“Good afternoon, Sar, and Theo,” Carol Clay said calmly as she entered. “I’m sorry that when you called I was on vacation.” She sat down and faced us. “Please tell me why you wanted to meet with me today.”
Theo and I both looked at each other.
He was my husband, but there was no love in his look, just weariness and bitterness. I admitted that was more than understandable. It wasn’t a date: we were here to discuss my inadequacies as a wife and how to solve them. Our problems were serious, much more serious than they had been a year ago when we’d been sitting here on this same couch.
Theo looked away.
My eyes remained on him. His attire was the loose casual clothing he’d always favored because it hid his physique. I hadn’t known that he was muscular until the first time I’d seen him with his clothes off. His sand-colored hair was still wet from the shower, and much longer than usual. Theo was most likely growing it back into the longer style he’d had when I first met him. Maybe he’d always preferred that style. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to ask him to cut it for me anymore no matter how this turned out.
His eyes were dark with sadness, not love, and there was a touch of anger in them as he glanced back at me. “You want to start?”
I nodded, though I really didn’t want to. I took a breath, then let it out. “We’re here, Carol, because I need some help coming to terms with my life.”
“So do I,” Theo added. “Our marriage is falling apart.”
Carol looked like she heard this every day of the week. “Why would you say that?” she said calmly. “Back in December things were going well. What’s changed?”
Theo and I looked at one another. Where to start? December seemed a lifetime ago.
Well, I could sum up easily enough. “Carol, I told you about Devlin, Danial’s brother.”
Theo shot me a shocked glance. I pointedly didn’t look at him. Carol looked a little nervous too, but she nodded.
“You never said his name. I assume from this, you have told Theo what you told me?”
“Yes. Theo knows what happened with Devlin and I, but that’s nothing. A lot has happened since then.”
I took a breath, and then spent the better part of the next hour telling Carol about Devlin’s saving me with his bite and his body, about his taking control of Canada from Ebediah, becoming Oathed to Danial and Devlin, about getting pregnant with Devon and Venus, the lust with Lash, Devlin’s burning, and Lash’s brush with death, and he and I having sex again. I left off the part about how I had saved him, just said I’d had crucial information for him, and that a potion from a friend had saved him.
I’d promised Devlin that I would stick to the story he’d come up with about Lash’s return to youth and vigor. While I didn’t like the role of slut that it made me play—like I’d gone to find Lash just to have some excuse for sex with him again— I didn’t have much choice. Devlin was right: if other supernatural creatures knew about what I’d been able to do for Lash, I’d be in terrible danger from beings that would make the other Vampire Rulers look harmless. Lash wasn’t the only one willing to go to great lengths not to die. According to Titus, Devlin’s demon, there were others who took a potion similar to the one Lash had taken for decades. And they wouldn’t stop themselves when I began to lose consciousness as Lash had. They would take all of my blood until I died. The thought was sobering, to say the least.
I finally finished my recanting with a shrug for Carol. “That’s it.”
Carol looked over at Theo. “What do you feel about all this, Theo?”
“I can’t deal with it,” Theo said angrily, running his hands through his hair. “I hate Lash more than anyone alive, and I hate Devlin too, for making me share my wife with him. He could have other women, scads of them! Why did he have to have her? Why couldn’t he have left her alone?”
“If I understand right, Theo, if Devlin hadn’t loved her as much as he did, Sar would be dead,” Carol said gently. “Right?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Theo growled. “I could understand his wanting a child. Sar is the only one who could have one of his. But she did it, and that isn’t enough for him! He wants her even more than he did before. He wants her to live with him, and that fucking Lash—!”
“Back to Lash,” Carol said smoothly, interrupting Theo’s tirade. “Sar, you say you love Theo.”
“I do,” I said wearily.
“Then how could you just leave for a few days to go to his worst enemy and have sex with him?”
Her incredulous tone was an echo of Danial’s when I’d confessed to him, and it rankled me. “He was my friend. I didn’t go to him for sex, I went to him because he needed me, and there was no one else who could find him.”
