Conquer (Control) (2 page)

“Will you trust me and come inside to talk, Daemon?”

I looked into his honest eyes and saw that he was earnest about his offer.  My breath huffed out of me and I turned back to look for Paige one last time.  I couldn’t see her and my heart fell when I realized we wouldn’t be reunited today as I had hoped. 

But that didn’t mean forever…

My eyes met Mr. Stone’s again and I nodded my head at him.  “Yeah, okay, let’s go inside.”

Chapter One

~~ Paige ~~

The truck rocked slightly as Daemon pulled down the long dirt driveway of the Center.  The rain was pounding against the metal and glass and the sound was deafening as we drove.  Daemon turned onto the dirt road leading away from my parents’ place and I watched as it disappeared in the distance.   I felt disjointed and unsure of myself after discovering that Daemon was Buddy….that he had returned…that he had kept his promise…and that my parents were to blame for the years that I had gone without him.  It was perpetual heartbreak, a constant longing, and an emptiness that, until now, never stood a chance of being filled.  And it was all caused by the two people who had never lied to me before…I should correct that statement; the two people who lied to me the most.

My head fell back to rest against the seat.  I was soaking wet and muddy and I was glad that the seats were leather.  Had they been cloth, I would have ruined them in the condition I was in.  Okay, so maybe sitting in the middle of the woods during a thunderstorm wasn’t the brightest idea, but when your world comes tumbling down around you, good decision making doesn’t normally follow.

I spun my head to look in Daemon’s direction.  It was so dark in the vehicle that I could barely make out more than his silhouette as we drove down the dirt road.    I was astonished and still in shock over the revelation of who he was, who he had been to me.  A million questions ravaged my battered mind, each revealing itself only to be quickly lost to the next.

“Why did it take you so long?”

Daemon’s gaze flicked to me before returning to the road.  “So long for what?”

“To tell me who you are. Or, I guess I should say, to
admit
to me who you are.  Would you have said anything if I hadn’t found the necklace?”

Daemon let out a long resigned sigh.  His gaze quickly flicked to me again.  He seemed to be running through many thoughts in that beautiful head and I instantly wondered why he needed to ponder his response.  It should be simple enough to answer my question, but he appeared to be struggling with what to say.

Daemon cleared his throat.  “I…uh…a couple different reasons, I guess.   I’m really not sure how to explain it.  I had every intention to tell you, Paige.  It just seemed like it was never the right time with everything that was going on in your life.”

An indignant snort escaped me.  “You’re right.  I mean, obviously, the times we were talking about Buddy, er, you, weren’t the best moments for that little disclosure.  I’m definitely glad you waited to let me find out on my own.  Surprises are awesome when they are life altering.”    He smiled in response to my obvious sarcasm.

His voice was defeated as he finally answered.  “Damsel, I just didn’t know how you would react.  It really just comes down to that.  When I first figured out who you were at Tomb, I didn’t know if you hated me.  I saw you fight off Chris and the anger in you concerned me.  I left you alone because I was under the impression that you had a boyfriend and were happy.  I didn’t want to fuck that up.  Then you came back two nights later.  I tried to stay away, but I just…couldn’t.  I was so confused when you first told me about Buddy, about what you remembered.  It was like you placed me on a pedestal or something and, in all honesty, I was shocked.  I didn’t understand why you remembered things the way you did.”

My head rolled back forward and I looked out over the road ahead of us.   The rain was letting up and it no longer hammered against the car.  “So after that?  What?  Your reasoning doesn’t make sense, Daemon.  Why didn’t you tell me when we were at The Center?”

“I spoke to your parents at the hospital when you were unconscious.  You should have seen their faces when they walked in…the shock between seeing you in the condition you were in and then seeing me…”  He paused a beat as he remembered that day. “…It’s like they questioned whether I was involved.  Then we talked and they calmed down.  They told me about you, about how you didn’t remember what I was like when we were kids.  Your mom begged me not to say anything, she knew you would find out the truth and she was worried what that would do to you…mentally.”  That last word was spoken carefully.  I wondered if Daemon and my parents thought I was psychologically unbalanced.

