Her Secret (27 page)

“So are you,” I replied huskily, and moved
toward him. Soon I was beneath the covers, our bodies entwined, his
lips on mine.

* * * *

The dogs were barking upstairs. Someone was
pounding on the door.

That had to be Brian. Danial had believed me
when I’d said I’d be up early. Ugh.

I looked over at Devlin. He was still asleep;
admittedly exhausted from the two days he’d been awake before
arriving at my door.

The doorbell rang, setting off a round of
fresh barking from Ghost and Darkness.

Well, I had to get up anyway and feed
everybody soon anyway. I got out of bed.

Devlin awoke when he felt me getting up.
“What is it?” he rasped. He looked very tired, though amazingly, no
less sexy.

“Brian or someone else is at the door,” I
said. “I’ve got to feed everyone anyway.”

He sighed, got up out of bed, and shrugged
his jeans on. “I’m going up there in case it’s not Brian. If it is
him, we need to talk.” He went to his bike, pulling out an
explosive bullets gun from the leather saddlebag. “Lead on.”

I was not surprised he was armed, though this
was the first time I’d seen him with a gun, ever. He handled it
like a tool he was comfortable using, to my relief. I nodded.

He followed me upstairs to the dim woodstove
room. As I got my robe and belted it around me, Devlin took up a
position behind the door. Looking through the peephole, I saw it
was Brian.

“Come in,” I said, opening the door and
giving him a smile.

Brian didn’t reply, staring at me in shock.
Flushing, I remembered I was wearing Devlin’s choker, and that I
had fresh fang marks on my neck from last night.

“Get in here, Brian,” Devlin growled.
“Now.”

Brian came inside and I shut the door behind
him.

“You said you wouldn’t hurt her,” Brian said
neutrally.

“I have not hurt her,” Dev said arrogantly,
giving Brian a dark look. “She needs to be bitten, to feel fangs in
her. There is no sense healing her, if I just have to open her
again.”

Brian looked upset, but didn’t speak.

“Does she not look better than she has?”
Devlin asked him seriously.

Brian looked me over. “She does,” he said
grudgingly. “But she smells different. There is the slightest taint
of vampire to her now.”

“She is part vampire now,” Devlin said. “She
needs me or Danial to keep her body in the state she is in. She is
not turning.”

Brian came close and scented me, breathing
deep. After a few minutes, he moved back. “You’re right. She
doesn’t smell like the other women you had sometimes at your home
that were turning.”

“Report to Danial that she is fine, that you
saw her, that she was moving around more, and that she was not as
tired as she had been.”

Brian nodded, resigned. “There is going to be
hell to pay when Theo returns,” he said, his eyes on Devlin’s.
“He’ll know what happened here, and he’ll want your heart.”

Devlin considered him a moment, unafraid. “He
most likely will,” he said finally “before all is said and done. He
has only himself to blame. I was content to leave things as they
were, but he and my brother almost killed her, and I’m not
entrusting them with her health again.”

He rounded on Brian, taking a step toward
him. Brian took one back.

“Theo would not let her be with Danial. If he
had, she would never have needed the drugs; she would not have been
killing herself by inches to make sure his ego wasn’t damaged. She
would not have needed me! If I hadn’t come to her and done what I
did, Sar would have been dead before this week was out!”

“I’m glad she’s better,” Brian placated.

“That is all that should matter, not how it
was done,” Devlin said angrily. “I’ll not let her die because Theo
is thinking about what is best for him, or Danial is too afraid to
do what needs to be done.”

Brian was utterly quiet, looking at the
ground.

“Leave!” Devlin said, baring his fangs.

Brian went immediately, without once looking
up. His SUV started up, then faded away.

“Come back to bed, my dear,” Devlin said
tenderly, putting his arms around me. “You need more rest.”

I gently removed them. “I need to take care
of my pets first, it’s feeding time.”

“Do you want me to help you?” Devlin
offered.

I shot him a shocked look.

“I have a cat myself, Sar,” Devlin added. “I
know how to care for cats.”

