I stalk towards her, stopping when I reach her. She is trying to tug her gloves on when I snatch her hands. Ripping them off and tossing them on the ground.
“Stop, I need them,” she whispers, bending to pick them up, but I jerk her upright, tugging her to me.
“You don’t need them. You just need everyone to stop fearing you, so you stop fearing yourself,” I snap, glaring at everyone. Placing my hand on her lower back, I nudge and nod toward my car. “Get in the car,” I tell her, pushing her a little.
She glances at me. “What?”
“Get in my car,” I tell her, and she looks at me before I incline my head at the car. “Come on,” I tell her.
Mateo grips my arm. “You’re not taking my daughter,” he snarls.
“Try to stop me!” I growl back. Mateo glares at me. “I suggest you remove your hand or lose it,” I warn him, and Kaif presses forward. Mateo takes a step back, his hand drops from my arm, and I nudge Marabella to keep walking. She glances at her fathers briefly, then looks at Eziah.
“He is fine,” I whisper to her, and Ezra nods at me before grabbing his son.
“Jonah, we are leaving now!” I tell him, opening the rear door and ushering Marabella into the car.
“Where are we going?” Mara asks.
“Back to the city, to Jonah’s place. Now get in the car, Ella.” Marabella hesitates to glance at her family. “Get in the car, Ella. You’re not going home with them,” I tell her as Jonah jogs over, climbing in the passenger seat.
“So bossy,” he mutters.
“Can you take me home first?” Mara asks, looking back at her fathers.
“Whatever you need, we can get for you. Just get in the car,” I tell her. Her brows furrow, but she nods, sliding into the backseat. Fuck, what have I done?
Marabella
The entire drive is awkwardly silent and I have a strange feeling Kyan has no idea why he decided to drag me along with him. He is giving me whiplash with his back and forth, his constant hot and cold signals. making everything even more complicated.
“So, what’s going on?” Jonah finally asks the question I have been dying to ask myself, but too afraid to open my mouth and let the words out.
Kyan appears to pick his words carefully. “Marabella needs to learn control, we can’t have her fiddling with the power she has no right to contain. Until I can figure out how to either teach her to harness it, or take it back, she will remain with you,” he answers.
I press my head against the glass and stare out the window as disappointment washes over me. Is it wrong that I was hoping he actually wants to make this work?
“And you’re fine with her staying with me?” Jonah asks, his tone seems shocked and I turn my head slightly and look in the rear vision mirror, meeting Kyan’s eyes fleetingly before he looks away. It hurts, I still want him, I still have hope he would want me too. By the hardness of his eyes and the way he speaks through gritted teeth, he isn’t fine with it, but I have accepted it.
“Yes, Jonah we are all mates now, aren’t we, Kaif saw to that,” Kyan says.
His words instantly bring a snarky attitude up, that I can’t examine other than jealousy. And I remember what that jealousy feels like, and for a second I feel guilty, before I remember that Kyan had marked Jonah, and I feel agitated.
“So what, you would mark him but not your mate?” I scoff, and his eyes dart to mine. I am livid. Is it wrong of me to just want him to claim me as his? I want him to. But his constant hesitation is getting the better of me.
“I can’t mark you, Marabella.”
I roll my eyes, oh please, so he keeps saying.
“Because you don’t want to, because to me it seems you are just using your so-called visions as an excuse!” I snap at him. “If you don’t want me, just reject me,” I mumble the last part, turning back to stare out the window again, watching the cars pass by.
Kyan sighs but doesn’t say anything else on the matter. The car is filled with a strange sense of silence. It is comfortable in a sense that although things are still messy and confusing, being stuck together in this small space, I probably wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. But it is also uncomfortable in a sense that we are all consumed by our own thoughts and emotions, which is way too much for the tiny space we are stuck in together.
We pull up out the front of the hotel and I get out straight away, and I feel like I can finally breathe. I need some space as I go marching to the front doors, ignoring Kyan and Jonah, who call out to me. Why bring me here to rot in a hotel with his mate?
Jonah isn’t mine now that he marked him, and Kyan has no intentions of marking me so where does that leave me – in fucking limbo is where.
I am pissed, this entire thing is fucked up now. There is no way for me to be free and just live a happy life with a mate who wants me. No! Now I can’t have Kyan or Jonah. I feel overwhelmed by my emotions, like I can burst out of skin.
Kora whines unhappily in my head and fights back tears. Everything has turned to shit and I need an outlet, something to bury the tumultuous feelings that are hitting the breaking point. I am somewhere between laughing, crying, or going mental.
My own family is scared of me, now my uncle and aunt’s pack is too, yet they aren’t scared of Eziah? How does that make sense? It is not like he was shooting rainbows and unicorn farts around, he used just as much power as I did, if not more. The only one not scared of me was Kyan, who doesn’t want me and the only other option is Jonah who is now marked by Kyan, my mate. How the fuck is any of this fair? I am screwed, and not the good kind. I can see no light, no hope. I fit in nowhere.