Chapter 13 Kayla #2
“You knew and you didn’t tell me.” I kept my voice low and serious.
“You knew I was worried. I spoke about her disappearance with you, and you didn’t say a word.
Lettie was like a grandmother to every witch in New Orleans.
And she meant so much more than that to me.
We’ve lost someone who really mattered to our community, and I’ve lost the one person who protected me unconditionally.
” I stopped and took a couple of breaths, pushing back a wave of emotion.
“I thought she’d escaped. You knew I thought she’d escaped.
I thought she was free.” The unfairness of it all rolled over me again.
I looked away because he didn’t deserve to see the tears in my eyes. He’d lied to me.
“Kayla.” Sebastian’s voice was soft. “I am so sorry. So, so sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you what Francois had done.
I couldn’t figure out how. Then the ashes came from Baton Rouge, and I was in too deep.
I felt trapped. What could I say? I didn’t want you to find out…
I needed you to trust me. I… I failed you.
” The last part sounded like a personal epiphany.
I scoffed and pushed my hair over my shoulder. His words were meaningless. “You realize how that sounds, right? You needed me to trust you and you did that by perpetuating a lie? By not telling me the truth?”
He bowed his head before meeting my gaze again, his blue eyes pleading with me to… What? Change my tone? Listen? Understand?
“Being in too deep is a shitty reason, Sebastian, and if we are truly mates like you claim, you would have made me a priority over you just feeling trapped.”
He winced as I repeated his words, but I didn’t care. I was on a roll. I’d had enough of male vampires controlling my life and making my decisions for me. émile, Francois, Sebastian… Maybe they were all the same. Just arrogant, selfish bastards.
Fucking vampires.
I looked at Kyle, and he fleetingly met my eyes, but whether that had been accidental or not, it was enough to know he was aware I was about to speak to him. “Can we go home now, please?” I gestured to the car where Andrews was still waiting to drive us away.
“I’ll take you home. Get in my car with me.” Sebastian spoke as Kyle pressed his lips together, although I couldn’t tell whether it was to hold words in or because he disagreed with Sebastian. Sometimes, disapproval was simply his usual expression.
“No.” I didn’t even look at Sebastian as I held my hand out in his direction like I could physically keep him away.
“I don’t want to be around you right now.
I don’t think I trust you anymore, and I need some time to figure things out.
” I climbed into the car behind Andrews and waited for Kyle to get in beside me.
Hell, having a bodyguard was suddenly a huge inconvenience.
But when the other door opened, the person who slid into the seat was Sebastian. He looked at me but I didn’t say anything. What did this man not understand about give me some fucking space?
“You can be mad all you want.” He held his hands out, palms up. “But I’m going to stick with you until you want to talk.”
I turned away, facing the back of Andrews’s headrest as I ignored the man I’d felt so connected to only hours before. “My apartment please, Andrews.”
He nodded but didn’t speak as he shifted the car into drive, and we rolled smoothly away from Lettie’s shop.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, Kayla.”
I still didn’t look at Sebastian. Those were only words.
We sat in uncomfortable silence as we rode the short distance to my apartment. He watched me, but I didn’t even look at him. Neither one of us spoke, although he made a soft sighing noise every so often like he wanted to.
Fuck. I’d actually trusted this guy. How stupid was I? I’d even lost my virginity to him and been happy to do it. I thought he deserved it, that all of the things about being mates and him cherishing me and never feeling this way about anyone before were true.
But he’d been lying to me the whole time. I tensed against the sorrow that threatened to constrict my breathing. I had way too much to do for Lettie to allow myself the indulgence of falling to pieces because one man had betrayed me.
Sebastian had known about Lettie the whole time. And he hadn’t told me.
He’d lied by omission, and that wasn’t okay. He’d actively hidden what he knew.
I had so much to say but it was all word salad scrambled together inside me. If I opened my mouth and started vomiting those words at Sebastian, maybe I’d never stop.
I was so damn angry. Angry that he’d lied, angry that Lettie was gone. The tightness in my chest grew.
Lettie was gone. Fucking gone. My Lettie.
And Sebastian had known, and he hadn’t told me. The actual bastard.
I turned my face and stared out of the window at the passing places, all familiar, all strangely alien right now, like I couldn’t truly recognize anything anymore. Like I didn’t know this town.
Hell, maybe I didn’t.
We arrived in front of my apartment building.
“Holy fuck.”
I turned at Sebastian’s exclamation.
“Sweet Jesus. What the hell happened?” I was out of the car and staring at the building I’d called home before I could even process moving from my seat.
Sebastian was immediately at my side, a restraining hand on my upper arm, preventing me from moving farther forward.
The building looked like a tornado of fire had blown right through, and the whole area was cordoned off with police tape.
My stuff. My home.
“My God,” I breathed. “Just… what?” I shook my head as the noise of police chatter over radios filled the air.
Gradually, the throng of emergency vehicles and personnel started to find a place in my awareness, and I turned to look at them.
“They’re just standing around.” I gestured toward the uniformed people. “Why aren’t they doing anything?”
