Chapter 13
The days after the attack had been a blur. Mari had found it impossible to sleep in the house, every time she did, she found herself back with Blake. As blissful as she could find those dreams to be, the guilt she felt afterwards was eating her alive. She fled to Ben’s loft shortly after and had found that at least with a little distance things were marginally more bearable.
Ben had been out of town for work, and when Mari told him there had been a fire at her house, he had told Mari to make herself at home. At least with a little distance, she wasn’t having to fight the urge to see Blake face-to-face. She had found herself almost to the door of the room they had him locked in a few times before she realized what she was even doing. Riley had been called away for a while to help with tracking, leaving Mari with nothing to distract her from Blake and her guilt.
She was curled up on Ben’s couch, midway through binge-watching her favorite medical drama, when she heard the door open. Her eyes swept up to meet Ben’s guiltily as she scrambled to clean up the evidence of her snacking all over his couch.
She tried to say his name around a mouthful of cheese poofs, crumbs spilling forth from her mouth across her lap. Mari hadn’t expected Ben back from his trip for another day, so she felt like she must look like a complete disaster.
Ben took in the comforting sight of Mari curled up on his couch with a pang of desire. He desperately wished he could come home to her like that all the time. Her hair was piled on top of her head in some sort of mass of blonde curls, small ringlets escaping all over. She was wearing one of his tee-shirts, and some skimpy shorts.
Ben deposited his bags to the side of the door and pushed it closed with his foot. He walked swiftly across the room, loosening his tie as he walked. He bent down and pulled her up into a tight hug, lifting her up from the couch. She had told him about the fire, and that she was still recovering from the smoke and the damage it had caused. Ben had felt like the world had been ripped out from underneath him. He couldn’t imagine what he would do if anything happened to her.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” he whispered against her shoulder as she wound her arms up around him to return the hug. He smiled as he heard the soft crunches of her trying to finishing chewing the mouthful of crispy food before she answered.
“I’m fine,” Mari assured him after she swallowed the lump of food with difficulty, “Really.”
Ben pulled back from her, inspecting her as he settled her back on her feet. His hands were on her shoulders, and he was shocked to find that she was indeed outwardly fine. A wrinkle creased between his eyebrows as he looked at her. He was surprised if she had damage from the smoke to her lungs that she wasn’t still recovering from any burns from the proximity to the fire. He tried to tell himself it was yet another thing he would have to chalk up to just something that was different about Mari.
“Have they heard any news about Magni?” Ben asked, sitting down on the couch and pulling her back down next to him.
Mari winced as Ben sat in a pile of crumbs in his dress pants. She was sure he was going to come away with speckles of orange all over his behind. She moved to try and brush the crumbs to the floor but Ben placed his hand gently over hers to stop her.
“Leave it. How’s your brother?”
Mari inhaled deeply and let out a ragged exhausted breath. She wanted so badly to pour her heart out to Ben, and tell him absolutely everything, but she knew that would get them both in more trouble than she was already dealing with.
“Magni’s doing better,” she sighed, “Rena…she’s still missing.”
“I still don’t understand why someone would do that. Set fire to your house and kidnap Rena. Has your father called the police? Are they searching? I haven’t heard anything on the news.”
Mari shook her head slowly, trying to rationalize what lie she would tell Ben this time. She had been so used to seamlessly weaving reality and her story for Ben, that she hadn’t thought about the practicalities that were involved when a human was kidnapped.
“My Dad is so private, you know. He’s just hired private investigators to find her. The best of the best, supposedly,” she replied lacking the enthusiasm to really sell her lie.
Ben was silent for a moment, taking in everything that she was saying and realizing just how much she didn’t want to tell him. He couldn’t understand why she was so insistent on lying to him about everything. He knew it was a lie, he had noticed over the years how things would shift slightly from one story to the next. He had simply let it all slide as it was less important to him. He didn’t want to risk upsetting Mari and losing her, but the stronger he felt for her, the more it stung when she lied to him.
Ben leveled her with a rather hurt look. Too tired to keep up the charade with her.
“Are you ever going to tell me the real story behind all this? Was there even a fire?” He asked quietly, steadying himself as he worked to find the right words to explain himself to her, “I want so badly to ignore it like I always do, but I don’t think you understand. I love you, and not in the simple, uncomplicated, best friends’ way. I think about you constantly, awake or asleep. I wanted nothing more when I walked through that door than to kiss you, hard, pick you up and carry you to the bed, and just fall into bed and not come out for a week.”
Mari stared at him, wide-eyed and terrified of the impact his words were having on her small charade of normalcy. She felt it shattering around her as he spoke. Mari could picture a life with Ben. She could easily imagine them getting married, starting a family, and settling down. The problem was, in that picture she would have to turn away from everyone in her family. She would have to be stripped of her powers, and become something she wasn’t. She didn’t know that she could do that.
Worse than the selfishness that would keep her from giving up her power, she felt it to the very depth of her soul that her heart was already with someone else, despite everything she tried to do to fight against it.
