by Mary Martel
The Dwarf is great and all but he’s a man. I seriously doubt a man will get my insecurities’ when it comes to Ian. Then again, Collette isn’t really any better because the woman is all kinds of cold bitch.
The way I see it though is there’s no better person than Collette to be able to reassure me when it comes to my relationship, or lack of one. Only because the Vampire loves him so much. Me, she’d rather shove me in front of a speeding vehicle most days than have to talk to me.
I don’t mind this. She’s honest with her feelings and I very much appreciate the honesty.
“What the hell?” the Dwarf mutters.
The car slows down and I look out the windshield to see what the problem is.
There’s a hooded figure standing in the middle of the dirt road blocking our path.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“It’s Caleb,” I inform Raylen.
At my words the hooded figure cocks his head to the side as if he heard me. I’m sure he can. Probably some kind of freaky Vampire hearing thing.
“Hello, Caleb. I don’t know if you remember me,” I mummer. “My name is Shayne Gracie and I’m here to see Collette, if that’s alright.”
Of course, my Queen.
His rich, deeply masculine voice rumbles in my head.
My Queen.
I fought, and thankfully won, the battle against rolling my eyes.
“Uh, Shayne, I don’t know if you noticed or not but that man just disappeared into thin air.”
“It’s some freaky Vampire thing,” I try to reassure Raylen.
At least I hope it’s some sort of freaky Vampire thing and not something else.
“What in the hell did I let you talk me into here? Freaky Vampire thing indeed.”
I study Raylen’s profile in surprise. “Do you have something against Vampire’s, Raylen?”
I’ve only met two Vampire’s up close and personal and considering I don’t like either of them (hello, Sunglasses freaking attacked me!) I’ve decided to hold judgement until I meet a few more that way I’m not being biased.
“Nobody really likes the Vampire’s. They haven’t been liked since… well, since you know when.”
I do know.
Since the Vampires were blamed for the death of a King and two Princes.
This makes me feel unbelievably sad for the Vampires. They had fallen victim to Roland just as I had. Only, theirs was longer lasting and probably came with horrific side effects. Mine last a few hours, it hurt a bit, and I was left with a nifty scar for my troubles. But it was done for me after that. The stain Roland left on Vampires as a whole might not ever wash off.
Yes, definitely sad.
Ian’s got his work cut out for him when it comes to repairing the damage Roland has caused. Hopefully his people are open to this. I would hate to be in his shoes right now. Not that I would ever desire to be in his position.
“Is it just me or does this place look like your stereotypical Vampire house? It’s all foreboding and gothic.”
I close my eyes at Raylens words, not ready to look at Collette’s giant, vine covered mansion.
“Do you know who Collette is, Raylen?” I ask in a weak voice.
“Of course I know who she is,” he huffs at me. “Everyone knows who she is. She was once a Council member and a trusted advisor to many of the Kings past. But that doesn’t mean I know her know her. The woman is pure ice and we Dwarfs are a friendly lot so I’ve never really had the desire to get to know her, if you catch my drift.”
His words bring a smile to my face because he’s very right on all accounts and his tone makes his ‘drift’ very hard not to catch.
“She’s not so bad,” I boldly lie.
“My Queen,” he drawls, “you might want to work on that shield of yours a bit more before you tell another doosey like that again. I hate to break it to you but you’re a terrible liar.”
Took you long enough. What I’d like to know is what exactly do you think you’re doing here when you should have gone straight to Ian? And, what in the devil are you doing with a Dwarf?
Apparently I more than need to work on constructing a wall in my head to keep others out because I clearly suck at it.
“Practice will work wonders,” Raylen quickly assures me. “And it doesn’t help that you are feeling emotional.”
Yes, evidence was clearly pointing to me seriously sucking.
Still whiney and overemotional I see.
“Whatever, Collette,” I mutter while rolling my eyes, “we both know you missed me.”
And you’ve not answered my questions.
And I’ve no intention of doing so. Even though I’ve just showed up at her house out of the blue (she was kind of expecting me) doesn’t mean I’m going to explain myself or my actions to her. I don’t have to. I owe this woman nothing and I can freely admit to being a horrible person for showing up here and expecting her to give me things I have intention of returning.
Raylen speaks to me at the same time Collette talks inside my head and they end up mushing together, canceling each other out. Not that I bother to try and listen to either voice, I’m done listening to people for the day. I need peace and quiet and aloneness for a few hours so I can get my head on straight and sort myself out. Once I’ve got that done I can dump all my baggage off on Collette.
“You could always talk it out with me if you like, my Queen.”
Christ, we were back to the Queen shit. He makes me want to scream.
And then there’s the…
“Alright, Dwarf,” I turn in my seat to face him and I notice he’s parking the car in front of the house. “First of all, it’s rude to comment on my thoughts when they aren’t addressed to you, and, most importantly, I have not voiced them aloud. I would know seeing as I’ve practiced this my whole life. Second, and this is important here so you might want to pay close attention, from here on out every time you call me my Queen I’m going to kick you as hard as I can in the shin.”
I leave him with his mouth open wide gaping at me and get out of the Jeep. Everyone else already thinks I’m all kinds of nuts, he might as well too.
