Gabriel slumped down on his mattress, looking downright ashen. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I already am.”
Once I had my gun and knife back it didn’t take much convincing for me to let Lucas drive me home. I might not remember him, but it was plain he knew me, and I owed him an explanation about what had happened at the station.
I had to admit Lucas must know me well because he let me sit in silence the whole ride home. A pretty yellow BMW convertible was parked in front of my apartment. The owner was either brave or stupid to leave such a nice car in my neighborhood overnight.
Lucas found a vacant spot farther down the block and parked his car. He left the engine running and shifted in his seat to look at me.
“Can we talk about this?” he asked.
“It’s late.”
“I know. You’ll be inside before sunrise, don’t worry.”
Now it was my turn to stare at him. He knew? My stunned appearance said more than words. He nodded. “Yeah, I know what you are.”
“Oh. When did I get so cavalier about telling people?”
“You didn’t have much of a choice at the time. Sort of a do-or-die situation. I’m starting to think there’s a lot of stuff you wouldn’t tell me given the choice.”
The heat vent was suddenly fascinating.
“How serious are we?” I asked him.
“Very.”
I flicked the vent closed, then back open. The hot air was now angled right in my face.
“And are you always upfront with me?”
He hesitated. “No.”
At least he was being honest. “Have we ever talked about having kids?”
“No,” he said again.
I nodded, still looking at the heat vent. “I can’t have kids.”
Lucas took hold of my hand, forcing me to stop playing with the vent and to look at him instead. He appeared tired and sad. “How do you know?”
“When I was nineteen, Gabriel and I… I got pregnant. That’s when he moved in. He was really excited. I wasn’t… I mean.” I sighed and met Lucas’s piercing gaze. “I didn’t know how it would work, with my blood the way it is.”
He bobbed his head and squeezed my hand. I didn’t want to continue. The memory still felt fresh thanks to whatever spell I was under, and it wasn’t something I liked to share.
“One night I woke up and I just knew. It hurt like hell, but there was no blood. My body…absorbed the baby.” My breath shuddered on the last word. “I told Gabriel I’d miscarried. I think he wanted to try again, but I managed to convince him the doctors were against it. I’ve been on the pill since to make sure it never happens again.”
Turning from Lucas, I looked out the window at the rows of silent, dark apartments lining the block. So many normal human lives going about their business, sleeping without the burdens of my world on their heads.
Lucas’s grip was painfully tight on my hand.
“Now you know,” I said. “I really am a freak.”
Instead of looking disgusted, he appeared to be thinking. There was a faint hint of disappointment wrinkling the corners of his eyes, but he didn’t say anything to confirm what he was feeling. He tugged me closer and wrapped me in a smothering hug.
“I don’t care.” His words rumbled against my cheek. Although I didn’t remember him, his scent and embrace felt familiar and comforting. Being held was nice. “I didn’t choose you because of your breeding potential. I chose you because you’re my mate. You’re meant to be with me. Anything else is secondary.” The words sounded forced, but I wanted to believe him.
“Now,” he said. “Let’s go let Desmond know you’re okay.”
I sat back, giving him a genuinely puzzled look. “Who’s Desmond?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
My lullaby while I attempted to sleep was the sound of Lucas and Desmond arguing in the living room as I buried myself under a comforter and pretended I couldn’t hear every word through the tissue-thin walls. My introduction—or reintroduction—to Desmond hadn’t magically restored my memories, but it had managed to convince me I was totally insane.
The first thing I’d noticed when I walked into my apartment was the biting flavor of lime in my mouth. First I’d thought it was from some god-awful air freshener, but when I commented on it, I was told it was part of my connection to Desmond.
Sure, the dark-haired hottie with violet-gray eyes was the very picture of a man I’d like to engage in some quality one-on-one bedroom time with, but that didn’t change the fact I couldn’t remember who he was. He’d been polite as Lucas explained what he thought was wrong with me, and after a minute or two they seemed to have forgotten I was in the room.
Memories of my apartment hadn’t vanished, so I found my way to my bedroom and was relieved to discover nothing had changed. Nothing except the lingering fragrance of Desmond clinging to each object in the room. He was all over the sheets, permeating the air as if he had touched everything.
