AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He leaned over the table and I reciprocated the gesture.
"Tell me you said no," I begged. "Those are not good people, Marcus, and you know this. You of all people know this. How could you possibly want that for your life? How could you possibly wantthemin your life?"
I didn't understand any of this and I know it didn't make much sense, but I honestly felt a little betrayed that he would even consider such a thing. And it also scared me on his behalf. If something happened to Marcus, it would rip a hole in my heart that would be irreparable.
Marcus's face took on an ugly look, an angry one I'd never seen on him before.
"I know what Rain is," he whispered in a dark voice, which I wouldn't have recognized as his if he wasn't sitting directly across from me while speaking. "And I know what his family does. I guess I could say what your family does."
I jerked back in the seat and began to shake uncontrollably. The dishes on the table began to rattle along with my body and the lights overhead flickered.
First, Quinton had threatened Rain. Now, Marcus was sitting across from me, and talking about things that he shouldn’t have been talking about and they involved Rain.
Rain was mine, all mine, and nobody, absolutely nobody, got to mess with him. Not even Marcus Cole.
I placed my palms flat against the table and leaned forward hostilely. "How dare you," I spat out. "If you think you can sell Rain out to the Council then you've got another thing coming, Marcus. He's myfamily,the only real blood family I have left, and if you cared about me at all, you would shut your damn mouth and never speak of this or him in this way again. You have to know that you mean the world to me and I love you. But this..." I shook my head. "This is what's going to be the death of that love I have for you."
Marcus reached across the table and picked up my hands in his own. He squeezed them gently. The angry look on his face melted away and the kindness he usually radiated when I was around started to shine through.
My shaking slowed down minimally, until only a slight tremor remained. The heat he gave off engulfed my hands and spread up my arms, seeping into my skin and filling my body with warmth.
"I hate the Council," he whispered hoarsely, the emotion thick in his voice. "With every ounce of my soul, I hate every single member of the Council. Most people would be overjoyed by being asked to join their ranks. I am not like most people."
I squeezed his hands in a show of support. I was right there with him in his hatred, only I didn't have a personal reason to hate them the way he did. I disliked them because of their views on women and shady behavior. Plus, it didn't hurt that they terrified me.
"I'm going to take them up on the offer, I think," he divulged, in the same thick voice.
My body twitched and I tried to jerk my hands away from his. He wouldn't let me go.
"They do despicable things, Ariel. Unimaginable things, and they get away with it because there's no one to stand up to them. My poor sister... I want to do this for her. For all the other females out there whose lives are lost to the Council."
My eyes bulged and I hissed, "They're killing girls?"
What the hell? That went against everything I'd heard about them and seen for myself. It made absolutely no sense to me that they would kill them.
"No, sweetheart, that's not what I meant at all," he rushed out to assure me. "I just meant that to end up in their clutches is to lose your life, because it's no longer your own to live. Once the Council has control over you, it's over for you for the rest of your life because you no longer have free will. That's what they did with my sister and she couldn't handle it. It destroyed my family and ruined her. It happens to too many of our females and there's nothing to stop them from doing it."
He drew in a deep, shuddering breath and my heart hurt for him and those girls he was talking about. I was lucky to have been found by my coven when I was, because the Council could no longer get their greedy hands on me. They'd have to go through my entire coven in order to get me.
"The only way I know to be able to help my people is by joining the Council and trying to make some sort of a difference from the inside. In a way, it's the only way I can see to actually make an attempt at a successful stand against them. But, if you can't get on board and be okay with it, then I want you to be honest with me and I won't do it."
I pulled on my hands and this time he let me go. He sat back in his side of the booth and his eyes grew guarded. He was worried I was going to wrongfully judge him and thought this was going to be the turning point in our relationship where things went badly for us. It's what he didn't want me to see behind that guard he'd put up.
I took a drink of my pop and tried to calm myself down while I did it. It hurt me to know that he thought I would ever try to stop him from doing something he felt so strongly about. When he went to move away and I wanted him to stay with me so badly, I never said a word to him about him staying because I knew how important it was to him for him to go at the time. I had my moments like any other teenager out there where I could be selfish, that was just life. But I'd never been selfish where Marcus was concerned and I didn't appreciate that he thought I was capable of being so with him now.
I set my pop down on the table and sat back in my booth. I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him.
His guard fell away and he grinned at me.
"What do you have to smile about?" I grumbled.
"It's good to see you," he said, "to finally see who you really are when you're not having to hide from everybody around you. You've got quite the personality and, if I must say, attitude. It looks good on you. I wish you had felt safe enough in my home for it to have come out when you lived with me, but I understand why you had to keep yourself hidden away."
I looked down at the tabletop to avoid having to meet his eyes at the moment. There was too much emotion there and it was making me feel uncomfortable.
"Thanks," I muttered ungraciously. Not that what he'd said about having an attitude really warranted receiving a thank you from me. "Of course I’ll support you in this. I'd support anything you decided to do because you're a good person, Marcus. I know you're not capable of doing something that would hurt others. I actually think that it's a really good idea, but not something I think I could ever stomach doing myself. I don't think I'd be able to spend that much time around them without my true feelings coming out and ruining the whole thing."
Marcus relaxed, and at seeing it, I knew how much it meant to him to have my support. I knew in that moment I was going to have a seriously uncomfortable conversation with Rain, because I wasn't going to allow him to threaten Marcus in any way anymore, he meant too much to me, and if Rain did anything to him it would ruin our relationship forever. I didn't want to be the person to tell Rain what he could and couldn't do, that didn't sound like it would be fun for me and I knew he wouldn't take it well. Maybe it would be something I could try and pawn off on Quinton.
