Page 96 of Splitting Secrets
“There have been extra precautions taken around you,” he vaguely confirms and my mouth pops open at the violation.
When all of this is over, I’m disappearing into a dark cave all alone where no one can find me.
“Or you can sleep with me,” he adds. “Your bed is creaky since you broke the frame, so I can’t come in here. We’ve already decided it’s the latter.”
“Who is ‘we’? You and all your other personalities?” I mock with a sneer.
“No, darling. It’s me and the people who don’t want to sleep outside your door.”
I puff out a disbelieving breath, my voice rising in timbre. “I can’t believe you’ve all been discussing my sleeping arrangements as if I’m some child who can’t take care of herself. What difference does it make when you’re directly across the hall from me?”
How the hell have we gone from our little moment in the kitchen back to this?
His large palm covers his heart in mock earnest. “I wholeheartedly believe you can take care of yourself. This is mostly for peace of mind.”
“No,” I simply state.
I watch the muscles in his nose twitch with open amusement. “You’re either going to walk to my room yourself, or I’m going to pick you up and carry you there over my shoulder. You choose. Regardless, you’re sleeping beside me tonight.”
I uncross my arms, dropping them to my side with my hands formed into tight fists. He doesn’t get to do this. I’m so tired of being handled like a child by these people. “I’ll sleep on your floor.”
“Wherever you’re most comfortable,” he drawls, sensing my submission. Taking a step back to give me room, he raises his brows and waits for me to walk out first.
“I need a few more things,” I try to say. He’s already grabbed everything I need to sleep, but it feels like I’ve given up my freedom too easily. I need a moment alone to process.
Of course, Raze refuses to give it to me.
With a shake of his head, he tells me, “You can come back in the morning.”
I can tell by the stiff, resolute set of his features that there’s no arguing with him over this. Not tonight.
It’s glaringly obvious that he waited until everyone else retired for the night to have this conversation with me, knowing I’d want to rip into them for the violation. I’m half tempted to drag everyone out of their rooms right now and demand that they respect my personal autonomy. But it’s no use. A temper tantrum will only work against me in the end. I’ll have to plead my case to him and everyone else when we’re all gathered together again.
With a defeated sigh and a boulder of dread sitting in my stomach, I drag my feet through my doorway and across the hallway, into the room he’s been sleeping in. He tosses my pillow onto the floor and rounds the bed.
As with his office back at Ravenshurst, it’s spotless. Hardly lived in, despite the fact that he’s been staying here for nearly a week.
I’m instantly plagued with a desolate wave of emotion and a renewed sense ofknowing. I’m aware it’s a new gift manifesting the moment it hits me, but that doesn’t stop it from affecting me as strongly.
Raze has never had the opportunity to settle in...well, anywhere. Always toeing the line between being the Midnight Syndicate’s ‘Viper’ and the rebellion’s savior, it was never safe to establish roots of any sort. Add in that he’s a Mirrane, and there wasn’t one person or place he could fully be himself around. Once again, Matilda’s separation of the two versions of him make total and complete sense. But like I had the fleeting thought before, even splitting him into those two polarizing identities doesn’t fully cover the man he is inside.
All the different versions of him dance across my mind in succession, each one contradicting the one that came before it. It’s a wide array of personalities, just as I suspected. Until Isee him as his truest self: A trapped soul who doesn’t fit in anywhere.
A living ghost.
“What are you doing?” His gruff voice interrupts my thoughts, pulling me back to the present moment with him.
My mind clears, releasing me from the chokehold this new gift had me in. I shake my head, scowling into the pillow he’s handing over to me.
Although I feel like I know him far better than I had five minutes ago—probably more than he would ever let me in—that was an overstep. I shouldn’t have violated him in that way, whether intentional or not. No one should have access to someone’s deepest, darkest forms without consent.
Admitting what happened would only embarrass us both, so I opt for silence and clearing out my thoughts instead.
“Right, then,” he murmurs so quietly, I worry he ended up picking through my thoughts and discovering my intrusion. “Let’s get to sleep. You’ve had an exhausting day.”
Did he just...? He didnotjust say that. Anger burns hot across my cheeks and the words tumble from my mouth before I can stop them. “I’m not the one who finished all over my pants,” I snark back like the brat he’s made me.
He offers me a flat look, and I can see the wheels turning in his head already. He’s going to make me regret the insult, I just know it. I should have kept my big mouth shut and snuck back into my room when he fell asleep like I planned.
