Jade's epic series.
This one is rough, even compared to her other content. It shows what can go wrong in a relationship, in a catastrophic way. This one hurt me to read the first time I saw it. So yeah, big warning on this. Triggering content.
The trouble started when Christine showed up for lessons and decided she was going to have Devlin and Li both in her bed.
No one really paid her that much heed, since she was a small, mousy-looking woman. But Christine had years to perfect the art of appearing meek before she took down her prey. She projected an aura of being abused, mistreated, to hook guys in. When she was sure she had their sympathy, she played it up until they were ready to do anything to make her smile. It was an act that had never failed her, not once.
Devlin and Li alternated her lessons between them. She had a pretty black gelding that looked to be part-Arabian, and it was obvious she took good care of him. Her tack was always in proper order, as were her boots and riding attire, earning her points with them both.
What she didn’t count on was me, though.
I kept watch on her discreetly, never making it known to her that I was paying any attention at all. The ‘wounded dove’ routine might work on Devlin, and possibly Li, but it would never work on me. I knew the signs of abuse intimately. I knew the fear that a man was going to hurt you again. I had lived it, unlike Christine.
She tried to make friends with Iblis and Necromancer both, but neither stallion wanted anything to do with her. That was telling also, at least to me it was. That both of my horses didn’t like her spoke volumes.
I was working the Dead Horse next to the arena Li was giving lessons to her in, and the moment she saw the enormous black stud she froze in her saddle.
“What is he?” I heard her ask Li.
“Don’t worry about what he is,” Li said. “You’re here for lessons.”
It was the first time I’d heard Li be the least bit short with her and wondered what had happened. I quit wondering when she turned on the tears, and I heard him fucking apologize to her. Taking a deep breath and then exhaling rather forcefully, I let the Dead Horse wander around the arena. “Men are fucking stupid sometimes, I swear,” I muttered darkly, angry that she had made Li apologize to her.
The Dead Horse said nothing, but I saw him turn his head to look at Li when we wandered near that side of the arena again. I also saw the almost guilty expression Li shot him in turn.
I didn’t confront Li, though. I let him go on thinking I had no idea what was going on between him and Christine. Inwardly, I seethed though. Devlin, I could understand somewhat. He was human. Li was not, and never had been, though.
When the three of us had started out, I had told myself I wouldn’t be jealous, because I knew they wouldn’t stray. But right now, I was questioning that. I was questioning that hard. Christine was younger than I was. She had flawless skin – I didn’t. She was also about fifty pounds lighter than I was, maybe more than that. She was gracefully slender, something I had never been.
For the first time in years, I questioned whether I was enough to keep a man.
And that didn’t make me feel good.
But watching how gently Devlin and Li both handled Christine, and then seeing how she just ate up the attention they gave her like a starving dog, ripped open wounds I thought were long scarred over. The smiles, the hand stroking her back or her hair, or even her fucking leg when she was mounted, the soft tones they used on her made me feel like I was no longer wanted.
It also brought forth that red haze of rage, because I fucking knew she was playing games with them and they were both too goddamned stupid to see it. I had thought Devlin, and certainly Li, smarter than this, but they were proving me wrong.
I kept it all bottled up, though. I hated confrontation, and I was afraid of losing them both, so I said nothing. I went on about my duties at the stable, my face a mask of indifference and my tone completely neutral when I had to speak. Back at the cabin, however, I began withdrawing from them. It was easier than I thought it was going to be, and that didn’t help matters any. Both Li and Devlin seemed more interested in talking to each other and watching whatever caught their eye than paying any attention at all to me. Our sex lives might as well have been non-existent, and that cut deep. If they weren’t with me, were they with her and I just hadn’t caught them yet? Was that bitch fucking them?
Friday evening came, the night we usually went to DeSade’s, and both of them approached me as I was grabbing my jacket to head back to the cabin alone.
“Hey, Autumn, Christine wants to come to the dungeon with us tonight,” Devlin said. “She wants Li and me to top her.”
“I find it ironic, that a woman with a history of abuse would want something like that,” I stated, and turned on my heel to walk off.
Devlin looked at Li, the ice in my voice having been felt by them both. “What the hell was that about?” he asked, confused.
