Captivated (Deep in Your Veins 6)

“No. But I’m part of the legion, not someone like Castor who sits around all night never putting his ass in danger. When you take risks with your life often, you don’t take your immortality for granted the way some vampires do.”

My stomach curdled, and suddenly I didn’t feel so peckish. There was indeed a lot of danger involved in being part of the legion. I’d heard of so many assignments. Heard of various injuries the members had suffered. Heard how some had even once been tainted by The Reaper’s Call—something that could make a vampire ill and was highly contagious. The thought of Damien persistently being in danger … it just didn’t sit well with me.

I snapped out of my thoughts at the sound of a plate sliding across the island. I blinked down at the sandwich now directly in front of me.

“What’s wrong?” asked Damien.

“I just don’t like that you take such risks, even though I know you do it for honourable reasons. I can admire it and also dislike it at the same time.”

His face softened. “Eat, baby.”

I lifted the sandwich and took a bite. “What did Sam mean when she said I look like someone who Castor has beef with?”

“We heard from Dion that their Maker was a woman who pretty much fucked Castor over—someone he’d initially believed was ‘different’ than those from his past. He’s used to betrayal, apparently.” Damien began giving me a brief rundown of Dion’s story while pouring me a glass of orange juice. He placed the drink beside my plate. “It doesn’t justify anything that Castor has done, obviously. But it does show why he seemed to take your rejection so personally. His emotions aren’t really directed at you.”

I bit into my sandwich again. “I can’t really relate to what his Maker put him through, but it would be hard to believe someone is different from the others who’ve hurt you only to realise that, hey, you were wrong.”

He gave a slow nod. “That shit is hard to swallow.”

I tilted my head. “You sound like you know that from experience.” When he didn’t respond, I quickly assured him, “You don’t have to tell me anything. I won’t be offended.” Especially since he’d already told me anecdotes from his past.

“It’s not a secret. Just not terribly interesting.”

“If you don’t mind sharing it, I’d still like to hear it.”

“All right.” Still standing, he bent and braced his lower arms on the island. “My mother and stepfather were, in a word, snobs. Their friends were snobs, and the offspring of said friends were also snobs. I explained how my brother, Kaiden, was the golden boy, right?”

I swallowed my food before replying, “Yes.”

“Well, it turns out that snobby girls often prefer the black sheep to the golden boy.”

I felt my mouth quirk. “So you got plenty of pussy.”

He returned my small smile. It was sheepish rather than arrogant, though. “To put it bluntly, yeah. But those girls were all the same—vapid, materialistic, out for what they could get. So when I met Bianca in a coffee shop, she was a breath of fresh air. Nice girl. Single mom. Worked two jobs to support her kid. She was motivated and independent and attentive.”

Everything his own mother wasn’t, I thought.

“Although she’d had a shitty start to life, she didn’t hold my financially comfortable background against me. Some did that. Acted like I had no right to my own worries. Bianca didn’t. Neither do you.”

“Everyone has problems. Having money simply brings a different set of problems.”

“You’re right, it does. Anyway, back to Bianca … I asked her to move in with me, but she hemmed and hawed. She didn’t want to uproot her kid until she was sure that she and I were solid. I thought we were. Only we weren’t. I learned that the day after Austin’s funeral—he died of a heart attack. I went to see her, but she wouldn’t let me in. She said we were over, and she asked me to leave. I was confused and hurt and pissed. I was also sick of arguing with her through the fucking front door, so I left. No matter how many times I tried talking to her after that, she stone-walled me.”

“Really? That’s shitty. And cowardly. She could have at least respected you enough to be straight with you.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” He sighed, shaking his head. “It made no sense to me at the time. None. But I respected her wishes and let her be.”

“Did you eventually find out why she pulled that shit?”

“Oh yeah. The day I went to the reading of the will, I learned that Austin had left me nothing, but I’d expected that. I didn’t care. Kaiden made a weird comment. Said Austin could have at least left me twenty grand. He then added, ‘Bianca found it a pretty substantial amount.’ I froze, and my stomach dropped. When I asked what he’d done, he just smirked and said, ‘Everyone has a price, big brother.’”