Page 29 of Tangled Fates

Hissing startled me awake, making me flinch abruptly.

“What the fuck do you want, Loki?” I grumbled, feeling groggy and in an immense amount of pain.

He patted at my cheek like he was waking me up and I had to fight the urge to slap him away. Then I realized the morning sun was coming up. I didn’t even know how much time had passed by and at any moment Gray’s brother would be back with more people to get his brother.

“Flos nitor et rutilans tua virtus luceat,” I whispered, feeling my power slowly travel over my body.

It wasn’t the big rush of power I was used to, it took longer to heal my injuries even though it didn’t feel like I wasn’t a hundred percent. Something was wrong with my magic and I didn’t know whether I should be happy or sad. But why now? I especially needed it now more than ever.

Moving my body around, I still felt a twinge of pain, but nothing compared to last night. Slowly getting up, still afraid of feeling pain, I realized I was still in my all black getup that made me feel a lot more badass than I really was. It also concealed my identity for the time being until I figured out how to keep anyone from thinking I was the person who made the vials of Oria.

I made my way down the stairs to make sure I had set enough traps because I didn’t know if I had even set them up properly. Once I was satisfied, I made my way to Gray's room wondering if I should tell him what had happened, but breakfast sounded more important.

After making a quick bagel with cream cheese, I made my way to Gray. He was staring at Loki, and I realized I never put him back to sleep. He looked up at me, his glare roaming over my body, like he expected to see something.

“You should have mentioned your brother was your twin,” I said, walking up to him inspecting to see if they had any differences, but they were exact copies of each other. His brows furrowed instantly.

“What did you do to him?” he snarled, his gaze was venomous and I truly realized what sort of relationship they had.

It wasn’t just sibling love, but that connection I had heard about between twins. The “I would die for you in an instant, without hesitation and with no thought” kind of love. Since I was a little girl, I had longed for siblings, to have someone in my corner or someone to be able to tell everything to.

“You mean, what did he do to me?” I raised my brow wishing I hadn’t healed myself yet.

“You look fine,” he snapped. “Where is he?”

“He left,” I said, with no reason to keep that information to myself. “He managed to get what you were looking for.”

He searched my eyes for the truth, not that I blamed him. The moment he realized I was telling the truth, he scowled.

“I thought it wasn’t here, Sunshine?”

I shrugged, not even thinking that his question needed an answer because we both knew I was lying. I also wanted to add that he found the batch I had been making and now the outside world knew that Oria was made here, but a small amount of hope kept me from breaking down that they didn’t know it came from me. My secret identity was the only thing that was keeping me safe, and if anyone found out I was done for.

“I’m sure he’ll be back,” I said, sitting in front of him on the floor, debating if letting him go was in my best interest now.

“He probably went to give it to our friend,” he said, as his scowl eased. “We’ve been away for too long. I just hope that we aren’t too late.”

He took a deep breath.

“I hope it’s not either,” I said truthfully.

“You know now that he has the —”

“But I lost my bargaining chip,” interrupting him. “Do you know what this means now that this place has been found?”

“My brother is not going to do anything to you,” he said, looking confused.

“Your brother might not, but someone else might,” I said, realizing how I wasn’t the naive one in this conversation.

“I feel like I'm missing something here,” he said, looking around the room. “Look, we would never do anything to harm you.”

I laughed while turning around.

“Then you clearly are so naive or you are feeding me a bunch of bullshit,” I snapped, feeling the need to cry rise up in me. “You know what people will do when they realize it’s made here? It’s happened before and it will keep happening because men like you think they need to have the world at their fingertips. All you do is destroy beautiful things because you think you are owed it.”

My breathing was hard after my rant. I immediately worried that I had spilled my secret. The silence was too much for me to handle.

“I take it you’ve been found before?” His tone was less harsh and more inquisitive; when I didn’t respond he sighed.

---