“Couldn’t you have told his location to the person who made the potion for him?” Carol asked pointedly.
I went from rankled to defensively annoyed. “I wanted to be with him. I wanted something I had a choice in! Danial asks for my input on decisions, but certain things I have no choice in if he feels that they are the right thing for me to do. Theo gives me choices, but he also tells me what to do. If I don’t do as he says, he punishes me with sullenness, and—”
“I am never sullen,” Theo said sullenly.
I stifled the insane urge to laugh. “Really?” I retorted. “How angry are you when you’re smelling another man’s scent on me, even when you know it’s someone I’m Oathed to? You know what I do when I see them, Theo. It’s not a secret. I’m tired of being made to feel dirty because of a promise I made to Devlin to protect my life, so I could stay your wife and be around my children.”
Theo glared, but said nothing.
Carol's expression said she was glad she had booked us a two-hour session. She hadn’t wanted to, but I’d been adamant. I’d known it would take an hour just to give her the background to catch her up. We’d been delayed enough waiting for her to get back from vacation. I had to try to heal our marriage before things fell apart so much with Theo that there was nothing to put back together.
“Theo, you should give an answer to Sar.”
“You know I don’t like to smell anyone else on you. I want you to be just mine, Sar.”
“But I’m not just yours, Theo,” I shot back. “You know how things have to be! Everyone knows it, even my parents now—”
Carol took a quick intake of breath. I glanced at her and gave her a nod, and then kept going.
“I’m tired of pretending for you. I’m not going to anymore. I can’t do it! I can’t give you everything that you want from me!”
“Sar, you sound very upset,” Carol interrupted. “Your situation is not one I’ve dealt with before, but I’ll try my best to help you come to terms with it. Let’s take a break for a few minutes, and then begin again.”
Theo and I both nodded.
Carol got up and left. I wondered crazily as I watched her go if she was leaving to pop a Valium because she needed one to deal with us for another hour.
“Do you really want to be here?” Theo asked when we were alone.
I looked over at him as if he were an idiot. “Of course not. I feel like I’m on trial for being a bad wife. But I want to do whatever I can to rebuild your trust in me.”
“Why?” Theo asked nastily, sitting back on the couch. “It seems to me like you’re blaming me for being jealous, when any man in my position would be.”
“I’m not blaming you for feeling jealous,” I amended. “I blame you for making me feel bad about how you feel, because I didn’t want this when I married you. I wanted a life with you. And I didn’t ask for any of this to happen.”
“Why couldn’t you have been with Danial and not had a child with him?” Theo growled. “If you had just left that well enough alone, Sar, we would have been fine—”
“Stop it!” I shouted, startling him. “I love Theoron! I wanted a child with Danial, and I wouldn’t take it back for anything!”
“I’m sorry,” Theo said quickly with remorse. “I didn’t mean it, Sar. I love Theoron too. I just—”
He had meant it. “It wouldn’t have mattered anyway,” I said darkly. “Devlin knew even then that I might hold the key to something he’d wanted for centuries. He always had his plans for me, Theo, from the moment he first tasted my blood.”
“How do you know this?” Theo asked, giving me a strange look.
I looked away, my memory of Devlin’s confession unsettling. “I asked him one night what he’d planned if he got me away from Danial. Trying for a child was on his list.”
“I’m not surprised,” Theo said bitterly. “He’s fucking diabolical.”
Devlin was diabolical. I had never met anyone with his talent for manipulating people or events with the absolute ruthlessness to do whatever it took so his plans unfolded just as he wanted them to. Dev was gorgeous with his heart-shaped face, his sculpted body, his golden hair to his shoulders, and his beautiful golden eyes. Though he looked like a hero from a romance novel, Devlin was closer to the devil his name implied. He had a sadistic streak that I’d been on the receiving end of once or twice, until he had began taking a potion from Titus that had made him less edgy. He was also a philanderer, and I had been on the receiving end of that as well. The latter was the reason I no longer wore his choker. But scars from his bites still adorned my throat, one on each side, though the newer one had healed a good deal, so it was no longer a match for the original one on the other side. They marked me as his, more so even than the choker around my neck.
