“I’m sorry,” I told them, breaking eye contact. If I continued to look into their faces, I knew I’d start crying and I couldn’t do that and get through what I needed to say to them. “I’m just sorry for what I’ve been putting you both through since we came back from the cabin, and… you don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve any of it. You’ve both been nothing but loving and supportive… and I’ve been awful. I just, Ronan…” I started to get choked up, so I looked up at the ceiling and shuffled my feet. “I’m worried about what might have happened to him… and then my magic got worse...there’s no excuse for how I’ve been acting, but I realized I haven’t been handling things very well and I’m sorry I’ve been taking it out on you and everyone else...I’m going to do better. I promise. You deserve a better mate than what I’ve been to you the last couple of weeks and I promise I will try to be what you both need.”
A few seconds of silence stretched after my rambling, my eyes found their faces again. Matias’ expression had softened and I knew I had reached him, but Xander wasn’t going to be so easy. I hurt him on so many levels.
“I’m never going to like your dad,” I told him. “I just can’t, so please don’t try to force me to. I know that in your mind, he’s a good man and maybe he is, but even good men make mistakes, Xan. The one your dad made all those years ago is one I don’t think I can ever forgive. I’m sorry for my rudeness earlier and even though I’m allowed to my feelings, what I did wasn’t called for. If you want, I’ll apologize to him and your mother.”
The angry lines around his eyes smoothed out slightly and he swallowed, as he was preparing to talk.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Xan said.
“Xan, I, I can’t ever promise not to yell at your dad again, but I’ll try not to…”
“That’s not what I mean,” he interrupted. “Don’t shut either of us out, ever again. If you had talked to me, to either one of us, about what was going on in your head, we could have helped you. Don’t you see that?”
I lowered my eyes and nodded my head. “I know. I came to that realization earlier, with all of my alone time. I have no excuse for how I’ve been acting other than I’m not used to relying on others. I’m so sorry.” I took a couple of steps forward and stopped. “And to prove it, I’m going to give each of you permission from now until eternity to always call me on my shit if I ever close myself off from you again. I’m going to do my best to stay open and honest with you, but for the last fifteen years, I’ve only been able to rely on myself. I didn’t have anyone to love me or want to help me. I’m not used to it and when things are bad, my default setting is to internalize it, to shut down, try to work it all out on my own. I want to get away from that, but I may need your help from time to time. So please, tell me I need to talk to you if I’m closing myself off, or even call me a selfish bitch if you have to.”
“I don’t think it’ll come to that…” Matias smiled.
“I don’t know, man, it might,” Xan interjected, rubbing his chin, smirking. “I mean, she can be a pretty selfish bitch sometimes…”
I crossed the distance and playfully punched him in the chest. He caught my fist as I pulled back and held it in his palm and pulled me into his waiting arms. He leaned down and kissed the top of my head.
“You might be a selfish bitch sometimes, but you’re my selfish bitch.” I could hear the smile in his voice and that made me smile and burrow my face further into his chest, even though he had called me a bitch three times in the last minute. “I hear you and I understand where you’re coming from. But please, trust in what we have in each other. In your relationship with me and in your relationship with that vampire fucker over there.”
I looked over at Matias to see he was smiling too. I uncurled my arm from between Xan’s body and mine and reached out toward Matias, who grabbed a hold of my wrist and pulled me out of the other man’s hold and into his own. One hand came up to my cheek, cupping it delicately while the other was around my waist.
“Little one, I will tell you every day for the rest of my life how much you mean to me if that’s what you need, but please try to trust in this.” He put my hand on his chest so I could feel his heart. “As long as this beats, it beats for you.”
“Suck up,” Xan murmured under his breath and crossed his arms over his chest, making Matias and me chuckle.
I took my hand from Matias’ chest and reached out toward Xan, pulling him close.
“Thank you for loving me. Both of you. I almost forgot that and I promise to never let that happen again.”
Both men looked down at me and I imagined they were looking for weaknesses in my expression. I knew they would find none. I may still be unsure about a lot of things, but they weren’t one of them.
Chapter Four
“I know I’m not really in the best position to be making requests, but could you both sleep with me in here tonight?”
Matias and Xander looked from me to each other, then back to me uncomfortably. The night before the attack
