Page 23 of Gift from the Tree

Shit.

Me, Corentin, and Tillman all exchanged a knowing look with one another. Regardless of how this plays out, we’re going to have to put some distance between her and Draken for right now. He’s about to go full-on crazy in love stalker on the girl.

That’s not a bad idea.

When he finds out she’s here to fuck us over, he’ll be hurt and kill her.

I’ll keep that idea in my back pocket.

“I’m out,” I announce, stepping back into the shadows before anyone tries to stop me. I have nothing left to contribute to this pointless conversation and if Corentin is talking with the girl alone in the morning, I don’t need to stand here any longer.

Drifting through the darkness, I move through the walls to enter the room the girl’s staying in. If my brothers want to be ignorant and wait around to talk to her, fine, but I know she’s a fraud. I know better than to fall for her deceiving and conniving little act of innocence. Even with the snippets of sass we saw tonight, she kept those large, terrified doe eyes on display for us. She may fool them but not me. I can see the defiance shining through.

Standing in the corner of her room, I can see her tossing and turning in her sleep, making little fearful sounds, trapped in a nightmare. I slowly make my way over to the side of the bed she’s on and stare down at her. Her forehead is pinched in a scowl and there are tears rolling down her cheeks.

A slight tug in my chest has me moving my finger to wipe a stray tear away before I can stop myself. As soon as my finger touches her, she stops tossing and turning, so I jerk my hand back quickly, moving back through the shadows and out of her room.

The little vixen isn’t going to fool me. I refuse to allow it. She may not be hard on the eyes, definitely fuckable, and just an uttered word may have my brothers on their way to being convinced that she’s our Primary, but I won’t allow it. The slight tug I felt is just curiosity at this whole situation.

What could she possibly be crying about in her dreams anyway? She’s currently sleeping in a magical fucking mansion, in a bed that’s damn near sixteen feet wide and twelve feet long. It’s a massive motherfucker and the girl should be grateful, sleeping peacefully in dreamland.

Just another power-hungry female after the most powerful Nexus.

When I prove you’re here to harm my family, the nightmares that haunt you will be the least of your worries.

Eight

Willow

I slept like the dead.

I remember remnants of a nightmare earlier in my sleep. Pretty much as soon as I closed my eyes, a replay of how the night began, starting with me tied to the desk, men surrounding me, ripping my clothes off, but then it was abruptly cut off and I slept peacefully for the rest of the night.

Stretching my arms over my head, I briefly forgot about the cuts littering my body, until what feels like a scab gets caught on my dress and pulls my skin. Lifting it up to check, I’m stunned to see the smaller, shallower cuts are almost completely gone, and the deeper cuts are scabbing over.

Holy shit, whatever Gaster put in that water worked wonders.

Hopping out of bed and grabbing my robe off the end of the bed frame where I left it last night, I make my way into the bathroom to take advantage of another shower before he comes to get me.

Looking at myself in the mirror, I’m pleasantly surprised to find my braid halfway decent, and my hair doesn’t have flyaways everywhere. It looks healthy, shiny even, and I may just be able to style the heatless curls the braid made. The mauled by a bear look I was rocking last night is barely visible. Just some yellowish-brown bruising remains. The water is something serious here.

Stepping into the shower, careful not to get my hair wet, I close my eyes and make a mental list of what I need to find out today. Obviously, none of the guys are going to kill me, at least not yet anyway since no one bothered me last night. So I need to figure out what’s going on, without my mouth getting me killed.

Number one, find out what happened to me at the estate.

Number two, find out where Gaster brought me.

Number three, what am I supposed to do now? Where will I live? Do I need to get a job?

Okay. Okay. Slow down. Number three is getting a little loaded.

So let’s focus on number one and two and go from there.

Having a great night of sleep and a hot shower, the only thing I’m missing now is coffee, but I’ve been awake for about thirty minutes and Gaster still hasn’t arrived, so I take advantage of some alone time and explore my little curious heart out.

Even though I gave the bookshelves and reading nook attention last night, I make my way over there first because it’s so perfect, and I want to hug whoever designed it and filled it with all this entertainment. I hope I can really appreciate this space once I know more about what’s going on.

The rows are full of fiction and nonfiction from this realm. Titles, authors, even some scholars, all of whose names I’ve never heard of, some I can’t even pronounce, decorate the wall in an abundance of escape. Books have been my saving grace my entire life, a way for me to run from my demons and trauma for a while and live through the eyes of someone else.

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