Page 24 of Wedlock (Vampire Bachelor Games #3)

I’d glimpsed her looking down from the window as I’d arrived, but I couldn’t meet her eyes.

If what I’ve been told is true, and I don’t for a minute believe it is, but if it is, then nothing she’s said or done in the past twelve months or more was of her own free will.

Nothing.

In which case, I’ve once again treated the woman who competed against twenty-three other women in a deadly game in order to marry me, who once claimed she loved me, and whom I loved, ‘still love,’ abysmally.

Not only that, I’ve failed her. Failed to protect her, failed to trust her, failed to even really get to know her if all this time she was under a thrall and I hadn’t noticed.

Failed her utterly.

But I can’t think about that right now. At this moment I have to secure the safety of my family while I get to the bottom of Wolf’s claim.

Part of me, a big part, believes this is some machination of Spider’s to make me destroy my own brother.

Perhaps because he’d discovered Sophie’s child was mine, I don’t know.

This and a thousand other scenarios have run through my mind.

When I’d reached my castle and learned Mother was at the Court, a dangerous place any day of the week, I’d acted with speed and left to get her.

I haven’t been able to find Viper yet, but that’s not unusual.

He’s known to piss off on benders with his range of hangers-on and reappear months later.

Given the shit-fight he’d left after revealing Angie’s affair, I’m not surprised he’s making himself scarce.

Still, my guards are out looking for him in all his usual haunts.

I want him back within these walls while I discover the truth.

Wolf is also on his way. He’d insisted I summon Jaguar before he finds Viper and kills him so that we can all get to the bottom of what’s going on.

But I refuse. I believe Jag’s wrong and is being played, and I’ve told Wolf as much.

He’s let his love for Angelina drive him insane — I know that feeling only too well.

Not to mention the fact that Jag had sworn Wolf to secrecy over the source of this information.

I don’t trust Jag any longer, and nothing is clear right now.

Nothing other than my conviction that, once again, Viper needs my protection.

I’ll have him here and solve this latest intrigue as soon as he returns my calls.

Now, pacing up and down my study, I spin in relief as Mother enters the room.

“I thought I disgusted you,” she says quietly as she pins me with her disapproving-mother look, “and you needed to find yourself away from human company.’

“If you’re pissed because I’ve been with Revna, just say it,” I sigh, turning to pour myself a whisky and her a glass of champagne.

She shakes her head when I turn back to offer her the glass.

“It’s too early in the night to be drinking, Falcon. What is the meaning of this? Why have you returned from Denmark and dragged me out of the Court like a servant?”

“Ah, so you do know where I was,” I roll my eyes.

“Of course,” she sniffs, “but if you’ve returned home because you’ve come to your senses, then I’m most sincerely relieved.”

“I’ve come home,” I scowl, “because a rumour has reached my ears of another threat, a very real threat, to our family.”

She shrugs and moves to sit. It’s so like Mother to remain calm in the face of imminent danger, but then, she’d lived in dangerous circumstances her entire life, so it’s no surprise.

“And what new threat do you refer to?”

“Someone is trying to make me kill Viper.”

“How on earth could that occur?”

“Because the rumour is that my wife is in fact under a thrall.”

Mother claps her hands and smiles.

“I knew it.”

I hold up my hand to forestall anything else she might add.

“Before you start crowing, the thrall is not mine.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Wolf and Jag believe Angelina is being held under an obedience bite, from Viper.”

Her face pales as she stills, taking in what I’ve just said.

“No!” she gasps.

“No, of course not,” I snap, downing my drink and moving to pour another. “Viper would never do anything like that.”

“If he had….” she whispers.

“If he had, I’d be bound to destroy him,” I mutter.

“What has he said to this?”

“I can’t reach him. That’s why I insisted you return from Court. I’m concerned this is another machination by Spider to destroy my house. I want you home while we await Viper and sort out this mess. I want to keep you safe.”

“Safe from whom?” She murmurs. “Spider hasn’t managed to kill me yet; I doubt he’ll succeed this time.”

“It’s not Spider I’m worried about right at this moment,” I sigh, running my hands through my hair. “It’s Jag.”

“Jaguar? Why on earth should I fear him?”

“Not you, it’s just one less thing for me to worry about if I know where you are at all times.

No, it’s Viper I fear for. Jag’s planning on killing him.

He believes Viper has bitten Angie, and he wants to end my brother’s life.

My dread is that once he’s done this, Spider will make his next move upon my title.

With no younger brother to take the seat and with Spider having the ear of the Queen, if something should befall me my seat will easily go to him. ”

“Why would something befall you?”

“Because if anything happens to my brother, through lies passed to Jag, I will be forced to kill my former best friend and then march on Spider.”

“Falcon, no.”

“I’ll end this, one way or the other, Mother. Too long we’ve lived under this shadow. Too long his family have manipulated and spied and worked to undermine mine. This is the last straw. To convince Jaguar that

Angelina had an affair with him because she was ordered to under a thrall is possibly the most diabolical thing he’s done to date.”

“Apart from making you go on The Games,” she murmurs, “and biting Giselle’s sister when she was a child so that one day she’d try to kill me.”

“You can see where I’m heading with this,” I nod. “Nothing is beyond him.”

Mother rises.

“So the suggestion is that Angelina was bitten before the pregnancy? By Viper?”

“Yes.”

“Then why didn’t she let you know when she was pregnant and no longer held under thrall?”

“I don’t know,” I mutter, “but this is just another reason why it makes no sense.”

I don’t add that she was on the run from me while she was pregnant because I’d tried to bite her and put her under my thrall, and then moved to kill her.

Or that if what Wolf believes is true and Viper was undermining my house for years in league with Spider, that this is exactly the kind of vengeance she probably believed I deserved for the way I’d treated her since the day we married.

What’s the point? That’s all water under the bridge.

“You said Wolf was on his way?”

“He is. Although I must warn you, he believes Jaguar.”

“It will be good for you to have him here,” she murmurs, her expression distracted. “I hope you find your brother soon. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that Jaguar is the best tracker in history.”

“I’m aware of that,” I snap. “And where are you going?”

“I need to see Angelina. I expect you’ll want to question her too.”

“No point,” I shrug. “If she were under a thrall you know as well as I do that she couldn’t admit it.”

She frowns and nods, but keeps walking.

“Mother,” I call as she reaches the door, “don’t leave the castle, please.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, darling.”

I scowl and down my drink.

The way she’d said that was not at all convincing.