It was Devlin’s brother Danial’s symbol—the golden fox head with ruby eyes—that hung at my throat. I was Oathed to Danial, too, because when Devlin had taken my promise from me, he had included his brother. But Danial did not have his brother’s faults; he’d never cheated on me. The mystery was that his collar had not fallen off when I’d broken my promise to him by being with Lash.
My theory was that the choker didn’t see Lash as forbidden. Danial and Devlin had allowed me to be with him during my pregnancy, to help me combat The Lust. It made sense then that as neither of them had verbally rescinded that permission, the choker didn’t register what I’d done as literal Oathbreaking.
Danial, however, was sure that it meant Devlin’s cheating on me had broken not only his own Oath, but also affected Danial’s, too. “I told you there was a grey area, Sar. We aren’t truly Oathed anymore.”
I’d been tempted to take the choker off and give it to him right there, but was worried that I wouldn’t be able to. It had been a while since we shared blood. “That wasn’t my doing, Danial.”
Danial had glared at me. His rich brown eyes were red with anger, and his face, so perfect as to be more beautiful than handsome, was grim. He was taller than his brother Devlin was, and he towered over me as I sat at his desk, his shoulder-length hair slipping forward in a black fall around his face.
“I didn’t say it was.” He paused. “I still want you to work for me. But don’t come to me, Sar. You can see Elle and Theoron whenever you want, as much as you want, of course. And if you need a place to stay, the spare bedroom above is yours.”
I’d expected something like this, but hearing the words still hurt. I’d bit my lip, and nodded, pointedly looking away so he wouldn’t see how upset I was.
After Danial had left, I’d cried for a while. But I’d dried my eyes when I was done, and gotten back to work.
Even though Danial had cut back on his caseload somewhat, Theo, Terian, Danial, and I were still putting in a lot of hours every week. He had done that reluctantly, because Theo had asked that he and I have more time together as a family with our son, Devon. In spite of having to reduce his scheduled meetings, Danial was very pleased that the business had expanded, and was looking forward to going into business with our son, Theoron, when he was old enough.
That day was coming much sooner than anyone might have expected. Theoron was now looking more like sixteen than the ten he had been at the end of the summer. He also looked the spitting image of Danial, with his dark hair, wide shoulders, and narrow waist. But he had my green eyes, though his were a much darker green, like the color of a spruce forest on a summer afternoon. He had even outstripped Elle in height, and she was none too happy about that.
“I’m the older sister!” she’d said in frustration yesterday, when Theoron had reminded her that she only looked about fourteen, while he could probably pass for being old enough to drive.
“Not anymore! Now you’re my kid sister!” he had said with a grin, which of course had started a shoving match that I had to break up.
They were both good kids, though, and I didn’t even need to raise my voice to do it. Both of them were smart too, very smart, and they knew something was wrong between Danial, Theo, and me. They hadn’t asked me why I hadn’t been spending my usual one night a week with Danial, but I knew they noticed. I hadn’t said anything to them about it, deciding it was better if they brought it up to me.
It had been awkward that first week, getting used to the fact that Danial didn’t want me to touch him anymore in any way. We hadn’t been intimate for months while I had been pregnant, so that part of it wasn’t that hard to get used to. But we had touched each other casually for almost a year now, and I found myself reaching out to him almost before I thought about it. Then, realizing what I’d done, I’d draw my hand back quickly, before I touched him. I knew he had noticed my actions, both unconscious and not, though he hadn’t said anything. It was his silence about that which had been the hardest to bear.
Carol’s return brought me back to the present. “Now then,” she said, sitting down in her chair, “Tell me what you would like to achieve in your time here, Theo, and then Sar, you do the same.”
“I want to be able to let Sar go to Danial and Devlin without being jealous. I know she has to, that it’s not her fault, and I know that it’s wrong to blame her. And I want to be able to trust her again, so we can be intimate again—”
“So you are not being intimate now?” Carol interjected.
