Prey.

45.

A few more months have passed since Neela had been living with Ryan and his family, 10 months to be exact. Everyone was excited because Neela's birthday was quickly approaching. Whenever Ryan and Neela slept in the same bed with each other, the nightmares would go away—so they've been sleeping in the same bed since they both had the same nightmare. Ryan was still training hard, the boys would test random humans they found to see if Ryan was changing. Some days, it was all easier to control—the human would be set free with no scratches. Other days, pent-up frustrations and an impatient demon would get the best of him and Ryan would kill the humans.

When Neela went into their shared bathroom during the night, he could still hear her cry. She wants her father, she wants her family back, a normal life back, but she can't have that anymore; Ryan promised her that they, as a couple, would be normal—it's just taking a lot of time.

Neela even now has her own pair of gloves. So if she wished to touch Ryan, she may have. Granted, she hadn't  used them a lot, but it still gave everyone a piece of mind.

Now, everything was off the table with Neela and Ryan. She has admitted that, yes, she is starting to feel the affects of being a mate. Damien has been helping both Neela and Ryan with their feelings. Damien is helping Ryan control the urges he has to be more intimate with Neela. While Damien had to take baby steps with Neela to help her get over her fear of boys.

One night, it was time for everyone to go to sleep; Ryan and Neela still laid together with a pillow barrier. "Do you need anything, angel?" Ryan softly asked and Neela shook her head. That whole day she's barely spoken a word and it made the boys very concerned.

Neela removed her arm from Ryan's grasp and got off the bed, not before she had to climb over Ryan to do so. She got to the bathroom, closed and locked the door, and just looked at herself in the mirror.

How could I have let myself become so broken? She thought to herself. This whole life has been nothing but unfair to me and I've done nothing to deserve it.

Ethan heard Neela's thoughts immediately, it was something he could not ignore. He wanted to do the right thing, which was check up on her. However, he, at first, thought that maybe someone else had heard her. But no, Ethan heard no footsteps coming or going to the room, he heard no talking, no fists against wood.

Quickly, Ethan got up out of bed and made his way up the three flights of stairs to get to Ryan's room. Once there, he begun to bang on the locked door, which then gathered everyone's attention. "What?" Ryan asked as he opened the door, a big gust of wind hitting Ethan in the face.

She's speaking weirdly in her head. She was saying that this life had been unfair to her. Ethan spoke as he looked into Ryan's eyes to show that the situation was dangerous. At this point, the two can hear coughing from the bathroom, it almost sounded like it was retching sounds.

Before Ethan came, Neela turned on the bathroom faucet and gathered a few of her pill bottles that were in the cabinet in front of her. The first bottle her hand touched was Prozac. She closed the cabinet door and, once again, looked at herself in the mirror.

When the bottle was opened, Neela began guzzling the pills into her mouth, taking a drink from the faucet after every few.

She took at least 15. After the first 5, her body begun trying to reject the pills, hence the retching sound. But Neela kept putting them in and swallowing. When she felt like she had enough, she just went to the floor and laid down.

"She just went to the bathroom, she's okay, Ethan." Ryan tried to calm his older brother down, same with the rest of the family, but Ethan was becoming too frustrated with them all. Ethan shook his head and went over to the door, he kept kicking at it, hitting it with his fists, and slamming his body into it.

Soon enough, Ethan broke through the door and everyone, besides Ethan, was shocked by what they saw. Neela was just laying on the floor, she looked dead. Someone call and ambulance. Ethan demanded as he and Ryan ran into the bathroom.

Ryan at this point didn't care if their skin touched, he picked Neela up and sat in the shower with her and turned on the cold faucet. He kept yelling her name, telling her to wake up, even telling her how stupid she was. Ryan was shaking her, trying to get her to open her eyes, just something.

Stick your fingers down her throat, she'll puke them up. Ethan coached his little brother and Ryan listened to every word. Ryan put two fingers in her mouth, all the way down to his knuckle, she instantaneously begun to retch and thrash as she begun to throw up the pills.

Neela tried to remove Ryan's hand from her, but Ryan jostled her back so he could keep making her throw up. "Stop fucking moving, I'm not in the mood for this right now." Ryan growled, worrying Ethan that his demon broke through.

Once most of the pills were out, Ryan held a shaking Neela against his chest. He kissed the back of her head and her ears. Neela, Ryan's demon, nor Ryan cared that Ryan's lips were touching Neela's ear. "It's okay," Ryan cooed as he kept kissing Neela, "calm down."

"Ambulance is here!" Landon called from downstairs and Ryan started to pick Neela up with Ethan close behind. "They're gonna take you to the hospital, they need to make sure it's all gone. I'm staying home because if you want the truth, I can't even stand the sight of you right now." Ryan spoke and gave his mate to Landon.