Page 41 of Wedlock (Vampire Bachelor Games #3)

Jag and I sit for a long time in silence after Asumpta has gone, until finally it becomes uncomfortable, and I clear my throat.

“Do you think she’ll come back?”

“Unlikely,” he mutters, “but I’ll find her.”

A shudder at his tone. I’d like to know if he means ‘ find and kill’ or ‘find and punish,’ but then, I kind of don’t want to know, given his reputation as a tracker and torturer.

I’ve got enough shit in my head from my time under Viper’s control to last anyone a lifetime without adding any more.

I don’t wish death on her, even given what she’s done to me, but I’d still like to know she wasn’t going to knock on my door one night and fang me.

Then again, it won’t matter soon, because I won’t be here.

‘Definitely best I don’t know.’

“She’s evil,” I shrug, “but she did save your life. I mean, she risked her own to take out Viper so that Falcon wouldn’t seek revenge against you. So, as much as I loathe her, she acted out of love.”

“I know that feeling well,” he says quietly.

“Jag,” I shake my head.

“I owe you an apology,” he says, bowing his head. “The deepest of apologies.”

“What? No, Jag, it wasn’t your fault.”

“I was blind,” he whispers as I take his hands and squeeze them tightly, “blind to the hints you gave, the cries for help. I’m a tracker, Angie, trained to notice the smallest of details, yet you left blazing tracks leading me to the truth and I was so blinkered by feelings for you, so self-absorbed, that I didn’t listen. ”

“No, Jag,” I shake my head.

“Yes,” he groans, “when I think back to all the things you said, things I ignored . That first night, the very first night we spent together, I asked you why you hadn’t told me Tatyana was torturing you, and you replied,” he squeezes his eyes shut as though in pain, “you replied that the words wouldn’t come.

You said, ‘I wish to God I could have told you, Jag, told anyone.’ You have no idea how those words have haunted me since your thrall was revealed. ”

“Jag, you weren’t the only one. Eleanor suspected, and she of all people should have known, given how long she’d been held in thrall by her husband.

And Falcon… I mean, in reality we didn’t, and still don’t, know each other that well, but he knew me better than anyone in this castle.

I hoped, I prayed, that he at least would notice my personality had changed — but he didn’t. You can’t blame yourself.”

“But I do,” he mutters, pulling his hands from mine, “because I took advantage of you, Angie. You were forced to have sex with me for Christ’s sake! I raped you. There’s no other word for it.”

“Jag,” I smile sadly and take his hands again, forcing him to meet my eyes. “Yes, I slept with you, but it was hardly rape.”

“Had you been drugged into submission, it would have been no different,” he frowns at me. “Don’t you see that?”

“I see before me a man who comforted me when I needed it, who always protected me. A man who gave me a great deal of pleasure on those nights I was ‘forced’ to sleep with him,” I say softly.

“I was made to seduce you, but you were always gentle, and I was always willing. I was under a thrall, Jag, but you never raped me. If anything, I took advantage of you . I’m the one who has a reason to feel guilt.

I lied to you, told you I loved you, tricked you into sleeping with me… ”

“Yes,” he sighs, “but you also begged me to listen to your brother. Had I just taken the time to hear him out... had I learned then what you were suffering, I would never have returned you here. I would have hunted Viper to the ends of the earth and ended him.”

His eyes turn dark as he adds this, and I shudder.

Noticing, he shakes his head.

“You never need fear me, Angie.”

“I know that. Please don’t look at me like that,” I whisper, seeing the love in his eyes. “This can’t be. You know the truth now. Viper forced me to seduce you to get at Falcon. He hoped Falcon would kill you the day you returned me to this castle.”

“Yes, I know the truth,” he says quietly, “and if you tell me you love Falcon and want to make your marriage work, I’ll walk away now.”

“Either way,” I shake my head sadly.

“Do you love him still, Angie?”

I stare down at our joined hands.

‘Do I? I didn’t think so, but then, that kiss…

why can’t I stop thinking about it? And the way he makes me feel every time I’m around him…

The fact we share children. The jealousy I feel at the idea of him being with someone else…

I don’t know. I definitely still have feelings for him, and Mom always said the closest thing to love is hate. I’m treading a fine line.’

