Page 13 of Guarded
I wanted to know it all.
Nox cleared his throat until I looked at him, offering me a smile filled with too much understanding for my liking. “Noah doesn’t take laps with Sam.”
“Fuck no.” Sam snorted. “Noah only uses violence when necessary. He’s the one I can rely on to help when one of the others loses control.”
Noah uses violence as a last resort.
“Hey, what about me?” Rami stuck his lower lip out. “I’m helpful too.”
Sam sighed. “Rami, you’re wonderful. But you’re alsothe one who helped Nate hold Theo’s head down the toilet last weekend.”
“Well, he deserved it.”
“Saying that Disney has made the MCU better isn’t a good enough reason to drown someone in a toilet.”
Ezekiel laughed, hastily covering it with a cough as his mate glared at him. “Sorry. But it’s not like Theo can die permanently.”
Sam turned to me wearily. “This is why I go to Noah. He’s the only one who seems to understand logic most days. Other than Micah, of course, but he’s often busy with Seraphim stuff.”
Noah likes to help people.
“Indeed,” Micah said smoothly, sitting forward in his seat and bracing his forearms on the table. “We’re more than a unit here. Noah might not have been part of it for long, but heispart of it. And as such, we’re going to protect him. You might be his fated mate, but we’re his family.”
Noah commands loyalty.
Ezekiel sat forward, mirroring Micah. “In other words, start talking or we’re going to kick you out on the street where you belong.”
Sam patted his mate’s shoulder. “And I won’t even make them take a lap for doing it.”
In my earlier explanation, I’d skimmed over the details, only saying I’d run to hold on to my freedom. But that hadn’t been enough to make them understand.
Fuck, how I wished it had been.
My hands shook slightly as I let my mind return there, to the place I dreaded. I tucked them under the table before anyone could see, but from the way Nox was frowning at me, I wasn’t fast enough. “I was born in Hell. Up until wemade the deal with the mates of Lucifer’s sons that led to our freedom, I hadn’t spent longer than forty-seven hours topside.”
A ripple of shock went around the table. Micah leaned back in his seat, his arm automatically going around Nox and holding him tight, like he might somehow return there just from hearing my story.
“Jeremiah and Quill had it worse than the rest of us,” Nox said darkly. “They were often kept below while the rest of us were sent to earth.”
“Why?” The question came from Benji. “Why always you two?”
I shrugged. “Someone had to keep the torture chamber running, I guess. Maybe they knew we’d complain the least.”
“Or Lucifer knew that the two of you hated being there the most,” Nox said quietly. “Of all of us, you were the most likely to run if he gave you too much time topside.”
I gritted my teeth. “I wouldn’t have run. I value my life too much.”
Nox tilted his head. “I didn’t say he was right, just offered some insight. It was obvious to us all how much you and Quill hated our lives down there.”
“We all hated it.”
“It’s okay to admit you found it hard.” Nox reached out and squeezed my hand. My eyes widened at the contact. Nox was like my brother, but demonstrative he was not. “I did too, but I had the pull to keep me going. So did Dahlia. But you didn’t.”
I rubbed at my chest, at the ache that had brought me back here today. “Why is that? How could you feel Micah but I couldn’t feel Noah?”
Micah and Nox exchanged a look before the former answered me. “Possibly because I went into Hell several times over the millennia.”
That could explain it. There was something itching at my brain…a comment Micah had made earlier. “Did you say Noah hasn’t been part of the Seraphim long? Was he part of another unit?”
