Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
CALEB
Jesse had been at it since dawn.
Maybe longer. I’d woken to the smell of coffee and a shallow indentation on his side of the bed. When I tracked him to the kitchen, I found a small tower of pancakes and Jesse in full professor mode.
That was an hour ago, and he was still head down as he tried to figure out Carlo’s game and the mystery of the opera house door.
Three open notebooks spread in front of him, each one covered in his blocky, slanted handwriting.
An abandoned coffee mug sat at his elbow.
Pens were lined up like soldiers waiting to be ordered into battle.
Post-it notes ranged around the perimeter.
Every few moments, he paused, flipped through a notebook, and scribbled more notes.
I toyed with the handle of my mug and watched the morning sunlight make a halo around his dark head. A gray crew neck sweater stretched over his shoulders. Probably cashmere. Jesse’s wardrobe was a lot nicer than mine. Everything about him was nice.
No, fine, my dick corrected. Everything about Jesse van der Meer was fine. And it was a goddamn tragedy that we hadn’t fucked last night. My first time seeing my boyfriend in a suit and I’d ruined it by rubbing up on a door.
But there was definitely something wrong at Carlo’s opera house—and not just the interspecies orgy in the basement.
The second I’d touched that door, something had hollowed out my bones and filled them with liquid pain.
An instant migraine had pounded behind my eyes.
The walk home was hazy in my memory, but the searing, blinding misery of the door was a mosquito suspended in amber.
Across from me, Jesse frowned at something he’d written. He grabbed one of the Post-its, scribbled on it, and stuck it next to one of the notebooks. Then he went back to writing.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked.
He didn’t look up. “Hmm?”
“More coffee? Slutty little glasses?”
He kept writing, dark brows drawn tight and the tip of his tongue between his teeth. He’d look damn good in glasses, but lycanthropy ensured he’d never need them. Another tragedy.
“Jesse,” I said, sharper this time.
He jerked his head up. “Yeah?” He blinked a couple times, then scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Sorry. Did you need something?”
“How long have you been awake?”
“I…” He twisted a little, looking at the window. When he turned back, he ran his free hand through his hair. “I don’t know. A little before sunrise?”
I folded my arms.
He sighed. “Since five.”
Jesus. I looked at the clock on the microwave. “It’s ten-thirty.”
He tapped the end of his pen against his notebook. “This is important.”
“So is eating, and you haven’t done that today.” I nodded toward the sea of Post-its. “You’re a corkboard and some red string away from an episode of Ancient Aliens.”
His frown intensified, and his brown eyes went from serious to severe.
I waved a hand. “It’s this show on—”
“I have something to tell you.”
My stomach knotted. I knew that phrase. People said that when they wanted to soften a punch. Except it didn’t work. The punch landed even harder because you were braced for it.
Teachers said it. My parents had said it. Counselors had said it to my parents while I tried to disappear into the cushions of a cheap office sofa.
I have something to tell you. Caleb was involved in another fight.
Caleb’s attitude doesn’t meet our standards.
Caleb struggles to get along with his peers.
We believe this summer program will address Caleb’s behavioral issues.
“What is it?” I asked.
Jesse set down his pen. “I was going to tell you last night, but—”
“Tell me now,” I snapped.
For a second, he didn’t move. Just stared, and the knots in my gut wrenched tighter. What the fuck was wrong? A dozen possibilities flashed through my mind.
I was too young for him.
The Council changed its mind and wanted me dead.
Our relationship was a mistake.
He wanted me to leave.
“I don’t feel great about the Council,” he said.
It took a second for the words to settle in my brain. “What does that mean?”
He shoved a notebook away like it was a meal he’d finished. “I don’t have anything concrete, but I can’t accept an entire country losing its werewolf population. I texted Stefanos Tuesday night and by Wednesday he’d already consulted the Council and decided we shouldn’t worry about it.”
I ran the timeline in my head. Jesse had noticed the missing wolves after our run in the forest. He’d texted Stefanos before we went to bed. Then Stefanos had called yesterday at Consolata’s. It felt like a million years ago.
“You had these doubts at lunch?” I asked.
“Yes,” Jesse rasped.
And he’d said nothing. Not when we visited the fresco where I saw the Romans. Not when we showered and got ready for the opera. Not on the walk to the opera house or during Francesco’s performance. He’d had plenty of time to speak up. Instead, he’d used it to look me up and down while I shaved.
