“She wants to have sex,” Jonah blurts, and my eyebrows rise almost to my hairline as I peer down at her. My eyes flicker at the thought of him fucking her, her wanting him to, yet it is more jealousy that she wants to be with him than me being jealous of Jonah.
“So, how do you expect to mate her if you don’t have sex with her?” I ask him with a shake of my head. I can’t believe I am actually having a conversation with my best friend about fucking my mate.
“I like Jonah, but I am not listening to you give him the sex talk so he can fuck our mate,” Kaif growls, feeling uncomfortable and pissed off.
“But it would be her first time?” Jonah sighs.
“Everyone has a first time,” I tell him. Lying back down and getting comfortable, I watch Marabella.
“Yeah, and I would rather forget mine. Thank you very much,” Jonah states.
“Can’t have been that bad,” I say.
“Ah, you took me to a damn brothel. The woman was old enough to be my mother, and she was panting over the top of me; that shit traumatized me for life.” I feel him shudder, and I snicker at the memory of horror on his face when I took him to it on his eighteenth birthday.
“You picked her, not my fault,” I chuckle. “You could have said no,” I state with a shake of my head.
“I did. Then we played cards, the most awkward experience of my life, one I would like to forget.”
“Then why did you pick her again when we went back? You always picked her?” I ask, wondering why he would choose the same woman every time we went if she was so terrible. Although it did make me wonder if he had a granny fetish a couple of times, because she was fucking old.
“We played cards while waiting for you,” he says, and my brows furrow.
“Every time?” I ask, sitting back up.
“Every time. Although I am shocked you even went to them being such a clean freak or with any of the girls you were with from the club,” Jonah chuckles.
“Had no choice. Kaif was always unsettled wanting his mate, kind of like a deterrent to stop him from hunting down Ella,” I answer, looking down at her.
“And yet you eat pussy,” Jonah laughs.
“That’s different,” I chuckle.
“Ah no, it’s not; I drank from your drink once by accident, and you threw it out,” Jonah laughs.
“It’s different, I don’t know how, but it is; just sleep with her, Jonah. Pretty sure it is more to do with the person than the act itself,” I tell him with a yawn.
It would be impossible for me to understand some of the strange compulsions I have. I know they aren’t rational; I believe they are more of a control issue or, at the very least, feeling in control.
“Here, I thought you would be jumping for joy having her to yourself,” I tell him, and Kaif growls; if he didn’t have her, his mindset is nobody could.
Jonah hums but never answers, and I know it is because he is still pissed off at me because she killed herself. He flicks off the lamp, sending the room into darkness, and I roll on my back, trying to get some sleep.
It is Marabella’s voice that wakes me in the early hours of the morning; it is still pitch dark until Jonah groans and turns on the lamp beside him.
I squint at the sudden brightness as my eyes adjust to the light. Marabella mutters, squirming in her sleep, and Kaif presses to the surface, peering out of my eyes. Her heartbeat is thumping loudly, and Jonah sits up, rubbing a hand down his face.
“She’s dreaming; I think her medication makes them worse,” he says with a yawn, turning to wake her. Curiosity is getting the better of me, and wondering if I am the main reason for her nightmares, I reach my hand toward her before I even realize what I am doing. I place my fingertips on her face.
“What are you doing?” Jonah yawns again, pulling his hand back.
“Just want to see something,” I whisper, feeling my magic fizzle to the surface when I am sucked into her dream. The gasp that leaves me as new surroundings materialize is loud. Suddenly I am inside her head and dreams as a bystander.
I recognize the room. It is one from the manor, and my heart thuds loudly as I watch. Peering around the room, I think it is different. However, it isn’t until I realize I have never been in this room with her before and that confuses me.
A woman walks in, one of Kaif’s shadow mates from a different time; she carries a baby in her arms. Kaif follows a few seconds later, walking in behind her, a worried look on his face. Only now do I know why he is concerned, why he kept it from me for years. “Why is Marabella dreaming this?” I whisper to myself.
“Because I gave them to her,” comes a voice I never thought I would hear again. A voice that has been etched into my memories, ingrained deep within me because I have longed for nothing more than to hear his voice since the moment he left me.
Spinning around, I look toward the door to see my father standing there exactly the way I remember him the last time I saw him. The shock of seeing him has me stumbling back as he walks into the room toward me. He looks exactly the same. Age has not touched him in her dreams.
“Dad?” He nods to me sadly.
“Hey, son,” he murmurs.
“Wait, how? Are you real?” I ask, shaking my head as I try to get my bearings. The sound of his voice, how I have longed to hear it again.
“In a sense, but physically, no,” he says, moving toward me.
“But you’re really here, like in her dreams?” I ask, wanting to touch him.
“She is scared; I am her guardian, just like Jonah is yours. The pull to go to her when she has heightened emotion drags me in sometimes,” he explains, and I nod.
He watches the shadow memory play out, moving around the room, and I follow the man who has always been bigger than life, someone whose footsteps I would follow to hell and back if it meant I could keep him with me.
“Why?” I murmur, unable to help myself. One thing that has constantly plagued me is why he would choose to leave me.
“Why did I leave you?” he asks, and stops. My father’s head tilts to the side as he watches me, his dark reddish black eyes the same. “I never left you, Kye, but it was the only way to break the curse,” he says.