My lips shook as my body followed suit, violently. The need to get outside was greater than the need to live, or breathe. I clawed against him, my feet trying to find the floor unsuccessfully. I was having a glorified panic attack.
As If this day couldn’t get any worse, no I had to go have a panic attack in front of the Dark Fae. I knew the moment he sensed it, or guessed at what was happening, because his fingers went slack and he allowed me to slide down the wall. The moment my feet touched the ground I was gone.
The bouncers at the door both moved, opening the doors so I could get outside before I threw up all over their clubs shiny floors. Outside the air wouldn’t fill my lungs fast enough. I'd been prone to panic attacks after the death of my parents, but it had been ten years since the last one happened.
"Syn, you okay?" Adam said with concern lighting in his green eyes as he followed closely behind me.
I shook my head forcefully. My stomach heaved as tears swam in my eyes. This wasn’t fucking happening. Alden knew I was against anything pertaining to the Fae, I'd had so many assignments that I had turned down without any hesitation because they'd included the Fae.
"Synthia, slow down. This isn't as bad as it sounds. He's trying to scare you," Larissa said speaking low and calmly as she came into view. She must have been outside, or waiting for me.
Like she knew? She wasn’t the one who'd just signed a bloody fucking contract that gave a Dark Fae the right to use her body as food! He could turn me into what my mother had become—someone willing to kill her own child! Stars burst behind my eyelids and I had the startling realization that I was going to pass out…right before someone caught me and everything turned black.
I awoke to the sound of water dripping. Hushed voices played across the room talking as if I wouldn’t hear them.
"I don’t know. She's never passed out—ever."
"Why didn’t Guild disclose her previous history with the Fae before this?" Ryder's voice was angry and to the point.
"You would have to talk to Alden on that one. I only know that it took us over a year to get her to even speak after they found her. She was a mess, angry at everything. I was the only one who could get through to her—reach her wherever she'd gone inside her mind so to say. Later on she only let Larissa and Adrian in. She was a child, traumatized by your kind. The things she's seen…" Adam's voice filled with pain.
"Which neither I nor any of my people had anything to do with," Ryder pointed out angrily.
I heard Adam's snort, felt his ire raise as he defended the child I'd been. It was why he was one of my best friends, always there for me. "She was five man, five! Inside her mind you are all the same, because you're all what she fears most. She's so fucking terrified she had some jack-off tattoo a spell on her neck. There is one lesson they teach us at the Guild and that's to put the most valuable spell on your neck… and she wasted it, to protect herself against becoming what her mother—"
"Don’t," I whispered struggling to sit up.
I was not letting him give the Fae more weapons to use against me. Ryder stood with his back to the wall, his arms crossed against his massive chest. Those golden eyes of his taking in my anger without so much as a single flinch. Adam however scratched his dark head and scuffed his feet at the floor like a child being berated for misbehaving.
"Where am I?" I asked softly realizing I was in a bed, a very big soft bed.
"We are in the clubs sub-levels. You passed out," Ryder said never taking those dangerous eyes from mine.
"I don’t pass out," I said obtusely.
"You did," he replied with his lips jerking up into a wolfish grin.
"Whatever, are we done here? I need a shower," I grumbled feeling dirty for being in any bed around him.
"You need to finish reading the contract. You stay with me until this is finished. Inside my estate," Ryder growled his eyes daring me to challenge him.
I did the only thing I could—I challenged him.
"Fuck that, I'm not staying alone with you—ever." I folded my arms over my chest aiming for the most stubborn look I could make while sitting in an oversized bed of black silk.
His eyes took me in, raking heat up my body as he did so. I was up and out of the bed before he could comment. Only then did I notice I wasn’t in my jeans and the black flimsy panties were not enough protection from Ryder, I doubted full armor would be enough to protect me against his eyes.
"Who the hell stole my pants?" I barked jumping back into bed much to the amusement of the two men in the room.
Adam coughed and tilted his head in Ryder's direction. Ryder turned his head giving Adam a look that would make most men run and then growled low in his chest. Adam turned to leave me alone with him.