Eternal Temptation (14 page)
Read Eternal Temptation Online
Authors: T. A. Grey
Cassie squirmed in her seat. “Well, Daniel didn’t use to be like that. At least not that I remember. I remember him and dad talking and laughing together. They were close. Daniel didn’t start to get cruel until I was older.” Now that she thought about it, she didn’t remember ever seeing Daniel laugh or smile like that after dad died.
“I went through something similar with my father too. Though he did it because he’s a controlling piece of shit. He tried to sell me into a marriage with a woman abuser. Vane stopped it all from happening, thank God, but then Alison...” Sarina looked away, tears in her eyes. She fanned herself with a hand, “I’m sorry, you guys. It’s the hormones. I swear.” She rubbed a loving hand over her rounded belly.
Alison laughed and took over the conversation. “The woman abuser was an ex of mine who later started pursuing me again because he was angry he couldn’t have Sarina. It was all one big, complicated as hell mess, but it’s over now. He’s sitting in a cell and won’t ever be coming out of it again.”
“Damn straight.” Sarina cheered and high fived Alison. Turning back to Cassie she said, “So about the sex...”
“No!” Vera said, a shiver of disgust rolling through her. Cassie laughed at them all. This camaraderie they had was always something she’d wanted.
“The Kategans will protect you.” Cassie turned a startled look to Vera. She looked so serious, they all did. “You don’t need to hide with us. You can tell us anything. It’s all up to you, but just know that we really do care.”
“I don’t know why you would,” Cassie heard herself saying.
“Because we’re nice people, but also because you brought something precious back to us,” Vera said. Her voice clouded with emotion. “Darien’s been lost to us for so long. This is the first time any of us have seen a glimpse of what he used to be.”
Cassie couldn’t hide the shock on her face. “Wait, you mean to tell me that the gruff, tight-lipped lykaen is just how he is?”
Vera broke out in laughter. “Yes! That’s exactly how he is. Well, okay, maybe not totally. Add in a couple of smiles, some insane generosity and sweetness, and you got it.”
“I don’t understand. I’ve been trying to reach through to him since I met him. I don’t really think I’ve gotten anywhere. Just once though he did finally tell me about the...problem from his past but I think I was just lucky. J sot of happened upon him at the right time. That’s all.”
Vera’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her skull. “He told you about Dana? Wow, see. He
never
talks about it. We know about it, but when the accident happened we mostly heard about it from her family. Her brother Tom especially, man was he a dick. He blamed Darien for the whole thing.”
“The man’s crazy for you,” Alison piped in.
“No he’s not. I’m just an inconvenience for him now.”
“Why do you say that?” Sarina asked.
Cassie shot a look at Vera who threw up her hands and said, “Fine, fine. I’m going to the bathroom. Any and all sex talk about my brother needs to be done now. I don’t want to hear a peep about it when I get back.”
As soon as she was gone, Alison bounced in her seat. “Oh my God, dish the details. That man is
huge
.”
Sarina rolled her eyes. “All the Kategan men are huge, Ali. Darien is just...a little more imposing. It’s all that bad attitude he carries around him.”
“He’s not all bad though. He’s actually really sweet. After the...thing with Conlin he was there when I woke up. He carried me down to Rome’s room so I could be with him.” She had a soft, happy smile on her face that Cassie was completely jealous of.
“He doesn’t even like me,” she blurted out.
“What? Of course he does. Why do you say that?” asked Sarina. She blushed.
“No, he doesn’t. He’s tried to get me to leave from the moment I woke up. I refused because he just intrigued me. And okay, he’s really, really sexy. I’ve never met a lykaen before him.”
“Wow, really?” Alison asked.
“Really. He’s only trying to help me now because...because we,” her face burned hot and finally she had to look away.
“Because you guys had sex? Was it amazing? Seriously, do tell. Because Rome is just devastating in bed. I can hardly keep my hands off him, honest.” Cassie thought on the couple of times they’d had sex. It’d been smoldering, sexy, passionate, and beautiful.
“I loved it more than anything,” she finally said softly. The girls smiled at her and sighed at the same time. Just then Vera came back to the table with her fingers plugged in her ears.
“Is it safe?”
They all nodded. “All right let’s get out of here,” Vera said.
“So what are our plans for today?” Boy did it feel weird asking that.