Li didn’t respond, his gaze going to me stalking up the path to the cabin. “Come on,” he murmured, heading after me.
I went inside, yanked my boots off, slung my jacket on the floor, and then headed down the hall to the bedroom to lock myself in. Fuck both of them. If they wanted to play with that lying cunt, well, they could fucking well do it without my goddamned gear.
Upon finding I had locked them out of the bedroom, they realized there was a problem.
“Autumn, open the fucking door,” Li called. “Or I am going to open it myself.”
“Go fuck yourself!” I spat, going into the bathroom and locking that door behind me too.
Jaw set, Li exerted just enough energy to unlock the door, and then he was through it after me. Finding the bathroom door locked, and hearing the water running, he growled and unlocked that door too. “What the hell is your problem?” he demanded.
“Get out!” I screamed, pointing at the door. “Get the fucking hell away from me!”
In the blink of an eye, he shifted form and walked up to me.
The second he was close, I drew back and slapped him. “I told you to get the fuck away from me,” I hissed, rage coursing through me.
That I was angry enough to slap him and tell him to get away from me was telling. “I will not,” he retorted, fighting to remain calm and not lash out at me. He didn’t fucking understand why I was so openly hostile towards him. “Not until you calm down and tell me why.”
I uttered a harsh bark of a laugh, shaking my head. “If you’re so fucking stupid that you don’t goddamned know why I’m so angry at you both, you don’t fucking deserve me telling you!” I yelled.
Throwing up his hands, he reverted back to his human guise and left me alone in the bathroom.
When I finished my shower twenty minutes later, they were both gone, and they’d taken my gear with them. That mindless rage still riding me, I picked up my cell and called Red, Rhi, and Selene to tell them exactly what was going down tonight. All three of them were more than happy to help me, thankfully. Especially Rhi, though.
“Let me invite someone I know to the dungeon,” she said. “Someone to give you the attention you need, and hopefully get the point across to those fucking assholes you live with.”
“Who?” I asked, curious.
“Autumn, it’s best that I don’t tell you who it is,” she told me. “But don’t worry – he will have explicit orders that this is just to test some boundaries. He will not be allowed to touch you if you don’t want him to. I give my word on that.”
I agreed, and then got dressed. I got dressed in the exact same outfit Devlin had seen me in all those years back – black velvet catsuit with a black leather underbust corset cinched down as tight as I could get it, and then thigh-high boots. I put on just enough make-up to make me look like the sadist I was, and then I left for the dungeon myself. This was going to be a night that neither of them ever fucking forgot.
Selene, Red, and Rhi were waiting for me at the front desk when I walked in.
“You’re going to like her friend,” Selene told me, eyebrow raised. “He walked in and six different women tried to get a scene with him.”
“Where are they?” I asked, arms across my chest and nostrils flaring.
“In the room you always use, with the door closed and locked,” Selene replied. “But I do have a key, Autumn.”
“Well, let’s go meet this friend of yours, and then I’m probably going to want my fucking gear back,” I stated flatly, and headed into the main room with the three of them.
Rhi led me into the lounge area, smiling at someone sitting in the corner. “Dmitry, this is Autumn, your ‘date’ for the night,” she expressed, and Dmitry stood up to walk into the light.
If Nik had let his hair grow out, Dmitry could have been his fucking twin. “Are you Russian, by chance?” I asked, unsure if I really wanted him to answer me.
Dmitry smiled. “No, I’m not,” he expressed, his voice a low, smoky baritone. There was energy in that voice as well, telling me that he wasn’t human. His energy was warm, washing over me like a blanket.
“Okay,” I said, trying to get my bearings.
Dmitry reached to cup my face, those pale blue eyes staring down at me intently. “I saw what they went into that room with,” he told me. “They don’t deserve you. Know that.”
Okay, this man was dangerous. That simple hand on my face felt a hell of a lot more intimate than it should have, and the way he was looking at me was like I was the only thing that existed in his world. “Let’s go get my gear back,” I said. “I’ll probably have to throw most of it away, though.”
Red, Rhi, Selene, Dmitry, and I crossed the room to the locked door my former partners were in with that lying bitch. We could all hear them talking from outside, so I waited a moment to see what was being said inside.
“I’m so happy the two of you were able to come tonight,” Christine told them, smiling.
