He looks at me as if I am stupid and says, “Well, I don’t suppose I expect you to remember. You mumbled something about needing to change. Be something different. It didn’t last long, a day at the most. You were too weak to hold on to it. Anyway, we had gone together to confront Lance after we found your abandoned castle. He denied ever seeing you, but his head Romani dropped the wards before we were about to leave, and I sensed you. I went to find you and he held off Lance for as long as he could. It nearly killed me,” he whispers. “Your pain. What he’d done to you. I wish you had let me kill him then.”
“There was no time. And after…I just didn’t want you to leave me. I’m sorry for the burden I must have been to you after that,” I say hesitantly.
“What?” he asks now, sitting upright. “Burden? You were never a burden to me, Aefre. What on Earth makes you think that?”
“I was broken. Completely dead inside. I was doing nothing to please you or anything to want you to keep me around.”
“Oh, Aefre, I would have looked after you to this day if that is what it took to get you back. Is that what made you come back? That you thought you weren’t pleasing me?” He frowns, and I look down at his words.
“That night, a thought came into my head. I didn’t have many thoughts, so this came as a bit of a revelation. I thought that if I didn’t respond to you, you were going to abandon me. I couldn’t bear the thought of that. I didn’t want you to leave me somewhere all alone. When I drank from you, it all became a lot clearer,” I say.
“Did I… did I give you a reason to think I would leave you?” he asks quietly.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. But you misunderstand. I wanted to come back then. It gave me a reason to come back.”
He smiles sadly. “Well, I can’t say that I would rather you have come back for yourself and your own reasons, but I will take what I can get.”
I kiss him softly and he lets me, for once not taking control.
A knock at the door brings us apart. “That had better not be Devon already,” he stands up, complaining and I chuckle.
He answers it and I stand, turning. It’s Nico. Wondered when he would turn up.
“Cade’s been spotted,” he says as he strides into the suite, stopping dead in his tracks when he sees me. And there it is, finally. The desire I have pushed to get is burning brightly in his eyes and doesn’t go unnoticed by my highly irate sire. So, all of this time I was flashing my bits at him, when what he wanted was this. He clearly has a thing for 15th century Italian women, I note with an inward high-five to myself. I must look smug as CK barks, “Nico!” and the shutters close again as he clears his throat.
“Aefre, go and wait in the bedroom,” he orders me, but I shake my head.
“No, if it’s about Cade. I’m staying.”
He glares at my defiance, but I stand my ground. If I am going to meet in secret with him, I need to know what Nico knows.
Nico turns his back to me and addresses only his boss, “One of my team spotted him in the casino earlier, talking to someone on his phone.”
I try not to look guilty as he was talking to me.
“We tried to follow him back to wherever he’s staying, but he disappeared. He is good, I’ll give him that,” he says grudgingly.
“That’s it? That’s all you have to tell me?” CK snaps. “It’s not good enough. I want his head on a platter; don’t bother me again unless that is what you are bringing me.” He is in a right temper now, mad at Nico and probably me as well knowing him. I sigh. So much for our happy time.
“Yes, sir,” Nico bobs his head and without a second glance at me, beats a hasty retreat lest it be his head on a platter.
CK shifts his furious gaze to me and I stare innocently back. After all, it’s not my fault. I didn’t do anything to cause such a reaction from his employee. Had I stripped off naked and given him a lap dance, sure I’d take the blame, but not for this. I couldn’t be more covered up if I tried.
“You need to Shift,” he growls at me, “into a beast so hideous that people run from you.”
I let out a loud guffaw. I think I can honestly say, I have never in all of my life laughed as hard, or for as long, as I do at that comment. I am bent over double trying to catch my breath in between bouts of mirth that leave my stomach aching. Every time I sober up, I look at him and his slightly amused expression and it starts all over again.
“A beast so hideous that people run from me?” I snort, slapping my thigh as more laughter bubbles up. “And what about you? Would you run?”
“Well, that depends on what you looked like,” he says with a laugh of his own. “Christ, Aefre, I just can’t seem to catch a break with you. If it’s not one man, it’s another. You truly are a Helen of Troy.”
I stop laughing then and just look at him, his words warming me inside. “You always know the right thing to say,” I say shyly.
He crosses over to me slowly. “I’m sure that even as a beast you would still have too many suitors. There is just something about you that draws men in. When we are married, I am going to have to lock you away so I can have you all to myself.?
??
My breath hitches in my throat at the mild threat and his eyes harden as he says, “Now that was completely the wrong thing to say. I apologize. You know I would never do that to you?” It is a question, an uncertain one.