Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!
“You were speaking to ghosts in the library, weren’t you?” Carter ignored the insults directed at him. “Vampires only take those with the ability to converse with the dead into their sacred fold. That brand on your throat means you belong to one of them. You’re not a slave at all, are you?”
I released the sheet and it drifted to the floor. Then I sighed, closing my eyes.
I’d kick Carter’s ass later. His earlier indiscretion could wait.
More important issues had just come to light.
Hiding my secrets never did work out the way I hoped.
After a moment, I confessed, “Yes, I belong to one of them.”
An uncomfortable silence followed, and it felt as if neither of us moved, spoke or breathed. The complexities of the entire situation kept me doubly quiet and edgy.
Would he try to kill me now?
Had I just signed my own death warrant?
“Why did you summon the demon?”
The question gave him my undivided attention. He was pensive and no longer on the bed. During our silence, he had moved without sound to the other side of the mattress. He stood with his arms folded over his chest, waiting for my answer. The reminder that he wasn’t entirely human left a foreseeable question lingering on the tip of my tongue, but I figured it would keep.
“I didn’t summon the demon.”
“Don’t take me for a fool.” He growled and his eyes brightened, much like Disco’s when I stoked his temper. “Demons can only cross through to our dimension when summoned.”
“Or when a debt is owed to them,” I corrected. “They can cross over and maintain contact to claim their due.”
Carter’s worried gaze traveled to my face, as if seeking the truth. “You are indebted to a demon?”
“I wasn’t, but…” My eyes burned at the harsh reminder of all the differences brought on by the passage of time. I’d forgotten it was possible to hurt this much, to be suffocated by pure emotion. I brushed the feelings aside, determined to somehow find a way to put things to rights. “If Disco is gone, his obligation falls to me.”
“Disco?” He said the name distastefully.
“Yes, Disco,” I repeated, growing testy. “Otherwise known as Gabriel Trevillian.”
“Your owner.”
“My lover.” I embraced the fury that lifted me above the burning edge of pain. “Not my owner. It’s rude to speak ill of the deceased, including the twice-dead. Show some fucking respect. You owe it to me after what you did.”
Several emotions flickered across his face—confusion, concern, a growing understanding and then a blistering anger. His outrage at my admission wasn’t expressed in the same manner I’d grown accustomed to.
Disco used space to keep me from knowing how his anger affected him.
Carter didn’t.
He leapt over the bed in a fluid motion and landed within inches of me. I didn’t back down, even when his canines elongated and he stepped into my personal bubble. I was familiar with pointed teeth and attitude problems. Besides, the time for contemplation and ass kissing was over.
He snatched my forearms in a grip that was unbreakable yet bizarrely gentle too. “Have you lost your mind?”
“There is a lot of shit you don’t know about, Carter. And I think it’s time we were honest with each other. Don’t you?”
His jaw clenched and he didn’t let me go. “Start talking.”
“I was born on July twenty-second, 1989, in Miami-Dade County on a sunny morning.”
Going still, he studied me closely. “You said you are twenty-five.” His nostrils flared, and his shadowed face smoothed in disbelief and a slathering of doubt. “And you’re completely human.”
“You’re right, I did.” I nodded. “I did say that and I am.”