Her Secret (23 page)

I burrowed into his arms. “I don’t want you
to leave.”

He sighed, and held me close to him. For a
while, we said nothing. Soon enough, my curiosity got the better of
me.

“Where is the real Aran, Dev? Is he
okay?”

“I had a message left for him that you had
decided to put off making cookies until this afternoon, until the
storm passes. Brian will come to your home tomorrow to pick them up
in his stead.”

“Brian is still working for you, isn’t
he?”

“Of course,” Devlin said, kissing my
forehead. “He has been watching over you for me much as he did
before. Did you think I would go off to another country and leave
you unprotected after how I told you I felt about you?”

“I was surprised when you left at all,” I
murmured, gazing up into his eyes. “Despite what you said.”

“I was sure you would tell Theo of what I had
done. I appreciate that you didn’t, as we agreed.”

“I told Danial.”

“I know,” he said, something unidentifiable
in his tone. “Why did you tell him?”

“There was no way not to tell him. He knows
me too well. He knew something was up before I’d said one sentence
to him.”

“And Theo does not know you so well?”

“Not anymore,” I replied, pulling back from
him. Immediately I was dizzy.

Devlin grabbed hold of me. “Lay back down,”
he ordered. “I took a lot of your blood. I don’t want my bites to
reopen.”

I went rigid, reaching up to my neck. There
were two bites on the left side, and another one on the right.
Alarmingly, my right wrist also bore fang marks. With mounting
fear, I saw the left did, too. The bites were red, but they had
already begun to heal, even though they’d been made less than an
hour before.

There was no decision for me to make now.
Devlin had made it for me as I slept. I began to sob.

Devlin turned my face up to his. “Sar, stop
your crying,” he said harshly. “Right now.”

I shrank back from him, afraid at his anger.
“How could you do this to me—?”

“Hear this, if you hear nothing else I say.
You are not close to turning, not remotely. I’ll wager that you
never were.”

I looked at him in shock. “Dr. Camlyn
said—”

Devlin talked over me angrily, his eyes red
as blood. “I don’t care what he said to you, Sar! You might be
cooler than a normal human. You might have elevated levels of the
vampire virus in your blood, or more lustrous skin, or heal faster,
or have brighter eyes. But that doesn’t mean you are turning.”

“What the hell else could it mean?” I yelled
at him.

“Danial told me that your blood was already
way past the point it needed to be for you to be a vampire back
when you were checked, right after you had Theoron. Right?”

I nodded, still angry. “What does that have
to do with anything?”

“Did it ever occur to you, to anyone, that
your body had maybe been altered from a different experience? You
bore a vampire’s child, Sar! For nine months, you carried him in
your body! Did none of you think that might have some lasting
effects?”

My mouth dropped open in shock.
No, it
hadn’t.
“How do you know for sure I’m not turning?”

“I’ve been with many women as they were
turning. I turned a fair number of those women myself. Most of
them, actually.”

Was that pride in his voice? Ick
.

“You have been partly turned now for more
than a year and a half,” Devlin continued. “You would have turned
by now if you were going to. When a human is close to turning, a
vampire can taste it in their blood. It becomes bitter, as the
blood changes from human to vampire blood. Yours still tastes of
summer,” he added sadly. “Though I can taste the drug you were
dosing yourself with faintly.”

“If I wasn’t turning, why was I so drawn to
Danial?” I protested desperately. “The way I acted with you and
him...I was out of control.”

Devlin shot me a seductive smirk. “I can’t
speak to your attraction to my brother, but your attraction to me
is simple: you love what I can do to you. You can’t get enough of
me.”

Arrogant prick.
“You know what I mean,
Devlin! When Danial tried to stop, I wouldn’t let him. I made him
bite me and practically raped him.”

Devlin’s eyebrows shot up. “You were having
consensual sex, at least how he described it. It was more a matter
of Danial getting just what he deserved. I told him to watch his
step.”

I seized on that. “Why did you tell him
that?”

Devlin’s rich laugh sent shivers through me.
“If he had taken you as you wanted him to, you both would have
gotten some relief. But Theo wouldn’t have liked that, I’m
sure.”

