CHAPTER 17 – THE PULL-BACK
1061 Words
LAYLA'S POV
I'm still tasting copper from last night's reckoning when I notice that Rafe has moved one seat further away at breakfast again.
He is pulling back and he thinks I haven't noticed.
He’s sitting one seat further at meals – far enough that our thighs no longer brush under the table. He doesn't come to my door at night. He doesn't stand guard near my end of the hallway. When we pass in the corridor, he meets my eyes but doesn't hold them the way he used to – the way that made the air go thick between us and turned my brain to static.
I notice immediately because I've been watching these three men with the same precision I watch Megan's council. I know the difference between Rafe being quiet and Rafe choosing silence. This is the second one, and it started the morning after he slept with me.
Colt notices too. He doesn't say anything directly, but he's started making comments at strategic moments.
"Is it cold in here, or is it just Rafe's end of the table?"
Nobody laughs. And even if I know everyone can feel the charge, nobody wants to name it.
Eli also watches me more than usual lately – like he is trying to solve an equation that involves all four of us. His dark eyes track between me and Rafe like he's measuring the distance and trying to calculate what created it.
And because of all the tension, my training sessions become unbearable.
Rafe still teaches hand-to-hand because he's not the kind of man who abandons a commitment, but the three extra seconds I’d started getting used to are gone. His hands correct my form and release immediately. His chest against my back during hold demonstrations lasts exactly as long as it needs to and not one breath longer. He's precise where he used to be lingering. Professional where he used to be charged.
I hate it. I hate it even more than I hated wanting him.
After our session, when the room is empty and it's just us and the mats and the silence, I say it.
"You're avoiding me."
"I'm not."
The chill runs down my spine instantly with the metallic taste right behind it. My body calls the lie before my brain finishes processing the sentence.
"Yes, you are. And I want to know why."
"Layla–"
"Don't 'Layla' me. Just a few days ago your forehead was against mine and you told me to look at you while you were inside me. Now you can't sit next to me at breakfast?" I step closer. "What changed?"
His jaw tightens. "Nothing changed."
Another chill. Another lie. My body is practically screaming at me.
"Something is wrong with you." I'm close enough to see the tension in his neck, the way his hand is clenched at his side. "You're not sleeping. You keep pulling your sleeve down. And you're looking at me like being near me is costing you something."
"Drop it."
"No."
"Layla, I said drop it–"
"And I said no." I grab his arm.
He pulls back but I hold on – not hard, just firm – and he lets me because stopping me would mean something he's not ready to explain.
His sleeve shifts slightly when he tries to twist free, and I see it.
Dark lines spreading from his inner wrist toward his elbow. Like ink forming under his skin, branching outward in a pattern that looks almost like vines. It starts at the exact point on his wrist where I've watched him pull his sleeve down a hundred times.
"Rafe." My voice drops. "What is that?"
He stops pulling away and his whole body goes still.
I push his sleeve up before he can stop me and see that the vine has spread halfway to his inner elbow. It's dark – almost black at the center, fading to deep purple at the edges – and it pulses faintly under the training room light like it has its own heartbeat.
"What is this?" I whisper.
He doesn't answer. His grey eyes are on my face, and his jaw is clenched so tight I can see the muscle working.
"Please tell me, Rafe. What is this?"
He pulls his arm back. "It's nothing."
The chill runs down my spine so fast it almost makes me flinch. Lie. A big one.
"Don't do that." I grab his wrist again. "Don't lie to me. I can tell when people lie now. I don't know how, but I can, and you just lied to my face."
His jaw tightens. "Layla–"
"Is it because of me? Did I do something?”
Silence.
"Rafe. Answer me."
"Yes." The word comes out like it costs him something. "It's because of what we did."
My chest tightens. "What is it?"
He looks at my hand on his wrist. Then at my face. Then at the ceiling, like he's asking for permission from someone who isn't in the room.
"When I was sixteen, your father made me swear an oath." His voice is low. "A blood oath. He pressed his thumb right here–" he taps the center of the mark with his free hand "–and made me promise two things. Protect you. And never touch you."
The room goes very still.
"I swore it. I meant it. And the magic settled into my bones and I carried it for six years without breaking it once." He looks at me. "Then I walked to your door."
"And this–" I run my fingers along the vine spreading up his forearm. "This is the price."
"This is the price."
"How bad is it going to get?"
"I don't know." He pauses. "It spreads every time I break it."
"Every time you–" I stare at him. "Every time you touch me?"
He doesn't answer, but he doesn't need to because I'm looking at the vine and it's already halfway to his elbow, and I'm counting backwards to every moment his hands have been on me and it meant something, and every single one of those moments is written on his skin.
"You knew." My voice is barely a whisper. "You knew this would happen before you came to my door."
"Yes."
"And you came anyway."
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