My shock reached cataclysmic levels.
“
You
have a pet?”

“Why are you so surprised?” he said
curiously. “You must know that Danial had a cat once. Who do you
think got him that one?”

“Not the same person who threatened to burn
my home with my pets still inside.”

“I was bluffing,” Devlin said, irritated. “It
was easy to see how attached you were to them.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said sadly, moving
away from him. “You meant it.”

“I’ve burned many buildings in my life,” he
said darkly. “None ever had innocents inside, be they animal or
human.”

“Who decided if they were innocent?” I asked.
“You?”

“Do not judge me by mortal laws,” Devlin said
angrily. “You were not there, and have no comprehension of what
justice some of those burnings were.”

“Did you ever burn an animal, a live
one?”

“No,” he answered. “I’ve received too many
burns to mete out that punishment idly. But I’ve ordered the
burnings of many vampires over the years.”

I didn’t reply.

“Sar, were any of your cats harmed?”

“No. I thought that they were lucky.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it. My men know
how I feel about cats.”

“You do know that one of your men tried to
shoot me that night, right?”

Dev was instantly enraged. “Who?” he
growled.

“I don’t know. I missed his heart the first
time, but not the second.”

“You were in no real danger,” he assured with
relief, hugging me tightly. “My men are all excellent shots. That
guard would have grazed you, or shot the gun so you would drop it.”
He paused. “All of them fear my wrath and that of Lash too much to
ignore a direct order.”

I didn’t reply.

“I’m sorry for what I did,” he said, willing
me to believe him. “I would take it back if I could. There is much
I’d do differently with you if we had it to do over. Let me help
you now.”

What more could he do than this? He couldn’t
undo the past any more than I could.

“Sar?”

I let out a breath and managed a smile. “My
house has too many windows, and not enough blinds, Dev. I can do
what needs doing.”

“Very well,” he said, nodding. “I’ll be
waiting for you here.”

I went to let out the dogs. When I came back
through the house with the cat food, there was a new fire merrily
burning in the woodstove. After seeing to the pet’s needs, I sat
down in a nearby chair, and watching the flames Devlin had
created.

Could I trust him?
Some of what he
said was a lie. He didn’t want me to think badly of him now, and he
wanted to explain away what he could, so I didn’t think of the past
and turn from him.
Of what he’d said, what was lie and what was
truth? What did he really want?

What we had together right now wasn’t real
life. This was an affair, a fling with a deadline. When our time
together was over, he most likely would go back to his life in Rio.
He acted less afraid of Theo than he had last fall, even before
he’d known of our marital troubles, but that could be just
arrogance. Even though I was definitely under the influence of his
blood he’d given to me, I knew enough of men to know it wasn’t
usually what they said, but what they didn’t say that mattered.
Devlin had made no mention of Oaths at all, or any kind of
permanent arrangement, despite all his talk of love. He offered
pleasure, unadorned and deliciously simple.

Did any of this ethical bullshit really
matter? Whenever he bit me, I came for him immediately, whether or
not he drank my blood when he did it. I still craved his touch just
as much as I had the first time. He’d been right about me, and he’d
risked his life to get to me in time. Even with his past actions,
that counted hugely in his favor.

I sat there for ten minutes, fingering the
choker at my neck, considering everything. Then, I said to hell
with it all.

I’d done the best I could by Elle, Theo, and
my other responsibilities. I wanted the man below waiting for me,
the man who had saved me, the last one I’d ever expected to care
for, the last one I’d ever expected to love me. I knew what he was
capable of, what he was. And I was going to spend these days with
him, because I’d been wanting him for so long it felt like
forever.

This wasn’t like it had been when he had come
in yesterday and I couldn’t help myself, or that day in the hotel
room when he had forced me to stay with him. I was going to him now
willingly, with full knowledge of what I was doing. I was going to
take all he had to give me, and then ask him for more, because he
was right, I couldn’t get enough of him. And I’d had enough of
waiting, just as he had.