“No. I don’t trust Sar. I don’t know if I believe she loves me like she used to because of what she did. And I think she still wants Lash, and I’m repulsed just thinking of the two of them together.”
“Sar, do you still want to be with Lash?”
“I’m not going to be with him again. Devlin has forbidden it—”
“That’s not what she asked you, Sarelle!” Theo growled low, cutting me off.
“Yes, I want him!” I spat the words back at him. “But I wanted Danial before too, back when he and I weren’t Oathed, and I managed to keep my panties on, Theopolis!”
Theo growled softly, but said nothing.
“Sar, what do you want out of this time?” Carol asked.
“I want not to feel like I’m torn in three directions. I want no one to be jealous of anyone, or to make me feel like it’s my fault that things are as they are. I want to feel in control of my life again, to be happy. I want my life back, so that it feels like it’s mine, that it belongs to me again.”
I lapsed into silence.
“Theo, how do you feel about what Sar just said?”
“I don’t want to push her away,” Theo sighed, running his hands through his hair. “I’m grateful she told me what happened, what she did. I know she didn’t have to, she could have covered it up.” Theo’s tone was guttural and raw, his rage building with every word. “I know I should be glad, because she did what she promised she would by telling me the truth, but I just feel betrayed. It would have been bad enough if it was anyone else, but it had to be fucking Lash!”
Carol tried to head him off by speaking quickly. “Theo, you seem to have a lot of anger still, and it does seem to be directed at Sar—”
“She fucked my worst enemy! Damn right, I’m angry! She could have saved him and not done that! No one made her be with him!”
“I think that is what Sar is saying, Theo,” Carol interjected. “She was with Lash at least in part BECAUSE no one made her do it; because she wanted something she had a choice in—”
“Well, I’m not MAKING her be with me!” Theo snarled. He pulled off his wedding band, and tossed it on the floor. He got to his feet in a smooth motion, and then glared down at me. “Teleport wherever you’re going to be spending the night,” he said coldly. “I’ll be at home, with Devon.” Without a backward look, Theo stalked out.
I put my head in my hands for a little while and wept. There was motion beside me a few minutes later, as Carol sat next to me. She said nothing; just put her hand on my shoulder. I slowly got control of myself, using some of the tissues on her table.
“Do you think we can work out things?” I said softly, not looking at her. “It’s bad, Carol.”
“It depends if you both want to,” Carol said simply. “If you and Theo both want things to work out badly enough, Sar, you’ll be able to work them out. But if he won’t try with you to meet you halfway, you’ll have to decide if you want to stay in the marriage with him, or if you want to separate.”
“I don’t want to lose him,” I said, looking at the wall. “But I think it’s going to come to that before it’s all over.”
Carol got up, and went back to her chair, settling into it. “We have another half hour or so. As Theo is gone, there are some other things we should discuss.”
I looked over at her. “What things?”
“Do you love Lash?” she asked frankly. “You give all indications that you do.”
“No. But he’s a good friend. I like him to touch me and kiss me, even though I know it’s wrong to want him that way. I enjoy spending time with him. He makes me laugh, the way Theo and I used to, before our lives became the mess they are. We talk a lot, about a lot of things, not just what’s going on in our own sphere of the world. And that day I was with him, I told myself that it was mostly just that I wanted to forget for a while everything that had happened to me, to get some solace from my problems. I rationalized that was why I had given in. But really it was just that I liked him, and I knew Theo was going to be angry anyway, that it didn’t matter if Lash had only made love to me to try to distract me—” I trailed off, as I’d said too much.
“What do you mean by that, Sarelle?” Carol said, watching me closely.
“I mean that part of saving Lash caused me a lot of pain,” I said carefully.
“Does Theo know this?”
“Carol, he hates him,” I said flatly. “Theo probably gets a warm happy feeling when he thinks that Lash was in terrible pain, and is angry at me for saving him just as much as he’s angry about me having sex with him. To him it doesn’t matter why, only that it happened. Which is just how I knew he would feel when he found out.”
“Then you should bring in Lash, as well as Danial and Devlin, to some sessions.”