Loss. It was more fucking loss. First Lettie, now my home. How much more did I need to see disappear? I glanced at Sebastian. Somehow, I’d even lost him. He wasn’t the man I’d thought he was.
“We should go find out what happened.” He reached out like he might touch me, but then he let his hand drop like he’d thought better of it, as if he knew he didn’t have that right anymore.
I nodded mutely. I still didn’t want to talk to him, but he was probably a useful guy to have around while I was trying to figure out what had happened to my home.
Sebastian moved away, walking slower than usual as if he was trying to blend in and be human, and I scrambled to follow him.
I didn’t want him finding stuff out about my apartment on his own.
He might be the vampire regent here, but I was the one who’d just lost my home.
“Hello, officer.” Sebastian greeted the first cop he saw. He stuck his hand out. “Sebastian Dupont.” He looked at my building like he was assessing it. “What happened here?”
The cop bowed his head like he knew who Sebastian was, which made him part of our world. A normal human wouldn’t have responded at all to Sebastian’s name. It wouldn’t have meant anything.
He glanced behind him like he shouldn’t really share the information then leaned closer. “Apartment 2B was broken into. It looks like it was ransacked—belongings were scattered all over, and someone set a fire.”
I gasped. “Shit. My apartment.”
The policeman glanced at me, but Sebastian spoke.
“A fire?”
Immediately, the cop jerked his attention back to Sebastian. “The other residents of the building were evacuated while it was brought under control.” He bowed his head respectfully. “No casualties, Regent.”
“My apartment.” It was little more than a sound of mourning as I looked up at the blackened windows of where I used to live, and the cop tugged a notebook from a pocket over his chest.
“I should ask you a few questions. Do you have any idea who might have done this?”
“What? No. I… I… just don’t.” I shook my head. “I don’t think I…”
“Have you noticed anyone strange around the building recently?” His tone had become rapid-fire. These were familiar questions to him, but I wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of them.
I shook my head again. “I haven’t been here much lately.”
The cop lifted an eyebrow and opened his mouth to ask a follow-up question, but Sebastian spoke instead.
“I’m Kayla’s boyfriend.”
I huffed and rolled my eyes. That seemed such an insignificant thing to say right now. Especially when I was still so mad at him.
“She’s been staying with me recently,” Sebastian continued.
The cop nodded and made some notes. “Kayla…?”
“McKenna,” I supplied.
“Can we go into the building?” Sebastian had already crooked a finger under the caution tape like he was going to lift it to allow us through anyway.
The cop shrugged his bulky shoulders and made a considering noise like he didn’t recommend it. “You can, Regent. But there isn’t a whole lot left in there worth seeing.”
I led the way, pushing past Sebastian when he would have gone first. This was my space, not his. The hallways and staircases were blackened and an acrid, charred smell thickened the air until it was almost too heavy to breathe as I charged along the familiar route through the building.
But I faltered when I entered my home. The floors and walls were soaked, and soot covered most of the walls. Everything in my apartment was waterlogged and blackened, and the bitter smell of dirty smoke hung in the air.
“My things,” I whispered, and Sebastian wound his arm around my waist.
I didn’t want him here, but I leaned into him, unable to deny myself his support. The bastard. I still felt that connection, despite his lie.
I glanced at my walls, where photographs of my parents had melted in their frames.
“Oh, Kayla,” Sebastian murmured, and he turned me in his arms until my cheek rested against his chest. He stroked my hair softly, just smoothing his palm lightly over it. “I’ve got you.”
A tear slid down my cheek and I breathed deeply, trying to withhold a sob. I didn’t want to fall apart right now, in front of him, but a second tear joined the first and then another until I couldn’t count them and my cheeks were damp.
Sebastian continued to stroke my hair but mostly he just stood, solid when I needed something solid and strong.
Everything I’d worked for was lost. Even when I’d been under contract to Francois and émile, I’d had this. My space, my sanctuary, filled with my things that I’d chosen and bought.
And now that piece of me was gone.
Who was I without my things and my home? I was lost.
So much gone. Mom and Dad had moved away, Lettie had died, and now this.
I unwound my arms from Sebastian’s waist before backing away. Nothing felt the same. I was barely thinking. I’d gone numb.
I walked into my bedroom and over to the bed. The mattress was flat, like all of the stuffing had been removed, but when I reached underneath, the floorboards were wet but otherwise undisturbed.
The incantation to release the lock left my lips automatically, and one of the boards shifted slightly. I moved it all the way aside and lifted out the box I kept hidden there before tugging it into my lap.
It was untouched by the fire and water. My protection spell had held, and I sighed in relief.
“What’s that?” Sebastian’s tone was curious.
I stood, clutching the box against me. I didn’t need Sebastian’s brand of comfort right now, or for him to be strong for me.
I’d regained my own strength. I glared at him and stalked from my apartment, not even caring when his footsteps scuffed behind me in his hurry to catch up to me.
When I reached the car, my back still straight, my cheeks dry again, I got in and positioned the box safely in my lap, still not sparing him any attention.
He climbed in beside me and I didn’t even look at him as I spoke to anyone who’d listen. “Take me away from here.”
I didn’t belong here anymore, and that hurt my heart.