Page 24 of Desecrated Saints
I stop dead, startled.
“Morning, princess,” Seven mumbles absently.
“Jesus… Sev. You’re awake.”
“You lot have run out of drugs to use on me.”
“Us lot?”
He spares me a blank look. “The pink-haired woman.”
I sure as hell am not starting that deep dive into family history without being caffeinated. Instead, I watch him while returning to the open plan kitchen and filling two mugs with coffee. His intense gaze doesn’t tear from me as I linger over the sugar pot.
“How do you take your coffee?”
“I have no idea,” he answers.
Fixing it the same as mine, I tread carefully around Kade so as not to wake him. Taking the armchair next to Seven, I offer him the steaming mug. He wraps his one scarred hand around it. The healed stump on his right arm is tucked into the pocket of his sweats.
I have no idea what to say to him in the cold light of day. Our conversations were reserved for the shadows, a land beyond this world where labels didn’t apply. At the mercy of demons and death on a daily basis, we clung together to survive.
Where the fuck does that leave us?
I don’t know what we are in the real world.
Seven swallows a sip of coffee. “This is good.”
“You remember it?”
“Just the taste. No idea where it’s from.”
“Anything else?”
Uncertain caramel eyes meeting mine, I’m taken aback to find a person resting there. Glimpses of the man he used to be stare back at me, someone who whispered to me in the dark and coaxed the knife from my grasp with mere words alone.
“Flashes. It comes and goes,” Seven admits in his gruff voice. “I heard what they’ve been calling me. Jude. Was that my name? Before… everything?”
I don’t answer at first. His calm exterior begins to falter, the cracks showing a hint of the madness that’s battling to break free. I watch his gaze harden.
“Don’t lie to me, Eight. We agreed to always tell each other the truth.”
“Your name was Jude. Before Augustus. Before everything.”
Placing the mug down, Seven brushes his unruly brown hair back to reveal his sharp, angular features and strong jawline. The mop on his head has fully grown out and touches his shoulders. He almost looks like a pirate, in a rugged, sexy-as-hell way.
“I see.”
“What do you want us to call you?” I ask softly.
“My name isn’t Jude.”
“It was.”
We follow the voice to where Sadie has emerged from the bedroom. Her sweetheart face and gentle gaze are full of exhaustion. She helps herself to a coffee, pausing to kick Kade’s chair. It’s like she needs backup while facing us unstable patients. I fight the urge to bare my teeth at her.
Breathe, Brooke.
No killing today. Yet.