Authors: Melynda Price
Tags: #Romance, #New Age, #Paranormal, #Fiction
Courting Darkness (45 page)
Haden stepped inside just far enough for her to close the door, stopped, and glanced up at the ceiling. “S’pose he is. He’s gotta get your scent off him before he walks into court.”
Her temper flared at his spiteful remark, adding accelerant to the flame already burning between them. Olivia slammed the door shut and spun on him, leveling him with a glare that would have cowed most men. “That’s quite enough!” she snapped, earning her an arched brow of mild amusement. An arrogant grin tugged at Haden’s top lip, as if he found it humorous she had the nerve to stand up to him. Well, he hadn’t seen anything yet. This guy was about to get a whole lot of honesty crammed down his throat, and she hoped he had plenty of time in court to choke on it.
She stepped up to him and poked him in the chest for good measure. “Just because you’re pissed at me doesn’t give you the right to behave like an ass. If you really want to know the truth, you’re absolutely right, Haden. I do have feelings for you.”
The cocky quirk of his brow fell so fast she nearly laughed, his amusement chased away by her confession.
“In fact, there’s a part of me that probably even loves you. But you’re broken, Haden, and I can’t fix you. Even if I wasn’t with Liam, even if my heart didn’t belong to him, I’d never give it to you because you’d only break it.”
Impassivity quickly replaced any and all emotion on his handsome face. His jaw locked down tight with quartered aggression. Tension crept into every muscle of his impressively large body that now stood much too close for comfort. His face hardened to granite as his piercing gaze bore into hers without apology. Still, she forged on, needing to get this off her chest, needing for Haden to hear the truth. “How can you tell me you love me one minute and then treat me so callously the next? I can’t believe—”
“You’re pregnant, Olivia.”
What?
Breathless seconds passed as she waited for her heart to start beating again.
He didn’t even attempt to mask his anger as he laid that bit of truth on her, effectively rendering her speechless. With another quick glance at the ceiling, he grabbed her arm and marched her away from the stairwell, leading them into the privacy of the hall. “You want to know why I’m so pissed off at you?” he growled. “I think it’s utterly stupid that you’d be so selfish, so careless, as to get yourself knocked up by an angel you have no business fucking with in the first place! As if the Dark Court needed another reason to target you. You don’t have any idea what it’s like to be a half-breed—what it’s like to not belong in either world, rejected by the angels, a misfit among the humans, and wanted by h
ell only to be exploited and forced into slavery for your gifts. You have no idea what you’ve done or how much danger you’ll be in if they discover you’re pregnant.”
Olivia’s blood ran cold as he railed her with the truth. She had no idea the depth of pain and suffering he’d endured in his lifetime. And there was no doubt if she hadn’t snapped the tether of his patience she wouldn’t be privy to these things even now. Haden wasn’t opening up to her out of the goodness of his heart—he was truly angry with her and…scared. It was an emotion she’d never seen in him before, one he didn’t wear well. A weight of dread sunk into her bones at hearing the genuine concern in his snarling voice.
“Why in the hell do you think I’m returning to court with Liam? Because he said I have to?” Haden gave a derisive snort of contempt. “Hardly. I’ve kept my presence hidden for thousands of years. You don’t think I could escape him? But I know that relentless bastard, and he’d search for me. He’d leave you here, vulnerable, to hunt me down…because just as I’ve said before, first and foremost, his loyalty is to his Creator.”
Haden’s grip on her arm tightened and he yanked her close. The heat from his body burned against her chest as his glare seared her soul. “So don’t you dare ever accuse me of not loving you,” he growled. “I’m giving myself over to the High Court of a God who never wanted me—for you!”
Footsteps sounded on the stairs. When had the shower stopped? Before she could utter any form of a response, Haden hissed a sharp curse and turned away. Olivia watched in stunned silence as he marched down the hall, shot a glance at the stairwell, and barked with annoyed disgust, “Hurry up. I’ll wait for you outside.”
Without so much as a backward glance in her direction, Haden stormed out the front door and perhaps out of her life forever.
Message from the author:
I hope you enjoyed Courting Darkness. Will Olivia and Liam finally get their happily ever after? Will Haden find his redemption, and if so, at what cost? Join me for the conclusion of my Redemption Series with Braving the Darkness, coming in 2014.
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