“Clean up these dishes, then it’s off to a Twilight and Harry Potter marathon at Sarina’s place until the sun goes down enough that we can start drinking without looking like crazy people.”
Cassie looked at Sarina. “But what about you?” Sarina patted her rounded belly lovingly.
“Don’t worry. I’m in a milk faze, so tonight I’ll be having my share of chocolate and strawberry milk.”
“Cassie, would you be a doll and go start the car. It’s getting chilly out lately and me and the baby just can’t stand it.”
“Sure. See you in a few.” Cassie left the girls to clear up their lunch while she went out to Vera’s car. She smelled him the instant before he slammed her into the trunk.
She spun around, her heart beating painfully hard in her chest. All the blood drained from her face.
“I’ve found you, Cassandra. How easy you are to track now that I know you’ve been fucking that lykaen. Do you think he can protect you? Is that why you’re hiding behind him like a scared child?”
She shook her head. “N-no.” Suddenly she heard the girls inside leaving the kitchen. “You have to get out of here now. Please,” she said desperately.
He only stood there, even as their footsteps got closer and closer. Any minute now and they’d all be in danger. He’d kill them all without a single regret.
He smiled at her, his fangs terrifying in that moment. “We’ll be together soon, Cassandra.” He grabbed her chin in a bruising hard grip. “And you will never leave me again. I know where you are now. There is no hiding from me.”
Cassie’s eyes filled with tears at the pain. The door opened, and he let go of her and sprinting away in the blink of an eye.
“Cassie are you all right?”
“Fine,” she said numbly. The girls crowded around her.
“What happened to your chin?”
“Why do you look so scared?”
She shooed them off with false smile. “It’s nothing. I just tripped and hit the concrete. Sorry I didn’t get the car started for you, Sarina.”
She waved it away and hugged her tight. Cassie hesitated, then hugged her back. They all piled into the car, and she wanted nothing more than to run and hide.
Chapter 12
“It’s good to have you back,” Vane said, clapping Darien on the back.
A smile tugged at Darien’s lips. It felt good to be back, though he didn’t say so. He’d be leaving just as soon as everything was taken care of with Cassie. There was no use in hurting his family any more.
Rome took a swig of his beer and said, “You can’t fix your problems by staying away, Darien.”
“Maybe I can’t, but I can’t fix them staying here either.”
Rome shrugged a big shoulder. “How do you know that when you never even tried? The thing happened with Dana and then you were out of here so fast, none of us were even sure what happened.”
Darien ground his teeth together. It was none of their business. It wasn’t then, and it wasn’t now.
“Did you love her that much?” Vane asked. There was no hostility in his voice, only curiosity. Still, Darien hated him for asking. Because right now he was being pulled apart inside over that same question.
“I wanted to mate with her.”
Vane grimaced and chugged some of his brew. “Ouch.”
Darien couldn’t help it, he laughed. His brother’s response was so inadequate, so surprisingly underwhelming that all of them burst out laughing. It almost felt like old times again. Before the mess in his life happened.
“I understand a bit of what you’re feeling,” Rome said. A hard, shadowed look crossed over his eyes. “When I found Alison at Conlin’s...I’d never felt that kind of fear before. To know that at any second someone else can take her life from you. She almost died.”
Three hard knocks sounded at the front door. Vane hollered for whoever it was to come in. Darien let out the breath he’d been holding. There was a reason why he’d left the pack. He sure didn’t want to have some long conversation about his feelings with Dana and the baby.
“Jacks, it’s about time you got here. I thought you were always a prompt man,” Rome taunted. Jacks grinned big.
“Yeah well, Vera called me at the last minute and said she needed a kiss and another six-pack of that damn lemonade she likes. So I stopped by and gave it to her.”
“TMI, bro,” Rome said. Jacks grinned and plopped down in a chair by the fireplace.
Darien sniffed the air then turned to him. “Since when are you a vampire?”
“See, you’ve missed out on all the cool stuff. Some vampire clan tried to steal the Kategan land. They also tried to kill me and your sister. In the process, I now have fangs and your sister gets to spend her nights with me for the rest of her life.”
“TMI,” Darien agreed, “but I am very happy for you and my sister. I’ve never seen her so happy.” The vampire Jacks was practically beaming as he grabbed a beer out of the cooler on the floor and popped it open.
“Damn right.”
“So what do you want to do about the situation with your woman, Darien?” asked Vane.
