Tempest of Vengeance (22 page)

“Then ask,” Lash replied. “You know I’ll tell
you the truth. Always.”

“You said you cared for me. What does that
mean, exactly?”

The silence stretched for a long minute.

“I care for you very much Sar,” Lash said,
hugging me.

“Do you love me, Lash?”

Lash was quiet for a long time. But he didn’t
let me go.

“Answer me.”

“I care for you, Sar. More than I’ve ever
cared for any woman in my whole life. I want you more than I’ve
ever wanted any woman, too, were or human. You make me happy, being
with you, making me food, talking and laughing together. It’s so
good, waking up with you in my arms—”

“I asked you a question,” I said harshly.
“Answer me. Yes or no?”

Lash looked at me and sighed. “No,” he hissed
very softly. “No.”

I felt so crushed I couldn’t speak. I
couldn’t say anything, keeping my tears in by force of will
alone.

Lash held me close. “I smell your hurt, and
I’m sorry. But you wanted the truth.”

“I’m sorry, too,” I said heavily. Then I took
his arms from around me, and got up from the bed. Lash got up as
well, and stopped me from leaving, putting his hand on my arm. I
tried to pull away, but he pulled me into his arms, and held me
close.

“Why isn’t it enough that I care for you?”
Lash hissed, upset. “I know you take pleasure in me, Sar. I meant
what I said, that I’ll do anything you need me to. I’ll be faithful
to you. I give you my word I haven’t been with anyone else, and I
won’t be, if you—”

“It’s not that, Lash. I never doubted your
faithfulness. It’s that you aren’t in love with me. You don’t feel
for me like I feel for you.”

There was dead silence that stretched. Then
slowly Lash pulled back from me and held me at arms’ length. He
looked down at me, his eyes wide with disbelief. “You love me?”
Lash rasped out. “
Me
?”

“I have for a while,” I said, trailing my
hand up to caress his cheek. “It was hard to be around you all
these months, and not tell you, or even touch you, to keep telling
you I couldn’t be with you, when I wanted you so much.”

“Sar, I want you to touch me very much,” Lash
said gently, trying to hug me “Please, come here—”

“No,” I said, evading him. “I thought you
loved me, thought that I heard it in your voice that day in the
Everglades, when we were together. I thought I saw it in your eyes,
that last time you kissed me. But you don’t.”

“Why are you so hurt?” Lash hissed angrily.
“Because I won’t say some words to you?”

“No. Because you don’t feel them. And I
thought you did. I fantasized about you so much, in my mind I made
you the man I wanted you to be, not the man you are.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Lash said
loudly. “I’m only ever been honest about what and who I am! You
know the man I am! I never pretended to be anyone else!”

“I do know the man you are,” I said
sadly.

That seemed to enrage him. “I can’t give you
something that I can’t give anyone,” Lash hissed loudly. “I’ve
never loved any woman I bedded! Never, Sar!”

As I turned from him, he pulled me back into
his embrace. “But we don’t need love to be lovers, Sar,” he hissed.
“I—”

“I do,” I whispered.

Lash went totally still. “Why are you saying
this now, when we can finally be together?” he uttered. “You know
how long I waited to be with you, how hard it was, watching you
with Theo, and Dev, and Danial? Being in jail, and not seeing you,
and then having you here living with Dev, and seeing you every day
and not being able kiss you or touch you at all! You’re all I want!
You’re all I think about! And I know you want me.”

“Desire isn’t enough. I feel empty now after
we’ve been together, Lash, almost used.”

Lash bared his teeth at the word ‘used.’ His
lip curled up, and his eyes went completely to snake. “I’m sorry
that you’re so emotionally driven, that you can’t just take
pleasure when it’s offered to you,” he hissed angrily. “I’ll stay
out of Dev’s bed from now on. And if you need a warm body to fuck
instead of a cold one, I’m sure Devlin can ask Nick to join you in
bed. I’ve seen the way you look at him, Sar, thinking about how
he’d feel inside you—”

How dare you!
“How can you not love
me, after all the innuendoes, the advances, the stolen kisses, and
all your pining!”

I knew I sounded like I was whining, and I
cringed, feeling pitiful. But I deserved to know how other men had
loved me so quickly, yet Lash, who’d been my lover for the better
part of a year, still didn’t, especially when I cared for him so
much.