“I’ve got a … question, I guess you could say,” Li began. “You’ve said repeatedly that you were abused, badly beaten by an ex. Why would you want to submit to two sadists?”
“Oh, I want to do more than submit to you,” she said, and I nodded to the door.
Selene unlocked it and threw it open, and I walked in with Dmitry right on my heels. “I’m here for my gear, that you didn’t ask me if you could use,” I stated, giving both Devlin and Li a significant look.
“Who the hell is she?” Christine cried, trying to cover her breasts.
“Didn’t they tell you?” I asked, turning to look at her. “They live with me. Or, they did, I guess I should say. Since they seem to prefer your skinny, lying ass over me, I guess they can fucking have you, cunt.”
You could have heard a pin drop when I said that, and I felt Dmitry put his hand on my shoulder.
“She’s not worth it, babe,” he said, and locked eyes with Li and Devlin with a predatory smile. “Neither is Devlin and Li since they seem to prefer her over you.”
“Wait just a fucking minute,” Devlin expressed, looking irritated. “Autumn, what the fucking hell is going on here?”
I let that rage surface, stalking over to Christine to snatch her off the bench by her hair. “This fucking cunt has been playing you both!” I screamed, shaking her hard and making her shriek. “And both of you just played right fucking into it! Do you honestly think that a woman who had been abused as badly as she claims would want to get the shit beat out of her? God damn you, Devlin! Use your motherfucking head for a change instead of thinking with your fucking dick!”
“She’s lying!” Christine yelled, scratching at me and kicking.
I slammed her into the wall hard, my hand wrapped around her throat and my eyes turning black. “The hell I am,” I growled, and my power rose to lash out at her like a whip. “Open that goddamned worthless cocksucker one more time to tell a lie, and I will fucking end you.”
“The truth, Christine,” Dmitry said, those pale eyes boring into hers.
Screaming, she broke. “Okay!” she yelled. “I lied to you both! I lied! I just wanted to fuck you – I wanted you both in my bed! I lied about being abused to get close to you, to get you to trust me! Oh god, please don’t let him hurt me! Please!”
Black talons erupted from my fingertips at those words from her, and I dug them into her neck hard enough to draw blood. “Devlin and Li were mine, do you hear me?” I snarled, teeth bared. “And you fucking knew that, you worthless fucking whore!”
I didn’t know I was in tears until Christine passed out and I was forced to drop her on the floor. Screaming, I doubled over on myself, sobs tearing their way out of me.
Dmitry scooped me up in his arms and carried me out the door away from a stunned Devlin and Li.
“So, was it worth it?” Red asked them, her voice not belying the anger she felt at what they’d done to me. “You just completely fucked your relationship with Autumn, so I’m curious if it was worth it.”
“No,” Devlin answered, looking shell-shocked. “Who … who is that with her?”
“Lucifer,” Li answered, shifting into his actual form and stalking out of the room.
“Oh, my fucking god,” Devlin exclaimed, going after an enraged Belial.
“Umm, maybe inviting Lucifer wasn’t such a good idea,” Red told Rhi, who looked horrified. “Belial looked pretty fucking pissed, Rhi.”
Lucifer had taken me back into the lounge and sat down with me on his lap to hold me. “I’m so sorry, Autumn,” he murmured, stroking my back and hair while I cried. He could feel the pain I was in, and despite his reputation for being an utter bastard, it bothered him. When Belial swept into the lounge moments later, flames burning in his eyes and tendrils of red hair turned to tiny red serpents that hissed and snapped, he sighed. Rhi hadn’t told him Li was Belial. This was going to get ugly fast.
Then Devlin came flying in on Belial’s heels, and Lucifer realized that was the understatement of the year. He was going to have to deal with Belial, plus his priest, and then likely me too since he had figured out I was Belial’s priestess. “Damn it, Rhiannon,” he muttered, not liking the position she’d put him in.
“Get your fucking hands off my woman,” Belial snarled his energy lashing out violently at Lucifer.
I flung myself off his lap, facing Belial and Devlin both through a haze of tears. “You don’t have any fucking right to me anymore!” I yelled. “That ended when you decided that fucking bitch in there was more important than me!”
