. It was fucked up but I would rather torture myself there every single day than leave her with him. I was young and I-I don’t want to talk about it.” He shrugs it off carelessly, throwing his arms across his knees, holding his hands there as he locks his jaw and puts up a wall all around whatever memories are flashing through his eyes right now.
I swallow down the rising tension in my chest, but it doesn’t help. I’m still looking at the torment in his gaze, and I want to ask a thousand questions, but I know it’ll only make that sadness in his eyes worse. The smooth roof is cool against my touch as I shift until I’m draped over his lap, forcing his gaze to meet mine and forcing his palms back on my body. His dark brows rise, and the deep look in his gaze is gone, but I can tell those memories will always be there in the back of his mind.
“I always loved you, Sin.” The whisper trembles from my lips, and I have to breathe through the anxiety of admitting that. It isn’t that I’m ashamed. I’m terrified. I’m incredibly terrified of having feelings for Sinister. I lost him once, and it took years to finally find my way back to him. To us. The real us. We’ve changed so much. We’re not teenagers anymore. Life has changed us so much that it amazes me that our feelings are still the same after all this time. “You were the only thing good in my life.” My hands push through that soft, dark hair of his, and he wraps me up against him, his nose burying into my neck in a way that makes me wonder if he ever really felt loved aside from the complicated friendship we had. “I loved you, Sinister.”
It’s as close to telling him how I really feel as I can get right now. I loved him. I did. I think I love him now, too.
His mouth brushes harder against the curve of my neck, shaking warm breath all along my skin before his tongue presses slow kisses along my flesh, my jaw, the corner of my mouth. And then he’s kissing me so deeply my breath is lost entirely while I fall into the desire tingling through my chest. Every hard flick of his tongue is promising, painfully promising.
He barely pulls back to whisper against my lips. “I loved you, too.”
A throat clears, deterring my gaze and putting a minimal amount of space between myself and Sinister. The breeze catches the pale locks of Rime’s hair, and he keeps his gaze on the horizon, not out of private respect for me but because he really does seem to be lost in whatever turning thoughts are twisting through his mind. Chaos, on the other hand, is watching us like he’s half a second away from stroking his own cock to the romance novel that’s currently playing out before his very eyes.
“So Ellise and the demon’s motives aren’t related?” Rime turns his empty expression back to me, and I realize we got a little off topic rather fast.
“I-I don’t know.”
