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I realized I was rambling nervously, but couldn't seem to stop myself. I felt as if I stopped speaking he would bring up the brothers and tell me how messed up it was that I said they could stay with us. Those were decisions we should have made together as a group and I had just said yes on the fly.
"I mean, when I went to the motel with Tyson, I saw them all having sex with that horrible Annabell. Like, all of them at the same time. I've seen Adrian naked and he doesn't even know about it. Doesn't that seem like some sort of extreme violation on my part? I certainly don't want him to see me naked."
I shuddered at the thought of my body replacing Annabell's on that bed and almost threw up all over myself.
Damien's palm landed softly on my thigh and I jumped at the unexpected contact.
"Why are you all of a sudden acting like you're nervous with me?" he questioned in a strained voice.
Damn, they all knew me so well. I couldn't hide anything with them.
Time to put on my big girl panties and be honest with him, lying wasn't something I'd do.
"I didn't ask everybody before I said they could stay. What I did was—"
He squeezed my thigh. "Stop, just stop. Quinton would have told them they could stay had you not done it. He would never leave people like that with the Council and that would have been the case, even before you came along."
"What do you mean, people like that?" I asked curiously.
He sighed as he let go of my thigh and sat back in his seat. "Their tragedy is written all over them. Maybe you didn't notice it since yours is the exact same way and you don't see tragedy the same way the rest of us do because, to you, it just seems normal. Not everybody sees it that way though and those guys had it written all over them. The way they latched onto you like you were their last lifeline spoke volumes about how much they don't have in their lives. They got lucky with you, though, because there are a lot of people out there who would have taken one look at them and used their desperate vulnerability against them and taken advantage of them. You'd never do that. Honestly, them being in the Council's hands is also kind of terrifying. If what Rain says is true and all they've done their whole lives is train to be the ultimate warriors slash bodyguards, then that makes them a serious weapon the Council could have used to their benefit. That they actually brought them out and had them meeting females is a miracle all in itself. They probably thought there was no way they'd connect with someone the way they did with you, and then the Council would get to keep them under the guise of wanting to give them a safe home and a family."
Huh. I really hadn't thought to look at it like that. I was only worried about how much of a burden they were going to be for me if they stayed, not what could have happened to them if they'd had to remain with the Council.
"Quinton has never been like you and worn his tragedy draped all around him like a cloak," he said quietly, hesitantly. It was almost as if he were afraid someone would overhear him and he'd get in trouble for sharing secrets.
"Quinton is a lot stronger than I am," I admitted what I believed as gospel. They all were. Damien too.
"I don't think he'd agree with you on that one. He's just a lot better at hiding it than you are. But, it's still there with him, the pain of his past, and he will carry it everywhere with him until the day he dies. I know he can seem gruff and like an asshole at times, but he's the best of us and has a heart made of pure gold. He's just better at hiding it."
Funny, I was thinking something along those lines about Quinton myself earlier. I was glad to hear I wasn't alone in feeling that way.
"My point is," he continued softly, "they were more than likely coming home with us anyway. Don't worry too much about what the others will think. It's all going to work out just how it should."
As I turned onto the long dirt road that ended in front of Dash's cottage, I hoped like hell he knew what he was talking about.
As it turned out, we had bigger things to worry about than whether or not the guys were upset by our latest additions.
Like, the cottage being on fire.
Chapter Twelve
"What the..."
I slowed down as I leaned toward the windshield, as if that would help me make sense of what I was actually seeing.
"Is that... smoke?"
"Drop me off here and head to Quinton's, Ariel. Now," Damien ordered.
My heart sunk at his words. It really was smoke billowing up above the trees. If Damien thought everything was fine, he wouldn't have told me to turn around and leave him here.
I pressed my foot down on the gas and sped up.
We drove over a dirt mound that was black and ran all the way across the road and into the trees. It looked charred, burnt, and I assumed went all the way around the house in a large circle. The magical barrier that had been put up around the house for protection hadn't just been broken, but completely shattered.
This was bad, so very bad, and Dash was home all by himself.
"What could break that kind of a magical ward?" I asked in a shaky voice. "We all worked on that thing, even Rain. It should be able to stand against anything. They told me it was safe here."
