Page 93 of Wedlock

“I’d defend him,” Falcon shrugs, “but I have no wish to.”

“He said he’d keep my secret,” I shake my head, my eyes tearing up against my will in pure rage, not sorrow, “and I believed him.”

“If it helps,” he says quietly, “no one else knows, not even Mother. Jag told me your secret in order to help me understand how you could have run and left your child.”

“What difference does that make?” I hiss. “You’ve considered me a spy, a whore, a liar and god knows what else for so long. What fucking difference does it make if you think I’m a bad mother?”

He shifts in the doorway and looks up at the ceiling, and I see I’ve pissed him off, but somehow he reins in his infamous temper.

“I just needed to know that I hadn’t been wrong about your nature,” he says slowly, as though sifting through his thoughts and making sense of them, “that I knew you, in some regard, at least.”

“Like I thought I knew you?” I roll my eyes. “We don’t know each other at all, Falcon.”

“That’s becoming patently clear,” he mutters.

“So, what now? You kidnap me and my other child and force me to stay in this dungeon my whole life? Because that’s what you’ll need to do to stop me from running. And I’ll run, Falcon, the first chance I get, I’ll fucking run.”

“No,” he frowns, stepping back slightly into the hallway as though shocked by my vehemence. “When I heard about the other boy, I just wondered.”

“Well don’t,” I snap, “he’s mine. You have your heir, for Christ’s sake.”

“I know,” he shakes his head, frowning.

I don’t want to wait around to find out what diabolical thing he’s planning or plotting. I need to end this conversation now.

“You’ve taken everything from me, Falcon. My freedom, my family, my friends, my child, almost my fucking life so manytimes I can’t count, not to mention my sanity. Leave me.Please, leave me alone to live as I can now with my little boy.”

“I never meant to do all those things, Angie.”

Shaking my head, I walk out the door, brushing past him. I can’t spend a day under this roof. I need to get out now. I’d done what I came here for, more than what I came here for. I thought it would have been difficult pretending I felt something for the child in the bed, but seeing him, seeing how much he looked like my Talon, and like Falcon, my heart bled for him. I’d wanted to gather him into my arms and murmur a lullaby as I did with my own sweet darlings. To give him some of the warmth only a mother could give, even knowing he wasn’t mine. But discovering the poisoning, seeing Falcon’s concern and fear for the boy, dodging Eleanor’s penetrative stare and pointed questions…I know I need to go. I need to get out of here before I’m drawn into any more vampire intrigue.

‘Before I can’t go.’

He doesn’t move as I brush past him, and I don’t look up at him. I can’t trust myself to look into those eyes; they’ve always been my downfall.

His warm breath stirs the hair at the back of my neck as I walk by. I smell his cologne, and I shake my head to clear it of his wonderful, familiar smell, as I continue down the hallway.

He doesn’t try to stop me, but I hear what he whispers.

I’ve always had exceptional hearing.

“I miss you.”

72

“I know that, Wolf,” I frown as I pour us both a drink from the bar in his dark, den-like library, “buttechnicallyI’m not breaking my oath with my suggestion.”

I turn and take my familiar seat, just as I had every night for the past two weeks as I’d enjoyed his hospitality and taken a welcome break from my own castle, now that my son is out of the woods.

“Falcon,friend,” Wolf shakes his head, “you swore you wouldn’t try to return her to your castle or mess with her baby.”

“Exactly!” I smirk, “and phoning her does neither of those things.”

I don’t bother adding that I’d actually known where she was ever since I’d sent Jag to deliver my message to her. I hadn’t broken my word, I had no intention of doing so, but I’d needed to know for myself that she was well hidden and comfortable. My intelligence was that she was both, although I’d like for her to have had more security in place than a couple of dogs. Still, she’d lived there apparently two times now without detection from my kind, so she was obviously safe.

‘And if my plan comes to fruition she’ll be even safer inside my castle walls and with me before the year is out.’

I study Wolf as he tries to figure out the rationale for my latest decision.