Destructive Embrace (24 page)

“You still pity me, I see,” I murmured,
ignoring her hand in favor of standing up on my own. Her hurt
expression didn’t go unnoticed by me, but I ignored it. “Have you
not learned your lesson, pet?”

Elyssa’s green eyes widened, and she
turned her body away from me as though to run. “Why would I have to
learn my lesson?” she asked. Her voice shook. “Haven’t we learned
already that you are unable to kill me?”

I chuckled, shrugging a shoulder
carelessly. “You never know,” I said thoughtfully. “I might be able
to claim your life one day.” There was a teasing edge to my words,
and she picked up on it, her shoulders sagging in
relief.

“Come on,” she grumbled, turning her
back to me and walking toward the door. “When we’re done up there,
I’ll help you down here with what needs to be done.”

I was startled. “You want to help?” She
couldn’t even manage to move Reid’s body. “You do realize that you
never even moved your Mate’s dead body?” I had no qualms about
letting her know that she was suddenly being ridiculous.

“Besides, if you couldn’t manage to do
that for your own Mate, you definitely shouldn’t offer up your
services to help me out,” I chuckled darkly.

She looked sad, letting out a sigh.
“Come on.”

I followed her out and we slowly made
our way up to the attic, taking the staircase painfully slow. The
silence was odd; heavy but not awkward.

I handed her the key from my pocket,
and she carefully opened the door, letting us both in. Elyssa
closed the door behind us, and lit a few candles in various places
in the room.

Our eyes both landed on the portrait of
my mother, and then we stared at each other. “If you need privacy,
I can leave so you can talk with her,” Elyssa offered, surprising
me once more.

“I’m sure whatever I have to say to her
can be said in front of you,” I murmured, though I wasn’t entirely
sure about that.

After all, how was I supposed to rant
about this woman with her standing right behind me? I guess I just
wouldn’t.

“Reid’s back to life, Mom,” I murmured,
kneeling before the portrait. “Tywin didn’t quite kill him all the
way. He wanted to be able to come back to the body at a later
date.”

I paused, drawing in a shaky
breath.

“Mother, I’ve let my whole family
down,” I cried. Elyssa drew in a startled breath behind me, and I
struggled to continue despite her presence.

“First, letting Reid die, and assisting
in his death. Now, Wyatt is gone, as he chose to save the life of
the woman he kept here, instead of letting her life be taken. I’ve
also lost the woman I brought here last time,” I said, willing my
voice to be stronger.

"Zeke, stop," Elyssa breathed. She
stepped up behind me and set her hands on my shoulders. "You aren't
a horrible person!"

Though she sounded so insistent, I knew
she was wrong. There was just so much that I'd done to harm my
family, when I was supposed to be taking care of them all. "I
shouldn't have let Wyatt die," I muttered. "I should have taken his
place."

She sighed. "If that was an option, I'm
sure that he would have let you," she murmured, stroking my
hair.

I paused. Elyssa barely knew my
brother; there was no way she could have known that about him.
Unless...

"No," I breathed, turning around to
stare at Elyssa with wide eyes. The woman stared down at me gently,
her green eyes full of care and adoration. Those green eyes, which
I had so many times compared to my mother's...

"Mom?" I asked. There was no way. She
was a pure woman, someone who would never take over someone's body
without their permission. Not to mention, I doubted that she had
the power to do so.

She smiled and nodded once. "I entered
this young woman's mind and asked if I could borrow her body for
just a short while. She was kind enough to agree, because she cares
for you very much," she paused. "Even though you two have wronged
your brother, I think you should appreciate just how much this
woman feels for you." My mother looked at me with a small smirk, as
though hinting toward something.

I stood up, swiping at my face with my
sleeves, and she swatted my hands away in favor of dabbing at my
face with a handkerchief. "As for what you are going through, I
cannot say that I understand. But I have been looking out for you.
You are my boys, after all. And this girl is someone that was meant
to come into your lives."

"Mother, how can you say that when
Wyatt is dead now?" I asked, turning away from her and
scowling.

She chuckled. "Because he was never
meant to live this long anyway. Wyatt was very sick as a baby. You
were never allowed to find out about it, but somehow he made it
through anyway, and when he learned of what was supposed to be his
fate, he devoted his life to study, to try to figure out everything
he could about the nuances of our world.

"He knew that one day, he would need to
give up his life in order to save someone else, and he wanted to
leave behind a lot of knowledge for those that he left."

I didn't understand. "He was sick? Why
could I not know about it? And how did he get better?" My head
throbbed from the onslaught of new information about my own family
and my own life.

"We never found out what it was; only
that he was deteriorating fast. We also never learned what saved
him, although I somewhat suspect that it was Tywin that cast some
sort of magic on him so that he would be able to survive," she
murmured. "Which is why we, Wyatt and I, knew that he was not meant
to stay on this Earth so this long."

"So you never pushed him to play with
us like a normal child," I finished quietly. My mother nodded. "He
is at peace now?" I asked, trying to verify that I had not, in
fact, ruined my family for good. She nodded again, smiling
widely.

"I have to go now, my son," she
whispered, taking my face in her hands and pulling me down so that
she could kiss me on the forehead. "Take care of your family. They
will need you from here on out. You have not overcome all of the
obstacles meant for you..."

"What do you mean?" I asked, staring at
her in shock. Before she replied, Elyssa's body went limp, and I
caught her so that she wouldn't fall and hit her head on the
floor.

I knew what I had to do. Reid was back.
Wyatt was dead. Zeke was reconciling his actions with who he wanted
to be.

...At least, that was what I hoped he
was doing.

It was time for me to man up. I had to
talk to Olivia about everything that had been going on with our
Mating since Elyssa's arrival.

