36. DEVRIM: BAD NEWS

*“Something’s happening.”
I felt shaky and weak as I followed him out of the shower. Obsidian had already dried himself by the time I snapped out of the sexual daze. When I entered the bedroom, he was busy pulling on his pants.
“Get dressed,” he snapped.
I nodded and hurried over to our clothes. The moment we were both dressed and Obsidian had his knives strapped to his body, we left the room.
Frowning, I tried not to panic as we followed the flow of people outside. Had the war already started? Were we too late to stop them?
We weren’t greeted by humans being slaughtered. Everyone was staring up at something in the sky. There was no reason for me to look up because I could already smell it, but I tilted my head back and looked up anyway.
Dark smoke filled the sky, blocking out the sun.
“Fire!” someone suddenly screamed. “The trees are on fire!”*

***

I jerked awake with my heart beating a mile a minute and fear gripping me. rubbing my eyes, I slowly sat up and sucked in a deep breath. My eyes darted around the room until they locked on them.
It wasn’t a surprise to find Obsidian already staring at me.
“How is she?”
“Better,” he rasped. “She’s finally sleeping.”
“That’s good,” I muttered.
“What’s wrong, Dev?” Obsidian asked softly. “You’ve been acting strange.”
My eyes dropped to Vanya who was snuggled close to his side and laying half on his chest. Her sleep wasn’t filled with nightmares if Obsidian was at her side.
I would hate to ruin that peace, especially if what I was thinking turned out to be untrue.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I lied.
He growled, making my eyes snap up to his and Vanya stir.
“You’re avoiding eye contact which means that you’re lying to me. Either tell me yourself or I force it out of you.”
Swallowing, I forced myself to look away from him. I stood and walked over to the door to double-check that it was locked before I walked over to the window. I didn’t move the curtain aside to peek outside even though I wanted to.
“I want to get back to the island as soon as possible,” I told him.
“Maybe it’s best for us to stay here.”
His words made me spin around to face him. “You want to stay here?” I breathed in surprise. “Do you still have a fever? I don’t think you’re aware of what you’re saying.”
Obsidian carefully detangled himself from Vanya and slid out of the bed. He swayed, making me hurry forward to steady him.
“I’m fine,” he growled as he moved out of my reach. “Our home is destroyed. It was burned to the ground along with everything we owned. We have nothing on that island anymore, Dev. No home, no family, nothing! We have nothing to fucking offer her.”
“We have us.” I pointed to him and then pressed a finger to my chest. “We have each other and right now it’s all that matters.”
He muttered something under his breath as he stormed into the bathroom. I followed him, brows dipped down into a frown as I tried to figure out what he had mumbled.
Obsidian grabbed me the moment I entered the bathroom. With a grip on my throat, he slammed me against the wall and glared at me.
“I need you to think logically, Dev.” His hold eased. “Vanya’s not going to get better if we go back to that island so soon. Do you think that seeing all that destruction will help her feel better?”
“Being around you is what’s making her better,” I growled. “The bond. It’s not about—”
“We don’t even know if Betsy’s alive,” he interrupted. “Or Ezra.”
His words gave me pause. Red was looking for Ezra but what if we returned and learned that they died? Guilt flooded me. I was so focused on helping that I hadn’t even thought of Betsy.
“I know that being here makes you uncomfortable.”
“It makes me feel unsafe,” I admitted. “We don’t know these humans. And I don’t know what to make of Monica and Iris. Iris doesn’t look like them even though she claims that they’re her parents.”
For a moment, Obsidian’s eyes dropped to my chest. Licking his lips, he blew out a breath and then looked back at me.
“Don’t worry about the humans or Iris. I’ll take care of them,” he said. “I just need you to focus on Vanya and look after her when I’m not here.”
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere.” His hand slid up to cup my cheek. “You know that I always manage to fuck things up. I need you to be able to take care of her and maybe fix things between us because Ezra’s not her to do that.”
Rolling my eyes, I gripped his hips and pulled his body closer. Obsidian growled, anger darkening his eyes as he jerked away from me.
“This isn’t funny, Devrim!”
“I’m not laughing. We all fuck up, you know that. I don’t have to be the one to fix things, Obsidian. You need to start doing that on your own. You can’t always fuck up and expect me or Ezra to fix it.” I stared at him as he paced back and forth between the bathtub and the faucet.
I could feel the anger rolling off him and it confused me even more. He should be in bed with our mate, taking care of her like she had taken care of him when he was sick.
“Are you mad at Ezra?” I risked asking him.
He spun around to face me. “Yes!” he sneered. “Why didn’t he fucking get on that plane with her? He should have been with her! He should never have allowed her to step foot in this town alone.”
“I’m sure that he has a reasonable reason as to why he did what—”
“Reasonable reason my fucking ass!”
My mouth dropped open in surprise. Letting out another low growl, Obsidian stormed out of the bathroom. I watched as he unlocked the door and stormed out of the room.
By the time I reached the door, he had already disappeared.
“Fucking idiot,” I muttered under my breath as I stepped back into the room and closed the door.
When I turned around, I found Vanya struggling to sit up in bed. Hurrying over, I gripped her arms and helped her. She blinked sleepy eyes up at me.
“Where’d he go?” she croaked.
To buy some time, I picked up the glass of water and pressed it to her lips. Vanya took a few sips before she pulled away. I placed the glass back down and then gave her my full attention.
“You look better. How do you feel?”
Her eyes narrowed, making the smile slip from my face. I sighed and reached up to wipe some of the sweat from her forehead.
“He—”
The door opened, cutting off my sentence. I relaxed when I realized that it was only Obsidian returning. He kicked the door closed behind him and locked it before he made his way over to the bed. Dropping the packets onto the bed, he hesitated a few seconds and then climbed back into the bed with Vanya.
“They don’t have anything sweet,” he grumbled.
I picked up a packet but he grabbed it from my hand and tore it open. There was no way I could stop myself from smiling as I watched him feed Vanya. As if suddenly remembering that I was there too, he held the packet out towards me.
“I’m fine.”
“You haven’t eaten at all,” he said.
“Neither have you,” I pointed out.
His eyes narrowed similar to the way Vanya’s had seconds ago. I bit back the words and reached inside the packet to pull out a chip, but instead of taking a bite myself, I held it out towards him.
“I’ll eat if you eat,” I said.
With some reluctance, Obsidian leaned forward and parted his lips.
Between the three of us, we managed to finish the whole packet. I threw the paper away and cleared the crumbs from the bed before I placed the other packets onto the bedside table. But just as I was about to slide into bed with them, someone knocked on the door.
“It’s Red. Let me in.”
I glanced at Obsidian. When he said nothing, I got up and opened the door for him.
Red stood alone in the hallway, hair wet and dripping onto his shirt. He didn’t look at me as he entered the room. His strange behavior scared me. it was clear by the look on his face that whatever news he had wasn’t going to be any good news.
“Did you find him?” Obsidian asked.
“No.” Red swallowed loudly. “I didn’t find him.”
“Then you didn’t look hard enough!”
I stepped in front of Obsidian when he stormed over to Red. The last thing we needed right now was for them to start fighting and making things a lot worse.
“Where did you search for him? Did you land your plane and look for him? Or—”
“There’s nothing left!” Red yelled. “I went there with a rescue team. The town was in the path of the fire when the wind changed direction.”
“N-no!” Vanya cried.
“I’m sorry,” Red muttered. “Ezra didn’t make it off that island.”