Page 10 of The Stone Secret
Fuck.
There was warning in Shar’s eyes as she let go of me.
Curi stood with me, playing the dutiful boyfriend.
Levi gave him a cool smile. “You can wait for her outside the room, Mr. Mason. I won’t keep her long.”
Curi looked to me. “You okay, babe?”
I bit back a wince. “Of course. I’ll meet you in the foyer downstairs.”
He shrugged and followed the others out of the room.
Silence settled around us.
The door closed.
We were alone.
It hurt to look at him. Familiar. Comfortable. Mine. But not any longer. That thrum, that connection that had existed between us was gone. At least for me, and it left a hollowness inside me.
“You moved on fast,” Levi said finally.
The wordsI’m sorrysprang to my lips, but if I was going to do this, then I needed to be confident in my decisions. “Curi is a good match for me.”
Bitterness turned his smile upside down. “And I wasn’t?” He shook his head. “I don’t believe that, just like I didn’t believe you when you told me you didn’t love me.”
“I don’t love you.”
His eyes narrowed. “No. What we had. What I felt. Whatwefelt was…isreal.”
“You’re wrong, and if you came here based on that, then you made a mistake.”
He flinched. “You’re lying. You’re hiding something. I know you, Cam.”
“I wish I could say the same about you.”
He exhaled. “I was going to tell you everything that night, but you left. You didn’t answer my calls, and I knew…I knew you’d gone.”
“So you decided not to take no for an answer.” I forced my lips into a wry smile. “Typical arrogant male behavior.”
“Dammit, Cam, this isn’t you. What’s going on here? I find out you’re a Basque, that you’ve been fast-tracked to take your brother’s place as an elite? Do you even know what the elite trial entails?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m doing it either way.” He didn’t know about Romi being alive and how this was the only way to save him, and I couldn’t trust him enough to tell him. His father might be head councilman, but I had no clue if Ulrickson knew about guardian activity and Romi’s predicament.
“Listen, I get it. The next Basque is still a child. They need an adult Basque and they’re probably pressuring you into this. I can help. I can speak to my father and fix this.”
His father. Not his sire. My heart sank. “You two are close?”
Levi shrugged a shoulder. “He’s always been there for me.”
“I thought…I thought you said he kept you a secret. Provided for you but kept you a secret.”
“Yes, he did, but only because my mother wanted it that way. She didn’t want her indiscretion getting out. The fact that she lay with a gargoyle…”
“I don’t understand.”
“Gargoyles are outside of nature because they’re not from this world. It’s heavily frowned upon for a druid to have relations with such creatures. My father would have been proud to claim me, halfblood or not.”
