King Cave (Forever Evermore, #2)(19)
“Mates?” Pearl asked softly.
I took a small step forward. “I need to complete the spell, so you’ll remember.”
They flinched and their eyes instantly grew stony.
Shaking my head once, I spoke honestly and gently, “Your time with them, your memories, your experiences — they are not something you want to lose. While the thought of Dominic still tears me apart some days, I wouldn’t want to forget him for anything. Life’s experiences are not to be forgotten. You learn. You grow from them.” My lungs felt like they would seize and my throat was burning, but I held their now hooded gazes. “You need to let me finish the spell.”
In the tense hush, they didn’t respond, only watched. Real panic had entered their eyes.
Ezra stated quietly and steadily, “She’s right. And both of you would be doing a disservice to the two individuals who loved you so much by not remembering them.” He paused as their increasingly frightened gazes met his. “In time, you’ll understand why I’m saying this. Not at first. At first you may hate us for telling you to remember, but eventually you’ll understand.”
Pearl’s chin began quivering, but she straightened her spine. “I won’t hate you. And I understand why you allowed it. If I lost my mate today, I wouldn’t have been able to save lives. I probably would have gotten myself killed.” She nodded stoically, her jaw firming even though her chin still trembled. “Finish the spell.”
Not giving her a chance to back out, I uncorked the lipstick, my hands shaking with the motion as I twisted it, and quickly finished the last slash, completing an ‘X’ on her forehead.
Suddenly, she jolted, sucking in a harsh breath, her golden eyes flying wide…and she screamed, clutching her chest where her mate had once lived inside her Core. “Gideon!” Her head shook rapidly, her golden hair tumbling over her shoulders. “God, no! Gideon!”
Swiftly handing the lipstick to Ezra, I sat on the bed and caught her as she crumpled in racking sobs, her agony ear-piercing, shouting her mate’s name repeatedly. I clutched her close to my chest and held her face to my neck, feeling her heated tears wetting my flesh, and started rocking her as I had done when I had first learned Gideon was dead. Keeping my own tears at bay this time, pushing away my own anguish for her hurt, I became the pillar of a best friend she needed right now. As she beat on my shoulders with flying fists of rage, I let her, holding her only tighter and lending her my strength.
Jack’s face was now buried in his hands, his elbows still on his knees, and he hunched as he fisted his hair. “Ezra?” Evidence of his anguish to come was unmistakable in the catch of his voice.
Ezra’s was solid. “Yes?”
“Don’t let me kill myself.” He was serious.
The same truth quietly stated. “I won’t.”
Jack paused between Pearl’s cries. “I’ll want many drinks once I crawl out of bed.”
“We can do that.”
Rocking Pearl, who had stopped pounding me, I hummed softly against her damp temple as she wept, her whole frame shaking while I desolately watched my other best friend’s life change forever.
Jack lifted his head, his features carefully blank. He nodded.
Ezra blurred in a step forward and finished the spell in a distraught blink.
Jack reacted, jerking with a deep inhale before hurdling from the bed. He bellowed in ferocity as he stalked to the living room area grasping at his chest. He lifted the coffee table and pitched it against the wall; the glass shattered as he bent at the waist, yelling, “Nikki!” Another furious shout and he roughly seized the golden chair and propelled it into the bookshelf, half the books tumbling to the ground. His chest heaved, and he stared at his now plain palm, his mate mark gone, and roared, using that same hand to shove a different row of books off. Then another row. And another.
With his hands gripping the empty shelves, he kept his back to us as his body sagged and his shoulders started quaking. Crying silently. His massive frame drooped against one of the bookshelves, his forehead resting against the wood, as his pain began unleashing in a torrid of soundless sobs, overtaking his fury.
Ezra briskly wiped a hand over his face, and appeared to fortify himself with a gradual, deep breath. Cracking his neck once, he tossed the lipstick aside and moved behind Jack. Ever so gently, he rested one of his hands on Jack’s shoulder.
As I rocked Pearl, only my soft humming was heard on this forsaken day.
Abruptly, Jack turned to Ezra, wrapping his arms around him, and wept — still soundlessly — against his best friend’s shoulder, no words said.
Ezra held him, much like I was holding Pearl, and soothingly rubbed his back.
I doubted Jack felt it. Just as I was betting Pearl couldn’t discern my touch. Their own loss pulling them into a dark abyss I had hoped they would never find.
Ezra and I were still there for them. We always would be.
Though this night was not one I would ever wish to remember.
Dragging minutes passed. Another round of fury unleashed from both of them. This time Pearl also unleashed her anger by blowing up the couches, as Jack froze the bookshelves to crack them with his iced fists. Their tears were ever-flowing.
When they both crashed, falling to the floor, Ezra and I picked them up, lay them in the center of the bed, and crawled in around them, holding them as they wept themselves into a fitful sleep of mental exhaustion.