As I approached our bedroom door, I
held my hand up to knock on the door. Suddenly, it burst open,
Ollie standing on the other side with a bag in her hand. I stared
down at the bag hard. "Are you going somewhere?" I asked, barely
able to breathe.

She looked around awkwardly, shrugging
her shoulders heavily. "You tell me, Dmitri," she said
simply.

I sighed and grabbed her hand, towing
her back inside our room. Closing the door behind us, I motioned
for her to sit down. She complied easily, setting her bag down
beside the desk chair as she lowered herself into it.

"I thought I was in love with
Elyssa."

Her sharp intake of breath contradicted
her composed expression. As much as she thought she was expecting
it, I could tell that she wasn't. At all.

"Why are you telling me this, Dmitri?
It isn't any way to make a woman decide she wants to stay with
you!" Olivia shouted, rising from her chair to meet me
face-to-face. Her chest rose and fell with every harsh breath she
dragged through her nose, and color flooded her cheeks.

"Because I know I'm not!" I replied. I
was pissed off. Sure, it was wrong of me to have had any kind of
inkling of feelings for Elyssa, as minor as they'd been. But it was
wrong of Ollie to ignore me as well. "That's why I want to try to
make this work, damnit!"

Ollie laughed darkly. "Make what work,
Dmitri? You and I can never work after you all but betrayed our
relationship with the whore shared between two of your other
brothers!"

I grabbed her harshly by her shoulders
and shoved her back down into the chair. I could hardly control my
breathing, and my expression must have been fearsome, as Olivia
shut up, and fast.

"You listen here! Elyssa has made
mistakes; there is no doubt about that!" I barked directly in her
face. "But she is my friend, and as her friend, I know the full
story that you, as an outsider," I sneered, "are not privy
to."

The fear in Ollie's eyes made me
breathe slowly, and I released my hold on her so I could stand up
straight. "I'm listening," she said, a whimper in her
tone.

"Good. Elyssa was grieving. She is
Reid's mate, first and foremost, and when he died, both Zeke and
Elyssa were overrun by distress and negative emotions. What they
did was wrong, yes, of course, but they were both in a bad place,
and they desperately needed what they'd done, in order to keep
themselves sane." After giving the short story roughly, I took in a
deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and released it as I sunk
down to sit on my bed. "I thought I was in love with her, because
she was around when you never wanted to be," I whispered, unable to
meet the electric green eyes of my Mate.

Out of my peripherals, I saw Olivia
draw her hands up to her face and rub away the stress that was
doubtlessly there. "I wanted to be around you, Dmitri," she said.
"You were always running away from me."

I scoffed. "You wanted to have sex
24-7. That doesn't qualify for the type of quality bonding time
that I had in mind," I retorted, glaring at her.

Ollie blinked, remaining quiet. "Is
that what it seemed like?" she asked softly. "Like I only wanted
you for what you could demonstrate in bed?"

Nodding, I reached for her hand. "It
truly did," I murmured. "And it was annoying, to say the very
least," I chuckled. She joined me, setting her hand in mine and
squeezing.

"I'm sorry. It was the only way that I
knew how to express the type of feelings I have for you, Dmitri
Lanistter," Olivia said, slowly bringing her eyes up to meet mine.
She looked like she was finally taking this matter seriously, for
which I was grateful. "I will be more open to your thoughts and
ideas from here on out."

I nodded.

"And I will be more... Open, to the
things you have in mind for us as well," I said, allowing a smirk
to slide up onto my face. She looked away with a slight giggle as I
winked at her. "If you can become the woman you were when I first
met you, I will gladly try to live up to the man that you devoted
yourself to."

Olivia looked hesitant about something.
After a few moments of silence, she sighed and spoke. “You know
this will only work if we leave this place, right?”

I immediately nodded, knowing we would
remain in contact with my family as we needed to. She smiled in
relief.

I pulled her across the gap between her
chair and the bed until she was sprawled out next to me in bed.
Leaning over her, I wound one arm around her waist and tucked my
other hand against the side of her neck as I pressed my lips to
hers.

"I have missed you," I murmured against
her mouth. "I know you probably wouldn't believe that if we hadn't
had this talk, and I can only hope that you trust and believe the
words I'm telling you now," I finished, touching my forehead to
hers.

"Dmitri, I –"

I kissed her to shut her up. I didn't
need to know right away if she could trust me again. I only needed
to touch my Mate and to have her close to me, so that I could
reaffirm my feelings for her in my own head. Nothing was more
important than that right then.

"Shh." I continued to kiss her,
bringing my hands up to her torso so I could undo the buttons on
her blouse one by one. As I finished the last button, I knelt above
her, sliding my hands into her blouse on either side of her
torso.

She was wearing a pretty bra that
seemed to have only half of the coverage that a normal bra would
have, which I didn't understand, but it made her breasts look more
inviting, so I wasn't too concerned with it. It was light blue,
with black lace at the top of the cups. "I like this, very much," I
husked, leaning back down to kiss her roughly.

Olivia responded head-on this time,
winding her arms around my neck and clutching my hair by the roots
as our mouths moved together. I bit on her lower lip lightly,
tugging on it as I pulled my head away from hers.

"I'm glad you like it," she purred,
lifting herself up enough so that she could nip at my
earlobe.

Chuckling, I nodded. "Of course you're
glad. Any undergarments that look like that," I paused, licking my
lips, "were meant to be enjoyed while looking."

Ollie nodded energetically before
pushing me down onto the bed. She then straddled me and let her
hands trail up my shirt. "For someone who fumbles around ladies so
much, you know a lot about what things really mean. Are you sure
you're not gay?" she teased, pushing my shirt up until it was over
my head and tossed onto the floor. She then shrugged out of her
unbuttoned blouse and added it to the pile that was sure to grow
even more before the night was over.