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"Ariel," he croaked out in a thick voice.
I buried my face in his neck and prayed the tears that were stinging my eyes didn't spill out. I didn't want him to see how much his pain killed me.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered hoarsely.
Sorry for so many different things. Where to even start?
Dash had grown up with the females in his life being incredibly violent toward him and doing horrible things to him. They'd treated him worse than garbage and he'd never done anything whatsoever to deserve the way he'd been treated outside of being born. The guys all told me that he'd had issues with women because of his past. That's mostly the reason why he had acted like a man-whore before I'd come into his life. He had issues, to be sure, just like all of them had issues, but I knew they revolved around women and violence. I knew better. I shouldn't have acted the way I did in front of him and done that to Rain.
Violence was never the answer. I knew this, dammit. I really did, but I had stupidly acted out anyways and potentially hurt Dash as a result. I would never live this down.
"You'll never know how sorry I am." My voice cracked. "I don't know what happened to me, but I guess seeing Rain shove you like that did something to me and I just snapped. I never, ever should have lashed out and used my magic like that. I never should have used my magic to hurt someone else, especially Rain. And certainly not in front of you."
Dash squeezed my hand before letting go and rolling over to face me. I moved back, away from his neck, and braced for what was to come. He was going to tell me to get out of his bed and get out of his room. Maybe he'd even tell me to pack up my belongings and get out of his house. It would kill me, since this had become my home here with him and Binx. I'd never had a real home before, a place I'd felt safe in, until coming here to live with them. I’d had a home with Marcus but it hadn’t been a safe one because I’d shared it with Vivian. It would kill me to leave Dash and Binx, but I would respect his wishes and I would do whatever he wanted me to do.
Dash put his hands up to my face. His thumbs ran over my cheeks, one trailing over my scar in a gentle caress.
His eyes were dark storm clouds and I was caught in the middle of them, sucked in deep.
"Dash," I croaked out. This rejection from him was likely going to be the hardest thing I'd ever gone through in my entire life.
It was in that moment that I realized something important. Something life changing. Something I couldn't ever come back from.
I loved Dash. Like, deep-seated, bottom of my soul, loved him.
I was falling hard here with these people, they were carving their names onto my soul and there would be no scraping them off. Hell, I think part of me even loved Julian already. I was a goner for all of them and that was just that.
"Don't you dare apologize to me," he whispered in a fierce voice that shocked me to my core. "You don't ever apologize for what you did this morning."
My eyes rounded in shock as my body froze solid.
If I hadn't done anything wrong, then why had he run away from me, run out of the hallway, and hidden himself in here curled up into a ball and shut down completely? If I didn't have anything to apologize for, if it hadn't been me who'd triggered him, then what the hell was the matter here? Quinton had seemed like this was important and I had to be careful with Dash.
"I don't understand," I said hesitantly. "I assumed I had triggered something, some type of memory for you because of my violent behavior toward Rain. I never should have done that, it was rash, and I will work really hard to keep myself in check from now on. Not just when you're around either. I pr—"
"Ariel," he murmured as he cupped my face and held on to me. "Stop talking and stop apologizing. You did nothing wrong here. Every single one of us wants to toss Rain into the wall on a daily basis, we just don't do it because we know there'd be horrible consequences if we did."
I sucked in a deep breath. "Then what did I do wrong?" I asked in a quiet voice. I'd done something wrong, I just knew it.
"You've done nothing wrong, sweet girl, I promise you," he gently assured me. "It's just that..." He swallowed painfully before continuing. "But you're right though, in a way. Your actions did trigger a memory for me, but what's more, it's what you did for me that no female in my life has ever done for me before. You stuck up for me, you defended me, and you struck out at someone else who wasn't me. That's never happened before. Not ever. The only people who have ever stuck up for me are the members of our coven. And that's it. But you... what you did... I never expected..."
God, Dash hurt my heart so bad, I felt like I was bleeding on the inside and it wasn't pretty. We'd both suffered, but I felt like Dash had gotten it worse than I had. Not that we were competing here or anything. It would be one of the most messed up competitions ever. Who had the most scars? Dash would win hands down. Most of mine were on the inside. Unless you counted my collarbone and my face, that is. The one on my face would usually mean I would win this game, but Dash's back put my face to shame every time. Which was all kinds of horrifying, considering how he'd come about it.
"Thank you," he whispered hoarsely. "Thank you for standing up for me. You can't ever leave us, Ariel. You prove every single day that you belong here with us, that you're a perfect fit for our coven and it would kill me if you ever left. I need you here with me. And I know I'm not the only one who feels that way."
I sighed in relief. This was familiar territory for me. Most of them had given into their fears at one time or another, and begged me not to leave them no matter what. I had made promises to stay with them and I meant it every time, even though it had scared the crap out of me most of time because it was a heavy thing for me to promise. Especially in the beginning. I was the only one who ever seemed hesitant with promises.
"I'm not going anywhere," I assured Dash. "I'm staying right here with you until you get sick of me and kick me out."
"Never going to happen," he said in a gruff voice. "You will always have a home here with me. Always. And it would be impossible for me to get sick of you when you're the most important person in my life and always will be."
His words filled me with a sweet warmth and left me unable to respond. How did I tell him that he was the most important person in my life too, when it was a lie? He was the most important person in the world to me when it was just the two of us alone together. But the others mattered to me just as much and it changed when I was with someone else. That didn't mean I cared for Dash any less, though. It just meant I had a heart big enough for all of them to have a special piece of. I would worry about this if it hadn't been them who'd encouraged this type of relationship in the first place.
"You're not planning on moving out on me, are you?" he inquired quietly.
I shook my head as his hands slid down my jaw and the pads of his thumbs trailed down the column of my neck. They hit the base of my throat and went wide, tracing my collarbone and, incidentally, the burn marks covering it.
I froze in place, too afraid to move. Like the scar on my face, I never hid these or tried to cover them up. They were a part of me that I wasn't ashamed of or felt the need to hide. The only reason I'd ever cover them up would be because I got sick of people boldly asking me where they'd come from. You'd be surprised how many people actually came right out and asked about my scars. It made things horribly uncomfortable and made me incredibly angry, because I didn't think it was anybody's business but my own.