Chapter
Twelve

I descended the
stairs. Dev was lying on his side in bed. As I came near, he opened
his eyes, then his arms so I could crawl into them. We lay together
holding each other, then drifted off into sleep.

I woke in the late afternoon. Dev was still
holding me, deep asleep. Carefully untangling my fingers from his
hair, I stretched and sighed.

God, I felt wonderful. My life was in
freefall in an abyss, yet I felt alive, renewed, even hopeful. My
eyes went to Devlin’s still form, watching him breathe slowly.

I loved him.

The instant I thought it, I wanted to shake
him, and tell him. Instead, I kept still, wondering if this love
was really my emotion, or my being in thrall to him.

Dev’s phone rang shrilly, making me start.
Groggily, he reached over to answer it.

“Of course it’s me,” he said irritably. “I
was sleeping. What is it, Lash?”

“Yes,” he said with satisfaction, glancing
over at me. Then his face grew grave. For several minutes he
listened, no speaking.

“Yes,” he said finally, cautious yet
resigned. “If you say that’s the best option, I believe it. Start
things moving. Come tonight to Sar’s and bring Titus with you.
We’ll discuss options. And please pick up a double order of roses I
just ordered also, on your way here.”

I smiled, pleased. For all of Dev’s
ruthlessness, he really was passionately romantic.

“See you in an hour then.” Devlin hung up,
and immediately placed another call, instructing whoever was on the
other end to have a double order of fire and ice roses ready, that
someone would be by to pick it up.

He tossed the phone to the nightstand, and
sank back down into bed with a sigh.

“What are you planning?” I asked.

His brow knitted immediately. “Nothing that
will endanger you,” he said, propping himself up on one arm to turn
his body towards me. “Tell me what you’re worried about. There’s a
serious look in your eyes I haven’t seen before.”

I’m worried because I’m in love with you.
Shit. How to answer
? I thought furiously, and said nothing.

“Why did you delay upstairs, earlier today?”
he said insistently, his eyes searching mine. “Did you reconsider
coming down to me?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “I thought about all the
reasons I shouldn’t.”

“Yet you came. Why?”

“I wanted you too much not to. You were right
about me, about what I needed. And I’m scared to death that I’m not
coming back from that Vampire New Year’s Eve Party.”

Devlin hugged me, but didn’t try to convince
me all would be fine. His honesty scared me, but I appreciated that
more than reassuring lies. I hugged him back, not speaking.

“Dusk has fallen,” he said sometime later.
“Do you want to go out tonight?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You’re right that you may not return from
that party, despite the efforts of many,” Devlin said quietly. “If
there was something that was important for you to do—”

He was offering me a last request
.
“Tomorrow, maybe,” I said, shaken. “Tonight I just want to walk
with you and my dogs, get some food, and then go back to bed.” I
turned to him. “But what do you want?” I added, caressing his face.
“This is your time as much as it is mine.”

“I want you to love me as I love you,” he
said, pulling me in for a kiss. “That is what I want most. That is
all I want, right now.”

This might be my last week alive. To hell
with it.
“You already have that.”

Devlin sat bolt upright in bed. “If that’s
really true, tell me, Sar,” he said anxiously, his eyes were molten
with heat. “Say the words to me, so I can hear if you mean
them.”

“I’ve fallen for you, Dev. Despite you and me
and everything that’s happened between us, I think I love you.”

He pulled me into his arms, and said:

“Thou art fairer than the evening’s air,

Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars,

Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter,

More lovely than the monarch of the sky

And none but thou shall be my paramour.”

His phone began ringing again. Devlin
grumbled, trying to reach for it and not let go of me. “Christopher
Marlowe,” he said to me, flipping open his phone. “What is it,
Lash? Tell Titus he has to come, I need his help with something.
The plans for later in the week can wait a few hours. See you.”

He hung up and turned to me. “Come here, my
paramour,” he said intently. “I want to love you again.”

I went into his arms eagerly. Dev began to
kiss me slowly, touching me almost languidly. “We only have an
hour,” I teased. “You’d better hurry.”