Seth was pacing back and forth behind him, soft whimpers escaping him as his Wolf instincts clearly pushed him to comfort Darius. Though I was guessing his comfort hadn’t been welcomed when he’d tried.
Max moved to take a seat on the couch while I lingered by the door.
I shot forward and pulled Darius into my arms before he could stop me. “I’m so sorry, man,” I breathed, holding him tightly as he just sat there and let me.
The heat of his skin was almost burning but his posture was slack, like he didn’t even give a shit about anything anymore.
I didn’t let go and eventually he released a long breath. “You smell like her,” he muttered.
I flinched back like he’d punched me, glancing at Max for a moment but he only frowned.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice cracking with how much I meant that. “I didn’t know, I didn’t mean to… Not that I’m excusing it. I should have realised when I saw her eyes, I just-”
Darius looked at me for a long moment, his jaw grinding and I waited for him to unleash his rage on me. Which was really the least I deserved.
“She chose not to be mine so it’s not like I get any say in what she does now, is it?” he said eventually, dropping back into his chair and looking away from me towards the fire once more.
Seth released a low howl and I ran a hand over the back of my head, feeling about ten times worse than I would have if he’d just punched me.
“We can fix this,” Seth said, looking between me and Max encouragingly. “There’s gotta be some way to get the stars to change their minds, right?”
“Don’t you listen in class?” Max growled.
“Everyone knows you only get one shot at it,” I added in a low voice like that would make my words mean less somehow.
“We’re the most powerful Fae in Solaria!” Seth snapped. “The stars will listen if we tell them to!”
Darius got up and walked across the room to the chest where he kept his gold. He pulled out a bunch of rings and pushed them onto his fingers one by one then threw a handful of gold chains over his head to rest against his bare chest.
He lifted the huge chest into his arms with a grunt of effort and tipped the rest of its contents all over his chair before sitting down amidst the heaped gold coins and jewellery.
“I need to focus on Lance. Not impossible ideas about defying the stars,” Darius said and I frowned in confusion.
“What’s wrong with Lance?” I asked.
“I found him half dead in a cave in Aer Cove,” Seth muttered. “It was some dark magic gone wrong. It took everything me, Darius and Darcy had to keep him alive. And I’m still not convinced he’ll stay that way.”
Darius growled darkly at that suggestion and Seth promptly stopped talking.
“What the hell happened tonight, Darius?” Max asked softly, leaning forward in his chair and pressing his Siren power out around the room to try and comfort him.
Darius dropped his gaze to the rings on his fingers and shook his head. “I can’t talk about it. When Lance is better, he might be able to explain but my…” He trailed off, not even able to finish that sentence thanks to the Dark Coercion his father had used on him.
“For fuck’s sake,” Max growled, his jaw clenching with rage over the situation.
“And what about Tory?” Seth asked, moving closer to Darius then backing off again like he was at war with his instincts over what to do for him. “Why did she say no?”
“Why do you think?” Darius snapped, glaring at Seth with enough venom to make him growl back before he could stop himself. We were all Alphas and direct confrontation between us never ended well for anyone.
I shot between the two of them, laying a hand on Seth’s arm to sooth him before Darius flipped. Seth forced the tension from his limbs and looked away, dispersing the atmosphere between them before it could escalate.
“He’s just trying to understand,” I said in a low voice.
Darius’s eyes flared with his temper for another moment as he looked at me, but then the fight went out of him again.
“She didn’t exactly give me a full list,” he said bitterly. “But I would imagine it includes the time I almost drowned her, when I burned her clothes off in front of my entire House, when I shoved her in the mud and called her a whore, when I took part in that whole Halloween fiasco where we tried to destroy her reputation and a thousand other things besides.”
“It’s because they lived too long in the mortal world,” I said, hunting for an answer even though there wasn’t one. “She just didn’t understand. She didn’t realise how final this decision would be. She can’t have. She told me she was drawn to you at the Eclipse, if she’d just had a chance to act on those feelings with you then she wouldn’t have-”
“We did act on them,” Darius snapped. “After I caught her when she destroyed my bike and again at the palace at Christmas. Sex clearly wasn’t enough to change her opinion of me.”
My eyebrows rose at that admission because I’d had no goddamn idea about that.
“But if you were sleeping with her then she must have gotten to know you more?” Max asked with a frown. “Surely she saw beyond all the power claiming shit and-”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, princess, but it wasn’t some declaration of love. It was the two of us giving in to the heat that burns between us when it flared too hot to resist. But she made it clear enough that that was all it was to her.”
“And what about what it meant to you?” Seth asked.
“After everything I’d done to her it didn’t really seem like my place to expect any more than she was willing to offer, so I didn’t push it.” Darius leaned back in his chair and rested his head against it. “Obviously now I wish I’d dealt with it differently…I just didn’t realise we were running out of time…”
Max’s face scrunched with pain as he caught a hit of Darius’s emotions and Seth released another mournful howl to the ceiling.
“This isn’t right,” I growled even though I knew it wouldn’t change anything.
“It’s what I deserve,” Darius said, his tone hollow once more. Darkness seemed to shift across his eyes for a moment but before I could look more closely, he closed them. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Okay,” I agreed because I couldn’t think of a single thing to say that might be of any use anyway.
“Let me help you sleep,” Max offered, getting to his feet and walking towards Darius with his hand extended.
“I don’t deserve to escape this feeling,” Darius muttered. “Besides, I have to go home as soon as I’ve recovered my magic. I have to face my father, he’ll want to decide how the press deals with this and…there are other things going on at home which I’ll need to check on.”
“I won’t take your pain if you don’t want me to. I’ll just make you sleep,” Max swore. “Just for a few hours before you have to face Lionel.”
Darius hesitated a moment longer then reached out to take Max’s hand.
I could feel Max’s power pushing me towards sleep too and Seth yawned widely beside me.