Conclave (Devil's Night 3.5)

Winter sits up, dressed in jeans and a navy-blue sweater, her wet hair combed and in a tight ponytail as she faces my direction. “Don’t be mad at me.”

“You know how I feel about this,” I tell her, grinding the wheel in my fist. “There’s no one else on my side. Not even Nik. You need to stand by me on this.”

“I am,” she rushes out. “I just…I don’t know.” A look of guilt crosses her face. “I guess I felt sorry for her. Rika said she’d be there every minute. I wouldn’t put him in danger, Damon.”

His “grandmother” is danger.

I want to be angry with Winter. She, above anyone else, should stand by me. She knows why I don’t want Ivarsen around Christiane, and it’s for good fucking reason.

But it’s not like I don’t go behind her back to educate her choreographer from time to time or see to it that her old pal Ethan suddenly lost his interest in photography.

But this is our son, dammit. They don’t get to make decisions about him without me. Rika has no business sticking her nose in this.

“You know she can’t prove herself if you don’t give her a chance,” Winter points out.

“She had a chance.”

After a short pause, Winter adds, “Yeah, so did we.” Her voice is somber as we both stare out the windshield. “Thank goodness we gave each other another one.”

I storm through the dark house, holding Winter’s hand, and spot Rika standing outside the library, looking through the windows in the closed doors. A couple of other people stand next to her, and I charge over, the sight of Christiane holding a sleeping Ivar in her arms as she sits in a chair coming into view beyond the glass. A man is in the room with her, reading quietly on the sofa as she rocks my kid.

I reach out and grab the handle, but Rika twists around and steps in front of me, covering my hand with hers.

“Move,” I order her.

“She’s not hurting him.”

“That’s right. She won’t.”

“Damon, calm down,” the guy next to her says.

I look over, seeing Will’s cousin, Misha.

I glare at him. “Eat my dick.”

Winter groans at my side, and some chick with Misha comments, “Oh, so this is Damon.”

But I turn my anger back on Rika.

She stares up at me, holding my stare. “Misha?” she says. “Will you give us a second?”

Yes, please. Piss off.

Winter slides out of my hand. “Misha, can you show me the sun room?” she asks him and then to us, “I’ll let you two have at it. Sorry, Rika.”

“Sorry for putting you in the middle, Winter,” Rika tells her.

They leave, and I try to push past her, my eyes darting from her to Ivar.

“That kid doesn’t absolve you.” Rika inches in front of me again, trying to catch my eyes. “He doesn’t make your past go way or make you better than her.”

I get in her face, gritting out. “Move.”

But she doesn’t. “You tied me to a bed,” she says. “Kissed me. Bit me. Even as I cried.”

The memory of all the times I tried to hurt her—did hurt her—rushes at me, but I push them away.

“Wanted to share me with your friends,” she goes on. “Wanted me to yourself for a little while, too, remember that?”