“Say something,” Ben said quietly after a long, awkward moment passed. He wanted to desperately to hear her return those words.
“I can’t,” Mari said pleading, “I can’t be who you need me to be. I can’t tell you the whole truth about my family. I can’t even say I can give you my whole heart like I know you want me to.”
“There’s someone else?” Ben asked, the words feeling like a knife to his heart.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I told you, I can’t explain it all. There was someone, but he’s awful. Me choosing him, was the reason everything happened and Rena is gone. I keep trying to move past it, and let him go, but I just can’t.”
Tears fell from Mari’s eyes as she met Ben’s with guilt pouring over her. She couldn’t even explain it to herself, let alone explaining it to Ben, who was in the dark on most of the vital details. She wiped furiously at the tears running down her face.
“I’ll go.”
Mari pushed herself up from the couch as she saw Ben’s resolve crumbling before her. She crossed the room and started throwing her few belongings back in her bag. She worked so hard to keep her guard up, not allowing his emotions to flood her. She didn’t want to feel it. She couldn’t survive feeling his heart break at her hand.
Ben rose from the couch and crossed the room to where she was gathering all her things frantically. She zipped up the bag and stood to turn for the door but he was standing in front of her. His hands hung at his sides. The sting of her words was still echoing in his mind.
“Choose me,” he said simply, “If this other guy is so awful…stay here with me. I won’t ask any more questions. I won’t push things. I can be patient. But just, pick me instead.”
Mari was overwhelmed by the pleading look in Ben’s eyes. She knew she had to be the most selfish creature to ever walk the Earth as she inhaled and looked up at him. She didn’t know how to make him understand, and all she could think of was to be as honest as she could.
“I can’t, Ben,” she explained with an apologetic shake of her head, “It’s not something I can choose. He’s like this missing piece I didn’t know was gone. He could burn the world to ash around me and it would still be him…every time. I’m so sorry.”
The tears were streaming down her face, as she watched Ben sink to his knees. Try as she might, her resolve cracked, and his emotions crashed into her. She felt his heart fracturing into a million pieces. Mari had no idea how she was going to live with herself.
“You deserve someone so much better than me, Ben,” she offered as she stepped towards the door, “I’m so sorry.”
Mari fled for her car quickly, wishing more than anything she had never even met Ben. She thought he would have been so much better off without her. How many more people was she going to destroy? She spent the drive back to her home drowning in self-loathing as her tears dried on her face. She knew that she had broken things with Ben irreparably, and wasn’t sure she deserved to feel like anything other than the miserable pile of crap she was.
Hours and many tears later, Mari pulled her car into the garage at her home. It didn’t feel like home anymore, but she didn’t know where else to go, or what to do with herself, really. She grabbed her small bag, and walked up the small path towards the gate. She was distracted, absorbed in her self-abusive thoughts. She hadn’t noticed who was on duty at the gate, or Fin sliding out of the booth and blocking her path until she ran into him.
“Mari, Mari, Mari…”
He said it with a low and dangerous tone that Mari knew all too well with him. He was blocking the small gate that she needed to enter. She took a steadying breath and leveled him with an annoyed look.
“Fin,” she sighed, “Please, leave me alone. I just want to go to bed.”
“Well, much as I wish I could oblige that request, I’ve been instructed specifically to frisk anyone suspicious entering the premises. Those shorts look awfully suspicious to me,” he said with a smirk spread across his face.
Mari’s face blanched as she realized she had run out the door still in Ben’s tee-shirt and her shorts. She backed up a step as Fin tried to close the distance between them, not realizing that she was backing up against the wall of the small guards’ shed.
Fin closed the distance between them, his hands grabbing her wrists and pinning her against the wall with his hips. He held her wrists firmly in one hand, letting the other grope roughly at the curve of her ass, pulling the shorts down.
“Fin, stop it! Leave me alone.”
Mari was struggling against him, but it didn’t seem to have much effect. She was emotionally and physically drained, and he would have overpowered her even on her best day. She cried out as she felt her shorts pulled away. A sinking voice in the back of her mind thought perhaps this was what she had deserved all along. Her mind was struggling with how to fight against the much larger man before her as his hand was fumbling at his pants between them.
Something slammed into Fin, shoving him off Mari and tumbling to the ground. Her eyes were trying to adjust as she pulled distractedly at her shorts to pull them back up. Recognition and relief flooded her as she saw Riley landing several punches to Fin’s face before pinning him squarely to the ground beneath powerful legs. She inhaled a steadying breath as her mind caught up with everything that was happening.
“Riley,” she gasped as she heard a sickening crunch of bones, “Stop, he’s not worth it.”
Mari’s words cut through the rage that Riley had been letting ride him. He stopped and looked down at the miserable excuse for a guard on the ground before him. Fin was a bloody mess, bones in his face would take some definite time to heal. Riley pressed a hand flat against his chest and pushed all his weight against the Fae as he leaned forward, flexing every ounce of power he could muster against the cowardly man.
