Page 25 of Temptation
But reality was always a harsh bitch, and as soon as I opened my eyes, I couldn’t see them anymore. They weren’t standing at the altar, and with frantic movements, I pulled out of the girl’s mouth, my cum dripping down her chin, and started looking for them.
But they were nowhere to be found. Couples were going at it—people I knew, people I saw on streets during my time in Winworth, but there was no trace of Skylar and Dylan.
They were gone.
5
SKYLAR
Humming woke me up.A familiar lullaby caressed over me, touching my heart, holding my hands, and I didn’t want to open my eyes. If I could, I would stay here, just like this—warm, content, happy, with a humming lullaby echoing around me. It reminded me of a time long forgotten, when my dreams weren’t filled with faceless monsters, and when the love was pure and light, not this toxic sphere floating in my chest, threatening to suffocate me.
Somebody was brushing through my hair—carefully, like how Dylan used to brush my hair when I was a little girl. I squeezed my eyes, holding the tears at bay. It was the time when Dylan represented everything good and brave. It was the time when my brother was my savior and not my captor.
Oh, how wrong I was.
I snuggled into the warmth of a person who was humming above me and pressed my cheek harder on a soft surface that I assume was their leg. I could feel their fingers on my forehead, going over my temple, my cheek, over my lips and up over my nose back to the forehead.
Again, and again and again…
My eyelashes fluttered, and I wished I could forget about everything that had happened last night, but I couldn’t.
I was somehow married to my brother—to a boy I knew my entire life. To a boy that once used to be my protector, but it turned out that he was the monster all along. But was he my brother?
If he wasn’t, who was I? If Dylan wasn’t my brother, then Judah most probably wasn’t my father and Joanna wasn’t my mother. Was my entire existence a lie?
But the thing that sliced through me, that made me shudder even surrounded with a beautiful melody, was Ash. I thought I was protecting him when I broke up with him, but it turned out that I didn’t know him either. I didn’t know the guy who stood in the middle of the chamber, getting his dick sucked by one of the girls.
I didn’t know who the guy in front of me last night was, but it wasn’t the Ash I got to know. There was so much anger, so much violence oozing from him, that I didn’t even dare run toward him.
My soul was marred with violent scars. My skin was touched by hands belonging to monsters. But even after everything I went through, I still believed that there would be one person—my person—waiting for me at the end.
I thought I was saving Ash. I thought I was sparing him because I knew that Judah would never let it go. My mind battled with my heart, because I didn’t want to believe that the person I loved could be the one to betray me. I put him on a pedestal because I thought he was different.
Ash had a certain kind of darkness that if you weren’t careful enough, you could get swallowed in its dark depths. But I never thought I would be the one he would break. Out of all the people, all those strangers and known faces, Ash was the last one I expected to see.
Dylan and he had something in common after all—they both broke my heart.
The lullaby suddenly stopped, and whoever was holding me, they lifted my head and moved away, placing me back down onto a soft cushion. The warmth I was snuggling into was gone and so was the soft caress and the humming that was keeping me calm.
The problem was, even though Ash obviously lied to me, even though there were things I didn’t know, things he didn’t share with me, I still wanted him. Now, with a clear head and without the substances rolling through my system, I knew I still wanted him.
For better or for worse—probably for the worse—he was still the one my heart was yearning for. Even the mere thought of him sent my entire body into overdrive. My heart thundered, my palms started sweating, and that familiar searing pain started from the center of my chest and climbed to my throat.
Sobs started shaking my body, choking me, cutting off the air supply, but I still didn’t dare open my eyes. If I did, everything that happened would be true, and I would have to face the reality where nothing I was told was real.
Not the love Ash supposedly felt for me.
Not my family.
And certainly not my friends.
They all knew about the Order. They all knew and none of them said anything to me. If they did, maybe I wouldn’t be here in the first place. If I knew what was happening, I would’ve run away a long time ago, never looking back.
If I knew that the depravity and darkness I always associated with our town was real, I would’ve escaped. Where was I supposed to go now? How was I supposed to escape them now?
But the fucked-up things were—I couldn’t leave Ash, and I couldn’t leave Dylan. I couldn’t leave either of them, no matter what.
The rational part of my brain told me to wake up, to gather my things and to figure out how to disappear. But the irrational part; the part that operated on emotions, with love, that part told me to stay and see what was going to happen. That part wanted me to embrace the unknown.
