47. Chapter 47
Chapter 47
Delilah
S till reeling from Cedric’s confession, I pat my damp hair with a towel and fumble for clean underwear, slipping on the nearest clothes I can find.
As I pad to the kitchen carrying my now-empty tray of pancakes, I hear Faye’s voice carrying above the boys’.
“Are you seriously just going to, what? Give up?”
“You say it as if I had a choice,” Cedric counters calmly. “As if either of us did.”
I grimace as I am reminded of the small but excruciating detail that Cedric is supposed to leave tonight, and for good.
When I turn the corner, everyone quiets down.
“You thirsty?” Faye asks, hopping off the stool she was perched on to grab a glass from the credenza.
“Sure,” I say, walking up to them. Marcus’s head is propped on a fist, his expression somehow both defeated and exasperated. Cedric takes a sip from his own glass. Faye is being Faye, slamming the cabinet door shut with more force than the gesture would warrant. She was clearly in the middle of a conversation that upset her.
“Care to fill me in?” I ask, drumming my fingertips lightly on the table.
“Your boyfriend is determined to stuff his ties and loafers into a suitcase and be on his merry way,” Faye says, looking pointedly at Cedric.
“Faye–” I start.
“No,” she interjects. “If it were you, in his position? You’d be moving heaven and earth to find a solution to stay.”
“That’s not fair,” I say softly, though I know once Faye gets something into her head, making her see a different perspective can be… complicated.
“Screw fair!” Faye says, throwing her arms in the air in a rare burst of downright frustration. She storms out of the kitchen, muttering something to Blaine. He looks at me as if he were asking for permission, then trots after her, the clink of his leash being put into place and the slamming of the door letting me–and the whole neighborhood–know she’s taken him for a walk.
Cedric sighs, pressing two fingers to his forehead.
“She’s right,” he says.
“When I suggested it, I was being childish, now that it’s Faye–”
“Now, Marcus? Really? ”
“Well, I’m sorry brother. I’m sorry about everything, but she is right. We need to think. We can’t let Joe win. Not this time, fuck, not again !”
“Would you please explain?” I ask, curling my fingers around Cedric’s on the table. He squeezes them tightly, his stern gaze softening when our eyes meet.
“Remember when I mentioned I was legally bound not to tell you the truth? There’s a contract in place, courtesy of our father. Something Marcus and I are bound to–rather inescapably, I’d add.”
“Something about Marcus being sent away,” I continue, finally putting the pieces together. “Because he’s a dhampir, I’m guessing?”
Cedric nods, his chest rising with a deep inhale. “The bottom line is, while Marcus is obligated to live in Fern Port, a location remote enough that was selected accurately to make sure he could not be associated with our father again, I am also contractually bound, though in different terms. I am not allowed to have any contact with him, much less visit him. If I did, Marcus would… Well, let’s say my father doesn’t take kindly to disobedience. And even if he did, I don’t trust him not to find different ways to hurt him.”
“That is...” I start, words big enough to convey how disgusted I am evading me.
“Despicable? Barbaric? Foul?” Marcus provides cheerfully, removing a piece of lint from his light brown shirt.
“All of those,” I agree quietly. “Wait–Is that why you can’t see your mom?”
Cedric nods grimly. “She’s Marcus’s birth mother–the vampire,” he says, as if it explained everything. There are so many questions at the tip of my tongue, but I hold them back for both brothers’ sake. “Our father made it clear that any attempt to keep contact with her, unless agreed upon, would be punished.”
“She should have bled him dry when she still had the chance,” Marcus says. Cedric’s expression tells me it’s a conversation they’ve had more than once before.
“Regardless, this is how things stand. Believe me, I have read that contract over and over–there is no way out.”
“You might be happy here,” I tell Marcus after a while, even as my heart clenches. Cedric is leaving. In a matter of hours, he’ll be gone.
“How happy can I be, when it wasn’t my choice?” Marcus says, an undercurrent of anger seeping through the words.
“Don’t speak to her like that. She’s trying to help.” Cedric warns without taking his eyes off me.
“Forgive me,” Marcus says, pushing his glasses to the top of his head as he groans. “It’s been a hectic couple of days.”
“Tell me about it,” I say with a smile. “I assume you aren’t allowed contact with Fern Port at all, then?”
“You assume correctly,” Cedric says with a sigh. God, he looks so tired.
More tears form behind my eyes, and I blink them away before they can fall.
“Well, this sucks, doesn’t it?” I say, though sucks doesn’t even cover it. “Can I at least help with packing?”
Cedric eyes me as if I’d asked him to wear a party hat. “Is that how you want to spend our last hours together?”
I shrug, linking our fingers tighter. “Isn’t together the important part?”