Desire To Love (#2 in The Hybrid Wars series)

Chapter 23 ~ Revivals

© 2017 by Authorninja. All rights reserved.

Chapter 23 ~ Revivals

I walked out of the bathroom and to Peter's still open door, he was sitting on his bed, his face paler than usual. I got inside his room and shut the door behind me, my body still close enough to it to leave. He pretended he didn't notice as he watched me standing at the door, panting slightly.

"Is this hurting you?" His words were so soft; it made me jump in surprise. I shook my head, but I could see the doubt in his blue eyes. I didn't notice them earlier.

"I'm sorry about what they did," Peter looked down at his hands that were playing with the soft cotton quilt on his bed. "I wish I could've stopped it."

I cleared my throat, meaning to reply but my voice ached too much to say anything. Instead, I walked closer to the bed, sitting beside the vampire. It was big enough that I wasn't that close but even with the distance sitting beside Peter made my body ache with waves of nausea, but I kept reminding myself that the real me wasn't afraid. I never was, it was all just dark magic.

Peter finally looked up and watched me, his eyes raking over me in a way I thought would disgust me further, but I didn't mind. He took in the baggy sweater I put on after shifting; it was enough to cover anything important. My legs were bear underneath, and I suddenly felt self-conscious.

His eyes froze on an area that made my face heat up again, and I was concerned that the sweater had shifted up too high. I was about to get up when his hand slowly, for Peter, reached and lightly went on my wrist.

"What is that?" Peter's voice sounded strained, and I looked down to see. I must've looked like a mess; I hadn't showered or seen myself since escaping.

I saw what he noticed, though. On my inner-thigh, there was fresh scarring that barely peaked out of the dress. I knew what it was, and I desperately didn't need him to see that right now. It wasn't something I had planned on discussing with the troop at all, let alone him.

"I should go," I said, but I made no move as his hand lightly went on the hem of my sweater, careful not to touch me.

He rose it slightly until he could make out the full markings made by Ana, the doctor who Chris had torture me with a mixture of magical tricks and human methods of pain.

Right there, engraved in small chicken-scratch writing was the word Slanderer. It was one of the few words Ana had painfully embellished onto my skin, and I was thankful he couldn't see the rest that was on more hidden parts of my body. She mostly hurt me in more mundane ways, but this was something I believed Chris had done out of spite.

"Please," I whimpered as Peter's gaze froze as he read his name burning on my skin. I felt hot tears stinging my cheeks, and part of me didn't want him to see me like this, but part of me felt a weight lifting from me as Peter looked back up to me with so much regret.

"What else did they do?"

I shut my eyes, partly wanting to leave and somewhat wanting to tell him everything. So I did, I explained all of the marks on my skin. I even curtly explained the spells and things that had hurt me internally, the pains he could not see.

"The doctor wrote things like Slanderer and leech breeder," I explained. "But I couldn't see what she wrote until I was back in my room with Eli and it had started to heal to make sense. I think she used magic so it would scar."

His hand relaxed from where it was frozen until it rested on my thigh. My whole body tensed, but I didn't move. I didn't know if I wanted to, it felt like such a relief to have his cold hand on the blistering part of my body.

"I'm sorry," Peter said finally. "I'm sorry that they did that to you because of me."

I looked down, not daring to meet his apologetic eyes.

"I'm the one who broke their rules," I muttered. "It's not like anything was true. My uncle was trying to hurt me, so he warped it into calling me a whore, and he did it in a way he wouldn't let me forget."

"I'm going to kill him," he said it so gravely but with so much promise that my eyes snapped up to meet his.

"You're going to have to beat me to it."

It was so light, so easy, that I felt present for the first time in what felt like forever. Peter just looked at me with so much pain and desire, it felt like the first time I was really seeing him. It was the first time I could see that worry in his face, and how he held onto me like he was scared I was going to slip away.

I put my hand on the side of his face before I even realised what I was doing, not even noticing that that sick feeling had ebbed away. It had never really made sense to me before how we undid the magic the shifters had done to us. Looking at him at that moment reminded me. Even though I still hurt, though I still had the scars that I would never heal from, it felt like he understood it far more than I ever realised.

The words they had put onto me and had echoed in my mind during my time at re-education meant nothing to me at the time, but now I finally saw what I was blind to before.

I was never scared of Peter, no matter how much he would've liked me to be. I was scared of what he meant to me. I was terrified of what he would become to me.

Peter's face was inches from mine, and part of me was screaming to get away because if I didn't, there was no turning back. But I didn't turn back, because I would never be the me before re-education. I would never be the me before meeting these royals. I would never be the me before kissing him. But I didn't care anymore, because the me before was always under someone's control. Even now, I was still feeling the effects of the dark magic. But for once, I wanted to do something that went against everything that my core was set against because I know new that that was never really me.

When my warm lips met his cold ones, and the softness had me melting into him, I knew that fighting against the aversion in my heart was what had been keeping me sane. I now knew the reason I had stuck with him for so long despite what the shifters were trying to enforce onto me. I knew that nothing would've changed what was precedent inside me, and it wasn't the desire to kill a vampire. Because right then I knew, as he pulled me into him and his arms held me tight, that my desire for him exceeded it all.

a.n

wooooo!

QUESTION OF THE DAY: what do you think about Plaire? And should this be the end of their story for now?