My heart skipped a beat. What the hell was that?
She was sick, abused, and here I was feeling… something. What was wrong with me? She was a skeleton. I hated women like that. I liked something to grab, a healthy body I could feel beneath me as I drove into her. A real woman, not a stick with a pulse. Didn’t even know why I was thinking about touching her at all.
But as I walked back to my seat, I realized it hadn’t been a sexual attraction I’d felt. It was something else entirely.
I fuckin’ cared.
Jesus.
My eyes shot to Quill who was looking at me, full-out grinning.
I grunted, slammed the window covering down, sat, and then leaned back and closed my eyes.
THE ANGER SIMMERED AS I waited for Delara to come back. My shout had woken the entire house and they all ran into the foyer within seconds. Keir, Anstice—Keir’s maite, Hack—his brother, and last, Finn—the Newfoundland dog, trailing behind with slow, lumbering strides. Jedrik was already downstairs.
I was here because a human required Anstice’s healing ability. A cop had a run-in with a few CWO Worms. The Wraith of Air, Urtzi, had contacted me when he sensed the cop lying paralyzed in an alley. No surgeon could ever make him walk again, but Anstice’s healing could, and he was a good cop. I’d erase his memories of the Worms and of us after he was healed.
I hadn’t expected to walk in the door and scent vampire. Then the distinct combination of Liam, Delara, and sex.
Now we were in the living room waiting for her to get her ass back here. Jedrik sat on the leather couch looking uneasy as hell as his leg bounced. Keir leaned up against the bookcase, Anstice beside him, and Hack, who fiddled with his cell phone, hovered next to the stone mantel.
“Shouldn’t we be going?” Anstice asked.
“Need to talk to Delara first,” I said. “She’s on her way.”
No one spoke, but I felt the tension in the air.
The kitchen door slammed and every muscle in my body tensed. Delara’s footsteps were slow and even as she walked across the ceramic tiles into the living room.
She stopped, eyes meeting mine.
I waited. Needing a few seconds to calm the fury that ran hell-bent through my body.
She was first to look away. Good.
“Why did I detect Liam as soon as I entered this house?” I asked.
I watched her for shifts in movements, the obvious gestures that would tell me she was lying. Her thoughts were blocked, as were Jedrik’s, meaning they were hiding something.
Definitely uneasy, but the most recent time Delara was anxious around me ever since that night twenty-one years ago.
A night I regretted.
And yet, a night I couldn’t forget.
“I went to see him,” Jedrik said, getting up off the couch while avoiding everyone’s eyes.
Lying big time. Typical. Jedrik would cover for Delara even if it meant his own demise.
I raised my brows. “Is that so?”
“Yeah, you see Liam is up on all the gossip and—”
“I was with him,” Delara interrupted. I knew she’d never let Jedrik take the fall.
Anstice paled, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Keir’s arm tighten protectively around her. My own emotions were ready to turn this place into a tornado. I reached into my back pocket and took out my candy dispenser and popped out a white pill, tossing it in my mouth.
I needed a minute to gain control over my voice before I spoke. Delara refused to look at me, and she fiddled with the pockets on her cargo pants.
“And?” One word at a time. That’s all I could manage.
“I asked her to go,” Jedrik said. “I heard…” He paused, eyes shifting side to side. “Well, there’s a rumor a witch is hanging around Liam’s club.” He sat, then quickly changed his mind and stood again.
Lying again. The rumor was true, but that wasn’t the reason.
I knew Delara was struggling with us being apart. It was my fault. I should never have caved in to my desire, yet on occasion, all self-control faltered. I knew how she felt—damn, I knew how I felt—and it magnified our problems ten-fold.
“He’s lying,” Delara announced. Jedrik opened his mouth, but one scowl from Keir had him sitting back on the couch with his head bowed and shaking it back and forth. “I was with him.”
“Why?” Every muscle in my body tensed.
And then it came, slamming into me like a meteor. “I’m fucking him.”
My stomach twisted.
Words were lost.
My Delara. The woman I couldn’t have but wanted. The only woman who could touch me without me freaking out. The woman I didn’t deserve and would destroy if we were ever together again.
I’d known the truth as soon as I entered the house, but until she said it, I’d ignored what my senses had told me.
I wasn’t the only one who looked shocked. Jedrik was pale and Hack had stopped playing with his cell, mouth gaping.
Anstice eased from Keir’s embrace and walked over to Delara. She stood next to her as if she was going to shield her from my wrath.