?
“You heard me,” Cade says.
“That little bitch,” he mutters. “I trust you told her where to go?” Devon asks him with so much menace that if he had agreed to the proposal, he would now have no head.
“Of course,” he says, slightly insulted that Devon thinks he is that stupid.
“Of course,” Devon sneers, mocking him. “How dare I think that you would stoop that low.”
Ah, Hell. The glowering look tells Cade that Devon knows. He knows a whole lot more than Cade had hoped he did. “Just so you know…” he starts, but again Devon is quick to interrupt him.
“I don’t give a crap about Jess. She can do whatever the fuck she wants, but you keep your hands off my sire,” he says.
Cade sighs. This is the whole crux of the problem. Devon hates him because Liv felt like she had no choice but to turn him. “My sire as well,” he says without thinking.
Devon snarls at him and he holds his hands up. “Look, man. I never wanted any part of this. I was happy being human, even a dead one, until Liv butted her nose in where it doesn’t belong.” He thinks he hears Devon mutter “as usual,” but he carries on. “I know you hate me for what I did to her, but she has forgiven me. Are you ever going to?”
“Why should I?” Devon asks. “You came in here and took everything away from me. Even my charge you had to stick your dick into. And don’t even get me started on the Other Liv thing. I don’t owe you anything.”
“I get that you feel that way, but I am not taking anything away from you. I don’t love her; I don’t want her. I never have and I never will. I did what I had to do to get myself strong so that I don’t have to depend on her. This,” he says and brandishes his blood bottle in Devon’s face, “is the next step. One I had hoped to take without the whole house finding out about it. As soon as I am able, I will be out of here. I can assure you of that, but I am done suffering for her mistake. As for Jess, she loves you, man. We were both feeling crappy and it just happened. And the “Other Liv thing” was your doing, not mine. Liv knew you were hiding something, and she asked me to find out what it was.”
Devon stares at the bottle. “I don’t care about Jess,” he says again quietly. “She betrayed me and my sire. You will leave as soon as you are strong enough?”
“Yes, things are about to get really ugly and I don’t want to stick around any longer than I have to,” Cade replies.
“Fifty years, at least,” Devon says.
“That long?” Cade asks miserably. He knew it would be a few years, but fifty?
Devon nods. “Maybe less if you keep your hands off her.”
“Done,” Cade says. “But fifty years is a long time to hate me.”
“I’ll try to work on it,” Devon says and turns towards the kitchen. “Thanks for telling me what Jess asked you to do.”
“No worries,” he says to Devon’s back and a part of him does pity the poor girl.
He heads up the stairs, feeling better about having confronted Devon. They won’t be friends anytime soon, but maybe the animosity will die down a bit. Problem is, he still has a much, much bigger fish to fry.
Cole.
He needs to make things right with Cole if he ever expects to feel comfortable here. Forgetting about his blood bottle, he knocks on their bedroom door and waits for an answer.
After a few moments, Cole answers it with a scowl on his face. “What do you want?” he asks.
“To talk,” Cade says.
Cole just shrugs at him and walks away, back over to the terrace where he sits down and gazes out onto the grounds below.
Cade follows him. “I just wanted to say thanks for asking Devon to help me while Liv was gone,” he says.
Cole grunts at him. “How do you know it was me that asked him?”
“You knew what I was going through. No one else cared,” Cade says quietly, and Cole finally looks at him.
“I don’t care,” he says, looking away again.
“Fair enough,” Cade mutters.