Page 77 of Entombed By Blood
There’s going to be a “but” any second now. I can sense it, and Gideon doesn’t disappoint.
“But I have no interest in deepening our bond further. I can’t make the decision for the rest of my pack, but at least one of us needs to keep a clear head. It doesn’t make sense to invest in you emotionally when you tried to run away from us less than twenty-four hours ago.”
His words hit like daggers, and I flinch like they’re physical blows. I can’t help but remember the painting of the woman by his bedside. Does she have some prior claim on Gideon? Have I guilt-tripped a taken male into remaining my thrall with talk of how much breaking the bond hurts?
Humiliation makes my cheeks burn, but I hold my head high with an ease learned from hundreds of years of hiding my thoughts. “Thank you for your honesty.”
There’s a long, awkward silence before the alpha starts talking once again, turning the conversation back to his plan to lie low and leave the cabin in a few days. I tune most of it out, staring out of the window as I process what was said.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Vane
Finnand my brother return to a room that’s vastly more sombre than the one they left. One look at Evie, and our omega goes straight into nurture mode, dragging her away from the window and onto his lap on the remaining sofa beside me. I suck in a lungful of her scent as soon as she’s close and instinctively want to purr. When her new position leaves her delicate little feet in my lap, I claim them with my hands, rubbing out any soreness remaining from her run through the forest yesterday.
Having her in my room earlier, surrounded by my things, was the ultimate tease. The lycan in me wanted to bury her in my scent and never let her go. My vampire half is equally as possessive. So when my brother tries to slip between me and Finn—separating me from our girl—I raise a brow and growl softly until he backs off.
“Sit on the other side,” I mutter, cutting off Gideon mid-planning speech. Both brother and alpha give me an exasperated look, but I shrug it off. I’m not releasing her. I don’t have a foot fetish, but this is the closest she’s ever allowed me. The tiny, appreciative noises she’s making as I rub her soles are making my ego swell almost as much as my cock. There’s no way I’m giving that up.
My brother—in a rare display of self-preservation—takes my advice to heart. He claims the seat on the other side of Finn, and Evie automatically shifts so he’s included in our strange, four-way cuddle. Lycans are incredibly tactile within our packs, something that most vampires frown upon. Most members of the blood-drinking race generally prefer solitude and don’t initiate physical contact with anyone they don’t trust implicitly. Fortunately for us, Evie doesn’t seem to be one of them.
I note with satisfaction that the gloomy look on her face from Gideon’s earlier declaration has faded with the contact as well. Perhaps she’s more like us than she knows.
The silence stretches on, and I sense Gid has realised the futility of trying to plan while we’re all caught up with this woman. He retreats to his desk and starts tapping at the screen with barely leashed aggression.
“What I don’t understand,” Evie begins, leaning farther into Silas. “Is how you managed to get into Cain’s inner circle in the first place.”
Draven stiffens and crosses his arms over his chest behind her. “I got them in.”
She turns her big blue eyes on him in surprise. “You were turned by Callie,” she recalls, giving him a speculative look.
The vampire doesn’t answer her, but his knuckles turn white at the reminder.
“Like I said, he was my right-hand man when you and I met,” Frost admits, taking over the conversation to spare his friend. “When the resistance learned I was still alive—ten years after my capture—he planned and led my rescue. They succeeded, but some of them got left behind.”
It’s not comfortable for either of them, but Evie has a right to know.
“Cain didn’t kill you?”
Frost goes to answer, but the words die in his mouth as Draven grins—a cold, terrifying expression.
“He thought it was more fitting to torture me by turning me into the thing I hated most,” the vampire explains. “He let me drain my former friends and family to death as the thirst consumed me. Then he gave me to Callista, my sire, for eighty years.”
Evie’s face softens with sympathy, but the three of us hold her in place when she tries to move toward him. Draven doesn’t talk about the past often, and if she so much as twitches wrong right now, there’s a chance he might hurt her.
“Eventually, when he couldn’t recapture Frost even after the Triumph, Cain sent me against him as a double agent.”
“But Cain didn’t break him.” Frost stands and moves past Draven, gripping his shoulder once in reassurance before continuing past him to the fridge and grabbing a bag of blood. “The moment we found him, he told us Cain’s plans, and we brought him into the fold. He’s one of us.”
“But you returned and convinced Cain to accept the others?” Evie asks, confused. “Surely my sire would’ve suspectedsomething.”
“We didn’t approach Cain straight away,” Silas says. “We tried to get to him in plenty of ways over the years...”
“Originally, the plan was to kill him and then free you when he was gone,” Frost admits, with a sheepish look. “It was a game of cat and mouse. We failed, alot.Blowing him up, shooting him with silver, cutting off his head, staking him in the heart with white oakandburning his body. Nothing worked. I’m convinced sometimes he let us try to kill him just to break our spirit.”
“So you wanted him dead more than you wanted to find me.” Evie nibbles at her own lip, and I can’t resist the urge to lean forward and free the tormented flesh from beneath her fangs.
She stares at me for a second, so I shrug, offering her a tiny wink. If she thinks she’s going to get away with hurting herself—even a tiny bit—while I’m here, she’s got another think coming.
