A Slave to Broken Hearts (A Slave to Love Sequel)

Chapter 50: Out of This World

Blade POV

"How was your self defense?" Eliza asked, surprisingly waiting for me at the front door when I got home.

I really hated her spontaneous visits and today even more so than usual. What if I'd been with Kiana and she saw Eliza sitting here waiting for me? She didn't need that kind of surprise. And frankly, neither did I. Having a heads up to mentally prepare to see Eliza made it a little easier and every time she showed up unannounced and caught me off guard, I always felt like I was teetering on the edge of a cliff. And today had been a bad enough day, a bad enough week, that I really wasn't in the mood to make nice or socialize, didn't have the energy to keep myself in check and try to humor her persistent curiosity.

"Fine."

"You look upset. Did something happen?"

Did something happen? That was my question and who the fuck knew? I certainly felt like I was in the dark about a lot of things, all I knew was that Kiana had a hickey and I had no clue where it had come from, though I had a pretty good idea, no matter how hard I tried to rationalize why I was wrong.

After all, she had fallen off Mick's skateboard and she had a bad gash on her elbow and road rash on her legs so it was very possible she got a bruise from her fall and it wasn't a hickey. But it felt like I was just kidding myself. 

"No. Just tired," I said. "I was just going to head to bed actually."

"Oh," she said, looking taken aback. "Okay."

I had a flash of guilt, but right now all I could think about was Kiana getting dressed up to meet Ace and their enthusiastic greeting.

"You can stay for a bit though," I said, relenting against my better judgement. Maybe that would be enough of a distraction.

"Are you sure? I don't want to impose..."

I shook my head, opening the door and she followed me inside after a hesitation. We walked through the house in silence, while I replayed this afternoon over and over in my head. A hand on my arm pulling me to a stop jerked me out of it and I yanked my arm back in surprise. 

"Sorry. Hey. Where were you? I've said like four different outrageous things and you haven't even looked at me once," Eliza said, dropping her hand. 

She had? I hadn't heard anything. As a matter of fact, how did we even make it to the other side of the house already? "Sorry. What did you say?"

"I asked why it looks like you haven't slept in days," she said, stepping closer. "You look a lot more tired than just being wiped from teaching self defense."

"I said I was fine," I said, my shoulders aching with tension, radiating up my neck and the back of my skull in a throbbing headache. 

"You've never been the best liar, and even if you were, your face tells a different story," she said doubtfully. "It's not your bond again, is it? I've been doing some research into it and you can't just spend time together, you need to actually bond, which is ironic, and if you guys aren't-"

"I know," I said, gritting my teeth as I kept on walking. A whole year of being bonded and she thought I wasn't aware of that fact yet? Not to mention, my exhaustion had very little to do with our bond being strained, and a lot to do with everything else.

"Okay, then what is it?" she said, jogging to catch up. "Did you have a late couple of nights? Are you stressed about something? Is it your family? Is it your condui-"

I whirled. "Would you knock it off? God Eliza, I hate it when you do that. I said I was fine, so let it go," I said, finally snapping, but fuck, showing up out of the blue again, with question after question, and hearing 'your conduit' again was just the final nail in the coffin of my already worn patience. "And while we're at it, can you stop bringing Kiana up all the time? Because I can't keep talking about her and telling you things because it fucking hurts and--" I snapped my mouth shut, inhaling as deep as I could to smother my stress. "I can't keep having these conversations with you. I know you want to know all these things about me, but...don't. Just stop it. I can't do it."