My eyes bugged out of their sockets. “Are you joking? Do you know how bad that could—?”
“Not with Theo,” Carol said simply. “Just them with you, one at a time.”
“Why?” I asked, my tone shriller still. “That could still—”
“Because they may need to work with you to alter their behavior so that you feel better about your life,” Carol said calmly. “From listening to you, the problem this time is not Theo’s, it’s yours. Your feelings of being trapped led you to having sex with Lash, even when you knew you shouldn’t. And you’ll continue to feel this way until you resolve those feelings. They need you to tell them what you told Theo and me today.”
I didn’t answer.
Carol looked at me. “Isn’t it true, Sar, that in part you did what you did with Lash so you’d drive away some of your male attention? And it worked. You’ve said only Devlin has forgiven you for what you did, and you are only intimate with him right now. Danial and Theo are not being intimate with you since you were with Lash. And Lash is staying away from you, too, on Devlin’s orders.”
What she said was true. In a sad and awful way, I’d almost liked the last two weeks. I’d worked, played with my children, and had only one man who touched me intimately. It was nice, not having to satisfy a crowd. And I hadn’t had to have sex with anyone in that time. Devlin still couldn’t have sex yet. He was still not healed enough to, or so he said. His eye had healed a week ago, and I thought it strange that he hadn’t at least attempted once yet to have me. But that was another whole separate issue.
“Sar?”
“Yes, it’s true I wanted to get a break from everyone’s demands. But some of it was that I really wanted to be with Lash, because I liked him, and I wanted to be with him; to have it be just us, when he wasn’t dying, and when I wasn’t a slave to The Lust.”
“Would you be with him, if you could just be with one man?” she asked.
I blinked in surprise. “There would never be that choice.”
Carol gave me an expectant look that said that wasn’t an answer.
“Probably not,” I said, after a moment’s hesitation. “I don’t want to alienate my children any more than I have already. If I left Theo to be with Lash, Elle, my daughter, would probably never speak to me again. My son, Theoron, he likes Lash, but I’m not sure if he knows exactly what went on between the two of us. It isn’t the kind of information you ask your son if he’s aware of. Plus, I know Lash can be violent, and as much as I like him, he kills people for a living.”
“I know who he is very well, Sar” Carol said, and a little shudder went through her. “He’s almost as much of a legend as Devlin is.”
I rolled my eyes mentally as I could tell from her tone she was looking forward to meeting Devlin. Or maybe it was her obsession with Ranked men. I’d forgotten until this moment her interest and knowledge in the Who’s Who list of killers.
“If you could choose one man to be with, would it be Theo?”
“Of course. But it’s moot. There is no getting away from Devlin, Carol. And despite that Danial is angry at me, and refuses to be intimate with me, he didn’t ask me for his choker back.”
“So you are taking that his not asking for it back means he still wants you to be his?”
I gave Carol a partial smile. “Devlin said that Danial would forgive me, in time. I told him I didn’t think so, and Devlin just said he thought I knew Danial better than that.”
Carol got up. “Come back weekly, Sar. Come on alternate weeks with Theo, and the other weeks, come alone, or with one of the men we discussed. I’ll call Theo as well, and set up some lone sessions with him, too. He has some rage to vent out still, and he should get that out, so we don’t have an outburst like we had today from him.”
I bent down and picked up Theo’s wedding band, and slipped it on my thumb. “Okay,” I said, standing, and gathering up my coat and purse. “Next week, same time?”
“Yes,” Carol said, showing me to the door.
It was a good thing my insurance through Danial paid for therapy, I thought as I opened the door to walk outside. This was going to cost a fortune before it was over.
I decided to walk over to the back of the house where there were shrubs. I knew better than to just disappear in front of everyone, on a busy street sidewalk. But with Theo having taken off in the truck, there wasn’t another option.
“Sar?”
I turned to see Theo coming over to me, a hesitant look on his face. I turned and waited for him.
He came to stand in front of me. “Do you have my ring?”
I took it off my thumb, handed it to him, and he slipped it back onto his left hand.