Shutting the door on the Jeep I take in my surroundings. The building looms before me, standing three stories tall. The entire front save for the enormous front door and windows is completely covered in vines.
Couple the vines with the fact that it stands alone in the middle of a dense forest gives it a creepy almost haunted factor.
Collette could really do the place up for Halloween and sell tickets. She could drag all of the dead bodies it’s highly likely she’s got piled up in her basement out and strategically place them throughout the house. You know, really get into the spirit of things.
“I see in your month of wallowing in your own misery you’ve managed to hold onto your sense of humor. Mores the pity.”
The woman whom the voice belongs to stands in the open doorway to her home watching me with shrewd eyes.
Holy shit.
This time it’s my mouth that drops open, and with big eyes I gape at what I’m seeing.
“You… you,” I stammer. “You look great.”
Belatedly, I realize just how rude that sounds but I don’t care because it’s very true.
Before she’d looked diseased and in dire need of seeking help for her eating disorder. She’d also looked like someone had smudged garish purple eye shadow under her eyes. Her brown hair had looked lifeless, dull, and thin.
Now she looks healthier. Pretty almost. She had to have gained fifteen pounds. The dark under eye smudges aren’t entirely gone but a whole lot less visible. Her once lifeless hair now shines bright and healthy, falling in thick waves around her shoulders.
She looks freaking awesome.
“Whose vein have you been sucking on?” I blurt out before I can think better of it.
Her lip curls in response. That’s it.
I was expecting some type of snide remark. Her lack of a response makes me sligh
tly uncomfortable. She’s always quick with some rude and witty comeback.
Next thing I know I’m second guessing my actions. Was it right to have come here? Should I have-
“Don’t get insecure on me now, Shayne.”
Please, as if I haven’t always been insecure.
And…
“Did you just call me Shayne?”
She ignores this. Waving her hand inside the house she asks, “Would you like the room you stayed in last time or a new one?”
I don’t have to think about it. “The same.”
Collette nods regally.
“And Raylen?” I ask. “Can he have a room close to mine?”
“I would prefer,” The Dwarf states snottily, “to sleep in the same room as my Queen.”
I’ll let that one slide because he’s not talking to me. Nope, just about me and right in front of me.
“Why I never,” Collette starts with affront.
“You dare-”
I cut Raylen off, “I would love to use the room and I would be more than comfortable with Raylen sleeping in my room. Maybe you’ve got a cot he can use or something.”
Collette’s eyes go squinty and her lips purse into a frown. “What is it with you and the Dwarfs?”
“Can we not do this now? It’s been a long couple of days and I’m tired. I’d really just like to lay down. We can argue in the morning.”
Thankfully she agrees with me and drops tit. The house is silent and empty as she ushers us up to our room.
Is it a little weird that Raylen wants to share a room with me? Yes, absolutely. But, then again, maybe not. I heard him on the phone with Daisy and I know he wants to keep me safe.
“Here you are,” Collette stops in front of the door. “I’ll have Caleb bring something up for you Dwarf friend.”
With that she turns on her heel and heads back the way we came.
From beside me Raylen mutters, “Cold as ice, what’d I say?”
I huff out a small laugh. “You were not wrong.”
As soon as we are behind the closed door Raylen heads into the bathroom to take a shower. I don’t even bother to change my clothes or to kick off my shoes before I pull back the covers and climb into the big, empty bed.
My last thought before I succumb to sleep is that Raylen can fend for himself.
*****
Heat. I’m surrounded in heat. It’s coming at me from both sides of my body.
“Mmm…” I groggily mummer. I’ve woken up like this before but it seems like forever ago now.
Am I dreaming again? I have to be. This cannot be real.
“Go back to sleep, sweetheart,” a voice filled with heat and tenderness whispers from behind me.
At the sound of his voice my body locks into place and I stiffen. The arm around my waist becomes a bar of steel caging me in place.
No. No. No.
This cannot be happening. I’m not ready for this and I haven’t even begun to sort my head out yet. He can’t be here. He can’t.
“Baby, you need to listen to me,” Ian whispers urgently.
His voice, so deep and incredibly male sends a shock through my body all the way down to my core. A different kind of heat burns between my legs.
“Ugh, really?” A different, still unmistakably male, voice groans from the other side of me. “I can smell you, ya know.”
No, I don’t know and right now I don’t really care.
“What’s going on?” What I really want to ask is why they’re here, and in bed with me no less.
“You smell so fucking good. Christ,” Ian groans into the top of my hair where his face is buried. “I’ve missed you so fucking much. You have no idea how much.”
I can hear the agony in his voice, hell, I can feel it oozing out of him and seeping into my stiff body.
I shake my head in an attempt to shake his emotions off. It doesn’t work.
“Let me go,” I hiss, suddenly needing to be as far away from him as I can possibly get.
Thinking about his betrayal stings like a slap in the face serving to chase the heat between my legs away.
I never realized that’s what I saw everything as – a betrayal. The ultimate betrayal. He stood back on the sidelines as a fucking voyeur and watched as my memories were taken from me.