Lash looked at me in confusion. “I don’t know
what to tell you, what you want from me. I want you, I like living
with you, sleeping with you. I care for you. I wanted to be your
lover from the first time you told me to fuck you. For fuck’s sake,
it was thoughts of you that got me through jail!”

“Lash, you wanted me to give up my marriage
to be with you!” I shouted. “You as much as said so, never mind
that you never came out and said the words! And for what? Just good
sex? Is that all you were really offering me? Is that all you
wanted me for?”

“And what was I to you?” he hissed bitterly
“You say you love me. Since when do you care how I feel, or even
ask me what I want or need? You sure as hell didn’t that day in the
hotel, or afterward, either! You were happy to tease me with your
words and your body all fall, get me hard, and then leave me to
fuck your cougar!”

“God damn you,” I forced out. My tears
started to fall, even though I tried like hell to hold them
back.

Lash went on, his words a tirade. “I noticed
that you didn’t give up anyone to be with me. The opportunity just
landed in your lap, and you took it! Danial’s comatose, and Theo
gave you up willingly, you didn’t leave him for me. You wouldn’t
leave him for me! You told me you wouldn’t!”

“He tried to change me, Lash. That’s the real
reason he left me, because I wouldn’t let him,” I said hollowly,
easing myself down on the edge of the bed. “He attacked me as a
cougar.”

Lash was holding me in an instant, and his
anger shifted immediately to Theo. “Did he hurt you?” he hissed
angrily, baring his growing snake fangs. “You just tell me he hurt
you in any way, and I’ll kill him, Sar. Danial’s not around to stop
me anymore.”

“He didn’t hurt me.”

“Good,” Lash said, running his hands over my
arms, as he nuzzled my neck. “He’d better not even look at you, or
I’ll slit him open and tie his intestines in a knot. You’re with me
now, and I protect what’s mine.”

“You know what pissed him off most?” I said
with rancor. “That I’d told you to change me, when I was saving
you. That I’d do that for you, but not for him.”

“You should’ve told him that you didn’t mean
it,” Lash hissed acrimoniously.

I looked up at him in fury and tried to push
him away. But Lash’s arms were like steel cables around me.

“Sar, you’re going to sit here and admit it,
that you didn’t want to be weresnake! I thought you did when you
asked me to change you, and it made me so happy, that you cared
about me that much to want to be snake for me. But as soon as you
knew you didn’t have to be what I was, I saw the relief on your
face! You never intended to go through with it. It had just been a
ruse to get me to take your blood, so you could feel like such the
martyr for saving me—”

Asshole.
“I did mean it!” I shouted at
him, happy that my loud volume made him wince. “Theo heard in my
voice that I meant it, and right after I said it, he tried to force
me to be werecougar. He did it to keep you and me apart, more than
he really loved me or wanted me! I had to shoot him in the heart to
stop him, so I could get away!”

“Maybe you did mean it that night you said
it, even if you didn’t feel the same the day after. If so, I’m
sorry. And I didn’t know he tried to change you,” Lash hissed,
stroking my hair as he held me. “Devlin will kill him for you,
after I tell him, or send me to do it.”

“Don’t tell him,” I said wearily. “I don’t
want Theo dead. He won’t be trying it again.”

“I won’t let him hurt you, Sar,” Lash hissed
angrily. “I’m pissed off he tried that! I’m not letting him get
away with it! He needs to be taught a lesson.”

“Why do you care what he does to me?” I
shouted. “If you don’t love me, why do you care?”

“Because I do!” Lash hissed stubbornly. “But
I wish I didn’t! Devlin was right. You can be a real bitch when you
feel like being one! And right now, you’re a royal pain in my
ass!”

“If I’m such a bitch, and a pain in your ass,
then don’t be my lover,” I snarled. “Stay away from me, and find
someone else to sate yourself with, who doesn’t mind if you fuck
her and leave right after without a tender word. Hell, I’m sure if
you call up Lyssa, she’ll be happy to coil with you.”

Lash shoved me hard and I flew backward to
land on the bed, all the breath going out of me. “You want it that
way, you got it!” he hissed, so furious he could barely talk. “You
and I are done, Sar! Do you hear me? We’re done!”

“Good! Get out and leave me alone!” I yelled
at him, and he slammed the door as he left.

I decided right then and there to go get
drunk. It was past time, really.

