Iris - The Intended Series - Book 1(Reverse Harem, N.A, Brothers)

Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

Unable to go back to sleep, too amped up and confused by my dream, I stretched as I sat at the side of my bed. Blood rushed to my head from the movement making it throb painfully. The painkillers, obviously out of my system. Grabbing my crutch, I tenderly made my way over to my bathroom. Yesterday's clothes dragging me down with their crinkled weight. Flashes of Preston, carrying me to bed and his tender words and kiss made my heart race and my cheeks flush with heat.

Shaking my head of all romantic notions of Preston's actions, I set the shower running in the hopes of clearing the grime and emotional shrapnel that clung to my skin.

Avoiding the mirror and the pain from yesterday that I was sure was written all over my face, I stripped down and gingerly climbed into the tub, using the accessible handle and taking a seat that I'd had to have installed due to my precarious balance.

I instantly felt better as the hot spray hit my skin. I hadn't noticed that my body had started cooling since waking up from the heat of my dream and I missed it.

A sense of anguish and loneliness hit me. I was lonely before but I'd never realized what I was missing until yesterday. Now a part of me longed for company, longed for something that no one had ever shown me until them. An interest in my existence.

Why did it have to turn out the way it did. I was such an idiot! How could I have trusted them so easily? They must have thought I was desperate.

Scrubbing my hair and body a little harder than necessary, I replayed the day before over and over in my head. Could it have been who the company was rather than just the attention. Did I overreact?

No. I can't think like that. They were hiding things from me, about me and they never denied it when I accused them of being sent by Tammy. I can't believe I was trying to make excuses for them!

Angry with myself, I shut off the shower before scrubbing my hair with a towel, then wrapping it around my body.

Wiping the steam from the mirror, I gasped at the vision that looked back at me. My skin was pale and badly bruised, the graze on my cheek looked angry. I had removed the gauze on my forehead before jumping in the shower and the stitched up skin was puckered and red. The stitches weren't the neatest. I would definitely have a scar. But hey, what was one more. I thought Sardonically.

My blonde hair hung in sad wet tendrils around my face and shoulders. Unable to muster the energy to dry and style it. I dragged a comb through its length before throwing it up into a messy top knot as was my usual style.

My leg and head were screaming for attention so I opened the medicine cabinet, pulling out my pain pills and my anti-depressants. Filling my glass, I threw back my pain pill before grabbing the pack of the tablet that I had skipped yesterday. I skipped it yesterday and looked at what happened, I thought as I popped it out of the blister pack.

No. Yesterday wasn't caused by me skipping my meds, even though something bad always seemed to happen every time I did. Yesterday happened because Jake and Tanya took it too far. Still, it always seemed to be a bad omen. Call me paranoid but the evidence was slowly building up to support this.

Popping the pill into my mouth and pulling the glass to my lips I glanced into the mirror. My action halted through shock. The five shadows from my dream, stood behind me as they were yesterday.

"Don't do it." they whispered, the same time I dropped the glass of water from my shaking hands, breaking into a hundred pieses in the basin. Instead of turning round to look I kept my eyes fixed on them through the mirror. Unwilling to let them go again. Their warmth surrounded me as it had in my dream. It made me feel safe and comforted. I knew they wouldn't hurt me. I don't know how but I just knew. Without another thought, I spat out the spill into my palm and dropped it into the toilet, flushing it once it hit the water.