Page 90 of Wedlock (Vampire Bachelor Games #3)

As Angie has a private conversation with her mother, dinner finally over and most of her nephews and their parents having left, I take the opportunity to confront Jag.

I’d already had an uncomfortable conversation with Angie’s father earlier tonight, and it wasn’t lost on me that Jag had done much to smooth the waters for my visit.

Apparently a shotgun full of silver bullets was her father’s idea of a warm welcome for me.

Jag had managed to suggest silver cutlery might be more than enough protection, should I become unmanageable.

I imagine he’d said that tongue-in-cheek, but I noticed they’d taken it literally.

Still, shotgun or no, her father clearly hated my guts, and I can’t blame him.

After the birth of the twins at their farm, Adam and Marianne had informed the family of Angelina’s imprisonment in my castle, her thrall, and her desperation, and Jag had filled in the blanks.

The in-between details supplied by Angie with a brief phone call as she ran, and her answers this evening to her family’s rapid-fire questions, had done nothing to warm the family towards me.

They hadn’t been able to see their only daughter and sister for years because of my stupidity.

I couldn’t blame any of them for wanting me dead and buried.

Apparently, though, the sun shone out of Jag.

“Here?” I scowl. “All along? Do you hope to worm your way into my wife’s affections by wooing her family?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jag mutters, swiping away the finger I poke at his chest. “That’s your game, not mine. I wanted someplace away from the world of vampires and intrigue, and they needed protecting. You were too busy being yourself to bother about the lives of anyone else.”

“What exactly do you mean by that?” I growl.

“Wolf keeps in contact,” he snorts. “I know what you’ve been up to.”

“Which is?” I snap.

“You were in a deep fugue for years, let all your responsibilities slip, wouldn’t have anything to do with your dying son.

Then you see Angie and tell her you know about the twins — thanks for that by the way — and subsequently break your oath and selfishly pursue her instead of taking on the duty of ensuring the bitch who poisoned your son and wants your wife dead is destroyed. Have I missed anything?”

I stare at him, breathing hard and trying to control my urge to punch him in the face.

But I was never very good at controlling my urges.