Quillan was holding me as the now-familiar cluster of chaotic voices swelled around me. I knew it was him because he was the only one who touched me as though he was afraid of holding me too close. That hesitancy was made worse by the need that curled out from his chest, unfurling through our bond and calling out desperately for me. I wasn’t sure what he needed or wanted, so I blinked my eyes open and laid a hand against his chest. He fell into a chair inside the same room that we had vacated, pulling me up tightly to hug me properly. He released a relatively tame string of swear words, indicating that he was feeling as horribly drained as I was—or perhaps he was simply being affected by my own emotions. He set me free almost as suddenly as he had pulled me close, easing me to my feet until I wobbled unsteadily between his legs.
The Sophies appeared on either side of me, catching my arms and drawing me away from Quillan. Neither of us tried to reach for the other, but I felt as though I was being torn down the middle and I wanted nothing more than to collapse back into him. Jack prevented that, however, when he landed directly in front of me, blocking off my view of Quillan. His narrowed-eyed consideration skipped right over whatever expression had taken a hold of my face and then he was patting my shoulder in a consolatory way.
“I suspected it…” he mumbled, before turning and waving a hand at someone. “Alice, you’d better release him.”
I followed the direction of his gaze until I found the Japanese woman in the doorway, her hand on Silas’s arm, guiding him into the room. Noah and Cabe followed, and my knees buckled at the evidence of Cabe’s near-death experience. The mottled white patch in the middle of his stomach was almost a match for the network of scars that spread across my own stomach—though the blood that was smudged all over his skin had me feeling immediately sick, as though his wound would re-appear at any moment. Cabe and Noah both seemed unnecessarily tense for the situation, since the immediate danger seemed to have passed… until I realised that Silas was handcuffed.
A growl rose in my throat with an animalistic rush of possessiveness, and I lurched forward, ripping Alice away from him. Somewhere in my mind, I acknowledged that attacking a Klovoda member wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but the majority of my mind didn’t seem to care. I was running on pure instinct. Silas released a bitter sound of amusement, and behind me, Jack seemed to have broken out into a genuine laugh.
“I warned you,” he said to Alice, who had rallied to face me, her pair flanking her.
“What’s going on?” she asked me, before turning to Jack, including him in the question. She didn’t lose her composure, but she seemed to have tensed as though ready for a fight.
I backed up until I could feel Silas behind me and then I raised my hands. The gesture would have looked like a position of surrender had it been anyone else, but they knew what my power was, which meant that they could also recognise the threat implied by the baring of my hands.
“They’re all together,” Jack said calmly, moving to Alice and laying a hand on her shoulder—just as he had laid a hand on my shoulder only a few moments ago. It was a touch that lasted barely a second, but it was enough to make Alice’s pair shift uncomfortably on either side of her.
“The rumours are true?” Alice asked, levelling me with a considering look.
“They aren’t together like the rumours suggest,” Jack said, shaking his head. “They’re together, Alice. All of them. They belong to her and she belongs to them.”
“She’s…” Alice trailed off, her eyes widening.
Silas’s linked hands brushed my spine, the pressure slight through the thick, water-logged coat that weighed down my shoulders.
“Un-cuff him,” I demanded. I knew that I was being unreasonable, but I was too emotionally drained to care.
To my surprise, Adie took the keys from his Atmá’s hand and walked over to us. I shifted in front of Silas as he drew near, not allowing the huge man to touch Silas in any way. Despite the fact that I was becoming more and more unreasonable by the second, Adie handed me the keys and I quickly turned my back on everyone to unlock the cuffs from Silas’s wrists. I threw them to Noah, who shoved them into his pocket, and then I turned my back on Silas again. I didn’t want anyone touching him. I didn’t want anyone touching any of my pairs.
I didn’t even want to be there anymore.
We had almost died.