Just this once, though, I didn’t fight it.
I let them close around me, possessive and protective. And warm. God, so warm. It was like the softest, coziest blanket you’d ever experienced. It trapped the heat between our bodies, and I swear the warmth sank down through my skin and into my very bones.
Minos stayed perfectly still, like a part of him was worried that if he moved at all, it would ruin it. And, honestly, I was pretty sure it would have.
But because he didn’t, I managed to stay locked at that moment, overcome with the sensations swarming through my body. The satisfaction, yes, but also the warmth, and the unexpected comfort I felt at that moment.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever known a moment of pure comfort since the second my mother had told me what I was, what I was destined to do with my life.
Everything after that had been hard and uncomfortable.
The best I could expect was, well, rest.
But never comfort.
I felt that sting at the back of my eyes once again. And despite knowing it for what it was right then, I seemed helpless but to let the tears slip out and down my cheeks.
I seemed not to process, though, that my face was still buried in Minos’s neck, and that as my tears ran down my skin, they did the same to his.
Feeling them, though, his head shifted slightly, just enough to allow him to plant a sweet kiss to my forehead.
“It’s okay, baby,” he murmured, voice thick with some emotion I was too distracted by my own to even begin to understand.
But those words were what broke the strange spell I felt trapped in.
Because they were wrong.
They were all so fucking… wrong.
It wasn’t okay.
Nothing about this was okay.
Damn it all to hell.
It was bad enough that we’d fucked.
I’d managed to, you know, compartmentalize that in a way, to be able to block myself from thinking about it too much, from feeling the shame of it all.
But to have some sort of emotional moment because of the fucking?
No.
Holy hell, no.
A sigh escaped Minos as he felt the change, as my body stiffened.
He didn’t fight me when I shoved at his chest, though.
Because this was the same old song and dance.
I always got my head on straight after, realized what a terrible fucking idea the whole thing was, yanked away from him, got into my clothes, and got the hell out of there.
So that was what I did.
I was only partially aware of the fact that all through that, Minos stood in the exact same spot that I’d pulled away from him, head bent, and wings limp at his sides.
I couldn’t let myself process that.
I just had to get the hell out of there.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dale
I was mentally reinforcing the wall between my and Minos’s minds the entire drive back to The Academy, finding it more difficult to do than usual.
Likely because I’d gone ahead and cried on the fucking demon.
I mean, what the ever-loving hell was that about?
I never cried.
And I damn sure never cried around a lesser creature.
Then again, the only time I was typically around said lesser creatures was to eradicate them from this Earth.
Things were getting too messy, too complicated. I needed to get a hold of myself. I needed to stop letting down the wall that got harder and harder to put back up.
I had to stop seeing Minos.
“For real this time,” I swore to myself as I climbed out of my car outside of The Academy.
From the outside, it wasn’t exactly an unassuming building. It was a giant stone structure with stained glass windows that made it almost appear as a church. Since, well, we were warriors for the man upstairs, after all. But to deter any of those seeking faith, there was a sign out front stating it was a private boarding school.
I remember the first time I walked up to it, still clutching my old school backpack to my chest as my parents stood on either side of me with my bags and trunk.
It had been scary, yes. It was more intimidating than anything I’d ever seen before.
But mingled with the fear, there was the bone-deep belief that there was a lot of opportunity for me inside those cold stone walls.
I’d been right, of course.
But also wrong.
I really hadn’t had any idea what was in store for me as we walked over the threshold and I felt something similar to static electricity singe me.
One look at my parents said they hadn’t felt it.
It was at that moment that I realized how different our futures were going to be as well.
As soon as they signed the papers, I wasn’t, legally, their responsibility anymore. I would belong to The Academy. I wouldn’t, I realized, ever go home with them again, ever live my normal life with them again.