“Please, say what you mean.”

“Your body is telling you what it needs, and
has been all along: you need more of the vampire virus in you. Your
body has changed from having Theoron. You need what I just gave
you.”

I trembled in his arms. “To lose most of my
blood?”

He held me tighter. “To be bitten and for
some of my saliva to get into your bloodstream through the open
wounds. That is why you were okay for a month after letting me love
you.” He rubbed his cheek against mine tenderly. “My other bodily
secretions were not going to be enough, not this time.”

“So when I was with Danial, trying to stop my
urges, all I was doing was torturing myself?” I asked,
anguished.

“It would seem so to me,” Devlin said,
bringing my wrist to his mouth. He kissed it gently. “Remember,
don’t move. You’ve reopened these already.”

Wait a minute!
I pushed him away
roughly, then turned on him, livid. “That day we were together! You
said you could taste it in my blood! You said I was close to
turning!”

“I lied,” Devlin said, giving me a defiant
look, that same faint smile on his face.

“You complete and utter bastard! All that
time I worried, taking those pills, feeling like I wasn’t myself!
How could you not tell me, tell somebody?”

“You should have come to me as I asked,” he
replied coolly. “If you had, I’d have told you.”

The handsome, seductive son of a bitch had
betrayed me. Worse, he’d let me suffer because of his own Goddamn
ego.

“You’re angry,” Devlin said, taking a deep
breath. “At me, I’m sure. But what did you expect me to do? You’d
not have believed me, if I’d told you. Don’t lie and say you would
have.”

What had I expected of him? To be decent, the
gentleman who’d seduced me, the lover who’d made me believe he
cared about me. I’d been naïve, believing all of his fabrications
when I’d known down deep what he was. The worst thing was I’d known
from the start, and still fooled myself, romanticizing him so much
I’d fallen in love with what I’d remembered him to be. That
romantic loving image was a fantasy. It had always been one.

“You asshole,” I shouted bitterly, with tears
in my eyes. “You have done nothing but lie to me from the
beginning. But the worst was your lie about loving me, because you
fucking made me believe you!”

Devlin went utterly still at my words, and
then lunged at me, growling. I evaded him, running out of the
bedroom and into the garage, quickly slamming the door behind me
and locking it.

He hit it with his shoulders. “Sar! Come back
here!”

The door held, the frame cracking. Devlin hit
it again. This time the frame snapped, and he was instantly
through, reaching for me. As he did, I ducked under the opening
garage door.

Naked, I ran out into the storm, into the
daylight where he couldn’t follow.

“Damn you,” Devlin growled, glaring at me
with red eyes. “Come back in here.”

I faced him, shivering, my hair blowing
around me, holding one bare foot out of the snow at a time to
minimize the freezing cold, and frantically went over my options.
If I headed toward the forest, I might freeze to death before
reaching a neighbor. But if I could somehow circle around to the
barn, I could take shelter in my woodshed. There was plastic
sheeting there...

Dev’s eyes were pools of fire as he looked
out at me, then down at the daylight that was an inch from his
body. Then he turned fast from me, going to his motorcycle for his
gloves and helmet.

I turned with a gasp to run through the snow
as fast as I could. I made it only about fifty feet before he came
after me, swearing loudly. In a few more seconds, he tackled me and
we both went into the snow.

I screamed at the shock of the cold snow on
my bare skin. Devlin grabbed my hands with a furious snarl, and
pulled me to my feet. Without a word, he began dragging me back
through the snow to the house, my hands in front of me, my wrists
clamped together in his left hand.

I shook with cold and fear. Once he got me
inside, I’d be at his mercy. I had to escape! I dragged my feet,
pulling against him, but he was much stronger than I was.

If I only had a weapon, I could stop
him...
wait!

Before I could reconsider, I reached down to
his wrist with my captive hands, and dug my fingers into the gap
between his leather jacket cuff and his leather glove. With as much
speed as I could, I pulled the cuff of his glove down toward his
hand that was holding my wrists together, and exposed his wrist and
part of his hand to the weak light of the sun.

