Page 22 of Created in Chaos
“What the hell are you talking about? What’s yours?” She scoots her torso to the side a little to see him.
“Your innocence, lamb. We’re dying to be inside you.” At least he included me too.
“My innocence?” She makes a face. “I thought you were joking about all that virgin nonsense.”
Lucian tilts his head to the side, and the serene look that was on his face is replaced with one of restrained rage in the blink of an eye. “What?” he questions deceptively softly.
“I’m not a virgin,” she scoffs.
“Fuck,” I groan under my breath.
NOVA
Lucian goes eerily still at my lie. I don’t know why I’m embarrassed to tell him that I am, in fact, a virgin, but the untruth just slides off my tongue with ease. Most of the crap I’ve read online says guys can’t even usually tell if a girl hasn’t had sex yet, and not all girls bleed or whatever, so I thought I could get away with it. Plus, there’s some part of me that’s worried about Lucian knowing how much pull he might have over me if he really knew how much I’ve come to like him and his moody, protective butt, and I feel like it would be worse if he knew he was my first.
Nox sitting back on his heels and looking up at the ceiling should have been my second warning that crap was about to hit the fan, but it’s not until Lucian crawls up my naked body to cage me in that I get the memo. “Who was he?”
“What?” I blink, at a loss for words.
“Tell me his name and where I can find him, or I will kill every boy who’s ever been close to you,” he seethes.
“You’re joking.” I search his eyes, but I don’t see an ounce of humor in his light gaze.
“Go get her phone and take it to Morozov,” Lucian demands of Nox.
“You are not going through my phone. Besides, it’s new.” I try to sound airy and unaffected while coming up with an excuse as to why there’s not a single number in my phone other than his, Nox’s, and the Umbras’.
His eyes narrow, and that cruel glint I remember from the first time we met returns. “Do you really want me digging through your past, lamb? Because I won’t leave a stone unturned. I will find out who you ate lunch with, what girls you talked to…” He puts more of his weight on me, pinning me to the bed. “And I will use them to get every secret you thought to keep from me.”
“There he is,” I state softly. “The petulant pretty boy that has to hurt people when he doesn’t get his way.” Lucian visibly reacts to my words, his jaw tightening. I lean my face up closer to his, daring him to do something, because I knew deep down this was all an act, and that the real him would come back and I would get caught in the crossfire. “Am I damaged goods now, pretty boy? Too sullied for you without that innocence you crave?”
His lip curls in a wicked mockery of a smile. “I don’t care how many dicks you’ve had inside you, lamb. You’ll only remember ours once we’ve had you. You’ll crave us and how only we can make you feel.”
I furrow my brow in confusion. That comment hits too close to home. I can feel the truth to his words, which means he already knows how much they affect me, and I swear he’s telling the truth about not caring who I’ve slept with. “Then why do you want to know?” I ask softly, unsure if I’m going to be comfortable with the answer.
He lifts a single dark eyebrow, seemingly surprised by my question. “Do you think I would allow someone who knows what you feel like on the inside live? You belong to us, Nova, every piece of your past, present, and future. Nobody touches what’s mine.” He says the last part slowly, and it’s not lost on me that we or ours doesn’t make it into that statement. He owns every word of the vow.
I’m not sure how I feel about what he just said, and my head is spinning too much to analyze why it almost seems sweet. There’s something very wrong with me, but I know I’m not going to let him go on a fool’s errand to find someone who doesn’t exist, and I’m not going to let some stranger I may have talked to a few times get hurt over my lie to save face, because I believe he would hunt them down just to prove a point.
“There’s no one,” I admit, feeling like an idiot.
“What?” Nox is the one to ask the question, and he doesn’t hide his skepticism.
“Don’t try to cover for them, lamb.” Lucian leans in so his lips almost touch mine when he continues speaking. “If I think you care about them, I’ll make it painful.” He bites my lip as if to prove the point.
I run my tongue over the sting he left behind. “I’m not. I lied. I am… I haven’t been with anyone.” I shake my head with my denial.
LUCIAN
The absolute fury raging inside me dulls to a nagging urge to hurt someone at her insistence she lied. My certainty that she was a virgin and her easy dismissal of my assumption about knocked me on my ass. I was confident knowing no one had touched her the way I would—we would, I amend in my thoughts before I become even more possessive of her.
My head is telling me to believe her now, that she is and only ever will be ours, while my body is convinced someone needs to die. I want to hunt down anyone who might have touched her, held her, and heard the sounds she makes and slit their throats before they can even think about her again, but what do I believe?
Is she protecting someone? The thought alone infuriates me. A wave of previously unrecognized regret washes through me. How many girls at school have I fucked that she’s already met and been around? The memory of Grace and her lapdogs cornering her on the third floor enters my mind. I know what I would have done and would still do if faced with the same situation. There would have been bodies for someone else to clean up, but she just stood there, showing them how little they meant to her, completely unthreatened by their presence.
I start to question if she would care now. There’s a dark part of me that wants to test her and see how she would respond, but as I open my mouth to say something undoubtedly stupid, the words die on my tongue when I see her looking up at me completely open. There’s no spite or anger in her gaze. If anything, she looks embarrassed, and that, more than anything, allows me to claw back a fraction more of my composure.
“It’s not a big deal.” Her lashes flutter as if she’s having a hard time looking at me. “I missed a lot of school after the accident.” The explanation is needless and unwanted. I don’t want to hear that the only reason she hasn’t fucked anyone is because of timing. I want to bask in the idea that she was waiting for me, even though it’s archaic and a double standard she would never put up with if I voiced it.