I opened my mouth to inquire further as to what my parents told him, but was interrupted by Daemon’s phone.  He pulled the phone from the center console and looked at the caller I.D.  His expression instantly darkened before he put the phone to his ear and gruffly answered.  “What?”

Daemon’s hands tightened on the wheel and I grabbed the dash when the vehicle swerved.  He hit the brakes and pulled over as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the call.  “What the fuck do you mean he came back?  Where the fuck is he now?  How the fuck did he get in?  Where was my fucking security?!”

With the amount of F-bombs being thrown, I had a feeling whatever Daemon was being told was not good news.

“Yeah, I’m on my way now.  You’d better round up ALL of the bouncers and explain to them that if that psychopath gets inside my club AGAIN, it will be their jobs!!”  Daemon ended the call and threw the phone back down into the center console.  I jumped a little at the force of the throw and looked to him in question.

A resigned sigh escaped his lips before he turned to me and said, “Chris was apparently in Tomb again.  Once again, Logan spotted him and once fucking AGAIN, he got out before Logan could get to him!  I need to head over there.”

“Well, then I’m going with you.”  My voice was matter of fact as I spoke.

“The hell you are…”

I put up my hand to stop Daemon from continuing his little alpha male rant.  “Not this time, Daemon.  You can’t tell me no.  You just finished promising me we would be
partners
in this thing with Chris.  Last I checked ‘partners’ indicated that we would do this
together
.  I’m not allowing you to turn this into a hypocritical situation where you get to act alone and I always have to wait for you before I’m allowed to make a decision.  That is bullshit and SO not happening.”

Daemon raised his hands and then brought them back down forcefully on the steering wheel.  His palm accidentally hit the center and a little ‘beep’ sounded from the truck.  “Dammit Paige!  No!  I refuse to let you go anywhere near him!”

My mouth turned up into an arrogant smirk.  “That doesn’t sound like
partnership
to me Daemon.  Guess this means I don’t need to run things past you after all.”  My arms crossed over my chest and I turned my head slowly in his direction.   If his eyes could shoot lasers, I would have been zapped into oblivion at that moment.  His normally beautiful mouth was turned up into an angry grimace and his eyebrows were sharply furrowed down the center of his face.  I smiled an innocent smile because, for once, I had the advantage with him.  It felt good to corner him.

His hand came up and grabbed me by the cheeks.  He held my face in place and my mouth was forced into a little ‘o’ from the force of his fingers.  His eyes burned into mine.  I couldn’t quite tell, due to the shadows, but I think his face was turning a deep shade of scarlet.  He was mad and I was annoyed that he thought he could take it out on my face.  I tried to jerk out of his grasp, but I was unable to pull away. Damn, he had some strong hands.

His authoritative voice sounded when he asked, “Why…must you be…so fucking stubborn?”  He let go of my face and I rubbed at my cheek with my hand.  “Seriously, Paige.  You don’t need to be anywhere NEAR that club while Chris is running around.”

I held up my finger in his face.  “First off, a kid I knew when I was young taught me to never put up with shit, therefore, there will be NO angry face grabbing in this relationship…”

Daemon smiled the minute I chastised him for manhandling me.

“…and second, Tomb is probably the safest place for me to be right now.  I mean, you have no one at the apartment to watch me since Alex isn’t around, and Chris could be hiding in wait.  Maybe he’s trying to lure you away from the apartment so he can get to me.  Hmmm, did you ever think of that?  What if you drop me off and, while you are at Tomb, Chris somehow breaks in and kills me.”  My finger dropped and I smiled sweetly again.  “You’ll have to live with that on your conscience forever, with me being dead and all.”

Cornered him again…I’m feeling quite proud of myself tonight.

“Sonofabitch!”  The fact that Daemon mumbled that explicative was a clear indication that I had won this round.  “Fine.  I’ll take you with me, but you stay by my side the ENTIRE time and if Chris is spotted, you stay as far away as possible.  In fact, if he’s spotted, you are to go lock yourself in the storage room.  I had a couch put in there after the last time I dragged you there.”  The corner of his mouth turned up into a smirk. “You should be quite comfortable.”

