“Darius, just leave him be. I am right here with them.”
“Anything happens to him, and it is on you. It will be your fault,” Darius growled before I heard the door slam. I jumped at the sound, and my eyes opened to find Kalen beside me, asleep. He looked so peaceful, and I gently brushed his cheek with my fingertips. His stubble was rough and scratchy when I felt the bed dip behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Lycus sitting next to me.
“You are awake,” he said, and I turned to face Kalen. I tried not to let his emotionless tone upset me. He didn’t seem too pleased that I was awake.
“Thank you,” Lycus murmured, and I chewed my lip and nodded at his words. It actually sounded like it physically hurt him to say it.
“Why did you give it back?” he asked. I briefly wondered the same thing. It was clear that nothing would change, even with me helping Kalen. I had just tossed my only opportunity to escape out the window. Yet the thought of Kalen being the way he was, I knew I would have done it again.
“Darius is angry,” I stated, ignoring his question.
“He always is,” Lycus replied before he leaned against the headboard of my tiny bed.
“Kalen struggles to cope. He hasn’t had an episode like that for a while. It has made Darius more anxious.”
“He blames me for it?”
“We all do. He has been fine for almost a year, then you show up, and he backtracks,” Lycus growled before he sighed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“How many times?” I asked Lycus, rolling onto my back to look at him.
“How many times he had tried to kill himself? Or how many times he’d done it successfully before we brought him back?”
I swallowed.
“Brought back eight times. Lost count of how many suicide
attempts he’s had,” Lycus answered, and my heart sank. Kalen was far from alright.
“You did something to my magic,” Lycus said, and my heart quickened at his words, making him glance down at me. He watched me, waiting for my answer.
“What do you mean? I did nothing to it.”
“It feels different, stronger.”
I let out a shaky breath. “I’m your keeper. Of course, it does.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t expect it to feel as strong as Darius and Tobias’s power. You may be a keeper, but you are supposed to pass and share our energy among us, so we are all the same strength. Yet when you handed mine back, for a while, it wanted to challenge Darius’s.”
“Because I never shared it. It is the bond,” I told him, and he nodded.
“Yeah, and I bet it is playing havoc with my magic out of your system and Darius’s. Although it makes me wonder what you would be capable of if you shared all our power along with your own.”
“I never touched Darius’s magic,” I told him.
“Why do you think you are alive? Tobias fed off you and tried to clean it from your blood. His saliva had magic in it, but he couldn’t take it all. Darius flooded you with his power, so I bet you feel pretty uncomfortable now. Once a keeper shares power the first time, your bond will crave it for a bit until it is out of your system, which happens to Darius sometimes.”
“Well, you all seem intent on keeping me defenseless. So, of course, I feel like crap.”
“That wasn’t the original intention. It didn’t need to be this way,” Lycus told me. Lycus went to say something else when Tobias walked into the room.
“Where is Darius?” Lycus asked him, but Tobias was too busy staring at me. “Tobias?” Lycus snapped, and Tobias shook himself before he looked over at Lycus.
“Huh?”
“Darius, where did he go?”
“Where do you think?” Tobias snapped at him. Lycus growled before running his hand through his hair.