He probably had.
I was getting the feeling Mercedes didn’t have all the right intel on my relationship status. She clearly believed Lucas was my boyfriend, as did he, but if that was the case, why was Desmond a permanent fixture in my bed?
Oh God, had I turned into a slut?
Once I’d stripped down, leaving on the Yankees shirt I’d been wearing, I dug under the covers and listened to my two supposed men bicker like an old married couple.
“Did you ever stop to consider maybe she’s experiencing some sort of psychological breakdown thanks to your little mating stunt?” Desmond’s voice was hushed but angry.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” The shuffling sounds of pacing footsteps on carpet came to a standstill. I found myself wishing Lucas had taken his shoes off when we’d come through the door. All his pacing was probably dragging snowy muck through my already-shitty carpet.
“You didn’t think this could be your fault. You never think it’s your fault. You’re so fucking untouchable.”
“Get a grip. This isn’t my fault. She’s under some kind of spell.”
“And you’d know a thing or two about keeping her under a spell.”
There was a long pause, but I could hear their harsh, ragged breathing if I listened hard enough.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“No, Desmond. Speak up. You obviously have something to say to me.” Lucas’s voice simmered with a quiet rage that made my hair stand at attention.
“You treat her like she’s something you own. When she ran, you let that vampire use magic to bring her home against her will. When you were worried she cared more about me, you abused your power and forced the bond on her. Well guess what? She still loves me more.”
The meaty crack of a fist meeting flesh filled the air instead of an awkward silence.
Lucas spoke first. “You know why I had to do that.”
It wasn’t a question, but Desmond answered anyway. “I was out of line.”
“This isn’t easy for me, either, you know. I know she loves you more. That’s not the point, though, and you know it. We need her as queen or everything falls apart. I’m not ignoring your feelings, Des, I just can’t make them my priority.”
“I know.”
“We discussed this. You knew if the bond manifested I was always going to claim the mate. If I let you have her, the pack would see it as a weakness.”
Desmond cleared his throat, then cracked his jaw. “What about what she wants?”
“What about it? She’s coming around. Soon she’ll understand we all need to do what’s best for the pack. Anything else is selfish.”
At some point I’d sat up and thrown my legs over the edge of the bed. They discussed my future like it was something I had no say in. Throwing around words like queen and mate as if I were real royalty and my fate was already sealed. If that was the case, I wanted out of this weird, fucked-up version of what my life had become.
“You can’t decide someone else’s future for them, Lucas.”
“Secret has a duty to this pack.”
“And your feelings for her as a person mean nothing?”
“Are you questioning my feelings for her? Do I need to remind you you’re only here because I allow it? Don’t question me, Desmond. I can make sure you never lay eyes on her again.”
The silence that followed gutted me.
I’d had enough. My only duty was to look out for myself.
“If the two of you don’t shut the hell up, I can make sure neither of you ever lay eyes on me again.” I didn’t have to yell. They heard me fine.
The next night I awoke feeling like I had been skull fucked by something with a monstrous three-pronged penis that leaked acid.
I felt awesome.
“Oh, fuck my life,” I groaned, smacking my alarm clock onto the ground so the neon numbers would stop burning my eyes.
“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Desmond asked from the bedroom door.
“No, but I’d tell her to go fuck herself with this mouth.” If that was his idea of testing me, he picked a poor barometer. My hatred for my mother was sort of a lifelong deal.
“How do you feel?”
I threw my pillow over my head. When I spoke next, my words were muffled. “I’m fine.”
The bed shifted, and he tentatively placed a hand on my hip. When I didn’t recoil, he lay down next to me and lifted the pillow off my face. “You’re you?”
“I was always me, I just had cheesecloth for a memory.”
“So you remember last night?”
“Unfortunately.”
“All of it?”
“I remember going to the morgue with Brigit and Nolan, I got sexually harassed by a British professor with a limp, then Lucas got to spend some quality time with my ex-boyfriend, and I capped it all off with King Rain telling you he didn’t give two shits about our feelings so long as we stayed in line with our duty. Did I miss anything?”
