“No, don’t,” Devon says. “We owe her, so this is her debt repaid. End of story. Send her home and tell her never to come back.”
“Done,” I say. “Well, I guess we should go out there.”
“If we must,” Devon says. “I’d rather we hole up in here for a few more hours.” The lewd smile on his face makes me laugh.
“If only,” I say with a sigh. “Come.” I hold my hand out for him and he takes it, letting me pull him up off the bed.
“Before we go out there, I think you should know that Remiel took the mark off Xander,” Devon says, pulling me back.
“I know,” I say. “I saw the mark on his wrist. I wasn’t all that surprised. It was his plan all along.”
“He killed him,” Devon says. “Did you know that too?”
I falter. It stabs me in the heart that it had to happen like that. “No, I didn’t, but it needed to be removed,” I say, standing back up.
“Okay,” Devon says, unwilling to challenge me but clearly unhappy with my response. “You accept the actions of your sire?”
“He did what needed to be done,” I say and leave it at that.
“So, you are defending him now?” Devon asks warily.
“He did what needed to be done,” I repeat, and my tone leaves no doubt that this conversation is now closed.
“You are taking a big risk,” he says quietly. “Trusting him.”
I look him in the eye. “He has earned it,” I say. “His methods maybe be wildly archaic, but they have worked.”
“Fair enough,” Devon says, avoiding my gaze.
“He is a powerful ally, Devon,” I say. “We would be remiss not to accept his help.”
“Yep,” he says. “Time to tell them what they already know.” He indicates the door with his head.
“Mm. I still can’t believe you were out for only a minute. Even I took five hours to come around,” I mock him.
“I excel at absolutely everything, my sire. You should know that by now,” he boasts, and I punch him lightly on the arm.
“Say it again,” I plead. “I need to hear it.”
“My sire,” he says and kisses me on the lips.
“My beautiful charge,” I murmur, fisting my hands in his shirt. “It feels so good to say that again to you.”
“And even better to hear it,” he says and then ushers me forward to break our little bubble and get punched in the face with reality.
Reality sucks!
I would rather have had a punch to the face than the fierce stare and stony silence of my husband and the accusatory complaints from everyone else of why Devon got some and not them.
“So, you turned him,” CK states flatly, with his arms crossed, and it shuts up the rest of them as they cotton on.
“Yes,” I say mildly, not wanting to aggravate him. “It was inevitable.”
I look around for Remiel, but he is nowhere to be seen. Neither are Liv and Fraser, which is curious. Have they left already? I was kind of hoping to have a word with Liv and secretly–never to be admitted out loud–I wanted to see Fraser again one last time before I let him go, for good.
“But you said you didn’t want this,” CK says, turning his accusations onto Devon.
“I changed my mind,” he says with a shrug. “I wanted my sire back.”