Chapter Nineteen
Chapter
Nineteen
Meg
Warmth surrounds me as I gradually come to my senses
the next morning. I snuggle closer to the heat source and sigh as Cian pulls me
closer. He’s a cuddler. He was a perfect gentleman, but was very insistent on
spooning me and holding me close all night. His hair was tangled around me. It
tickles my skin and warms me.
I thought I would be up all night thinking about Beck, but
Cian seems to have a soothing effect on me. The minute he wrapped himself
around me, I heard a low, soothing hum in the back of my brain. It took me a
moment to realize it was coming from him. It was like white noise, and it
hummed me gently to sleep.
It’s another noise entirely that forces me from the warmth
of Cian’s arms.
The door slams, and there’s the unmistakable sound of an
engine coming to life. It doesn’t sound like any car I can remember, but I know
instantly what it is. It has to be that cool-looking Harley of Dante’s. I want
to see it in action, so I scramble out of my warm bed, despite Cian’s sleepy
protests.
There’s a robe lying across the end of the bed. I put it on
and rush out of the bedroom. I throw open the door with a smile on my face,
ready to demand a ride from Dante.
My smile quickly dissolves when I realize Dante already has
a passenger. Beck is seated on the back of the big bike that now hovers two
feet in the air. The wheels of the bike have disappeared, and there’s a
noticeable cloud of dust under the vehicle.
“Crap.” Dante looks up from strapping his gear on the back,
his face falling when he sees me. He stands beside the bike. “We have company.”
The last is said to Beck, who turns and stares at me with
dark, surprised eyes.
“I left you a note,” he says almost defensively.
I feel my heart seize. He left me a note? Why did he need to
leave a note if he’s going joyriding with his cousin? That’s all it can be,
right? “Where are you going?”
Dante backs off. He seems determined to stay out of whatever
is about to happen between me and Beck.
Beck stays on the bike, turning to me slightly. “I explained
it all in the note. I have to go to work. The best work I can get is on the
Vampire plane, working for Dante’s company. It’s rough work in a dangerous part
of that world. You’ll be more comfortable here. I’ll be back in a few weeks.”
“Weeks?” I practically shout the question. He’s leaving me.
We’ve been married for two days, and he’s leaving me. All my old doubts flood
back like a tidal wave. At least Michael stayed for a couple of years. Beck
isn’t even staying for a week. He’s leaving me with Cian, a stranger with a
bunch of problems. I have no idea how to help him. I’m completely lost in this
alien land. I don’t even know which horses will try to eat me. Panic seizes me.
“I’ll go with you.”
I won’t even have to pack. I don’t own anything.
His eyes seem cold now, his sensual mouth a flat line. “No.
It’s too dangerous. I have to work. I won’t have time to do my job and watch
after you.”
Tears form in my eyes, and I run to him. I stayed here for
him. He’s infuriating and I still want to be with him. It might be pathetic,
but I need Beck. “Please let me go with you. I don’t know what to do here. I
don’t know how to do anything.”
It goes against everything I am, but I beg. I don’t want to
be left behind with an amnesiac and a farm falling down around me. I want Beck.
He’s been the rock I’ve clung to ever since I found myself on this plane.
Beck gently pushes me back, his rejection plain. “You’ll be
fine. Bond with Cian. He’ll take care of you.”
I don’t think that’s happening any time soon. Cian can’t
take care of himself. Cian can’t remember who I am for more than five minutes.
“You promised you would take care of me.”
Beck shakes his head. He looks so arrogant. “That’s what I’m
doing. When I finish this job, we’ll have enough gold to fix up the place. We
can hire a housekeeper so you won’t have to work.”
“I don’t mind working.” I hate the fact that I’m crying, but
I can’t seem to help it. “I’ve worked all my life, but I don’t know what to do
here.”
“Nor should you,” he replies as though it’s a foregone
conclusion. “You’re a bondmate. You shouldn’t be doing housework, and you
shouldn’t live in a cottage that’s falling down around you.”
Frustration makes my eyes squeeze shut. “Shouldn’t I decide
what I want or don’t want?”
“You don’t know enough to decide yet,” Beck explains with a
dismissive wave. “Back up. We have to leave now.”
I back off as Dante hops on the cycle in one graceful move.
“I left you my computer.” Dante nods in my direction. “I
showed you how to use it, remember? Look up bonding, and it will give you a
description of how to get Cian to bond with you. It’s connected to the web on
the Vampire plane. You should be able to find any information you need.”