“I’m sorry for what I said,” he said, and for a moment, he looked as if he might reach out and hold me, but he stopped himself, putting his hands back at his sides. Watching him, I wondered then if Titus, Devlin’s demon sorcerer, had broken the first layer of our bond.
Theo and I were bound by a dream we had shared three times. It had made our love deeper, our desire to be together almost unstoppable. I’d always loved that I shared it with him, that we were something like soul mates, that our love was that true. But two weeks ago, when I’d asked Titus to break the bond we shared, I’d done it because I knew Theo would never leave me while it held us together. And if things didn’t work out with us, I wanted Theo to be able to leave me, to find someone he could call his own. I’d had enough of not having choices. Theo didn’t have a lot of choices either, but this was one I was going to give him, even at the risk of losing him. Titus had said he could do it over months. Every day since then, I’d watched carefully for some sign of Theo’s love for me lessening. When it happened, I wanted to know.
“Let me give you a ride home,” Theo continued. “I know you need to get to Devlin tonight, but I’d like to spend the time with you, if you want to.”
“That’d be nice,” I said, following him to the truck.
As Theo drove home, I related what Carol had said. “She wants them all to come?” Theo said with something like horror.
“That’s what she said,” I said heavily, looking out the window.
“Aren’t you going to feel...I don’t know, awkward?”
“Of course!” I snapped. “I’m going to feel ridiculous, especially with Devlin there, and Carol already dying to meet him—” I snorted, then looked over at Theo and smiled. “I mean, how is she going to be impartial?”
He gave me a hesitant smile back. “I’m sure she’ll fall back on her training.” He cleared his throat. “When you were late to a session last fall, she and I got to talking. It’s clear she’s very into the Ranking, from the questions she’s asked me, almost to the point of fixation. But during the sessions she’s been nothing but professional.” He patted my hand. “It’ll be fine.”
I wanted to ask him to stop the truck, to ask him to take me in his arms and kiss me until I was lost in his love and devotion. Instead, I just nodded and looked away. Devlin expected me at Hayden, and he’d been more fanatical than usual lately about my visits to him. If I wasn’t there by dusk, he’d send Titus to track me down.
Titus had placed a tracking spell on me back months ago when Theo had had some men after him. No matter where I was, he could find me and teleport directly to me. It was the same spell that Lash had used to find us when Ulysses had kidnapped Devlin and I. It had faded out too soon, allowing Ulysses to almost kill Devlin with sunlight. Titus hadn’t refreshed it afterwards, which had allowed him to not know my location when I went to find Lash, allowing me just enough time to save his life. The moment my demon kin had found me in the Everglades, he had refreshed the spell, to make sure there wasn’t a third time.
Last week, I had been running late, and Titus had accessed the tracing spell, appearing suddenly in the middle of the road in front of me. I’d swerved, but, it had scared the life out of me. Titus had then teleported me, my truck, and himself directly to Hayden, where Devlin was waiting in his robe with his arms crossed, his normally golden eyes red with annoyance. I’d asked him what was wrong, but he had only taken me upstairs with him, and asked me to take off my clothes. Mystified, I’d obeyed. Once I was naked, Devlin had settled in bed with me and gone to sleep. When he’d awoken, he had been very easygoing and loving, as if nothing was wrong.
I didn’t know what had Devlin acting so weird. I’d have thought that Devlin was worried I’d taken off with Lash again, crazy as that was, but Lash had been at Hayden with Devlin the night I’d been late. He’d watched silently from the kitchen as I was led upstairs by Devlin. But while I wasn’t sure what was making Devlin act erratically, I planned to confront him about it that night. Enough was enough. That confrontation was bound to be another knock down-drag out fight.
“Sar, are you okay?” Theo asked. “You’re awfully quiet.”
My weary eyes met Theo’s concerned blue ones. Screw it. “Would you stop the truck?”
Theo looked confused, but he pulled over to the side of the road. “What is it?” he said gruffly.
I looked over at him in surprise. “You’re angry again?”