The effect was instantaneous. Devlin let out
a shriek, and let me go. His wrist was smoking, and he covered it
as fast as he could, hissing in pain, as I ran from him. Before I’d
gone ten feet, he tackled me again. This time he didn’t help me up.
We lay there in the snow, his body on top of me, as I shrieked,
over and over, writhing.

“Please let me up! Please!”

“You burned me! You are such a bitch, Sar!”
Devlin growled down at me through his helmet. “You’re lucky I do
love you, or I’d stay here with you in the snow until you froze to
death.”

“Let me up, please!”

“No. You fucking want to kill yourself; we’ll
just give you a taste of it right here.”

“I want to live,” I gasped, then began
crying. “Please, let me up! Please!”

Devlin held me there, his breathing ragged,
smoke still wafting faintly from his injured hand. I struggled,
then went limp in the snow, lightheaded again.

“You’re bleeding,” he said, standing and
lifting me in his arms. “Don’t struggle.”

Devlin carried me into the basement, shutting
the garage door behind us. Then he carried me up the cellar stairs,
and past the growling and barking dogs. Ignoring them, he set me
down by the wood stove, propping me up in the nearby armchair. He
lowered my blinds, until the room was in twilight, and turned on
the light.

My fire was almost out, but he got it going
again with some fire starter and some small logs. When that was
done, he took off his helmet and his gloves, then his jacket, his
T-shirt, and his pants. He hung everything over the nearby
furniture as it all was wet now, or at least semi-wet. He took off
his boots, and socks, and put them to the side of the fire to dry.
Ghost and Darkness had stopped barking and now watched him
uneasily.

Devlin grabbed two blankets from the nearby
rack. Laying one on the floor before the stove, he sat on it and
threw the other around his shoulders. “Come to me.” He
beckoned.

I eased myself down beside him and he
enfolded me in his arms, wrapping the blanket around us. By this
time, warmth had started to flow out of the stove. Devlin started
rubbing my arms and legs. Slowly the redness and numbness went
away.

“I’m sorry for my language,” he said finally.
“I lost my temper, because I was worried.”

I didn’t reply, save for trembling a
little.

“Are you warm enough?” he asked. “I can open
the dampers more, if you’re not.”

“How did you know how to start my fire?” I
asked hesitantly.

He gave me a look. “That night you found
Danial, who do you think loaned him that equipment, Sar? Did you
ever see him use it again, or the truck for that matter? I’m
surprised you didn’t figure that out before now.”

Danial had only used that Avalanche truck the
first week we’d been dating. I’d assumed he’s rented it, and the
camping equipment. Danial was a hotel kind of guy. “He said it was
his.”

“There are more than a few things that he
says are his that turn out to be mine, Sar,” Devlin said pointedly.
He lifted my hair, kissing my neck.

“The truck was
yours
?
You
go
camping? That’s harder to believe than Danial camping.”

“Technically, it was my friend Lash’s truck
and stuff, but—”

“You
have friends?” I said, giving him
raised eyebrows.

“Stop being a bitch, Sar,” he said, kissing
my half scabbed over wound. Before I had time to react, he’d slid
his fangs in. I jerked in his arms, gasping at the rush of
pleasure. Devlin held me tightly, his mouth moving on me as he
sucked gently. As he did, I watched the wrist that I’d exposed to
sunlight heal. New skin formed, and slowly the burn disappeared
until it was gone, his wrist and hand healed completely.

I reached back with my right hand. Devlin
stiffened against me as if he expected a slap, but didn’t stop
drinking or release me. Gently, I touched his face with my hand,
feeling his stubble growing under my fingers as his body renewed
itself with my blood. As I slid my fingers into his hair and
caressed him, he trembled slightly. Abruptly, he kissed my wound,
holding his mouth over it so that the wound closed.

“It’s too deep for that,” I sighed.

He took his mouth off my neck. “No, it’s not.
None of the bites you bear is deeper than my normal love bites,
Sar. A little of my blood will heal the others, too. I don’t want
them reopening again.” He gave the healed skin a final kiss, and
then moved to the other side of my neck.

“Why did you come to me?” I asked.