I nod, feeling utterly dull. Beck is really leaving, and he
hasn’t kissed me good-bye. Hell, if I hadn’t woken when I did, he would have
left without seeing me at all. I take a deep breath and try to come to terms
with the fact that I have, perhaps, been wrong about him. He hadn’t truly
wanted me. Men can feel lust for women they don’t care about. He explained it
at the time. His brother is dying. They need a bondmate, and I’m the only one
to be found. Is it such a surprise that, having done his duty, he would want to
be away from his unwanted wife?
All that other stuff, all the stuff about caring about me
and never cheating on me was lies. It’s not the first time some guy told me
what I wanted to hear to get me to do something. I have to give Beck a little
credit. At least he did it to save his brother.
“I’ll be back in a few weeks.” Beck looks slightly concerned
for the first time. He slides off the bike and comes to stand in front of me.
He towers over me, but this time his massive size doesn’t make me feel secure.
“You’ll be fine.”
He moves to touch me, but I step back. He’s trying to keep
me in line. Being physically affectionate with me has worked so far. It’s not
surprising he would try it again. “Sure.”
He reaches out and pulls me into his arms. “Meggie, don’t
cry. It will be fine. We need money. I have to work. I told you I spent the
last of our gold on the tournament.”
I stand stiffly in his arms, knowing better than to try to
break free. I would only make a fool of myself, and I’ve done enough of that
lately. “Fine.”
He sighs and seems reluctant to let me go. His hands find my
hair. “I’m sorry about last night. I hope you won’t hold it against me.”
I shrug and wish he’d go ahead and leave. “I won’t bother
you with it again. I didn’t understand.”
I know he is fighting something. I’ve just been wrong about
what he’s fighting. He doesn’t want to have sex with me. I’m convenient, and
he’s male. He needs sex, but he obviously found the experience distasteful. He
always shut down the bond. Now I know why. He doesn’t want me to know how he
feels. It should have been obvious even without the bond. After all, he chose
to sleep in a barn rather than sleeping with me.
And yet I felt his need the night before. It broke over me
like a wave crashing on a beach. I saw pieces of his soul. There’s a kindness
in Beck that didn’t mesh with his current cruelty. He loves his brother. He
risked his life to save me. At times, I’ve felt a genuine affection come from
him. The confusion has me in knots. But in the end he can’t possibly want me if
he is willing to leave me.
He smiles, a slight uptick of his lips. “You don’t
understand our ways, yet. It’s going to be fine. You’ll see.”
“Sure,” I reply because he seems to want a response. I can’t
see that anything will be fine.
He reaches out and tilts my head up. A lazy, warm look comes
over his handsome face. “May I kiss you, wife?”
It’s the cruelest thing he can do. I push away from him.
“Don’t call me wife. Call me your bondmate or whatever, but I’m not
your wife.”
His eyes flare at the challenge. “You damn well are, and you
better not forget it.” He takes a deep breath and gets back on the bike. “Don’t
try leaving, Meg. I’ll find you, and I won’t be happy when I do.”
He pats Dante on the shoulder. The bike levitates roughly
ten feet off the ground, and they take off.
“Where the hell would I go?” I ask to no one in particular.
I’m alone in a world that is so foreign it’s legendary on my
home plane. I’m a city girl who doesn’t know how to make dinner that doesn’t
come neatly wrapped in plastic. I am, once again, in love with a man who can’t
love me back.
I sink down, put my head between my hands, and cry.
Cian wordlessly drops down behind me. I’m not sure when he
came out, but he’s probably heard everything. I don’t fight him when he gathers
me into his arms and rocks me while I sob.
An hour later, I dry my tears and get dressed for the
day. Cian sits at the kitchen table watching me as I try to figure out how to
cook the eggs I found when I ventured into the chicken coop. That was an
adventure. It seemed to me that all the chickens were looking at me like they
knew I ate their sister last night. There was judgment in those little black
chicken eyes. If I hadn’t been so hungry, I would have run out because their
beaks look dangerous. But my stomach warred with the fear of being pecked and
hunger won.
I had gathered five eggs when I heard a low sound. I looked
across the yard and saw Cian milking a cow. He still has to be told my name
every few minutes, but he seems happy enough to follow me around and do the odd
chore. He hasn’t tried to get back into bed. I feared I would spend the day
coaxing him out. Instead, he is shadowing me.
Now he sits patiently, watching and drinking milk from a
mug. I tried it, and despite my fear that warm milk would be gross, I found it
slightly sweet but definitely drinkable.
There’s a strange little oven that Beck used last night, but
there’s no stove top. There’s a grill in the hearth, though. After poking
around all the cabinets, I came up with an iron skillet. I might never have
been camping, but I’ve read enough books to know how to cook.
At least in theory.