“We didn’t touch her, I swear!” Devlin yelled back, itching to just dart in and yank me away from Lucifer. “Autumn, please! Please, come back to the room and talk to us!”
“The same way you talked to me for the last two weeks?” I countered. “Neither fucking one of you has said more than two words to me this whole fucking time! How the fucking hell do you think I feel right now? How the fucking hell do you think I feel, huh?”
Selene wisely closed the door to the lounge, to give us some semblance of privacy.
Devlin went to his knees, tears spilling over. “I’m sorry,” he choked out, still holding a hand toward me. “Autumn, please. I’m begging you, please come away from him.”
“Come away from the only man in two weeks to not treat me like shit?” I asked, incredulous. “Who has been nothing but nice to me?”
“God damn it, Autumn, that is Lucifer,” Belial spat.
I froze. “What?” I echoed, turning to look back at “Dmitry.”
Lucifer uttered a heavy sigh, closing his eyes for a moment. “Belial is correct,” he confirmed. “I’m Lucifer, Autumn. Rhiannon left much out in the telling, it would appear.”
“Oh, god,” I muttered and hit the floor in a dead faint.
Lucifer caught me before I hit, though, picking me up to carry me to Belial and hand me off to him. “And you once told me that I didn’t have a clue how to handle women,” he expressed. “What does this right here say about you, Belial? You broke her, both of you. I hope you can sleep at night, knowing that.”
“At least I didn’t torture, rape, and kill her,” Belial hissed, handing me to Devlin and then stepping up into Lucifer’s face. “Tell me why I shouldn’t end you right fucking now.”
“I can’t give you an answer, Belial,” Lucifer told him calmly. “But I will ask you to think about what you just said. From my perspective, what you’ve done to Autumn is just as bad as what I did to your consort all those years ago. You tortured her by paying more attention to that worthless piece of ass in that room right now. You raped her feelings by ignoring her and continuing to buy into that bitch’s lies. But Belial – you killed her spirit, worst of all. I felt something inside her die, and I don’t know if you can rekindle that.”
That said, Lucifer walked around Belial and went out the door, closing it quietly behind him.
“I never thought I’d be saying this, but … he’s right, Belial,” Devlin forced himself to say, holding me tight against him and fighting not to break down again. “We both … we did this. First time for you, but this is the second time I’ve fucked up now. I won’t get a third chance, I don’t think.” His breath hitched, and he buried his face in my hair. “I don’t want to lose her again. I can’t. I can’t go through that pain again. I fucking can’t.”
Belial took a deep breath, looking down at Devlin holding me. “Let’s go home. When she comes around, maybe she’ll listen to us then. All we can do is try.”
I slept until late Saturday afternoon, worrying them both to no end. It was only then, when my exhaustion was in their face, that they both realized just how badly they had fucked up. When I was lying there comatose, circles under my eyes and a pallor to my skin that they hadn’t seen before, fitfully twitching in my sleep.
“What happened to us?” Devlin asked Belial, softly.
“I’ve never been in a relationship like this before, Devlin,” Belial answered, his eyes on my face. “I’m afraid that we were both taken in by lies, though. We’re equally at fault, here.” He paused, a furrow creasing his brow. “That woman has obviously had a lot of time to perfect her act, to lure men in. And as much as it galls my pride to admit it, it worked too well, even on me. I should have seen the signs, and I didn’t. I fucking didn’t. Even with Autumn screaming in my face, all but telling me something was wrong here, I wasn’t listening. It wasn’t until that bitch looked at us both in that room and said she wanted more than to just submit to us, that it began to dawn on me something wasn’t quite right.”
“And then it was too late,” Devlin said, uttering a dry, humorless laugh. “God, I feel like something has reached in and ripped my fucking heart out, stomped holes in it, and then tried to put it back.”
“I can … relate … to that,” Belial admitted softly, brushing his fingers against my face.
When I finally opened my eyes, the clock beside the bed read a quarter till three in the afternoon. Taking a deep breath, I exhaled and looked around the room. Neither Devlin nor Li was in there with me. Feeling like I’d been beaten, I dragged myself out of bed to go into the bathroom to get a shower and wash the night off.