Another thing I didn’t realize until this moment is just how angry this makes me. No, not angry. Hurt, betrayed, enraged.
How dare he allow someone to do such a thing after he broke my damn heart and crushed me, then he thinks he can simply crawl into bed with me and act like nothing had ever happened?
And not only does he crawl into bed with me but he brings his brother along with him to crawl in bed on the other side of me.
I mean, isn’t that weird?
“It’s not, my Queen,” a sleepy voice grumbles from the floor at the foot of the bed.
From the freaking floor.
In a moment of insanity I forget the people on either side of me and angrily shout, “I can’t believe she made you sleep on the floor!” Then, as an afterthought, in a shrill voice, I yell, “And stay the hell out of my damn head, Dwarf!”
“Seriously, Shayne, only you would end up with a Dwarf at Collette’s house,” Riley mutters in amusement.
Not one damn thing about this is even remotely amusing. Not one thing.
Turning to face Riley in the dark room I snap at him, “Get out of my room and take your brother with you.”
“No, I will not,” he immediately fires back in a tone that sends a chill down my spine. He’s never spoken to me like this before. I had grown too comfortable with his gentle, teasing ways towards me. This is a whole different side to him he’s introducing me to. I can’t say I like it because I do not.
“You’re the only family we’ve got and you’ve been gone for over a month. We’ve been hurting here. Just give us the night to be close to you, to relish in the fact that you’re here and you’re safe, before you rip into my brother and everything turns back to shit. Please, Shayne, just let it go for tonight. I know I speak for both my brother and myself when I say a lot of bad shit has gone down lately and we’re both fucking exhausted and neither one of us has had a good night’s sleep in over a month. My brother because you’ve been gone and-”
Ian cuts him off to growl in a warning, “Riley.”
“He’s been carrying the weight of your misery plus his own. Me because I’ve had to watch this and there not being a damn thing I could do to help him because I’ve been watched like a fucking hawk and mostly I’ve been too worried about you to sleep. Just give us the night and fight us in the morning.”
“Riley-” Ian starts again but gets no further.
“You being my big brothers true mate, even with all the political shit pushed aside, makes you my sister. It’s been so long since I had anyone to call family other than my brother that after our forced separation I just want to be close to you both tonight while I sleep knowing you’re safe and here with us where you belong.”
Holy hell.
The anger flees immediately at the sincerity and genuineness in his voice.
Scratch that – maybe I do like this side to Riley.
“He’s right, baby. Go back to sleep. We’ll deal with everything in the morning. Tonight it’s enough to just have you beside me.”
I can hear the smile in his voice when he says, “Especially knowing my brother’s on the other side of you, an over protective Dwarf lay at your feet, and a cold blooded Vampire a floor below who’d do anything for you.”
I know he’s trying to lighten things up but it doesn’t work for me. It does the opposite.
“Raylen happens to be Neelan’s brother.” For some reason I feel the need to explain to the two brothers why it is I’m with the Dwarf without hurtling him under the bus. “You remember Neelan, I’m sure. He died because of m-”
I come to an abrupt stop when a gravelly voice full of emotion speaks over me.
“My brother died protecting
his Queen. I shall hope to do the same.” At his words, words full of pride and a hint of sadness, my body grows even stiffer.
A man, a good man, lost his life because of me. All because of who I had slept with. This does not sit well with me. It will probably eat up my insides until the day I die, like fucking cancer.
I don’t want to be responsible for a good man, let alone any mans, death.
Where had things gone so wrong in my life? Anna May would eat this shit up like a hungry animal. Then she’d manipulate. She would win them all over with her pretty face, to die for body, and pouty lips. She would have every man in the room eating out of the palm of her hand while she played them.
I used to be jealous of all the attention she had. Now, not so much. Now, I just wish I knew how to use her technic.
“Go to sleep, my Queen,” Raylen gently pushes. “Your problems with still be here in the morning.”
Unfortunately, he’s not wrong.
“Sleep,” Ian commands like it’s as easy as him telling me to sleep and I will.
The thought of being able to sleep when I’m sandwiched between the two while there’s so much negativity in the mix is unfathomable.
Or, it should be.
But somehow, some way, I find myself relaxing into the comforting heat surrounding me. Relaxing and drifting.
Drifting off to sleep.
Chapter 31
Ian
In my arms I hold the most precious thing I’ll ever hold in my arms until she gives birth to our babies and I get to hold them in my arms as well. Not that I have any intention of telling her that, it might piss her off and give her another reason to feel hurt and angry because of me.
“I’ll leave you to it, brother,” Riley murmurs while sliding out of the opposite side of the bed.
I know, despite what he’d told Shayne, neither of us slept a wink since she’d fallen asleep.
My mind ran rampant with everything that’d gone on in the past month and all I would face in the near future. None of it great and not a whole lot to look forward to.
The Council had fucked up huge with what they demanded from Shayne and myself. No one could have seen it coming, but with that move they managed to piss off the majority of the Supernatural community. The people, my people, were, and still are, outraged. By their way of thinking, and I hope they never think differently even though it’s a lie and I came back for mostly selfish reasons, they see me as their savior from the reign of a tyrant.
