Page 80 of The Wickedness of Man

Without allowing me to finish—again—Danny interrupted me, his eyes wide.

“Oh, holy shit, that was your first time! Oh man, I didn’t even think—that was… I should have been gentler?—”

“It wasn’t,” I said, forcing calmness in my voice despite the anger simmering beneath.

Danny shook his head, confused. “Wasn’t… what?”

“My first time.”

Danny’s face changed from goofy to furious in the space of an instant. “Excuse me?”

I crossed my arms. “I had sex. On Saturday.”

Twice. And then again early this morning…

“But… how…” He glared at me. “You fucked someone, literally the night after we break up, after making me wait for ayear?”

“First of all,” I shot back, “youbroke up with me. Secondly, yes. I met someone and?—”

“Bullshit,” Danny shouted. “You didn’t mean someone at all, did you? You’ve been sleeping around on me, haven’t you? So who is it? Is that why you didn’t want to have sex with me? Satisfied yourself elsewhere like a whore?—”

My hand whipped out so quickly and landed on his cheek that the crack of skin against skin echoed in the dark café. I was breathing hard; furious. I knew my eyes were glowing purple, since I saw the glow reflected in Danny’s face. I felt it then; the first threads of how to manipulate him through my energy. I reached out mentally; connected with those threads, and took hold of his mind with my own. I was shaking with rage, but I fought the sensation down.

“Is that what you really think of me? Truth only,” I said to him, my voice a whisper.

Danny, the glow of my power shining in his eyes, answered abashedly, “No. I don’t think you’re a whore and I feel like an even bigger jackass for having said that?—”

“Forget what you said,” I whispered.

I couldn’t count the number of times I’d heard that insult from my parents’ own mouths. The fury it awakened in me was something I tried as frequently as possible to forget. I’d never told Danny or Katie about many of the horrible things they’d said and done, so there was no way he would have known about the pain it invoked.

Still, he should never have said it. To hear those words again spoken to me in anger by someone I loved was… well, it touched something in me like a live wire. Tears flowed down my cheeks.

Like the whore you are.

I touched Danny’s face, my fingers smoothing over the redness left by my palm, gently removing the evidence of the strike. “Forget you ever said those words to me. Forget I hit you. Forget that I’m crying. In fact…” I’d almost instructed him to forget we’d had sex but figured that was cruel. I didn’t want to bethe only one who had to suffer with the pain of this knowledge. “Just relax; be yourself.”

Instantly back to his normal self, Danny gave me an awkward smile, then leaned forward and kissed me gently on the forehead. “It’s okay. I’m disappointed, but I don’t have the right to be angry. I know I’m an idiot for everything I put you through, Mags, and I’m glad we could have this moment together. I should never have broken up with you. I’m a dumbass, and I’ll freely admit it. I want to make it work with you. Please come with me to Canada.”

I turned around and stared at the double doors. Up those stairs, I’d have to walk in and face Katie, Carmilla… Caleb. All I wanted to do was run, but there was nowhere to go. Katie would know the moment she saw my tears that Danny had once more been a prick, but Danny wouldn’t rememberbeinga prick, which would make her screaming at him over it all the more complicated to explain.

I wiped the tears from my face and checked my reflection in the mirror behind the cash register. It would pass—for a moment. At least until I could get to the bathroom upstairs and get my myself cleaned up, and maybe have a bit of a cry.

“There are a lot of things to consider,” I said to Danny, who was still patiently standing, awaiting my response. “I’ll think about moving with you, but we willtalklater. Not tonight. Katie and I are going out, so in the meantime, please clean the tables thoroughly”—I nodded with my head to the table we’d just used as an impromptu bed moments before—“and then go home, Danny.”

“Yes, absolutely!” he said. He ran forward to kiss me again, but I slipped by him like I hadn’t realized what he wanted and hurried back up the stairs, fighting the welling pit of sorrow in my gut.

Harry

“Go on then. What about Caleb?” said Father, his face blank. I felt his mood unexpectedly shift, which surprised me. There was tension in him; anger.

“He…” I paused, purposely collecting myself and putting my arms at my sides. “I was able to draw the succubus out. She used him, Father. She?—”

“You used an incubi cambion… myson… as bait… to capture one lowly fuckingwhore?” He turned and glared at Jax across the table. “And you were stupid enough tolethim?”

The words echoed in the round chamber like thunder. The vitriol in his voice shook me; rattled every ounce of bravado I’d been managing until that point. I took a step back without meaning to; nearly let the paper fly out of my hand.

“Sir,” Jax began, voice harrowed with exhaustion, “Is all of this really necessary? You yourself approved the team for this outing.”

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