Devlin and Li both were sitting on the trunk at the foot of the bed when I walked out of the bathroom. I won’t lie and say that the sight of them sitting there, with identical apprehensive expressions, didn’t pull at me. But they had both betrayed my trust in them, and I needed time to think. “I’m going to stay in my old cabin,” I made myself say. “I think we need to be apart.”
“Please don’t leave,” Devlin begged.
“I can’t stay here, after what you both did to me,” I told him. “Maybe with me gone, you’ll understand what you put me through.”
I called JB, told him I needed some time off and some space. Rhi must have told him something because he gave me a week and told me to take care of myself. Going back into the bedroom, I packed enough clothes for eight days and my toiletries, and then I left. I got in my car – idly wondering who had driven it home for me – and I left for my old cabin.
JB had put a bed in it, along with a couch and coffee table, and there were a few dishes, but nothing else. After putting my toiletries in the bathroom, I sighed and left again to go to the store. I would need food, after all. And better sheets, and towels, I realized.
Rhi was the first one to call me on Sunday. “How are you holding up?” she asked.
I sighed, blinking away the sting of unshed tears. “I’m at my old cabin, for now. Maybe with me gone, they’ll figure shit out.”
“I wish I had known what that bitch was doing,” she told me. “Maybe I could have put a stop to it.”
“I did know, Rhi, and I did nothing,” I admitted. “I didn’t feel like they’d listen to me or take me seriously. She hooked into them but good.”
“I can’t believe she got over on Belial,” she said. “He should have known she was lying, manipulating feelings, whatever the fuck she was doing to them to crawl into their heads like she did.”
“I can’t believe you invited Lucifer as my date for the night,” I stated. “I’m guessing you didn’t know the history between him and Belial.”
“No, no I fucking did not know that,” she replied immediately. “Oh, Jesus, Autumn. If I’d known, I would never have done that. I was just thinking “attractive male, create jealousy”, honest.”
“Nik could have been his twin,” I commented. “Well, at least there was no fighting between them, I don’t think. Selene hasn’t called to say her dungeon is gone at least.”
“They didn’t fight,” Rhi told me. “I don’t know what happened in the lounge, but Lucifer came out shaking his head, told me to have a better night than he was having, and left.”
Red called me next to check on me, see if I needed anything, and then Selene called.
Neither Devlin nor Li called or came by.
It was hard being in that cabin alone. I was used to sleeping with someone now, used to there being noise when I woke up or went to bed, so being there alone was hard. The silence was almost deafening, and I took to sitting outside as much as I could. The weather was starting to turn – we were getting a few warmer days now, and not just the bitter cold.
Thursday night, I was sitting out on the front porch when the Dead Horse walked up alone. I am not excusing their actions, so don’t think that’s why I’ve come to you, he said. They both miss you terribly, Autumn. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Belial so vulnerable, in all the years I’ve known him. Devlin is faring worse, though.
“You are older than I know,” I said, looking at him through the tears I refused to shed. “You have seen much. What would you have me do, knowing what they put me through? Knowing that they both made me feel unwanted by them?”
He stepped right up to me, his head lowering so he could meet my eyes. I would at the very least hear them out. If conditions could be met, I would go back. If I didn’t feel like they were being honest with me, I would leave.
I sighed, resting my head against his and feeling the first tear slip free. “Alright,” I finally said. “I’ll see how this goes. Don’t tell them, though. I’ll go home tomorrow while they’re at the stable.”
He rubbed his muzzle over my cheek, a gesture of affection I knew. You’re strong, Autumn. I know in your heart you still love them both. And I know they still love you as well. I cannot speak on what made them do what they did, but having watched them both this whole week – regret doesn’t come close to what they must feel.
Friday morning, after I knew they were gone to the stable, I packed up and went home. I half-expected a mess when I walked in, but everything was neat and orderly. A glance in the trash can did show me at least one of them had hit the bottle, though. I saw two empty scotch bottles, along with an empty wine bottle. Making myself a mug of hot tea, I took my things to the bedroom to put them away. I changed the sheets on the bed also and took them to the laundry to throw them in the wash along with my dirty clothes. Needing to stay busy, to keep from having a panic attack, I set about deep-cleaning the cabin.
