Page 81 of Wedlock

“Thoughtbeing the operative word,” Wolf shrugs, “you hardly knew her, to be fair.”

“I believe I did.”

“Let’s think this through,” he chuckles. “You met her on a reality television show where everyone was essentially acting, or at the very least not being totally themselves. You married her and she went on the tour of the contestants by herself for a month or more. When she returned you locked her up for months. She was under a thrall foranotherfew monthsandsleeping with someone else.”

Seeing my dark expression, he hurries on.

“But we won’t go there. After that she ran away for the best part of a year, only to be returned against her will and locked up again. Now she’s runagain. Have I missed anything?”

“No,” I reply gruffly.

“So, my point is, you hardly knew the wench. Don’t get me wrong, she’s comely enough, and intelligent, and obviously still has enough feelings for you to not want to see you dead. But other than that, you don’t know her, she doesn’t know you, and you’re both probably much better off apart.”

“But to have left the child, Wolf…”

“How else could she be assured you wouldn’t chase her down and lock her back up again? Not to mention the fact that you were contemplating having to marry the Princess to free yourself. If that eventuated Angie would have been eliminated. Her thought process was probably that the baby would survive if she left it. You could claim she’d killed herself, or some such thing, freeing you to marry the Princess and freeing her to live out her life. After all, you’d successfully spread the word that she was suicidal. It makes sense.”

I shake my head and sigh. He’s right, of course, in every way. I’d driven her to the point that she had no choice but to leave her baby. A baby who would now grow up without a guiding hand,a loving and protective hand. All he has is me, the monster who drove his mother away.

‘I had a mother to shield me from my father, but who will protect this child from me?’

“I think I’ll invite Mother back home,” I murmur, pouring us both another drink.

Wolf raises his glass to toast my announcement.

“That’s a start.”

63

Yin stares sadly at her island as our boat pulls away from the dock.

I’d told her what Jag said about getting help from The Free Men and staying here, but she was determined we needed to run.

“The Free Men always come with a price,” she’d growled, “and I’ve paid enough already.”

I’d gone silent after that, because I know I’m the cause of her being embroiled with this group, reeled in as payment for their help to free me. She’d previously told me that part of the price was that if they called her she’d be bound to answer, but she doubted they’d bother since she was funding many of their missions and they wouldn’t want to get their cash cow killed. ButI know it’s still a shadow at the back of her mind, after all, she’d also paid with the man she’d loved.

Watching her now, I sigh heavily knowing I’m the cause of her leaving her beloved island and, once more, having to run. We’ll transfer to another island and fly from there because Jag said we can’t risk having choppers in and out of here all the time drawing the attention of the attentive. He’d been able to narrow down where we were through the flights, and so could others.

The fact that those flights were necessary for the regular delivery of blood…well, that’s where our conversation derailed, and I’d really infuriated Yin.

Because Jag now knows about the twins.

Kind of.

Perhaps having lived among vampires for such a long time, or having learned from the master secret-keeper, Eleanor. Or perhaps because I’m not a total fucking idiot, despite Yin’s assertion to the contrary, I didn’t show him my daughter. Instead, when he’d pressed me on why I needed blood I’d shown him Talon and told him that I’d kept one son and given the other to Falcon.

He’d accepted my story readily, too readily, and it was then that I realised he already knew.

He’d discovered I’d given birth to twins through a slip-up Marianne had made when he’d visited my brother and learned of my thrall. Luckily, she hadn’t mentioned one was a girl.

His relief when I’d told him about Talon was obvious, because he said he now knew I trusted him as fully as he did I.

Of course, he was wrong.

I’d be a fool to ever trust a vampire.

64