Chapter 27
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Bending my arm up toward my face, I press the tip of my fingernail into the mosquito bite, holding it for a few seconds before moving my nail so a little X appears in my skin. I swear, it’s like all the mosquitos feasted off me while we stood outside for the news interview.
“What are you doing?” Xavier asks, taking his eyes off the road to look at me. We’re driving home and this time, Antonio and Devon are in the backseat.
“This makes it not as bad.” I shrug. “Or so I’ve heard.”
“It’s true,” Devon says. “Itching makes the histamine reaction worse. Huh, I just realized I’ll never get another bug bite again.”
“Not fair,” Antonio laughs.
Silence falls over us and I fight the urge to text Marie. The way she just stood there is more than a little unnerving. The fancy hotel she’s at isn’t far from here. Is it out of the question she could be out and about, getting late night munchies or just going for a walk?
A part of me questions if that was actually her at all.
The two times I’ve seen her, she’s been wearing long dresses that swirl around her feet when she walks.
The hoodie and jeans don’t fit her vibe, but there are times when I look like Adam Sandler and times Mabel dresses me and I look like a princess.
And both looks feel fitting at the time.
I start feeling anxious as I run through all the possible scenarios in my head.
The best one is that Marie heard the sirens and stepped outside to be nosey, just like a bunch of other people did.
The entire situation was aired on live TV, and anything with Xavier is trending on social media at the moment.
Charlotte has always had a nice nightlife, and it’s been revived even more since so many vampires live here now. There’s stuff to do at all hours of the night. Maybe when she’s not wearing fairytale princess gowns and writing about century-old woodwork, Marie is getting down at the club?
It’s possible, sure, but doesn’t seem that likely. And I hate the more likely scenario that’s going through my head, which is that this random fight between a couple who had come to the city to celebrate their fifteenth anniversary was caused by witchcraft.
“Are these events usually this eventful?” Antonio asks when we finally pull into the driveway.
“They have been since Wren started coming with,” Xavier states. I look at him and smile, but he doesn’t so much as cast his eyes in my direction. Swallowing the tiny bit of hurt that rises in my chest, I regret lying to him all over again.
Even more so if it turns out Marie can’t be trusted.
We go into the house and I go right upstairs to shower and change. Expecting Xavier to join me in the shower as usual, I take a longer time than I normally would. He doesn’t come in, which causes another bad feeling to start to form. God, I really need therapy.
I check my phone as soon as I’m out of the shower but have no texts from Marie. Maybe it wasn’t her. I’ve only seen her twice; it would be easy to mistake someone who looks like her for her, right? It’s dark and she was all the way across the street and—I’m gaslighting myself.
I know what I saw.
Wrapping my hair up in the towel, I sink into bed , burying myself under the covers. I distract myself with doomscrolling and maybe half an hour later, Xavier comes into the room.
“Are you mad at me?” I rush out because the thought of him being mad scares me almost more than facing the demon alone.
“I’m not mad.”
“You’re disappointed?” I raise my eyebrows.
“No.” He takes off his suit jacket and belt and sits on the edge of the bed, hand going to my thigh.“I can’t protect you if you’re not honest with me.”
“I don’t always need protecting.”
“Your track record says otherwise.”
I purse my lips, staring at him. “I’m quite capable. I’ve told you that before.”
“You have, and you have proven yourself to be. But you’re a human, Wren.
That alone makes you much more vulnerable than me.
” He’s not saying it to be insulting or belittling, but to state the fact.
And he’s right. He is immortal. He can take a literal bullet to the chest and heal within seconds.
He won’t get sick, never has to worry about stepping funny off a curb and rolling his ankle, and doesn’t even get annoying mosquito bites.
“You have magic, and that makes you powerful. But it doesn’t make me not worry about you. ”
The words come out of his mouth a little awkwardly.
He’s never felt this way about anyone before and vampires are protective and possessive by nature.
Add that to his already domineering personality, and stepping back and letting me go into the metaphorical forest alone isn’t something that will ever come naturally to Xavier.
Which I like, of course. There’s nothing less attractive than a man who doesn’t know how to properly lead, allowing me to be myself but not overstepping into the world of being controlling.
“I worry about you, too,” I say honestly. “I don’t want you to get so wrapped up in my drama you can’t pay full attention to yours.”
“Your drama is my drama.” He takes off his pants and I watch eagerly. “Calling it drama makes it seem trivial.”
“That’s the point,” I say and sit up, unbuttoning his shirt so he can get into bed with me faster.
“I got more info on Abigail Williams.” He picks up his phone as he gets under the covers. “And a photo.”
I snuggle up next to him, nerves fading just by being in his embrace.
Abigail Williams was blonde and average-looking.
I don’t really know how the Blackwood line looks beyond myself.
I have a darker complexion than the Russos, and more than once Larissa liked to remind me how desirable her blonde hair and blue eyes were.
“If a Blackwood needs to be the one to destroy the key, she could be distantly related to you,” Xavier says. “It’s more than possible. She was born in New York, closer to where your family is from.”
“Yeah, which would be crazy.”
“We can have her genealogy traced.”
I shrug. “What’s the point? She never had kids, right?”
“There are no records of any children.”
