Page 152 of The Gods Veiling
As they walk away, Creed releases a quiet groan that I hear loudly in this empty walkway. “Why am I getting the impression you don’t want to be alone with me?”
“Because I don’t.”
I practically sprint to get in his way so he can’t walk away. “All right, that’s it. What’s your issue with me?”
Those unimpressive, smooth, muscular arms cross back over that huge—damn it, no—his normal-sized chest. He glares down at me like I’m a pesky fly buzzing in his ear. His attention moves down to my heart for a millisecond, then immediately back to my face.
I catch it, though.
Fuck this.
My fists ball at my sides. Now that I saw where his attention went, I focus specifically on that area. I typically notice the jerking spread across my chest, but it’s clear now, the feeling starts in my heart.
For a long, tense moment, we stare one another down. I’m really staring through him. My sole focus is locating that sensation inside of myself that’s oddly absent right now.
Finally, the smallest flicker of something breaks through and I zone in on it. It’s the faintest little flutter that I could easily mistake for my heart rate spiking then slowing down.
Unlike in the healing villas when I felt the connection to Kyzen, and I tried to snatch the shit out of it, this time, I only sense what’s inside of me. I can’t find the link to Creed.
I coax my small sliver gently and think of one of the other pieces sitting there snugly in Creed’s chest. It’s got to be there, so I focus hard on the two pieces connecting. When my chest jerks a bit more, I sweetly encourage it to come to me as though I’m trying to save an injured animal.
It responds.
Unfortunately, so does Creed.
Before I can blink, my back is pinned against the wall and he slams his hands against the stone. His dark gray eyes have shifted to a deadly white. Like the depths of the Veilataras’, there’s no end to his.
“Do not do that again, Thayla.”
I gulp and tilt my chin. “What exactly is it I did?”
“You know good—”
“Explain it.” My voice booms around us as I demand a straight answer.
He’s breathing so hard, every exhale drifts across my forehead. The muscles in his arms tremble, but I don’t think it’s from anger. It’s restraint.
“Don’t call your soul to you again. Not the piece you sense in me and especially not the pieces inside of my brothers. You’re not just beckoning a piece of yourself, but you’re pulling on the parts of us that it’s connected to now. You use this as a weapon against them, and I will end you.”
His cruel tone hits the mark. Any restraint I was trying to have dissipates. My body flames and I raise my knee with all the intention of rearranging his balls inside of his stomach.
An umph falls from my mouth when he catches my leg and spins me around until my chest presses into the wall. He traps my arms behind my back and squashes them between us.
“Don’t do that again either.”
“Stop telling me what to do, asshole. So you’ve known? This whole damn time and you haven’t said the first thing to me.”
“There’s nothing to say. Derivius split your soul. It’s now invading ours.”
“Nothing to say? This is a big fucking nothing, Creed. Do they know too? You’ve all known and haven’t explained anything to me. This whole time I’ve been afraid one of you was going to use it against me.”
His heavy pause is louder than the clipped sentences he’s been giving me.
“They don’t know. You haven’t told them,” I conclude.
He releases me and instantly takes a hearty step away like I’m about to spin around and pounce on his ass. I have half a mind to, but my desire for his explanation wins out.
“No, they don’t know.”
