Page 57 of Demon Rejected

She looked at me with an absent look. “No, we had a fun fuck. It’s not as if we’re in love now. Let’s not make a big deal of it."

“You’ll find it on the thirteenth floor in the left wing."

She left.

* * *

Scarlett

I left the room before starting to cry. I could feel the tears burning behind my eyeballs.

I’m irrational. Why am I acting like a silly little girl? I just had a good consensual fuck with a hot guy I like. Only the fear that is rising inside me makes it hard to breathe. It feels as if a box is inside my chest and is too large, pushing against the edges of my ribcage and making me want to squeeze it together, make it stay inside me before my chest exploded.

Sparky and my wolf both cried inside me.

Because of Matt, of what he did, I trusted him, I allowed myself to like him, love him, see him as someone who would never leave me, and then, just as we both discovered that we are fated, he rejected me. My soul hurt.

Pieces of darkness stuck to my inner structure. The box inside my chest squeezed the air out of me. I ran towards the elevator door and broke down on the floor, unable to hold back, to keep the darkness at bay. The small box was so tight, the music so annoying Sparky was so close to the surface, winning, calling out to me, wanting to run free and set something on fire. But she was me, she felt me, my soul was hers, and rage and fear poisoned her.

I closed my eyes. Setting this place on fire was not an option. The shifters here didn’t do anything to me. They didn’t deserve to die. I kill evil creatures, not innocent ones who sleep and must deal with their problems.

I kill.

I don’t mind killing. It’s not an effort for me. I turn myself into flames and burn everything down.

Who hurt you?

What a cliche sentence I once read in Cello’s novels, she loved romance stuff, but they were right. Someone breaks you. Someone hurts you, and only a person that is close enough to your soul can damage it, tear it open, and crack it to pieces. Matt was sorry for what he did, or at least it was what he said when he was sure he would die in a few minutes.

Do I owe him anything at all? Do we need to talk? In my almost nineteen years on this planet, my experience with love was minimal and what I knew was confusing. Some people act as if they like you only to drop you the moment you let your guard down. If I was to believe the Demon Grayson, my mother wasn’t my mother and there are other creatures are out there hunting for me.

Great.

The elevator door opened with a ping sound. I stood up slowly, the space around me feeling wobbly and surreal. I found myself on the thirteenth floor and walked to the left. Med Bay was there. A shifter I didn’t know guarded the door.

“Hi, I want to go see my friend Matt."

He looked down at me, a behemoth of a guy that looked at home in a wrestling ring or Strong Man competitions. “Name, please."

“Scarlett."

I couldn’t end my sentence and introduce myself fully when his entire demeanor changed. “I’m so honored to meet you. What you did was so badass. Matt is in the first room on the right. I’ll buzz you in. You’re a legend."

I smiled, too tired to say anything. I wasn’t feeling like a hero, not at all. My light slippers touched the linoleum, and I stopped in front of the door on the right. Another guard stood there and nodded, allowing me to get close to the window

“Can I go inside?"

“Yes.” He stood, scanned a card against a scanner, opened the door for me, and sat back down. “There’s a button on the left you can press when you want to leave,” he whispered. The place was so clean, the smell of Clorox burned my nostrils.

Matt lay in the hospital bed, naked, his groin covered with a light sheet. Deep cuts marked his skin, his face pale, eyes sunken. I watched the machines for a while. It wasn't easy to see my Mountain Man like that. All I knew was that he couldn’t shift and heal himself.

My fingers touched his skin. I was afraid to take his hand because there were too many cables and tubes hooked to it, so I touched his shoulder.

“Hi, ugly," I whispered.

My wolf cried so loud inside me. She missed Matt and was going crazy now that I was around him. Her instinct was to shift and come to the surface and help Matt turn. I felt the heat between us, the energy strings that connected us like fated mates were still there. Was it possible that the strings that tied us together only stretched but never broke? My heart bled because he was gone for so long for me.

The silence wrapped us in a warm cocoon. I pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down.