Chapter 29
Lola
Dimitri and I came back almost an hour before, and Carter was nowhere to be found.
I felt restless.
Strange, since I didn’t have an actual night of sleep in two whole days. How could I close my eyes last night, knowing that Dimitri was here, in some sort of self-inflicted coma, and Arc was still out there?
I was still upset with Arc for what happened before he left. For the way he had sort of manipulated me and used the binding promise to get what he wanted. For going from patient and understanding on that night he saved me to controlling and a total lunatic right after.
But that jerk was still my mate.
And the thought of him being a prisoner or hurt somewhere made me sick to my stomach.
The front door opened and I stopped pacing, lifting my head to look at Carter who closed it back after him, his face grim.
My breath hitched when he stopped dead in his tracks, glaring.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “I was starting to worry.”
“Where’s Dimitri?” he asked, ignoring my question.
I frowned. “Upstairs, taking a shower.”
Carter gave a single, tensed nod. Not moving. Not saying anything else.
“Carter…Are you—”
My mouth dried out, words dying in my throat. I lifted my open palms with wide eyes as his hand came back from his back pocket, holding a blinking tracker.
“Carter?”
The device beeped in his hand. Processing. But he didn’t even look at it, his eyes caging me. Locking me in my spot.
Fuck.
“It doesn’t work on me,” I lied.
“So we thought. Yet, unlike last time, it’s processing. Did you tamper with it?” Carter finally spoke. “Turned it off or something?”
I paused, biting my bottom lip, taking one slow step to the side. He followed, the damn thing still blinking in my direction.
“I didn’t.”
The fucking device stopped its relentless blinking and beeping and my heart stopped as Carter’s eyes finally left mine to look at the screen.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
He looked stunned for a moment, stepping back like he'd been hit by an invisible force. My hand automatically reached for the ring hanging around my neck. Maybe he’d react like Blake. Maybe he’d be somehow relieved. It didn’t have to be a step back in the evolution of our relationship. It—
“Unknown, Unknown,” Carter read. “Fifteen hundred to two thousand years old. Estimated threat: Unmeasurable—should flee.”
Blind spots dotted my vision from fear. I was glad that these devices didn’t include me. Unlike the one that was pointed at me on my way when I first came here…
“Care to explain why, if you’re just a simple lower demon, it shows the same data as Arc?”
I couldn’t help but fumble with the ring. Hoping. Begging the universe for him to react like Blake—like Dimitri did. Like it didn’t really matter what or who I was. Who I used to be.
But the look on his face betrayed his anger.
“Do I even know anything true about you?” he continued, his voice cold. “Or did you spit out lies from day one? Made me believe on purpose that I somehow broke the device only so I wouldn’t find out? Does Arc know?”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” I tried, only digging my own grave deeper.
Carter let out a dry, humorless scoff. “Really? It doesn’t mean that you’re an Astral and lied about it?”
“I didn’t lie—”
“You were more than happy to prevent us from finding out!” he snapped.
My hand turned to fist around the ring before I let it fall back against my chest to take a step forward, anger boiling inside me too.
“I didn’t lie,” I gritted. “I’m a Succubus. A demon. What I was before doesn’t concern you or anyone else.”
“I’m your mate—”
“Right!” I snapped back, stopping just a step away from him, squaring my shoulders. “My mate, not my fucking owner. You don’t need to know my pedigree unless I feel like sharing it with you.”
He growled, getting closer. His shoulders shook, barely able to contain his simmering rage.
“Why didn’t it work last time?”
“I didn’t do anything to it.”
“You’re not answering the fucking question,” he sneered, pursing his lips enough that it revealed his sharp teeth. “Why. Didn’t. It. Work—”
“Because I turned it off.”
I turned around abruptly, watching as Dimitri strolled down the stairs, still wet from his shower and only wearing a towel, hanging low on his hips.
He stopped right behind me, his seven foot towering over both Carter and I. His hand found my hip to pull my back against his front protectively, his piercing red eyes not leaving Carter’s angry blue ones.
“You—”
“How entitled are you to expect her to reveal everything about her just because you’ve been nice for a couple of days?” Dimitri cut him off, his tone calm, but his posture and body language betrayed his own feelings. “Sure, she’s your mate. Doesn’t mean she owes you shit, does it?”
Carter looked ready to snap but his eyes stopped on the few fresh scars and bruises marking Dimitri’s body and he only gritted his teeth, turning his gaze away and clenching his fists.
“Why?” he asked.