“What is it?” he repeated angrily. “Are you going to try to tell me that you don’t want to go to Dev? I know you do, Sar. I know you want him, just like you want fucking Lash.”
“Never mind,” I said, looking away from Theo so he wouldn’t see my tears. “Just drive. That’s what you’re best at.”
“No, you’re going to tell me why you wanted me to stop the truck,” Theo growled, dragging me over to him on the seat. He grabbed my face in his hand and made me look at him. “Spit it out.”
I blinked my watery eyes, feeling pitiful. “I just wanted for you to hold me. That was it.”
Theo looked at me with something like shock, and then with a sigh he crushed me in his arms. I put my arms around him hesitantly.
Why couldn’t this be easier? Why couldn’t I have met him back when he was human, some night? We could have gotten to know one another without all the vampire craziness, and blood, and tears...
I shook my head slightly. There was no point going there. I would never have met Theo without knowing Danial first. And Theo was werecougar. There was no changing that.
I tightened my arms around him, breathing in his scent of prairie grass and blue skies, and pine trees. He felt good in my arms. He felt right.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I said. “I didn’t do what I did to hurt you.”
Theo said nothing, one of his hands running up my back, stroking me gently.
“I’ll come back every week. As long as it takes, Theo.”
Theo still said nothing, but he pulled me more into his lap. With a sigh, he brought my chin up from his chest and kissed me softly. I kissed him back at once hungrily. Theo groaned, one of his hands going down my back to pull my body close to his as the other slid up to tangle in my hair. His mouth opened on mine, and I kissed him back, sensations flooding me.
It had been weeks since we had touched like this. I had thought Theo hadn’t wanted me anymore. But I’d been wrong. Very wrong.
Theo’s tongue darted into my mouth, even as his hand reached down to unbutton my jeans. Startled, I pulled back from him, giving him surprised eyes.
Theo gave me a look of confusion, then suspicion. “What?”
“I know how you feel about being with me,” I said, biting my lip. “I don’t want—”
“Saving yourself for Lash?” Theo said sarcastically, his eyes narrowing.
I pushed myself off his lap, and got back on the other side of the truck seat. “Drive.”
We didn’t speak the rest of the way home.
* * * *
I arrived at Hayden at dusk. I’d driven instead of teleporting, because I needed the time to think. I’d also been delayed when I’d stopped to rescue a stunned bird. A female cardinal had been hit by the car in front of me, and I’d run back just in time to avoid her being flattened by a passing truck. I’d thought she was dead, but then I’d felt her heartbeat. I’d laid her on the side of the road, near some trees. Her mate was in the tree above, watching me, and screeching at me, trying to protect her. I waited a few moments, and before long, she was staggering to her clawed feet, and then with a flap of her wings, she flew up into the trees.
I smiled, seeing her back beside her mate. If only things were so easy with me.
The rest of the trip passed quickly. Nick buzzed me through Hayden’s gate about five p.m. Within a few minutes, I pulled into the garage, and shut the overhead door with the garage door control. I didn’t get out though; I just sat there, thinking.
Part of me was seriously considering leaving Theo, no matter how the counseling turned out. It wasn’t because I no longer loved him, though I knew he believed that. And it wasn’t that I didn’t want a life with him, because I did. It was that I could never be his alone. Theo needed that from the woman he was with. He was the only one who was jealous. Danial and Devlin seemed more than content to share me between them; it was Theo who had always made problems. He was the one I’d tried the most to please in the years we’d been together. But no matter what I did, it wasn’t ever enough. This stalemate with the guys wouldn’t last forever. I had to do something, before my life became unlivable again...
“Are you going to get out of the truck, Sar?” a curious voice asked.
I looked up to see Lash, leaning in the open door frame, the light from the kitchen behind him casting a shadow on his face. He looked his usual menacing self today, with his whip and survival knife strapped to his belt. As always, his shaggy jet-black hair was wild, and he was dressed all in black: black, tight-fitting jeans, black shirt, black turtleneck, his tanned skin only showing on his face and hands. But I was guessing that was because he was feeling a chill from his cold-blooded animal side.