“She isn’t my woman,” he automatically said. Three sets of eyes turned to stare at him, then each of them burst out in a roar of laughter.
“Right,” Rome said.
“Whipped,” agreed Jacks.
“Goner,” Vane said.
Darien growled, his beast slashing its claws across its cage. “Fuck off.”
“Who are you kidding besides yourself? We’ve all seen the way you look at her, touch her. You’re practically mated with her already,” said Vane.
“Enough!” Darien roared. The room quieted, leaving only the crackling of the fire and Darien’s hard breathing.
Lesser beings, lesser men wouldn’t have had the nerve to speak to a ripping mad lykaen, but the Kategan men weren’t lesser men.
“You know, Darien, you’re right. We’ve had enough. Do you think it’s been easy for us to have our brother gone? While you’ve been away drowning yourself in misery we’ve had horrible and incredible things happen to us. I wanted my brother to be there for that. Your selfishness took that away, not only from me, but from Rome and Vera,” Vane said.
Darien’s hands curled into fists, his eyes clouded over with anger. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. None of you do. You didn’t lose your mate that day. You don’t have to live knowing that if you’d just been there, you could have done something, could have saved them.”
Rome shook his head, clenched his jaw. “How do you know that? How do you know you could have saved her? The doctor said that it was a severe complication with the baby, that even if she’d been in an emergency they would have been hard pressed to save her. He said she died in minutes from a clot or something. She wasn’t your mate, Darien,” he said the last gently.
Darien exploded to his feet and marched up to Rome. Rome narrowed his eyes and stood.
“I love you, Darien. We all love you. But somewhere in your heart you know that she wasn’t it. Maybe you wanted it to be, and it’s obvious you loved her and the baby, but there’s a time when it’s right to let go. It’s been years. She was leaving you to go back to Greg.”
Darien shoved Rome in the chest, sent him stumbling back. “How would you know that? How the fuck do you know that?”
Rome cocked a brow. “I talked to Greg. I saw him in town a while ago. He was guilt-ridden about everything. About leaving her to begin with. He said he was just scared. The man loved her, really. I think she saw that and that’s why she was going back to him, because he really loved her.”
Darien’s fist flew before he could even think to stop it. He caught Rome’s jaw and sent him down to the ground. Rome stood in a rush and plowed his own into Darien’s stomach. Suddenly Vane was roaring, stepping between them and pushing them both apart.
“Enough!”
“Yeah, that’s right. I’ve had enough. I’m out of here,” Darien said.
“Stop,” Vane ordered. Darien stiffened and slowly turned around to face him.
“What?” The lykaen inside him garbled his words.
Vane got in his face, unflinching at the sight of Darien’s anger. “If you don’t smarten up, then you’re going to lose something great. I’ve seen the way you look at her. You care. And she cares about you.”
“That’s where you’ve got it wrong, Vane. The only thing I care about with Cassie is making sure she stays safe from the man who’s trying to hurt her. That’s all.”
“Looks to me like you’re the one who’s trying to hurt her,” Jacks said.
Darien flinched and backed away. They didn’t get it; they didn’t fucking understand. He didn’t care about Cassie. His heart panged, and he looked away from them all. He couldn’t care for her, there was no more love left in him. He‘d buried it years ago.
“You’re wrong, Darien. I just hope you see it in time.” Vane shook his head and left the room.
Darien didn’t meet the other’s eyes; he turned and stormed out the front door. He came to a stop fast his heart skipped a beat trying to catch up.
“What are you doing here?” Cassie looked up at him with raw pain glittering in her eyes. He swore he could feel his own eyes mimicking hers.
She wobbled on her feet, leaning to the side. He reached out to catch her, but she swiped his arm away and took an unsteady step back.
“You are so mean.” She looked like she was bravely trying to hold back tears. The sight of it was killing him slowly and surely like poison.
“What are you doing here?” A sickening feeling was filling his gut heavy as a bowling ball.
She hiccupped. “I came to tell you that I love you, but obviously I’m just a stupid,
hiccup
, girl.” A tear slid down one cheek and she rocked unsteadily on her feet.
“Are you drunk, Cassie?” She glared at him and pointed a finger at him.
“This isn’t about that. Yes, I totally drank enough to get a boatload of sailors drunk, but that’s besides the p-point. You are
mean.
” She lifted her chin bravely as more tears started rolling down her cheeks. The sight was tearing open his gut. He reached for her, but she stumbled back so fast she nearly fell.