My jaw dropped at his admission and he chuckled in response.  “Wow, feeling pretty sure of yourself there, Daemon.  As if I would let you drag me in that storage room again.”  I let out a little outraged huff, but couldn’t help my smile. 

Daemon threw the truck back into gear and pulled out on the road.  My body was thrown back into the seat from the speed he was driving and it took us very little time to get to the club.  Daemon parked in a reserved spot in the back and ushered me in through the rear service door.  As soon as we entered the club, my breath rushed out of me and I suddenly realized how much I had missed going out.  The music was pounding, it was so loud.  The club was busy and people were packed together like sardines.  A live band was playing and, although I had never heard of them before, they were actually quite decent.  Daemon took my hand and tucked me closely behind him as he navigated his way to Logan’s bar.  As soon as Logan caught sight of us, he frowned and quickly came over to speak to Daemon.   He waved at me before leaning over the bar to speak with Daemon quietly.

With my hand still enveloped in Daemon’s hand, I turned to look out over the crowd.  I chuckled to myself when I spotted the typical women in their typical club gear.  Skin was showing and drinks were being guzzled.  The men were in their standard black shirt, blue jean combination.  Nothing had changed since I’d been here last.  Okay, so it had only been a couple of months, but it felt like forever since I’d been at Tomb.  My eyes continued perusing the drunken debauchery when a familiar face came in to view.

Alex was standing at the guardrails overlooking the pit.  A beer was tilted up to his lips and the brim of his ballcap was pulled so low, it nearly touched the bottle.  To his right was a shorter, curvy girl with short blond hair tucked underneath a black pageboy cap.  She wore a simple, black halter top with a pair of jeans and some decent boots.   I was impressed with her appearance and curious who she was.  I started to walk over to say ‘hi’ when Daemon’s grip tightened on mine and he pulled me back in his direction.

Leaning down to whisper loudly in my ear, he said, “Where in the hell do you think you’re going?!”

My eyebrows shot up in response to his curt tone and I indicated in Alex’ direction with my thumb.  “I was going to go see Alex.  He’s standing near the pit.  I thought it would be okay to see him since he’s previously been given
babysitting
status.”

Daemon’s eyes shot over to where Alex and the mystery blonde were standing.  A smile peeked out at the corner of his mouth.  His expression softened somewhat and he let go of my hand.  “Fine.  Go say ‘hi’.  I need to go in the back office to meet with the police.  Stay with Alex.”

I saluted Daemon before turning on my heel to go discover the identity of Alex’ new friend.  I dodged through the thick crowd and eventually made my way over to where he was standing.  Alex spotted me as I approached.  His hand dropped down to grasp onto the mystery blonde’s hand.  He started walking in my direction while dragging his cute date along with him. 

Once we were close enough to talk, he leaned down and put his free arm around my shoulder to hug me to him.  His head came down so he could speak close to my ear and be heard over the booming music.  “Hey.  What are you doing here?  Did everything go okay after I left?”

I looked over to Alex’ date fully expecting a jealous sneer to be plastered across her face from Alex’ proximity to me. Unfortunately, I’d had too many run-ins with jealous women when it came to Alex.  Thinking back, I guess it was to be expected considering Alex and my previous
arrangement
.  I was pleasantly surprised to find his date smiling brightly, appearing anxious to meet me.  She didn’t seem to have a jealous bone in her body.  I was liking the girl already.

I nodded ‘hello’ in her direction before turning back to Alex.  “Yeah.  Funny story, actually.  Apparently, Daemon is Buddy.”  I made that statement nonchalantly, thinking it might lesson the blow of what I just revealed.  It didn’t.  Alex’ jaw dropped and his arm tightened around my shoulder.  I shrugged out of his hold and looked up into a shocked and somewhat pissed expression.

“What?!”

I sighed and decided Alex would need clarification as to my statement.  “Daemon is Buddy.  As in, they are the same person.  As in, Daemon is the adult version of the kid I’ve been thinking about for most of my life.  Buddy is Daemon.”  There.  I think that broke it down into the basics.  No more confusion.

I was wrong.

Alex’ face twisted up into an oddly unreadable expression and he shook his head slightly as if he was trying to connect back with reality.  “How the….I don’t…are you sure?”