“The Havens will want her,” he tells me. “They’re not going to stop until they claim something we have.”
“They can’t have her.” My biting tone catches in my throat, the words hang heavy with promise, with rage. I’m barely keeping it together, and I know Creed will notice it the moment he’s around Nesrin and me at the dance.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re marking your territory,” Cassian muses beside me, and I can’t stop the frustration at the situation from getting a hold of me.
I bite out, “I didn’t piss on her.”
“You may as well have,” he tells me, causing my muscles to tense. If everyone else can see it, I’m sure she can as well.
I cast a quick glance at Cass. “Not into golden showers, brother,” I retort when he crinkles his nose at the thought. “Besides, I don’t need to piss on her to show him she’s mine. All you have to do is see how she looks at me.”
“Oh?” He quips. “Has she been undressing you with her eyes?”
“I don’t blame the girl, I mean look at me, of course she has,” I joke, but the thought of being naked in front of her, of seeing her bared to me, plays in my mind, and I have to shake it off. “Tonight, she’ll either run or hide.”
“Are you sure about this?” Cassian’s worried. We haven’t played this game in a couple of years. Not since the night Creed and I had a fight, and I know it’s dangerous. But I think it’s exactly what Nesrin needs.
“Not entirely, but if she finds solace in it, I’ll do it.”
My brother stares at me, I can feel his questioning eyes on me. Cassian and I have always had a strange connection. It’s almost as if he can read my mind. “You’re falling for her.”
Snapping my gaze to my brother, I furrow my brows and find him looking at the garden, instead of me. “What the fuck do you mean?”
“You are. I can see it when you talk about her.” He doesn’t turn to me because he knows if he looks at me, I’ll punch him right in the gut.
I don’t love.
I’ve seen how destructive loving someone can be. I vowed never to fall for someone the way my father loved my mother. He got hurt, burned because he trusted her, he believed she was the one. All that fate bullshit is a farce.
“Don’t deny it, Damien. I know you better than you know yourself. Even though I’m a year younger, at times, I feel a lot older.”
“I’m ready,” Finn says, as he enters the room, interrupting our heated conversation. He’s dressed all in black, just like me and Cass. We’re all three wearing our hoodies. The first time I did this, I never felt so free, and I hope that I can give Nesrin that same experience. Nothing can ever compare to the exhilaration that flows through me when I race through the darkness. Except for her kiss. The thought comes to me quickly, but I push it back, hiding it in the shadows of my mind. I shouldn’t want her so much. The moment our parents return, we’ll need to stop this… thing we’ve started.
“Man, I’m so fucking excited for this. You know it’s been too long since we let loose,” Finn says, as he nears us. My youngest brother is the one who would walk back into The Black Knights and ask them to make him a part of their group. He’s always loved rebelling against everything I’ve told him, including befriending the Havens.
When he was much younger, I cared far too much. I wanted him safe, and I didn’t want him to end up like I did, with war wounds that will never heal.
Finders Keepers was a game that Creed and I invented after we turned sixteen. It was meant to be our way of choosing the girls we wanted. Being a teenager in this town meant that we could run amok, and nobody would flutter an eyelash, and Creed and I took advantage of that.
Leaving a burnt rose on the doorstep of the girl we wanted to take became well-known within the town, and we did it for a couple of years before it turned into something far darker than I anticipated. The rose was the signal that she was mine, or if he left the rose, the girl was his. I would leave red roses while he would leave pink.
It was a game of cat and mouse in the dark; while we were the hunters, the girls became our prey. We labeled it an adult version of hide and seek, even though we weren’t nearly old enough to do the shit we did.
The thrill of chasing down a pretty girl in the darkness was intoxicating. Over the years, it became more and more exhilarating, and that’s when we tried to one-up each other. I would do something, and Creed would add more danger, more thrill to it. But the moment Creed took it too far, I watched how dangerous his actions became, and I knew I had to walk away before this game turned fatal.