“You had hours,” I said, hating the burn in my throat.
Regret swam in his eyes. “I didn’t want to rattle you before we walked into Carlo’s. I was going to tell you after.”
“Were you?”
He leaned forward. “Yes, Caleb. I swear—”
“Like you swore in France that you’d never lie to me again?” I looked at his notebooks and row of pens. The notes and theories—all evidence of his careful, methodical mind. He’d left me in bed before dawn so he could work.
Before I could get in the way.
I shoved back my chair and stood.
Jesse was on his feet before the legs finished scraping. “Where are you going?”
“Out.”
I strode from the kitchen. He was right behind me as I hit the stairs.
I took them two at a time, stalked to the bedroom, and went to the closet.
I grabbed the first clothes I saw, yanking a sweatshirt over my head and stabbing my legs into jeans I scooped off the floor.
When I returned to the bedroom, Jesse filled the doorway.
His eyes had lightened to champagne, and his jaw was as hard as the marble in the foyer.
“Caleb.”
“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” I said, swiping my wallet from the nightstand.
“You can’t walk around Rome alone.”
I shoved the wallet into my back pocket. “Are you going to stop me?”
The challenge landed like a gauntlet between us. Stupid on my part, but what the fuck did it matter? Smart or stupid, he’d treat me the same. I was a liability for him to manage.
“Don’t make this something it isn’t,” he said softly.
“Get out of my way.”
Something flickered in his eyes. “You don’t know Rome. You don’t speak Italian. Please don’t leave like this.”
I moved toward him. He squared his shoulders, filling the frame and blocking my path.
My heart kicked into overdrive, the beats pounding between my ears. The night we’d met, he’d knocked me out before I could kill Dean Welch. He’d restrained me when I couldn’t handle what I was becoming.
But since then, he’d never put his hands on me unless I wanted it.
Not once. He was careful to a fault with safewords and consent.
But he was from another time. Another era.
He’d lived decades longer, collecting gifts from Sterling and power I couldn’t dream of.
I knew almost nothing about magic, but I knew about powerful people.
They used it to get the things they wanted and then told themselves they’d done it for the right reasons.
It was for your own good.
We had to.
You’ll understand one day.
I stabbed a finger toward the bed. “I let you own my ass there,” I said, my voice surprising me with its steadiness.
“I let you. Understand? But you don’t own it anywhere else.
You don’t get to decide what I can handle or how much information I deserve, and you sure as shit don’t get to tell me where I can go. ”
Hurt flickered in his eyes. But how could I believe it?
He stepped aside.
I brushed past him and went to the stairs with my pulse jackhammering my throat. When his footfalls echoed behind me, relief hit so hard and fast that I almost missed a step.
Which was pathetic. I knew that. My insides shouldn’t have turned loose and shaky just from him refusing to leave me alone.
I shouldn’t have kept an eye on him in my peripheral vision as I shoved my feet into my shoes.
I shouldn’t have cared when he slipped his on, too, or when he followed me out of the house. But no one had ever followed me before.
He trailed me outside and through the gate.
I walked faster, relief doing more pathetic things in my chest.
“I’m sorry,” he said at my shoulder.
“You said that in France, too.”
He opened his mouth. Shut it.
The laugh that came out of me was dry and short. “Yeah, you’re sorry again. I guess you thought I forgot the last time.”
“That’s not what I think.”
Ahead of us, a cluster of crows pecked at something on the pavement. They scattered at our approach, wings fluttering as they croaked their irritation.
“Where are you going?” Jesse asked.
“Why would I tell you? We don’t share shit with each other, right? Isn’t that how it works?” God, I sounded like a whiny bitch. Like a teenager storming up to my room and slamming the door.
Jesse didn’t answer. He just matched my pace, tight energy wrapped around him. The scent of baking bread and espresso drifted from shops. A scooter whined past, close enough that Jesse’s hand twitched toward me before he caught himself and pulled it back.
We walked in silence for five minutes. Ten. The anger in my chest burned hot, but uncertainty spread beneath it. Was I being unfair? Jesse had seen what my visions did to me. He’d worried about me going to Carlo’s with doubts in my head.
And the visions didn’t come when I tried to force them. If I’d walked into the opera house distracted, would I have felt whatever was hidden inside the door?
And Jesse had filled me in eventually. He’d just dragged his feet.