SWNOVELS Alluring Darkness: Chapter 29
The sounds of fists hitting flesh echoes between the concrete walls. Sitting on a short wooden bench, I glower at Eli and his brothers as they continue sparring.
I’m not sure what exactly went wrong, but after I spent the night with Eli last weekend, he seems to have lost interest in me. He has been ignoring me all week, treating me as if I’m not there at all. When we have our team training sessions during the afternoons, the four of them are practicing together without even bothering to look in my direction. And when I complained about that, Kaden decided that it was my mission in life to fetch them water while they train. So now, that’s all I do. I refill their water bottles and then I sit here and glare at them.
My pride is telling me to just leave. But I can’t. I still need to keep an eye on Eli to make sure that he doesn’t start messing with Connor again.
Worry snakes through my chest as I watch Eli swing at Kaden, who ducks and throws a fist back at his brother’s side. A short distance away, Jace and Rico are sparring as well. We’re in a smaller, private training room instead of the massive sparring hall that we use when we have class, so we’re the only ones here. At least that means that there is no risk of them running into Connor.
Another bout of worry flutters behind my ribs. If Eli truly has lost interest in tormenting me, it’s only a matter of time before he sets his sights on Connor again. I can’t let that happen. Resting my elbows on my knees, I stare at the gray wall on the other side of the room while I consider my options.
This week, I’ve tried my usual methods of messing with Eli. But it hasn’t worked. I need to do something drastic. Something big. Something that will make it impossible for Eli to continue ignoring me. But what?
A shadow looms above me.
Tearing my eyes from the empty wall, I instead slide my gaze to the man standing next to me. Kaden. While holding my gaze with those cold dark eyes of his, he picks up his water bottle and pointedly shakes it in the air.
“It’s empty,” he announces.
I raise my eyebrows in a nonchalant gesture. “And?”
“Making sure we’re hydrated is your sole purpose in life.”
I snort and roll my eyes.
Kaden moves so damn fast that I don’t even have time to jerk back. One second, I’m sitting there on the bench. The next, he has hauled me up by the collar and slammed me back first against the wall behind me. My breath explodes from my lungs with a huff as I hit the hard surface.
With his forearm across my collarbones, he pushes me hard against the wall while leaning closer. “Did you just roll your eyes at me?”
“Uh, yeah.” Frowning, I shake my head at him to inform him that that was an incredibly stupid question. “Are you blind as well as deaf?”
Behind him to the left, Rico and Jace have stopped sparring, and both of them are watching us. Jace with a wide grin on his face, and Rico with a considering look in his brown eyes. Eli, on the other hand, only continues going through a series of punches and kicks to the air while keeping his gaze on the door.
Steel sings into the thrumming silence as Kaden unsheathes one of the knives he always keeps in his thigh holster. I study his face as he raises the blade.
I know that there is something wrong with me, and with Eli too, but I’m pretty sure that the most unhinged one of all is actually Kaden.
He doesn’t look angry that I insulted him. In fact, I can’t read him at all. It’s as if there is this vast emptiness inside him. Looking into his eyes feels like staring into an endless void where there is no light or sound or life at all.
Light from the fluorescents above glints in the blade as Kaden spins it in his hand before positioning it in front of my face.
“I will give you one chance to apologize,” he says, his voice as cold and flat as his knife.
“Yeah…” I begin, drawing out the word. “Thanks for the offer. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline.”
Cold steel kisses my skin as Kaden lightly scrapes the point of the blade over my cheek before stopping right underneath my left eye.
“Left?” Using the blade, he taps the skin below my eye before shifting the knife to my right eye and doing the same. “Or right? Which one would you like to keep?”
“I don’t really have a preference, so you can pick.”
Surprise flickers in those empty eyes.
I just cock my head, watching him. Because of my experiences as a child, violence and death has never scared me. I know that logically, I should be terrified when a psychopath is holding a knife to my face and threatening to carve out my eyes. But it’s as if the pathways in my brain that control those emotions were irrevocably damaged. Or maybe they were never even formed at all.
That’s not to say that I don’t feel fear at all. I do. I’m terrified that they will hurt my brother. But as long as they only continue threatening me, they will never break me.
“Does this little routine usually work on people?” I ask in a mocking voice.
Kaden pushes his forearm harder against my chest while he traces his knife down my cheek again. “I will find a way to put fear in your eyes. One way or another.”
“Is that what you get off on?” I shoot a pointed glance down towards his cock before meeting his gaze again. “Is that what makes you hard? Fear?”
The sadistic smile that curls his lips in response sends a cold shiver down my spine. There really is something wrong with this guy.
“Kaden.”
My heart does a tiny flip at the sound of the voice, and I glance towards the source of it. I had expected, or maybe hoped, that it would be Eli. But it wasn’t. It was Rico.
Standing there next to Jace, he shakes his head once in a clear order to knock it off. Eli still isn’t even looking in our direction.
Kaden glances towards Eli anyway, and then at last takes his forearm from my chest. I draw in a breath now that the pressure on my chest is gone, and then I brush my hands down my slightly rumpled shirt.
“Well, that was informative,” I say.
Kaden, who hasn’t sheathed his knife and is instead twirling it beside him, narrows his eyes at me as if wondering what that means. I just flash him a wicked grin and stroll towards the doors.
This conversation about fear gave me an idea. Now, I know exactly how to snap Eli out of his indifference and how to make sure that I will always be his target number one.
Kaden, Jace, and Rico watch me as I walk across the sparring room and towards the doors. But none of them stop me as I slip out into the corridor, and they don’t follow me as I make my way through the building.
And good thing they don’t, because halfway to my destination, I run into the person they can never see me with. Connor.
My brother jerks back and blinks in surprise as we almost crash into each other while rounding a corner.
“Raina,” he says.
I just take a step to the side so that I can walk around him. But before I can, his hand shoots out and he grabs my elbow. I turn to face him and then shoot a pointed look down at his hand. Hesitation flits across his features, but he releases my elbow.
“Look, I’m sorry about what Mom said,” he begins, his voice soft.
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not.” He holds my gaze, a serious expression in his gray eyes. “You’re not messed-up in the head.”
“Most of the world would disagree with you.”
“I don’t care. Because I know you’re not.”
A small smile tugs at my lips.
He mirrors it tentatively. Then he goes and ruins the moment by saying, “I still don’t think you should be here, though. I’ve got things under control, so you don’t need to—”
I roll my eyes and abruptly start walking again.
“Raina,” he snaps.
But I only continue striding down the hall.
“You might think you’re stepping up, but you’re not,” he calls after me. “Mom is right. You’re only ruining our family name by being here and failing at everything. So just leave this to me and I promise… Raina!”
Ignoring him, I round the next corner and stalk out of sight.
Yes, I might be embarrassingly bad at everything else at this university. But there is one thing that I am good at. And it’s time I start taking advantage of that.