I got up and walked downstairs, just in time
to see Nick struggling to his feet, blood on his face. I went to
him and helped him up. I knew Lash had hit him just because he’d
been in the way, and Lash had done that because he had been pissed
off from fighting with me.

A Hummer started up, and a look out the side
window revealed Lash barreling down the driveway, going about
seventy.

Nick got on his cell phone. “Jerry, open the
gates now, and get out of the way!” he said quickly, wincing a
little from his rapidly healing cut lip. “Lash is headed your way,
and if the gates aren’t open, he’ll go through them, and you.”

Dejected, I left Nick, and went to Devlin’s
wine cabinet in the kitchen. I sat at the dining room table,
uncorked a new bottle of Groom Shiraz, and poured myself a huge
glass. I drank it down. Then I poured another. I thought for a few
minutes about what I’d given up, and what I’d gained. Had this been
what I wanted from my life? That was a resounding no. I hadn’t
wanted to lose Theo, or lose my beloved Devon, or lose
Danial...

Danial. I’ll go see him.

I swallowed my wine, then grabbed the bottle
and glass, and walked to Danial’s room, the room that had been
Titus’s. He was lying as he had been, still handsome, still so pale
and cold, but his heart was beating. I sat beside him, and settled
my hand and put it on his. I also poured myself another large glass
of wine.

“Why won’t you wake up?” I said softly.
“Everything’s gone to shit since you were hurt, Danial. I miss you
so much, and I loved you so much! Wake up! We need you! I need
you!”

But Danial didn’t stir. He lay there like a
statue, completely beautiful, and utterly unreachable.

“Can you even hear me? Does it matter that I
come to you every few days, and talk to you? Will you be like this
forever?”

I downed another glass, and poured the rest
of the bottle into my glass. I debated smashing the bottle, but
decided not to.
Someone, probably Robin, will just have to pick
it up...

I felt tears on my face. Robin wouldn’t be
picking up anything anymore. Robin was dead. Another casualty of
Ulysses. Everyone kind and good was dead. Suri, Lander, Flora,
Brennan, Demetri, Robin. And my beloved Devon.

Devon was dead. My favorite baby, my boy, the
child I’d wanted so long with Theo. I wouldn’t ever be having
another one with him. No more baby cougars for me. No more Theo for
me. No more Danial for me.

And now, no more Lash for me. And I was going
to have to promise myself to Devlin anyway, or break his heart by
telling him without Lash as part of it, I didn’t want to be with
him. My tears flowed faster, as I began shaking.

I’d loved Theo so much, and thought he loved
me. But everything Theo had said he felt for me had been a lie,
because of a spell, like my induced love for Devlin when he’d saved
me with his blood. Theo certainly hadn’t wasted any time proposing
to Jenny. In fact, that had most likely prompted him to search for
the separation papers, so he could divorce me as soon as he could.
How could I trust how I felt for anyone anymore, or what they felt
for me, knowing that? And Lash, the one man who’d had no
supernatural power over me to make me love him, the one that I
trusted my feelings for the most, didn’t love me. He had never
loved me.
And now he’s told me we’re done. He is probably headed
to see Lyssa right now.

I let out a sob, and downed my last glass of
wine. I was feeling the effects of it now, and I was grateful for
that. Everything seemed surreal. I cried for a while on Danial’s
chest. Then I looked down at him.
He’s as pale and still as the
night I first saw him.

Suddenly, everything seemed very clear. I got
out my knife from my pocket, the one Lash had given me. He’d
sharpened it for me again recently, telling me to be careful. He’d
overdid it a little. Before I thought too much about it, I flipped
out the blade, and with a quick slice, I opened my wrist. It bled a
lot more than I expected, blood welling up and spilling over onto
the floor. Maybe I’d pressed too hard. Or maybe the knife had been
too sharp.
Lash said to think of it as a razor blade...

I leaned over to press the bloody wound to
Danial’s lips, and an iron hand grabbed my wrist. But it wasn’t
Danial’s.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing,
Sar?” Devlin shouted, pulling me away from Danial. He put my wrist
to his mouth and healed me, licking my blood off my wrist.

He sighed with pleasure just at the small
taste, then hugged me hard right after, as if he’d just found out I
was pregnant with another one of his children. “Your blood is
almost like it was, Sar,” Devlin said, utterly joyous. “It’s the
beginning of summer. A few more months, maybe weeks, and it will be
as it was. I’m so happy.”