Cobwebs were gotten out of the corners, the baseboards were dusted and wiped down with lemon oil, and the floors were swept, mopped, and then had a thin coat of polish put on them. I scrubbed the bathroom but good, taking an old toothbrush to get in the cracks and crevices, and I cleaned the bay window over the bathtub. I cleaned all the windows through the cabin, dusted, shook rugs out and vacuumed them, and then turned my attention to the spare bedroom and bathroom.
No, I didn’t have a method to my madness. I was just trying to stay busy, to keep from thinking too much.
When I had gone over the entire fucking cabin from front to back and top to bottom, and all the laundry was done and put away, I still had three hours before they walked in the door. What the hell was I going to do for three hours? Well, there was always the internet. Sitting down at the computer, I booted it up and put on a playlist to listen to while I mindlessly browsed through different sites and forums. Finding a nifty little free room design program, I settled with that to pass the time.
And that was the sight Devlin and Li came home to – me sitting at the computer, completely absorbed in the room I was currently working on while listening to Lamb of God. There was a glass of wine sitting on the desk, and a discreet look in the kitchen showed the bottle was mostly empty. Unsure of how to approach me, they hung up their jackets and removed their boots and waited for me to realize they were home.
When it became apparent that I was too into whatever I was doing on the computer, Devlin gave Li a look and warily approached me. Now that he was close, he could see the room I was working on. He could also smell wild cherry blossoms and had to fight not to go to his knees and bury his face in my hair.
Feeling heat at my back when I sat back from the screen to contemplate the room, I realized they were both home. Taking a breath, I picked up my wine to take a sip and slid my eyes to the side to figure out which one was standing over me. Devlin, I echoed, seeing the scar on the back of his left hand. “Do you understand yet?” I asked quietly, not looking at him.
Taking a shaky breath, he knelt by my chair. “Yes,” he murmured, tears stinging his eyes.
I turned around, meeting wet, green eyes. “Be very sure of what you say to me,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Why did you do it?”
“I wish I knew,” he said, not taking his eyes off mine. “Autumn, I fucking wish I knew. Her seeming vulnerability, that scared look she almost always wore somehow made me want to protect her. I can’t fucking explain it. I have never had a woman do that to me before. I couldn’t fucking get her out of my head – it was almost like she crawled in there and tried to erase you.”
“Rhi did some digging on Miss Christine,” I stated, sitting back in the chair to regard Devlin mildly. “Would you care to guess what she found out?”
“She was using a spell,” Li said, not moving from the chair and not meeting my eyes. “I went back over the last two weeks and realized what she had done.” He sighed, looking down. “After it was too late, of course.”
“Christine Smith had quite the collection of occult books in her house, when the police raided it,” I said, not changing expressions. “Somehow, she had gotten hair from you both and was using that to keep you sniffing after her. Well, on top of that ridiculously stupid act she was pulling.” Now I looked to Li, and my brow furrowed. “I thought for sure the Dead Horse was going to hop the fence that day and bite the ever-loving shit out of you when you apologized for making that sorry whore cry.”
“I would have more than deserved it,” Li murmured, not looking up.
“You can’t even look at me now, can you?” I pushed.
Slowly he raised his head, and the light glistened off his cheeks.
“Well, so you are capable of feeling, after all,” I commented. “I was beginning to really believe that you didn’t give a shit. Devlin, I can see clearly regrets what he did. But you, Belial?” I snorted. “Ever so fucking stoic, can’t let that mask slip lest some stupid human find out you have feelings.”
“Alright, stop it, Autumn!” he snapped, his face displaying the hurt he felt clearly now.
“I haven’t even fucking started with you,” I spat. “You fucking knew something was wrong, and you did nothing. Not once did you fucking ask me if I was okay. No, you demanded that I tell you what my fucking problem was, you asshole!”
Uttering a half-frustrated, half-anguished cry, he dropped the human guise and lunged to his feet to pace over to the table in the kitchen. Propping himself up on it, he shook as he struggled to find words that wouldn’t piss me off worse. “I didn’t know how to process your rage towards me,” he got out, digging his nails into the wood in an attempt to gain control over his emotions. “I didn’t understand why you were screaming at me, why you were telling me to get the fuck away from you, and it hurt, okay? God damn it, Autumn, you don’t just lash out, you fucking eviscerate! Yes, we both fucked up so badly that even I don’t have words for it. We didn’t fucking know, though. As much as it pains me to admit it, she fucking fooled me too. I was in the same fucking boat that Devlin was in, and I couldn’t fucking stop it.”
