Page 29 of Blood Magic (Ariel Kimber 3)

“Not going to happen,” Abel said in a quiet, lethal voice. “You’re not getting anywhere near her while she looks like that and I think you’re partially to blame for it. What were you idiots thinking? You want to beat on each other? You want to choke out Julian? Go right ahead. But use your damn brain about it and be smart. Do it outside where you’re not going to destroy Dash’s house. Christ, Ty, this is supposed to be his homecoming. What if he had walked in on that shit going down in his living room? What if he’d walked in on you guys like that and our pretty girl huddled into herself and looking absolutely terrified? And, that’s another thing. You don’t do this kind of thing in front of her. And, you never, not fuckingever, do you frighten her in any way. After all the violence she’s already had to deal with in her life, you go and pull a stunt like this? No. Just, no. This is not acceptable behavior. And you’re not getting anywhere near her until I’m sure you’ve calmed down and you’ve told me why she’s like that.” He spit the last words out on an angry hiss as he stabbed his finger in my direction.

And, just like that, as if a switch had been flipped inside of me, I stopped shaking. Abel’s words had calmed something inside of me, soothing that sad, scared little girl inside of me. Abel cared, and he was looking out for me in a really big way. He wouldn’t even let Tyson get anywhere near me, wouldn’t even let him off of the couch. Warmth bloomed to life inside my chest. It spread, filling me up inside.

I moved away from the wall and walked towards the couch. Abel watched me as I walked, and I could see the disapproval stark in his eyes. He clearly wanted me to stay away from them and on the opposite side of the room.

I didn’t listen to what I read in his eyes.

Tyson wouldn’t ever do anything to harm me, at least not physically. I knew this like I knew the earth was round… It was fact. And it meant everything, absolutely everything to me.

I moved around the end of the couch before Ty realized I was coming his way. He looked up at me from under his half-closed eyelids and thick lashes.

“Girl,” he said on a tortured whisper. “I never meant to scare you. That’s the absolute last thing I would ever want to do. You’ve got to believe me on that.”

“I do,” I said as I pushed Abel out of the way and sat down beside Tyson on the couch. He was bent forward with his elbows pressed into his thighs, his chin resting on a fist. My thigh brushed up against his and it was like we had gone full circle since I had first walked into this room today.

I put my hand on Tyson’s knee and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“You don’t scare me, Ty.” I told him honestly. “I don’t even think Iwasscared at all. It was just the sudden violence of the situation and how fast it escalated that bothered me. It came out of nowhere and I hadn’t been expecting it. And, honestly, I still have no clue why it even happened. Do you know why Julian would launch himself over a freaking couch of all things to get at you? Because I certainly do not. And, Tyson, I’m so over this being left in the dark business it isn’t even funny. Please don’t hold back and keep things from me. If I’m going to be honest with you then I really wish you could be able to do the same for me. This is important to me.”

His shoulder bumped into mine as he sat up and lifted his head from his fist. He wrapped his arm around my back, placing his palm firmly on my hip. His fingers pressed in as he gave my hip a squeeze. I know he didn’t mean anything by it, but my entire body heated from that one touch and I momentarily forgot what we were talking about, what I had been talking about.

“I don’t think we should talk about this, girl.” He whispered. “I don’t think you honestly will want to hear about it.”

Bullshit.

Complete and utter bullshit.

And a total copout.

For them, when it came to me, it was all or nothing. They hadn’t come right out and made it clear to me, but I was smart enough to get the gist of the situation. It didn’t hurt that I had shamelessly listened in on several conversations that hadn’t been meant for my ears and then I’d gone ahead and convinced some of them to give me information that some of the guys might not be entirely comfortable with me having. I didn’t care about that last part. It was the all or nothing part that I cared about.

If they wanted all or nothing with me then they had damn well better be honest with me. It was the least they could do. I know that might sound bitchy, but, honestly, it wasn’t me who had proposed a relationship between all of us. I never would have been crazy enough to suggest such a thing even if I was attracted to more than one of them. Or, in my case, all of them. I never would have suggested this shit. Not ever. Not in a million freaking years would I have dreamed up some relationship between myself and seven different guys. That was bizarre in the extreme.

But I was a girl with magic and I had met a coven that was made up of seven different males who had grown up with the dream of having a female with magic to share amongst themselves. Apparently, I was that female for them and this is where the all or nothing came in. They hadn’t all been on board at first but they all seemed to be now.

What did that really mean for me?

I’ll be honest… Part of me, the bigger part, felt like this meant a constant headache was in store for me. And it would get worse for me if I was constantly having to pry every tiny little piece of information out of them.

I pushed Tyson aside. His hand slipped away from my hip, he had to either let me go or force me to stay and Tyson would never force me to do anything. So, he let me go. I pushed him away from me and got to my feet.

I whirled around so I could stare down at Tyson, so I could let him see the hurt in my face. And I was hurt. It felt like I was always taking a step backwards with them. Just when I had started moving forward, I felt like I had been forcefully shoved backwards. This time by Tyson, and it hurt.

I threw my hands out wide and shook them in frustration. “You don’t want to tell me about what just went down in front of me?” I snapped at him and hoped he missed the tears threatening to spill out of my eyes. The flashing in his dark eyes told me I had failed. And failed miserably. Whatever. There was nothing I could do about that, so I carried on, it was the only thing I could do. “Fine. That’s just fine. If that’s how it’s going to be then you can go to hell, Tyson. You can just go straight to hell. And, don’t ever,everexpect me to be honest with you because it’s not going to happen now. I’m done with this bullshit.”

I didn’t let the look of surprise and hurt on his face get to me. I couldn’t allow it to because if I did, I would sit back down on that couch, wrap my arms around his waist and likely never let him go. If I backed down on this then he would feel like it would be okay to keep things from me. Important things. Things that had him and Julian rolling around on the floor in Dash’s living room while exchanging blows.

I know I had told Julian that he didn’t have to share his secrets with me and that I wasn’t stupid enough to expect him to do so. Don’t call me a hypocrite. This wasn’t the same thing at all. This had happened right in front of my eyes and I felt like I deserved an explanation, anything.

But the hurt I felt? It was there because I considered Tyson to be my best friend. He was the only one I had ever had, and I didn’t like him keeping things from me.

I didn’t think it boded well for my future amongst them.

Chapter Nine

I closed the bedroom door behind me and pressed my back into that ridiculous unicorn covered in glitter poster and closed my eyes. My head was killing me, so I tore out the hair tie that held my hair up in its pony tail. It fell free, curling around my shoulders. I stuck my hand through the hair tie, wearing it on my wrist like a bracelet. The wide, red headband followed along right after. My head immediately felt better.

That could have gone better. I could have handled the whole thing better. I knew I shouldn’t have snapped at Tyson like that, and not in front of an audience. If it had merely been the two of us and I hadn’t gotten hurt and lost my temper, he might have explained it to me. Instead, I’d lost my temper and stormed off on an angry huff. I would have to apologize to him later and I hated that. Not the apologizing, but the fact that I needed to in the first place, that I’d put myself into a situation where I needed to.

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