He’d startled me a little, but my only fear was of myself, because of how much I wanted him to touch me. Worse, I was going to have to tell him that it didn’t matter if Devlin ever gave us permission to be together. I was married, and Theo was my first priority. That meant no more touching Lash in any way—not even kisses—except as a friend. The trouble was, could I actually get out the words?
I got out of the truck, and gave him a smile, shutting the door behind me. “I’m out,” I said pointedly.
“Devlin’s not back yet from seeing Danial,” Lash said overly casually, still leaning on the door. “He’s still trying to get him to reconsider about giving me his blood, if I began...if I need it. Titus is with him.”
I said nothing, because I knew what he meant, and why he was uncomfortable.
“Do you need to search me?” I asked, giving him a smile.
“Up against the wall, and spread ‘em,” Lash said, giving me a leer.
I gave him a roll of my eyes, but complied. Lash expertly patted me down, and then pronounced me safe. I turned to him, and he stepped into me, backing me against the wall.
Swiftly, his arms snaked around me, and then he was holding me close to him. I breathed in his scent of autumn leaves, musk, earth, and leather. I’d often wondered if that last was only from his whip, or really part of his scent. It seemed to be part of him, and I thought that curious, even as I luxuriated in the fragrance.
“I like to hold you, breathe in the scent of you,” Lash hissed, his face pressed to my throat, longing in his tone. “I miss being with you, but it’s enough—”
“About that...” I began.
Lash pulled back from me, looking at me carefully. “What about it?” Lash hissed.
He was upset already. But I had to tell him we couldn’t touch like this anymore. And the more I felt him touch me, the harder it was going to be for me to want to tell him no.
“Being like this doesn’t seem fair to you. I can’t give you anything more. I feel a little as if I’m teasing you, and I don’t want...I don’t want you to...to not...um...”
I faltered, but Lash was already nodding in understanding. “Sar, I’m an adult. I can handle this. And if it gets too much, I’ll find someone to take care of my needs. Now that I can hide my were nature, I can be with someone who isn’t snake without them suspecting or caring—”
The thought of him making love with anyone else brought jealousy in a drowning flood. “Okay!” I interrupted quickly. “I just wanted to make sure. That’s enough info—”
Lash grabbed my hair roughly, and made me look at him, his lips inches from mine. “You asked me weeks ago if it was enough for me that you wanted me to kiss you. It is.” He leaned in a little closer, so our lips almost touched as his dark eyes looked into mine. “Is it enough for you that you’re the only one I want to kiss?”
He only wanted me. Relief crashed down. I nodded once.
“It’s a moot point anyway, now,” Lash hissed sadly, pressing his cheek to mine.
“Why?” I whispered. “I—”
He drew back from me. “Because Devlin forbade me today from kissing you anymore,” Lash hissed. “He said you were his, not mine, and the only way I was getting inside you again was if you gave him another Oath. And until you did, I wasn’t to touch you at all.”
I was at a loss for words. He was touching me plenty right now.
“I’m going on a job tonight,” Lash added in explanation. “I’ll be changing my clothes after, so he won’t smell you on me. Make sure you change your clothes and shower—”
I pushed him back from me. “Why are you doing this, Lash, if he said not to?”
“Because I wanted to feel your mouth against mine one more time, to feel your ripe body under my hands,” Lash hissed, aroused. “I haven’t seen you alone since that night we came back, since you defended me to Danial, telling him you had wanted to be with me, that I hadn’t forced you to be. And I am going to have this time with you before I give you up.” He embraced me again with a sigh.
Neither of us said anything for a few minutes. It was enough that we were here together, holding each other. Besides, it was just a hug...
He suddenly pulled back from me. “Do you want me to kiss you, Sar?” Lash said softly, giving me a smoky look.
“Yes, please,” I breathed.
He covered my lips with his own, sliding his tongue into my mouth, and I gave myself up to him completely, losing myself in the warmth of his touch.
There were footsteps suddenly outside the garage door, and then the door to the garage began to open.