Void(111)

I half wondered as I ran back to this little cabin on the beach if I’d actually fallen off the mountain and had just hallucinated the whole Gritt-saving-me-as-a-pink-dragon thing.

I pinched my arm just to be sure, but there Hyde was, looking perfectly beautiful, his mouth tipped up in a smirk.

“Here is such a relative term,” Hyde mused, his hands perched behind his head. “Here could mean lots of things. Like here in this world, or here in this space in time or—”

“Here in my bedroom.”

His lips quirked up at my interruption, and he slowly sat up, his body moving like a gentle wave of water. “Or here in your bedroom,” he agreed with a nod.

I slowly padded forward. “Why are you here in my bedroom?” I asked quietly.

“Because we finally could be.”

I turned around at the sudden voice and gasped to find Render right behind me. His chest pressed against my back, and his plush lips hooked over the curve of my ear as his tongue darted out to lick it. I shivered, my eyes fluttering closed, and when I blinked them open again, Quade was standing right in front of me, Hyde had gotten off the bed and stood at my side, and I was in the middle of a three-man sandwich.

My eyes filled with more tears, but I didn’t bother to try to hold them back. “Don’t cry,” Quade whispered, raising his hand to cup my cheek.

“I don’t understand why you’re suddenly all here. I haven’t heard anything from you. I thought...I thought you changed your minds.”

The guys exchanged a look, and then Gritt joined us in the room, his hair sopping wet, but wearing a new pair of pants. He looked like he’d taken a dive into the ocean water to cool himself down.

“We had to keep you safe. We had to handle things at home, but we weren’t even sure if we’d ever be able to come for you. If things went badly… Well, we couldn’t risk being in contact with you or coming to see you and having someone track us to you. We weren’t sure how the public was going to react. We had to prepare for every possibility,” Render explained. “We’ve been in contact with your father the whole time.”

This news shocked me, and I watched him with disbelieving eyes.

Quade picked up on Render’s explanation. “But we had press conferences. Told everyone what happened. They finally named us as the council leaders, and we’ve made sure the public doesn’t blame you for what happened. Headmaster Torne agreed to become the interim council judge until we can find someone else who we trust for the position. We finally have all the pieces together so you can come home.”

The word “home” made my stomach flutter. “And my mother?” I asked him, curious to see how he’d taken her betrayal.

His jaw clenched. “Gone. Exiled with the rest.”

I had to stop myself from snorting. I’m sure she loved that.

“We handled everything, and today when we took our positions, we told them that the only reason they still had their powers and weren’t being lorded over by Judge Braxton was because of you.”

My eyes widened. “What?”

Render nodded. “It was just a matter of time. Judge Braxton planned to use you to suck hundreds of supers dry. Other supers who’d worked for him came forward and corroborated our story.”

I shook my head, unable to believe what they were telling me.

“Some assholes still don’t like you, but a hell of a lot of them are grateful,” Gritt said. “So it’s finally safe for you to come back.”

“And, after tracking down some more Void corpses, which are ridiculously difficult to find, by the way,” Hyde interjected. “I managed to learn that by giving us your Void, we could give it back. And our mate bonds will return with it.”

“I already gave mine back,” Gritt said smugly.

Render sighed in exasperation. “We were supposed to do it together.”

Gritt rolled his eyes. “You shitheads want to do everything together. I got to save her ass from falling off a mountain, so I decided to give her a piece of the Void back early without you assholes. Get over it.”

Render muttered something, but Quade cocked a dark brow at me. “You fell off a mountain?”

I shrugged sheepishly. “I slipped.”

Quade’s hands reached out to grip my hips and drag me against his body. “No more doing dangerous shit until you’re immortal again, okay?”

“Yeah, let’s take care of that right now before she decides to go swimming with the sharks,” Hyde put in. I didn’t feel like it was the appropriate time to tell him that I already did that last week.

“Are you sure this will work?”

“Yep,” they all answered cockily.

I bounced on the balls of my feet, looking around at everyone with a smirk. “So, uh, how do you want to do this thang?” I asked before awkwardly flipping them finger guns.

Finger. Fucking. Guns.

I wanted to die of embarrassment.

Luckily, no one commented on my idiocy, because Hyde spun around in a ridiculous dance move, putting the attention back on him. “Beauty before brutes, and I’m way fucking prettier than these guys,” he said with a wink before wrapping his arms around me and tugging me close.

He licked my collar bone, and a shiver of pleasure pulsed out of me as he nibbled on my skin. He traced patterns of swirls along my neck before trailing up to my lips. I leaned forward to kiss him, wrapping my arms around his neck as I did. Unlike with Gritt, the Void came out of Hyde like a soft caress, tickling my skin as he licked my bottom lip. The smoke turned white, and he poured power into me like a decadent, savory treat. He moved slowly, forcing me to pace myself with the pull growing between us. Once the last bit of smoke entered my mouth, I shivered with delight, once again feeling like a piece of myself had returned.