Marianna
Soren meets my eyes through what I can only describe as a haze. The room looks and feels distorted, but that might be my mind trying to shield me from what I just heard and saw.
Blake remains in the center of the room while Maeve backs away, her eyes wet with tears and her gaze darting from me to Soren, who looks livid as he tells his mate, “We’re done here. Come with me.”
Maeve jerks into sudden awareness and turns her back on Blake. She leaves the room first, tearing into the hallway, her rapid footsteps the only sound in the vacuum of silence spreading through Blake’s office. But Soren turns to look at Blake over his shoulder with a rough sigh. “We’re going to talk this through. Don’t do anything stupid until we do.”
I wait for the door to click shut. Blake doesn’t move from his spot in the center of the office, but… I have to do something. I have to say something.
He beats me to it. “How much did you hear?”
“It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t supposed to hear any of it, was I?”
“This is a complicated situation, Marianna–”
“Don’t patronize me.” My tone is like a sharpened blade. Blake flinches, calming himself by running his fingers through his hair, but gives me his back as I step deeper into the room. “Look at me, Blake.”
He braces his hands on his desk, lowering his head.
“Look at me.” I edge toward him like he’s a wild animal loose from its cage. “Blake?”
“You heard everything, didn’t you?”
“Are you–do you not want me to know who you are? I’m your mate–”
“And I’m a monster.” He finally turns to look at me, his face just… broken. His eyes swirl with power but are lined with aggressive dark circles. He’s exhausted. I can feel it leaching through our bond–like he’s on the verge of collapse.
“You need to sleep,” I say, my voice cracking. “When was the last time you slept through the night? When was the last time you slept at all?”
He just stares at me, shaking his head. “You need to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere, and you’re going to fucking bed!”
“I can’t. I can’t–”
“Because you’ll get visions? You’re terrified of your powers, Blake! You have to stop! You have to sleep!”
He moves toward the door to leave his office, but I leap into his way, extending my hands. Fury flashes behind his eyes as they narrow. “Marianna, get out of my way.”
“What’s wrong with you? What happened in Veiled Valley? You came back to Moonrise and immediately found me at the arts center. Why? You looked like you’d been to hell and back, and you said you needed Skye’s help. You directed me to bring those spheres into her bedroom, for fuck’s sake. Why? What are you planning? Blake?!” Panic cuts through the numbness, rendering my senses useless. “BLAKE!”
“I can’t talk to you about this–”
“You can!”
“I can’t!” he shouts, his eyes wild, and his power simmering between us. I can feel it, taste it. It consumes me and spits me back out in warning, but I… I will not turn away from him and run like the first time.
“Go to bed,” I rasp, tears in my eyes. “Now.”
He gives me a dry smirk. “I have too much to do.”
“Before you leave? That’s what you told me, that you were going away for a while. You’re going to try to find Hannibal, aren’t you? Why? What’s the fucking point, Blake?”
His jaw tenses, but his eyes soften just a touch–just enough that I know I might be getting through to him. It’s like he’s trapped in his own head right now–like everything is barreling out of control, and he’s boxing everyone out. He can’t help it, I realize. It’s too much. It’s always been too much. He’s always been at war with himself, torn between the man he wants to be and the powerful being he is.
“You showed me what you can do with your powers so I wouldn’t be afraid anymore. So I’d understand, and I do. But you’re lying about… how far you can actually stretch those gifts. I heard it all, Blake. I saw you extinguish Maeve’s flame with zero effort. And I’m still here.” I motion to myself, desperate. “I didn’t run. I’m still here.”
His chest rises and falls like he’s struggling to take a breath. Electricity crackles between us like the room is full of it–his power–with nowhere to go.
“I shouldn’t have left you in the first place,” I admit. “I was scared. I didn’t know–”
“You were right.”
“I wasn’t. We both made mistakes back then; I know that. But I’m your mate. I have always been your mate. You knew. I know you knew. I know it’s been eating you alive for almost a decade. I know you’ve been shielding yourself from your own powers since you were a kid and realized what you were actually capable of, and it’s too much. You need to sleep, Blake. You need to just… give in.”
He closes his eyes, shaking his head.
“Please,” I beg, taking a step toward him. “Please, just sleep. For me. For us. Skye needs you. She’s like you, remember? She’ll either grow up without you or be damned to a life where she believes she has to be afraid of what she is because the man who gave her these gifts hasn’t ever allowed himself to just be who he is.”
Blake opens his eyes but doesn’t say a word.
I take another step, then another, reaching past the shields buzzing around his body–shields the naked eye can’t see but that I can feel ripping through our bond, like he’s doing everything in his power to keep me away.
“I love you,” I croak, sniffling, as I place my hand against his chest. “Please. Go to sleep, Blake.”
“I don’t know what I’ll see.”
“I’ll be there. I’ll go with you.”
