“We need to have a word,” he said firmly before turning and grinning in Roxy’s direction just before she twisted around to look back for me. He gave her a friendly little wave, making her smile brightly in return like she thought the two of us were doing some cute brother and boyfriend bonding thing or some shit before she turned away again, and he turned a glare on me once more.
“Did you just bullshit my girl?” I asked him and he leaned closer to me, still giving me a death glare.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be throwing stones from your glass house, Darius,” he hissed.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“You tell me - you’re the one who doesn’t seem to have a future past Christmas Day.”
My heart lurched and I gritted my jaw, glancing over towards Caleb and Lance to make sure they hadn’t heard him with their Vampire gifts while wondering if there was any way this asshole really had any idea about the deal I’d made with the stars, or if he was just fishing. I could admit that I’d been avoiding him as much as possible since we’d made it back to the group here too, not wanting him to look into my future, but I guessed it was so entwined with Roxy’s now that it was impossible for him to miss it. Either way, I didn’t want any of the others listening in on this, so I cast a silencing bubble around us and jerked my chin towards an empty passage to our right before ducking into it.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I growled, closing in on him and trying to make him back off with the threat in my posture, but he only looked me in the eyes and sneered.
“I think we both know I do. So tell me, asshole, what deal did you make with the stars to break the bonds placed on you and my sister?” he demanded like he had a right to know my business.
I wanted to punch him in his stupid face. I never had liked this prick. He was always giggling with Lance over their little private jokes or acting so self-assured because he had the damn Sight. Though I had to admit that he’d saved my ass when it came to Mildred, and if he hadn’t taken me to that star damned cave then Roxy and Darcy could well be dead right now.
I turned away from him, stalking a few paces into the dark as I swiped a hand down my face and tried to banish the anger born of my Dragon and think rationally about this. He had The Sight. And even if we weren’t close, my connection to Roxy clearly meant enough to him to give him a view of my life, and he’d obviously already figured out that my future ended pretty fucking sharpish on Christmas Day in ten months’ time.
The reality of him having seen that hit me like a punch to the gut. Yeah, I’d known it was coming. I wasn’t a fucking idiot. But I’d also been trying to live for the moment, enjoy the love and life I’d only just begun to sample a taste of since my far too recent liberation from my father’s control. It had been eight weeks already, but it didn’t feel like that. It felt like a blink of an eye and barely a taste of everything I’d always dreamed I might be able to claim for myself. A year was never going to be enough, but now I could see that it was going to be so brief that it broke me.
I turned back to Gabriel, pain tearing into my chest as I forced myself to face the truth and own up to this.
“They were going to die,” I told him, my voice cracking a little as I remembered the visions I’d been forced to endure. “The stars told me their fates and showed me how that fight would play out if I didn’t act. Either Roxy or her sister or maybe even both of them would have died just like you told me they would if I didn’t make that deal.”
“What deal?” he asked, his posture rigid like he was preparing for a blow that he already knew was coming.
I stared at him for several long seconds, knowing the moment I gave voice to this truth that it would become real. I’d lose control of it. Cast it into reality and be forced to deal with whatever came of it if I did.
The words fell from my lips in a rush which left me aching with grief as they escaped me. Because I may have been terrified to lose Roxy when I’d made that deal, I may have been more than willing to trade my life for hers because of how strongly I felt for her. But I hadn’t yet experienced what truly getting to love her and be loved by her would feel like. And this bliss which I had stolen for us was rushing to an inevitable end that would only cause her more pain. The one thing I’d sworn never to do again.
“I traded my life for theirs. I get one year to prove to her that I can give her the world then the stars will tear it away from her when they call me into their embrace.”