“Dammit, Cassie, let me take you home. You shouldn’t be out here like this. Those girls never should have let you drink.”
She threw out her arms. “I came here to tell you that I love you and I get to here is that you still love
her.
I would be so good to you, Darien.” Her arms fell loosely to her side. When she spoke her voice held all the misery in the world, “I’ve never been in love before. It sucks. Big time.” She wobbled, trying to turn around but stumbling around instead.
Darien’s heart wouldn’t stop panicking in his chest. He went after her, tried to pull her to a stop. “Let me take you home.”
“I have no home!”
He flinched because she was right and because he was an ass. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I am.”
“Sorry about what?” she said rounding on him. He backed away from her and her pointing finger followed. “Sorry for making love to me. Because that’s what you did. You didn’t screw me; you were sweet, tender, caring. You...you are a
tease!
”
He jolted back. “You’re just drunk, Cassie. Let me take you to my place and put you to bed.”
“Aaaargh! I am not a child. I am not
just
drunk. Do not patriotize me. No, I mean patronize. Yeah, that one. Don’t do that because I’m not going to be here forever.”
He stilled. “What do you mean, Cassie?” She looked away from him with a sad, rueful smile that built the pain in his chest near to a breaking point.
“Nothing. I’m going to go now. I just came because I finally had the courage to say something I’ve been wanting to for awhile now.” She wiped her tears with her sleeve and stood a little straighter as she looked him hard in the eye. “I love you, Darien Kategan. I think we met that day by something far greater than chance. Obviously we’ve had our run, and it wasn’t meant to be forever. Thank you for the memories and ado.” She bowed, had to brace her hands on her knees to keep from toppling forward then slowly teetered around and walked away.
The woman had no idea what she was talking about. She was drunk, and when she sobered up she’d apologize that she’d embarrassed herself so badly.
“Where are you going?” Silence met him, except for the scratch of her shoes on the road. “Answer me, Cassie.”
She lifted a small shoulder and let it fall. He growled, grabbed her by the shoulders, and pulled her into his chest. Her eyes flared with need and heat. If her eyes could pack a punch, he’d be on the ground right now. He cupped her cheek in a hand and ran his thumb over her bottom lip. It was so soft, just like everything about her.
He was a rotten, miserable bastard, but he couldn’t stop himself from leaning down and kissing her. Her lips clung to his softly, bittersweet. Her hands clutched his arms like she was afraid to let go. Darien pressed her closer, kissed her harder, trying to express something that he didn’t know how to say.
She pulled away first and something in him wanted to stop her, bring her close again and just hold her. When she looked at him, her eyes were shut off. He had no idea what she was feeling, but no matter how badly he wanted to know, he couldn’t make himself ask.
He walked her back to Sarina’s. The girls flung open the door when they arrived. All of them wore wide grins and glossy eyes, except for Sarina who held a big glass of milk in her hand.
“You’re back! Yay!”
“How did it go? Did you tell you totally love him?” Alison gushed loudly. Sarina shushed her with an elbow to the stomach.
“He’s right there, Ali!”
“Oh, right.”
Cassie turned so suddenly, she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head against his chest. He saw a tear fall down her cheek. He did the only thing he could think to and wrapped his arms around her. She sniffled against him, making him feel even more like an ass. She didn’t’ deserve someone like him, someone with enough baggage to fill an airport. She deserved someone clean and simple.
She squeezed him tight, then let go and walked into the cabin. He hoped she’d look back, but she didn’t.
Frowning, he looked at the girls. “Tell her I’ll be by to pick her up tonight.” The girls looked between Cassie and him then leveled him with hard glares.
“You fucked up,” Vera said simply. “You know, brother, I used to think you were smart. Obviously I overestimated your intelligence by
mucho
.”
“Totally,” Alison said, nodding quickly.
Sarina stepped forward and glared feminine daggers at him. Damn these women were like a pack of lionesses. “You better get your shit together before you lose something that not everyone gets a second chance to have.”
“Mind your own business, Sarina.”
She arched a dainty eyebrow then shut the door in his face.
What a night. Darien headed back to his cabin. His gut felt sick like he’d eaten something bad, and his damn chest hurt. He wished he were back in his single cabin in the middle of nowhere.
He looked back at the cabin where the feisty little vampire was and wished things were different. He wished he could give her what she wanted.