“You ever touch another woman who doesn’t want you to again, I will find you,” Riley growled, the power in his words reverberating through his body as Fin’s ribs crunched slightly under the power and weight of the Dragon bearing down on him. “If you ever even think about looking at that woman again, and I will rip every appendage off your body and eat it for lunch, you sack of shit.”
Mari stared in awe as Riley rose from the ground as if the fight had been nothing, while Fin sputtered blood before rolling on his side and crawling off towards the housing. Riley turned to her with his eyes blazing the brightest blue she’d ever seen; his teeth were elongated and looked like daggers. She’d never seen any dragon shifter fully shift, let alone partially shift. Her mind was still in shock over everything that was happening.
Riley strode towards her, his eyes fading back to their usual grey, and his teeth receding, even his body seemed to come down in size a bit. He placed his hands gently on her shoulders, bending to examine her and see if she was ok.
“Did he hurt you? I swear I can still find him even without flying and I’ll end him,” Riley snapped, “No questions asked.”
Mari shook her head, tears burning as they started to flow all over again. She was sure her eyes were puffy with all the crying she had been doing, and she felt like such an idiot. Shame and guilt were running rampant over her, and her shoulders collapsed shaking as sobs began to wrack her body.
Riley pulled her close to him, wrapping her in a strong, protective hug. He reached in his pocket and retrieved his cell phone, tapping through his contacts for the other guard station. He kept his other arm tight around Mari as he waited for someone to pick up the other line.
“This is Eisold. That walking sack of shit, Fin, the cocky one who’s supposed to be on guard up front? He needs to be replaced immediately. I’ll report in a bit, but he’s not to be left on any shifts without someone who can babysit him, understood? He’s probably hauling his sorry ass off to medical for all I know, but get someone up here, now.”
Mari looked up at Riley’s shirt in between sobs as she began to calm down. This was not her. She was not the one to cry like this. She had left a wet splotch of tears and who knows what else smeared all over Riley’s torso.
“Sorry,” she sniffed as she wiped furiously at her nose and face, “You’re a mess.”
“You’re sorry? What do you have to be sorry for? That sack of shit was reported a week ago for getting handsy with one of the girls in the kitchen. He had that coming a hundred times over,” Riley fumed.
Mari looked up at him with a bit of confusion as she glanced at the guard shack behind them, where an alternate was replacing Fin as they stood there. Mari’s body started shivering uncontrollably, her teeth chattering.
“Since when do Fae guards listen to you?” she asked, as her curiosity piqued, when the guard gave Riley a curt nod.
“Since your father and uncle decided I needed to oversee the perimeters in Magni’s absence,” he sighed with a bewildered look, “I know, right? I wouldn’t have been my first choice either, but apparently, someone has to do it for the time being.”
Mari swayed a little as the shivers increased in strength. Riley bent a little and scooped her up in his arms. She tensed at the closeness, still shook by the encounter with Fin. Riley kept his hands politely behind her back and under her knees without any sort of lustful emotions creeping in. Mari could sense that all he was worried about in that moment was making sure she was ok.
“So, aside from the walking tool bench that we won’t ever discuss again, what’s wrong?” Riley asked as his long strides brought them quickly across the courtyard and up to the main house.
“Oh, I don’t think I even know where to start,” she sighed as she let her head rest against his shoulder. “I’m just epically ruining everyone’s lives around me. Mari the destructor.”
“I think you’re taking too much of that on yourself, babe,” Riley reassured her, as he shifted her lightly against his knee as he reached to open the door to the house, “There’s far more evil people at work in this world now trying to ruin lives.”
“I think I broke my friend’s heart tonight,” she admitted, feeling the weight of it easing off her chest a bit, “He said he loved me, I told him I couldn’t return it, that there was someone else.”
Riley nodded solemnly as he walked through the hallway towards the room that was temporarily assigned to him. He was wary of taking Mari back to her own room until he was certain that Fin had been removed from the premises completely.
“Well, it’s easy to fall for you. But who can compete with the likes of a fated soul-mate?” Riley replied with a dry, bitter laugh. In a perfect world, he would have thought of pursuing Mari himself, but he had seen enough of the exchange between her and Blake to know that that ship had sailed.
Riley set Mari down outside his door and pulled the key out of his pocket, handing it to her. “Stay here for tonight, okay?” He explained as he nodded back towards the direction he came, “I need to make sure all of that is handled before I can let you go back to your rooms. You’ll be fine, I just need to go handle reports and all of that.”
“Okay,” Mari agreed quietly as she nodded, “Thanks, by the way.”
“Always,” he replied with a wink before he turned and walked briskly down the hallway.
Mari couldn’t help but wonder how differently everything would have been if it had been Riley she had been connected with instead of Blake. Even as the thought drifted through her mind, she realized, it never would have been. It was always supposed to be Blake.