But I can’t tell Jag any of this, because the truth is, even if I don’t love Falcon any longer, I won’t ever love Jag the way he wants.

“Jag…”

“I don’t think you do love him, Angie, but I believe you could learn to love me if you gave yourself permission. I know you were under a thrall, but you said it yourself, those nights we spent together were…”

“A mistake. I’m married, Jag,” I pull my hands from his and, frowning, turn away.

His words are strangely annoying, and at the same time I realise that making him mad might be the best thing for both of us.

“And how do you know I don’t love my husband?

I did once — I loved him all the time I was sleeping with you. ”

“Right up until he tried to put you under his thrall?” He asks quietly. “Or did you still love him when he tried to kill you?”

“Jag, stop.”

“Angie, I know what you’re trying to do.

Your heart is soft; it’s what I love about you, but your head isn’t.

I didn’t want to have to tell you this. I don’t want to force your hand or pressure you into declaring false feelings, but Falcon is going to marry the Princess.

Even if he gives his title to your son, he’ll still do away with you to marry her. He has to.”

“What do you mean he has to?”

“The Queen is behind it all.”

“The fucking Queen ?”

“Yes, I don’t know all the details, but Falcon told Eleanor that the Queen put him on The Games to teach him a lesson for jilting Princess Revna. He was supposed to marry a human, get an heir, and then scurry back to her, tail between his legs, and marry into her family.”

“Only, he threw a spanner in the works by eating all the contestants,” I muse.

“Yes, and no one knew he was planning on marrying Sophie. No one except Spider, and he didn’t let on that little fact to the Queen when he suggested putting Falcon into The Games.”

I think this through, biting my lip.

“But Falcon still wouldn’t have gone on the show. So Spider kidnapped Viper as leverage…”

“Yes, another ruse,” Jag nods. “As we know now, Viper and he were working together. He was never kidnapped.”

“But, hang on,” I hold my hand up. “Why put him into The Games a second time?”

“That was royal duty and protocol,” Jag says bitterly, “and Falcon has no one to blame but himself for that. He had to make it right for the human public, for The Games, and to help hold the balance. Of course no one expected your mother-in-law to have her finger in the pie too, and to have you placed in The Games. And no one expected a love match.”

“A love match,” I echo, remembering how I’d felt about Falcon towards the end of The Games. How much I adored everything about him, and how he seemed to think the same about me. Remembering Eleanor’s assertion that he’d confessed he loved me, would always love me.

“Which brings us to now,” Jag grunts, returning me to reality with a thud.

“You’ve given him his heir, the Princess wants him, and you’re in the way.

The Queen isn’t fucking around any longer.

The story is out and about that you’re suicidal, and she’s happy enough with that.

Revna is chomping at the bit, from what I’ve heard.

She met with the Queen after leaving here recently and there was some kind of kerfuffle and craziness — Eleanor’s sources couldn’t say what.

The long and short of it is that Falcon will marry the Princess, sooner rather than later. ”

“I already know this,” I reply dully. “Nothing you’ve said comes as any real surprise, apart from the Queen bit.

But Jag,” I take both his hands in mine and look earnestly into his eyes, “no matter what happens, I can’t be with you.

I’m sorry. I don’t love you like that. I love you like a friend, a brother, not like the way you want. ”

“I know,” he sighs. “I’d hoped otherwise. I’ll always hope, but you need protection, and you can’t stay here.”

I nod, my eyes hardening as I consider my options.

“That’s why I came to see Asumpta, I need to get out of here.”

I don’t add ‘and I need to take my baby,’ because it’s clear Jag thinks my son needs to stay to inherit the title. But he doesn’t know me at all if he thinks I’d ever leave my child behind. Still, something makes me hold my tongue about this.

“Asumpta is out of the picture,” he shrugs, “but I’ll help you.”

Bouncing forward I hug him tightly, aware as his familiar arms tighten around me that this hug will mean something completely different to him, but not moving to stop it.

It feels so comforting, so warm, and so safe as I whisper against his chest: “Thank you, Jag.”