Page 36 of Savage Stalkers
“It doesn’t have to be built on lies anymore,” I say carefully. “Everything’s out in the open now. No more masks, no more deception. Just us.”
She laughs, but it’s not entirely bitter this time. “Just us? You mean just me and three men who’ve been orchestrating my sexual awakening like some kind of elaborate psychological experiment?”
“It wasn’t an experiment,” Kain speaks for the first time. “Not for any of us.”
“Then what was it?” she asks, turning to look at him.
“It was three fucked-up men who fell for a woman who deserves better than any of them could give her,” he says simply. “But they wanted her anyway.”
“All three of you?”
“All three of us,” Zay confirms.
Her gaze darts between them, then back at me. I can see her trying to process, to understand how three men could share feelings for one woman without it being some kind of competition.
“I don’t understand how this works,” she finally confesses. “How any of this works.”
“We are all together,” Zay explains, watching for her reaction. “We have been for some time now. Adding you was unexpected.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her dress. When she speaks again, her voice is barely audible. “You’re all boyfriends?”
Zay nods, while Kain growls a little, yet he is the most possessive of us all.
“Yes, though Kain hates labels,” Zay replies.
“Oh, and I’m supposed to be part of that now?”
Zay shrugs, and I hold back from reaching for her again. “If you want to be. I understand this is a lot, but this does not have to end if you don’t want it to.”
She looks up at me, hazel eyes filled with unshed tears. “Is that fucked up? That knowing what you did, who you are, doesn’t make me want to run?”
Relief floods through me so fast I feel lightheaded. “If it is, then we’re all fucked up.”
“This is a lot,” she whispers. “This whole situation is complete insanity.”
“Yeah,” Zay agrees, “but the best things usually are.”
Despite everything, she almost smiles. Almost.
The silence that follows is different from before. Like we’re all balanced on the edge of a cliff, waiting to see who will jump first.
Skye looks at each of us—Zay, Kain, and finally me. “So what happens now?” she asks quietly.
And for the first time in months, I don’t have a plan. I have no control over what is to come next. There’s just Skye, sitting two feet away from me in an evening gown with mascara streaked down her cheeks, asking a question none of us thought she would ask.
It’s fucking terrifying.
Chapter Fourteen
Skye
It’s been one week of pretending everything is normal while my world has been completely turned upside down. Seven days of Macey asking why I’m so distracted, of Adrian wondering why I keep staring off into space during our morning coffee runs, of professors calling my name twice before I realize they’re talking to me. Seven days of replaying that night in the car until I can recite every word.
I perch on the edge of my bed, staring at the psychology textbook in my lap without seeing the words. The irony isn’t lost on me. I’m studying human behavior when I can’t even understand my own. A rational person would have gone to the police by now and filed a restraining order—and also changed their locks or moved apartments. Yet here I am a week later, having done none of those things.
Instead, I’ve been analyzing every moment we shared, trying to separate the lies from the truth. But the conclusion I keep coming to absolutely terrifies me. I don’t want to forget them—I can’t—because for the first time in my twenty-two years I feel completely and utterly myself.
My phone buzzes with a text.