He shakes his head, but I press my body against his.
“I know you can do it. You did it for Skye. You let yourself into her vision. Let me into yours. You don’t have to go alone.”
My wolf senses prickle, alerting me to another presence in the room. A quick glance toward the door gives a glimpse of Soren standing in the doorway beside Lexa, of all people, but their faces are cast in mid-afternoon shadow. I ignore them, praying Blake is also ignoring them.
“Skye is napping. She’ll be asleep for a while longer. Just take me with you. Please.”
Soren steps into the room, and that’s enough for Blake to turn, snapping back to reality. He stalks to the door to our suite, leaving me standing alone, shaken.
He slips through the open door, not bothering to close it. I release the first long breath I’ve taken since hearing him and Maeve scream at each other and going to investigate, only to have my heart torn from my chest.
“I’ll talk to him,” Soren offers, his voice dripping with what I can only describe as concern. He tries to step past me, but I stop him, shaking my head.
“Just… leave us alone for a while. He needs to rest. He doesn’t sleep.”
“I’m aware of that,” Soren replies, and when I look up at him, I notice the slightest lost look in his eyes.
“He trusts you, you know. He wasn’t going to hurt Maeve. Blake… he’s not like us. He doesn’t know how to talk about these things.”
“These things?” Soren chuckles but seems to understand what I’m trying to convey.
“He’s never been able to show people who he really is. He just showed Maeve.”
“Yeah,” he breathes, crossing his arms over his chest. “He sure did.”
“I’ll send Skye up to you when she wakes up if that’s okay.”
“That’s fine. I’ll take her out to the garden or something.”
Lexa remains stoically in the doorway like she was brought here to try to subdue Blake, but when I catch her eyes as I move toward the suite, she’s watching me intently, a slightly confused, unsure expression passing behind her lovely dark blue eyes.
Blake is in our room, sitting on the edge of the bed. His shirt is untucked from his trousers, his hair ruffled. He looks generally undone, one shoe already off but the other still laced.
I’m not sure what to say or do, to be perfectly honest. I climb into the bed and lay my hand on his forearm in silent invitation.
“Marianna, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t–you shouldn’t have to go through this with me. You’ve already been through so much.”
“You’re a little rough around the edges, sure, but you have to remember I spent seven years raising your daughter. If you’re trying to compare yourself to Dean, you’re going to have to try harder than that.”
He finally turns to look at me. I simply shrug a shoulder and lie down, beckoning him to join.
“You’re not scared of me?”
“You’ve never hurt me. You never would, and I trust you. I also know you’re hurting. My music… used to help, didn’t it? Now it doesn’t shut anything out.”
He runs his tongue over his lower lip, his eyes downcast on his lap.
“You need to sleep. Please, just try. Please.”
He holds my gaze for several seconds. I wish I could get into his head right now to decipher what he’s thinking and feeling. For a moment, I get a single glimpse, and if I weren’t already lying down, it would have brought me to my knees. It’s the same look of fear that Skye wore the night she killed Dean–the night I think she realized what she’s capable of–death.
Blake has been weighed down by that knowledge for at least twelve years.
He finally takes his other shoe off and lies beside me. I wrap my arms around his waist and snuggle close, my head resting on his chest, pressing my body against his like a dead weight. I knit my fingers in his, close my eyes, and wait.
Blake falls asleep almost instantly, like his exhaustion was so extreme it would have only taken the act of sitting down to send him into a stupor. He makes good on my plea to take me with him, and my vision fades into darkness I can’t control, and I’m swept into a dreamworld that’s both foreign and shockingly familiar because I can feel him here–everywhere.
At first, it’s a jumble of images and voices–stars and light. Then, I’m on a coastline somewhere south, where the water is just being touched by the sunrise, and the sky is a deep, angry red. Turbulent waves crash along a blood-soaked beach–weapons scattered. Bodies everywhere. Slaughtered. A woman screams into the sunrise, a glint of pure gold reflecting off what I believe might be a bow strapped to her back, before the vision fades, and I’m swept to another place.
An arena. Something ancient and massive. A hazy crowd blurred by unforgiving sunlight. Then, another place, a thick forest where mist snakes between trees. A white wolf darts through the brush, chased by a black wolf with silver eyes. They sprint out of sight before I can get a good look at them.
I have the sudden sensation that what I’m seeing isn’t the full story–like Blake is purposely keeping me out of the visions that plague his mind when it’s at rest and his powers have full authority. Like the beach, the arena, and the forest were manipulated–details missing. People missing.
But then I’m on another beach. Perfect, flawless turquoise water laps the shore in smooth, gentle waves. A stunning sandcastle only an architect and his daughter could create rests just along the tide line.
This is where he keeps us, and when I wake up, it’s fully dark beyond the windows in our room, and Blake is still beside me, fast asleep.