Five
Ispend the next two days in bed with one of my mates hovering around at all times. The only sleep I get is when the healer comes and forces my body into a nightmare-free sleep. I continue to drink the awful-tasting potions as they are helping, and my mates bring me various concoctions of food—from chocolate cakes, which I gratefully devour, to burgers and pizzas, anything unhealthy they can find. Alek brings in fruits and plates of various steamed and salted vegetables, insisting that I need a healthy mix of both.
They’ve pampered me, essentially, as much as they can, during the worst, but I’m done sitting in bed healing. I knew I’d be free at some point, and I’ve made a plan. I just need to find a way to explain it to my mates when we are all such a mess. Finnegan doesn’t sleep, switching between Feyre and me. Alek is working out constantly, pushing himself to the brink since he came back. Hollis and Rhodes are using their connections to work out where the king is, if he is with his army, and making a plan for war. Severi and Onyx? The two of them are rarely apart, and this new connection they have seems to be grating on them both. We are a mess…but it really doesn’t matter, because we have each other.
Severi is reading a book in the armchair by the window, and his page-flipping catches my attention. I eye the spine of the book, something in Spanish, and smile. He looks slightly more tanned from the warm Mexican sunlight.
“You know, I’ve never been to Mexico before,” I murmur.
He looks up from the book, his brown eyes appearing lighter in the sun. “Hmm? Really? All those years on the run, Mexico was never an option? It seems like an easy place to be ignored.”
I shrug a shoulder. “My parents never had any safe houses here. I always stayed around Europe. Secretly, I wanted to be closer to Starlight City and my mates. I thought we couldn’t be together, but it didn’t stop me from wanting.”
He closes the book. “Nothing has ever stopped me from wanting to be near you, even when I knew I was a danger. I just needed to see you, breathe you in and know you were alive, even if it was the most selfish and asshole move that I ever pulled. Fucking killed me to know you were alone all those years, grieving your parents and just alone.”
“It was safer…but I’m glad things are like this now. You all gave me a reason not to break…when things got dark,” I whisper. I clear my throat at the soft look he gives me. “I want to shower today. Will you help me?”
Something sparks in his eyes, and his lips twitch. “Always. I think a shower’s a good idea too when you’ve been in that bed awhile.” He twitches his nose and somehow, even insulting me, he looks handsome doing it.
“Are you saying I smell bad?” The corners of my mouth lift in a tender smile.
“I would never say that you smell bad, darling.” He comes over and swoops me off the bed and into his arms, pushing my sheets away. I want to protest that I can walk to the shower, but I curl into him instead. My Nexus purrs in my mind at being close to Severi. He drops me down onto the closed toilet seat beforeswitching on the shower, shutting the door and laying out a rug. He checks we have enough towels before he rips his shirt off.
My breath catches in my throat as I run my eyes over him. The ripples of muscle on his lower body, all the way up to his thick arms and the dozens of old and new scars all over his tanned skin. His voice is gravelly. “I’m trying really hard to focus on looking after you, but other things are going to get really hard if you keep looking at me like that.”
I drop my eyes lower, to the big outline in his trousers. “Too late.” He growls at me when I take a step away. “It’s weird, us spending time together and not trying to kill each other.”
“I was never trying to kill you, darling. Annoy you? Yes. Wind you up? Most definitely. But kill you? Might as well kill myself first, because I do not want to be in this world without you in it with me.” Severi. My heart warms as I take in everything between us. Severi doesn’t even seem to notice his admittance is stealing my heart. “Do you need help?”
“No. I’ll meet you in there.” I begin to tug at my top, but I get very distracted. Severi takes off his trousers, facing away from me, so all I get to see is his perfect ass before he disappears into the steamy, massive walk-in shower with a waterfall showerhead. It could easily fit five people in it. I take off my clothes, staring at myself for a long moment in the mirror that’s slowly going foggy around the edges. My hair falls well past my waist now; it’s grown so much. It is so knotty and messy. My eyes look wide as they stare back at me—one grey, one blue. I look thin; my hip bones are sticking out, but it’s not too bad. All the cuts and bruises I had grown used to seeing over the last few months have gone, thanks to the healing potions. I do feel better. Stronger.
Severi is softly humming a song I don’t know as I step into the shower. He moves slightly to the side as I walk past him. I stand under the waterfall’s head and breathe in relief as hotwater pours down my body. “The shower I had was cold and only worked for a minute or two, and the water was brown with mud and who knows what else. There were days they forgot to give me water, so I would have to use that water to survive.”
Severi doesn’t say a word, and not until I look at him do I see why. He is shaking, his eyes fixed on me. “I will not stop until he pays for treating you like that.”
“It wasn’t your fault. Only his. You might be his son, but you are not his family. You chose me, us, our bond group. You came for me, Severi. I don’t think you know how much that means to me, that in the end, I was never alone. My mates were fighting and coming for me.” I gulp, and his fingers brush down my arm.
“Can I wash your hair?” he asks softly, his voice broken. Vulnerable. “Let me take care of you…I need to…please.”
“Yes.” I trust him, and I have thought about being with my mates for so long that there is never a chance I’m going to decline time with them. Severi—there has always been so much anger and fury between us. But never closeness, never like this. Never until now. “It must have been some kind of torture, Severi. Having your father in your mind while you were hurting me. Did you see it all happen?”
“Yes.” He puts shampoo in his hands—it smells like lavender and vanilla—and starts rubbing it into my scalp. Once he’s washed that out, he begins conditioning my hair, working section by section, using his fingers to ease out the knots. “I could never stop him. I debated for years about taking my own life, you know.”
I turn my head back, my heart clenching. He is being so vulnerable, I give him my truth too. “I thought of doing the same, in the years I was alone and so scared. I thought my mates might be better off without me.”
“We aren’t.” His hands run down my shoulders. “I kept going, knowing that you might need me one day. Even if youhated me for everything that happened between us, I knew there was a chance I could tell you the truth about what my father was doing in my head and you might look at me like this. I wasn’t sure you’d believe me. I was relieved when you did, and I made a promise to myself right there and then that I would spend the rest of my days working on you trusting me.”
“I’m glad that necklace is around your neck.” I pause, turning back so he can carry on with my hair. “I just hate that it’s Georgina giving you the means to be the saviour this time.”
He presses into me. I gasp as I feel his hands press against my waist, his lips close to my ear. “I didn’t want to take anything from her. The only reason I did is because it means I get to be close to you. Help you. Without any consequences.”
“Severi,” I whisper. The conditioner washes out of my hair, suds rolling down my shoulders. He runs his fingers through my now soft hair, hands a whisper down my arms to my waist.
“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs, his lips pressed against my shoulder.
“Don’t stop,” I whisper, reaching behind me, running my hand across his smooth, long cock. He’s hard and perfect. He groans, his teeth gently digging into my shoulder, one large hand pressed against the glass. He turns his hand around, cupping my breast, flicking his fingers over my hard nipple, and a moan escapes me. He lowers his hand right to where I want him a moment later.
The door opens, and he pulls me in close. I pause, my hand firmly wrapped around his cock and his fingers inches from my core.