“Both of you, thanks to the way you hung on her every word, not to mention how touchy-feely you were with her, had me convinced that I was too old, too fat, and too ugly to want,” I stated. “That girl was half my age and looked to be half my body weight as well. And I cannot compete with that. Every emotional wound I had, every last fucking insecurity, you succeeded in ripping wide open again. I was in therapy for four years, for PTSD, body dysmorphia, and an eating disorder. I thought I had it under control. The two of you proved me wrong.”
Now Belial turned to me, the expression on his face shattering something inside me. “Maybe you don’t want me around anymore,” he forced himself to say, “but don’t walk away from Devlin. I found him unconscious on the bathroom floor, Autumn. He had drunk an entire bottle of scotch and taken I don’t know how many sleeping pills. Without you here, he clearly didn’t want to be here either. I forced him to vomit it up, to keep him alive. I wasn’t sure you were gone yet.”
I turned to Devlin, tears blurring my vision. “I think you did that once before, believing I was gone for good,” I murmured, reaching to run my fingers through his hair.
“Please stay,” Devlin breathed.
I drew him up against me tight, nose in his hair. “Why do you think I came back?” I asked, feeling him wrap around me.
Belial looked at us for a moment and then turned to go down the hallway.
“Belial,” I called, and held one hand toward him.
In that one moment, the mask fell off completely and he let me see just how vulnerable he was. He looked so torn, so utterly human right then … Faltering, he slowly crossed to where I sat with Devlin, sinking to the floor beside him.
Gingerly, I touched his face and felt him start to lean into it and stop himself. “I don’t want you to go,” I murmured, fingers threading through his hair. “You have come to mean every bit as much to me as Devlin. I cannot imagine my life without you in it now.”
All of the tension drained out of him, and he leaned into my other side with his chin on my shoulder.
We stayed like that for a while, not speaking or moving. But finally Devlin leaned back, along with Belial, and the two of them exchanged a look.
“This week has been absolute hell,” Devlin expressed. “I botched half my lessons, and mistook him for you the night he found me on the floor.”
“Mistook … Belial … for me,” I echoed, confused. “We don’t look anything alike.”
Belial sighed. “I stayed with him, that night,” he explained. “I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t try again if I left him alone.” He gave Devlin a disgruntled look. “My thanks was waking up at four am with him nearly on top of me snoring in my fucking ear.”
“It wasn’t intentional,” Devlin said, looking uncomfortable.
“Thank goodness neither of us was nude,” Belial muttered. “That really would have been awkward.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better about it,” Devlin groused.
“It wasn’t supposed to,” Belial shot back.
“Good grief,” I muttered, shaking my head. “Look. I don’t think any of us have had proper sleep or anything else this week. Why don’t we get a shower, go get something to eat, then come back here and just go to bed?”
“Together?” Belial asked, looking at me like I’d grown another head.
Uttering an exasperated sigh, I gave him a look in turn. “I know good and hell well neither of you have any interest in each other like that, and I will stay in the middle,” I clarified. “Honestly, as many times as the three of us have played together in varying degrees of nudity, and you balk at sharing a shower and a bed.”
“Okay, okay,” Belial said, a smirk appearing. “It’s not like there won’t be enough room.”
“Look at it this way,” Devlin began, grinning. “You won’t wake up with me snoring in your ear. You’ll have her instead.”
“I do not snore,” I retorted, indignant.
“Ah, actually, you kinda do,” Devlin countered.
“Not just that, but you”—
“You know what, if you two are going to start telling me every little thing I do in my sleep, I am going to sleep in the spare room and the two of you can share the bed again, how’s that?” I interrupted, hands on my hips.
Belial and Devlin eyed each other and turned to me. “Yeah, that’s a no-go,” Devlin stated. “We’ll behave, Autumn. Or I will, at least.”
“What he said,” Belial told me when I gave him a pointed look.
“Right,” I muttered. “Come on you two. Shower, food, and then sleep.”
Submitted November 08, 2018 at 07:53AM by AlecVeliar https://ift.tt/2zLd4RZ
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