"Wolf," Vane corrected.
Bride got up and put the couch between herself and Vane. This wasn't real.
No. This was a dream. She'd hit her head. Something.
"Jeez," Tabitha sneered. "I should have known it that night you were outside the restaurant. I thought you looked too smart for the average beastie."
Kyrian came into the room and tried to pull Tabitha back to the kitchen.
Tabitha shrugged off his hand. "Bride needs me. She's not used to you loons."
"I need to go home," Bride said as a strange lucidity came over her. It was as if her mind were rejecting everything she'd heard.
Vane a dog Yeah, right. Well, most men were dogs, but that was only figuratively speaking. No. This was some weird dream. Vane had drugged her during lunch and she was now hallucinating. Whenever she woke up, she was definitely calling the cops on him.
She moved to the door only to have Vane materialize in front of her. "You can't leave."
"Oh, yes I can," she snapped angrily. "This is my bad psychotic delusion and I can do anything I want to in it. Just watch. I'm going to turn into a bird now" Okay, she didn't.
Bride waited for a full minute. "Why am I not a bird? I want to be a bird."
"Because you're not dreaming," Vane said, placing his hands on her arms.
"This is real, Bride. In a very fucked-up sort of way."
"No, no, no," she insisted. "This isn't real. I reject it all. I have" Bride stopped mid-sentence as she looked past Kyrian to see his daughter. Marissa was crawling into the room. The baby stopped near the couch, and sat up, laughing.
She held her tiny arm out and her sippee cup on the coffin-shaped coffee table flew into her outstretched hand. "Rissa, cup, Daddy," she said happily even though the baby was too young to speak.
"Yeah," Bride said while Marissa sipped her juice and Kyrian picked his daughter up from the floor. "I am definitely one oar short on the boat."
She started past Vane only to have him pull her to a stop.
"Please, Bride, you have to listen because your life is in danger, but not from me."
She looked into those magnetic hazel-green eyes and wondered if his image was part of her hallucination, too.
Maybe none of this had ever happened. Maybe she was still in bed with Taylor and all this had been one very long, odd dream.
She shook her head at Vane. "I can't accept what I've just seen. It's not possible."
He held up his palm with the same tattoo as hers. "I don't know how to help you accept this. The unbelievable has been part of my life since the moment I was born. I"
Vane sighed, dropped his hands from her arms and pulled his cell phone out again and dialed it.
He was making a call? Now?
Yeah, why not? That made as much sense as the rest of this.
What had she eaten for dinner? It must have been a doozy. She better make a note not to eat it again.
Vane's gaze stayed on her. "Acheron, I need a favor from you. I don't care what it costs. I'm at Kyrian's house with my mate and I need you here to guard her for me until she's freed."
"Mate?" she repeated. "As in 'friend'?"
"As in 'wife,'" Tabitha said.
Bride gaped. "I'm not married."
Vane hung up the phone. "No, you're not, Bride." He cupped her cheek with one warm hand and gave her a look of sad longing. "No one is going to make you do anything you don't want to do, okay?"
He stroked her cheekbone with his thumb. "Stay here, where things are mostly normal and where you'll be safe for the next two weeks, and I won't bother you ever again. I swear it. Just be safe for me."
It was hard to be afraid of a man who looked at her the way Vane did just now. With that sincerity burning deep in his gaze. With such a look of yearning and need.
She was uncertain.
Scared.
"What are you?" she asked.
He looked down, took a deep breath, then lifted his head up.
Bride gasped as she saw that one-half of his face was covered with a deep red tattoo similar to the one on her palm.
"I'm human," he said in a tormented tone. "And I'm not." He dropped his hand to her shoulder. "I never knew softness," he breathed. "Not until the moment you touched me in your store. My life is violent and dangerous. It's dark and twisted and no place for someone like you. I have more people wanting me dead than I can count. They will stop at nothing, and you" He ground his teeth before he spoke again. "You'll never want again for anything in your life. I swear it on what little bit of human soul I have left."
He stepped back and headed for the door. "Take care of her for me, Kyrian."
Then he was gone.
Bride felt drained by his sudden absence, and for reasons unknown, her heart ached.
She looked over at Tabitha, who had tears in her eyes. "Dog or no dog," Tabitha said. "That was" She rushed to Bride's side and urged her toward the door. "Don't let him leave, Bride. Go get him."
She didn't have to say those words; Bride was already headed for the door.
"Vane!" she called, looking for him.
There was no sign of him anyplace.
"Vane!" she tried again, even louder this time.
Only the damp, cool air answered her.
Her heart breaking, she stepped back into the house and collided with Tabitha. "I can't believe I let him go."
"I can't believe the idiot went."
Bride panicked as she heard that voice. It wasn't Tabitha's. It was the demon's. In the blink of an eye, everything went black.
Vane walked down the street away from Kyrian's house, doing his best to ignore Bride's call. His heart was breaking into pieces at the thought of losing her.
He had done the right thing. He'd let her go. So why did it hurt so much?
And it did hurt. It ached and burned deep inside his heart until he was sure he couldn't bear it.
It was for the best.
She was human and he was the wolf who loved her. Vane cursed at the reality of that statement. He wanted desperately to deny it and he couldn't. She was everything to him.