Dimitri scoffed, sliding his hand over my stomach, rubbing soft circles over the fabric of my tank top while his other hand landed on my naked shoulder.
“Because unlike you, I know our mate. I know this particular information isn’t given freely.
She took months to tell me when we met, and even then, I found out by accident.
I did what I needed to do to help her protect the secret she wasn’t ready to reveal in front of three people she barely met. ”
Carter avoided my eyes, too busy glaring at Dimitri over my head. “How?”
Dimitri shrugged in my back. “It doesn’t matter how I did it. Used my powers. Just enough to break it once it was in your hand so she wouldn’t be suspected of anything.”
“You fuck—”
I placed my hand on his chest to keep him at bay, forcing him back. Dimitri didn’t flinch, letting out a chuckle.
“You can be mad all you want,” Dimitri said, unaffected by Carter’s surge of anger. “Everything I did in my long life was to protect her. I’ll always look out for her in every way. Whether it’s from unseen threats, herself, or her own mates.”
Carter’s eyes dropped to Dimitri’s chest, where the intricate lines of our binding promise still marked his skin. A promise he took to heart and exposed proudly, even more since I lost the soul he swore to protect and cherish.
“Who’s carrying the other one?” Carter asked dryly, tilting his chin toward it. “Weird for someone with a mate to make a binding promise with someone else.”
I frowned at Carter’s behavior. He was looking for a fight. Searching for more reasons to be mad. At me, at Dimitri. At the whole fucking world.
“Because I didn’t. Lola has the other one.”
Carter scoffed at Dimitri’s answer. “I’ve seen her naked. She doesn’t wear any mark.”
If I could see Dimitri’s face, I knew I’d find him grinning. Way too happy to shut his mouth with knowledge Carter didn’t have.
“Because my promise was made before she turned into a Succubus. It didn’t just mark her, it marked her soul,” Dimitri said. “Not the demon, but the Phoenix. She can hide it with shifting power, unlike the one she had with Arc.”
I reached for the hem of my T-shirt with shaky hands, lifting it up to just below my breast, letting my power recede to reveal the mark mirroring Dimitri’s. Carter’s eyes narrowed as he studied it. The red and slightly silver color over the side of my ribcage.
Dimitri’s breath hitched and his hand left my stomach to trace the lines with his fingers, the motion slow, admirative. Reverent.
But Carter’s anger didn’t diminish. He took a step back, turning his head to the side like looking at me disgusted him.
“I don’t trust you,” he gritted. “I don’t think I ever will.”
It hit me like a blow to the chest and I stumbled back, right into Dimitri. But as I was about to lash out at him, to call him a fucking liar for his meaningless words from the nights before, Dimitri’s hand slithered up to my throat, tilting my head to the side.
“Not surprising,” he crooned, sliding his nose along the side of my throat. “I knew you’d get into the anger stage way quicker than anyone should. That you’d be too weak to even try and fight it.”
I let out a stuttering breath as his lips dropped featherlight kisses on the sensitive skin, going from the soft spot under my ear to my shoulder, pulling down the sleeves of my top.
“After all, you’ve hated her from the start. The idea of a mate that was something other than Divine made you sick, didn’t it?”
“You’re wrong.” Carter’s full body shook in anger, hands fisted at his sides, arms and shoulders tensed like he was preparing for a fight or restraining himself from starting one.
“Am I?”
Dimitri’s hand slid under my T-shirt, going up to my breast and grabbed it softly, letting out an appreciative growl in the crook of my neck.
“Then why are you reacting so strongly now? Why are you so mad about some information you have no right to demand?”
I whimpered as he grazed my nipple with the side of his thumb, his teeth scraping on my throat.
“And why are you still here, unable to look away from her?”
My eyes snapped open, only to find Carter’s stuck on me. On my now exposed breast. On Dimitri’s hand circling my throat to keep my neck exposed. On my thighs clenching to try and relieve the building desire.
What was Dimitri doing?
“I think, deep down, you know where that anger comes from. Didn’t she warn you it would happen?”
Carter’s eyes widened, realization hitting him in the face. I had warned him. Told him about the angry stage that would come. And he somehow forgot and thought his anger was legitimate. Justified.
“Letting it win will only prove my point,” Dimitri continued, his hand leaving my breast to go down.
Down until he unbuttoned my jeans. Until he slipped it in my panties, fingers finally meeting my wet core, pulling a gasped moan out of me.
“That you’re just weak. That you can’t handle having a mate like her. ”
Dimitri was riling him up.
And it fucking worked.