28. VANYA: THE VERDICT

Iris was sleeping in the loft bedroom. Unfortunately she had no mattress to sleep on but she had assured me that she was fine with sleeping on the floor. Our mattress had been moved to the unfinished bedroom and surprisingly it was a perfect fit to the bed already there.
Ezra had taken painkillers after out bath—I washed him and enjoyed the opportunity to make him orgasm twice—before he went straight to bed.
I was worried about the fact that he hadn’t eaten but Devrim assured me that he had placed some food aside for him.
Ezra was back and apart from being happy, I was worried. He hadn’t said a thing about the pride, well not to me. I knew that he had talked to Obsidian and Devrim if their grim expressions were anything to go by.
*How bad was it? Are we ever going to return? Had we lost our home for good?*
I turned my head to glance around the dark house. It wasn’t so bad but it hadn’t been turned into a home yet. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to stay because I couldn’t remember a thing about Mom, Darial and me. The only memory I had was when Darial had asked me what colour I wanted the walls of my room to be.
I remembered what she looked like. I remembered what she smelt like and sometimes I liked to think that I remembered what her hugs felt like.
But I couldn’t remember a thing about rescuing Obsidian, sneaking out to visit them or telling Mom that I wanted to marry them.
Pressing a hand to my chest, I fought the intense sadness and the urge to burst into tears. I could feel the weight pressing down on me. The guilt and the shame of what my father had done, and the sadness because I couldn’t remember the happy days with Mom. Everything had been piling up and it felt like it was about to explode.
My eyes filled with tears as the feelings intensified. I pressed my hand to my mouth when the first sob escaped.
Everything that happened was my fault.
Maybe if I had told Dev and Obsidian about the things my father wanted me to do I might have been able to prevent all those deaths.
Charlene. . .
Pain ripped through me.
Does her family hate me? What about the other families?
I wouldn’t blame them if they hated me because my father had been responsible.
And me.
I jerked upright when someone took a seat next to me. A second later, an arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me onto his lap.
“What happened?” Ezra asked softly. “Why are you sitting here in the dark crying?”
“I’m sorry,” I croaked as I curled up against his chest.
He nuzzled my hair with his cheek. “For what?”
“E-everything.”
“You think that you’re responsible for all the things that had happened to us?” he questioned.
I nodded.
“The only thing you are definitely responsible for, sugarplum, is stealing our hearts,” he whispered. “You are not responsible for your father’s actions or for those of the pride. Whatever’s happening now would still have happened. They are just using you as an excuse to do what they had been planning for years.”
Ezra wiped my tears away with a shaky hand and then gently gripped my chin to tilt my head back.
“What else is bothering you?”
My eyes fluttered open. “I’m bothered about the fact that I can’t remember saving Obsidian or anything else about Mom.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” he muttered. “I read somewhere that traumatic experiences might lead to amnesia. It’s possible that something might have happened—”
“Something like what?” I interrupted him.
“I don’t know.”
I sighed. “I miss Charlene. I miss having someone to talk to.”
“You have someone to talk to, Vanya. You have me.”
“It’s not the same,” I whispered, sitting up.
“Why isn’t it the same?” he asked.
Ezra parted his legs, making me slide in-between them. I turned to face him a bit more.
“I’m sure that you don’t want to hear about my sex-capades with Dev and Obsidian,” I told him. “Or hear about my shitty period that always starts at the worst of times.”
“I don’t mind hearing about your sex-capades with them.” His lips brushed my forehead. “I might be able to learn something from them.”
I pressed a hand to the side of his neck as I tilted my head back to capture his lips. “You don’t need to learn anything,” I whispered against his lips.
“Liar,” he breathed. “There’s a lot I need to learn.”
He slid a hand into my hair and kissed me again before I could utter a word. I sat up on my knees as I wrapped my arms around his neck. Feeling the bandages was like being thrown with a bucket full of ice water.
I jerked away. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.” Ezra gripped my hips. “Stop worrying about me. You’ll know if something’s wrong.”
“I’ll warm your food for you.”
I froze when his hold on my hips tightened. My brows dipped into a frown as I waited for him to explain why he stopped me.
“I need to talk to you about something,” he said softly. “They set a trap from me. It’s how I met Iris.”
“They knew you were lying?”
Ezra sighed loudly. “It was my own fault. I should have been careful and I was but when I thought that you had been captured. . .I was careless.”
I waited silently for him to continue after he fell silent. Ezra’s hands slipped underneath my t-shirt. I shivered as his fingers brushed my skin.
“He wanted me to show my loyalty to him by killing Iris.” Ezra swallowed loudly. “I knew that she was related to you because your blood smells the same.”
“Are you—?”
“I’m positive, Vanya,” he interrupted me. “She’s your cousin.”
A laugh fell from my lips. “I have more family. I have a cousin, an aunt and uncle.”
Some of the excitement faded when Ezra didn’t join in on my celebration. “What?”
“I learned something else,” he told me. “It’s possible for you to carry our pups. Iris is half human and half panther.”
I blinked at him in shock.
Was that what she was about to tell me when Devrim interrupted us?
“Does that mean that either my aunt or uncle—”
“We don’t know,” Obsidian growled, suddenly appearing and making both of us jerk in fright. “I told you not to tell her anything.”
Ezra hissed at him. “It involves her which gives her the right to know what’s happening.”
“You—”
“Do you want to fuck things up again by lying to her?” he interrupted Obsidian.
Obsidian growled and stormed off into the darkness. Ezra muttered something under his breath as he dropped his forehead to my chest. Moving closer to him, I carefully straddled his lap and pressed a hand to the back of his head.
“Thank you for telling me,” I whispered against his ear.
He shivered. “Did he follow my instructions with the flowers?”
It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about. “He did.”
I massaged his scalp with my fingertips as I told him what happened in the bathroom and then everything that I could remember that happened afterwards.
“You’re good for him,” Ezra said after I fell silent.
“He said that he’s going to make sure that I don’t accidentally get knocked up.”
Ezra chuckled as he raised his head a few inches to press his lips to my ear. I sucked in a breath when he nipped my earlobe.
“Try as he might, Obsidian won’t be able to control every aspect of our life,” he whispered. “But we need to get back home first.”
“Is it bad?”
“Nothing we can’t handle, sugarplum.”
I blinked when light suddenly flooded the room. It dimmed slightly, revealing the man carrying the lamp and the plate he held in his other hand.
“Just for being an asshole, you can eat cold food,” Obsidian growled.
My eyes narrowed. “You’re mean.”
“You’ve called me worse than that, sweets,” he muttered.
“Much worse,” Devrim muttered as he joined us, arms stretched out above his head and eyes still half closed.
“Are we having a slumber party?” I asked.
They blinked at me. Rolling my eyes, I took the plate from Obsidian and started feeding Ezra. Despite Obsidian’s claim that he was going to eat cold food, he had actually taken the time to heat it.
Devrim was the first to break the silence. He sat up and ran a hand through his already messy hair.
“We need a plan,” he said, “and then we need to get back there and take the bastard down.”
“It won’t be easy,” Ezra told him. “We’re outnumbered.”
I placed the plate aside and climbed from Ezra’s lap to settle next to him and Obsidian. Reaching out, I slipped my hands into theirs and rested my head against Ezra’s shoulder.
“I might have a plan.” He cleared his throat. “The brothers are on our side. They might be able to full us in on what had been happening after we escaped.”
Devrim sighed. “I didn’t want to involve them.”
“They’re involved whether we like it or not,” Obsidian growled. “Tell me about this plan you have.”