Page 51 of Hybrid Heroics

“She wants us to see it, too,” he acknowledged.

I pointed at him. “Exactly. But sometimes, it’s hard to see yourself as strong and capable. It’s harder to step back and view yourself from someone else’s eyes. She’s put us on a pedestal too, though. One that she intends to protect more than worship. She wakes up, and she knows that she’s important, needed. So knowing that we want her—”

“Is something totally different,” he finished. “Compared to what she’s used to.”

“Right. To feel wanted versus needed is liberating, validating…” I pursed my lips, searching for the right words. “It’s how she knows she can give up control, finally free some of the weight off her shoulders. Needing her would mean we were adding more weight. Wanting her, truly wanting her, is something that she’s not used to. She has friends that want her for her. But for the most part, everyone she meets needs something from her.”

“What if I want to be needed?” he challenged.

“I’d say you got the wrong mate for that.” I wobbled my head. “But there are still moments when she’ll need all of us. She struggles to ask, though she’ll get to the point where she can.”

He waved his hands around. “Or she’ll do shit like this.”

“She needed us to protect her. And she knew whatever she thought about Alric would hear. So she trusted us to figure it out. Can you really blame her for keeping us out of her plan to keep him out of it?”

“No.”

“I missed a lot with her while I was gone,” I explained. “But truthfully, she’s still the same. A little colder. Though that’s probably my fault. Sometimes, I think you guys expect to know her better than you do. You forget that this relationship is still new.

“I was with her for two years before they captured me,” I reminded him. “There’s a big difference in our timelines. I understand these things about her because I’ve argued with her insanity, laughed at her quirks, loved her flaws. I’ve lived this life once before. And I can tell you from experience, losing it is having your soul ripped to shreds.”

Stone took a deep breath, leaning his shoulder against the window. “I love her.”

“I know.”

“How?”

I smiled at him. “How could you not?”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” he countered.

“If you didn’t love her, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” I divulged. “You would have told me to fuck off.”

The demon snorted.

“I know you love her because you haven’t told her yet. You’ve kept your feelings to yourself,” I confessed. “No matter how hard we try to show you that you’re worthy, there’s still this tiny self-deprecating piece of you that thinks you’re not. And you’re worried she’ll see it too. But she doesn’t, which scares you even more. You two are similar in that aspect.”

He frowned, and I tapped his chest with my knuckles, leaving the conversation hanging as I wandered into the kitchen.

Tuesday, June 23rd

Late Night

My thoughts spiraled in every direction with no organization or logic. They bounced around my mind like a pinball machine, constantly being hit back into orbit, only to fall through a hole and make the obnoxious buzzer blare.

Everything was finally coming to a head.

I could see so many things that seemed unrelated suddenly connecting with thin threads. They all led to one person.

But how could only one person cause such widespread destruction?

Well... Sloane did it, so it wasn’t really that far of a leap to see what Alric had done.

The bit about mosaics made more sense than the puzzles or lists I had been thinking of. I wished I could go back to that conversation between Sloane and Stone and understand how she was building art out of massacres and deception.

Since I couldn’t just yet, I decided to follow a different trail of thoughts.

When we started this journey, what felt like lifetimes ago, Sloane had made a point to keep training, honing her skills. But we’d stopped.