“She’s dead. Whatever distant family line she may or may not have had doesn’t matter anymore.”
Xavier puts his phone down and we settle against the pillows. It’s late—maybe? My concept of time makes no sense anymore. At this point, I just sleep when I’m tired. My eyes close and I snuggle closer to Xavier, not realizing that I’m drifting to sleep until Xavier gently says my name.
“Leo is on the phone,” he says and my eyes fly open. Inhaling, I sit up and take the phone from him.
“Hey,” I say, putting it on speaker. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Considering. I just got home. It’s weird being here alone.”
“Aunt Darcy and Danielle aren’t there?” I ask, automatically calling Marco’s sister “aunt” like I used to. It might take me a while to break that habit, unlike how easy it was to stop calling Vivian and Marco “mom” and “dad”. It never really felt right saying that in the first place.
“No, they have Gia, though.”
“Hang on, let me get Antonio.” I get out of bed and grab a robe to put on over my t-shirt and shorts.
I knock on Antonio’s door, expecting to find him awake.
When he doesn’t answer, I crack the door, prepared to wake him, but he’s not in there.
“Well, hang on even more,” I tell Leo. “He’s not in his room.
” I pause in the hallway, listening, and hear very faint voices coming from downstairs in the basement.
What?
Xavier, who is dressed now, comes with me downstairs into the theatre room. Antonio and Devon are playing video games and they look so freaking human and normal it throws me for a loop.
“Leo’s on the phone,” I say and Antonio immediately puts his controller down. Devon pauses the game and we all gather around.
“Okay, you’re on speaker,” I tell Leo. “We’re all here. Go ahead.”
“Don’t get too excited,” Leo starts. “I don’t have much to report. I did FaceTime Gia and she is okay.”
“Thank God,” Antonio sighs. “Where is she?”
“Ocala, with Aunt Darcy and Danielle. They’re visiting Grandma.”
“I thought she died,” Antonio says, looking at me. “Didn’t she?”
“I think Marco likes to pretend that she’s dead,” I reply, knowing Xavier is going to ask about her later.
Grandma Jean was raised in the Order, like the rest of us, but she hated the idea of her grandchildren being forced into it.
When Marco basically told his own mother to fuck off because he cared more about what the higher-ups in the Order had to say than she did, it created some expected tension.
They avoided each other until things got so awkward it was better to pretend she had died of dementia or something like that.
“They’re going to go to watch some fancy jumping horses tomorrow or something.”
“The World Equestrian Center is there,” Devon tells us with a shrug. “It’s kinda cool. I’ve been there.”
“Gia will love that,” I say. “All little girls love horses.”
“How is she?” Antonio asks. “That a pretty fucked up night for a kid.”
“It was a fucked up night for an adult,” I mutter quietly.
“Yeah,” Leo agrees. “She’s going to need years of therapy to unpack this one. She believes that Toni is a vampire and now she wants to be one, so that lie didn’t work like they thought it would. Mom told her Toni was already a vampire when he kidnapped her—”
“Seriously?” Antonio rushes out, and I can see the anger and hurt on his face.
“She didn’t buy it,” Leo goes on. “You ate food. She saw you. The kid isn’t dumb.”
“Not at all,” I say, feeling proud of my little sister. “Then what?”
“Honestly, it seems like they know they’re backed into a corner. Gia said Mom and Dad are fighting a lot, which is why they left her with Aunt Darcy and they flew to Florida right away.”
Antonio and I look at each other. Hunters rarely fly anywhere because you can’t take weapons on a plane. That means Darcy needed to get Gia away fast.
“How long is Gia staying in Florida?” I ask.
“She doesn’t know, but she said she heard Grandma telling Danielle about a waitressing job in town and Danielle seemed interested.”
“It seems they’re going to stay for a while,” Antonio finishes. “At least that keeps Gia safe.”
“For now,” I add ruefully. “Do you have any idea where Vivian or Marco are?”
“No, and I was able to talk to Ryder just briefly and news of Marcus Henry’s death is spreading. Vivian is telling everyone she saw Xavier Malus kill him.”
“Zeke won’t mind you taking the credit, will he?” I ask, unable to help myself from using inappropriate humor.
“What does that mean for the hunters?” Xavier asks. “Surely, they want revenge.”
“They do,” Leo goes on. “Ryder and a few others are doing a decent job reminding everyone that there was an unspoken agreement between the vamps and the Order to leave each other alone and Marcus Henry put every hunter in danger by going after the vamps first. Most are blindly loyal to the Order but a good amount of hunters see that Marcus was reckless and they know starting a war with, uh, your family, is a terrible idea.”
“Yeah,” I say and let out a breath. “Well, we know Gia is safe. That alone makes me feel like ten times better.”
“Same,” Antonio says. “Good job and keep me up to date.”
“Will do,” Leo says and ends the call. I didn’t expect him to email me a file with Vivian’s exact plans, but I was hoping for a bit more, I’ll admit. Really though, I am so fucking thankful Gia is in Florida with her grandmother, who is retired from hunting but still knows what to watch out for.
Wide awake now, I go back to bed with Xavier and spend the next hour or so wearing myself out.
Multiple orgasms are definitely my preferred sleeping pill.
I sleep soundly for a good seven hours, waking up from pain in my right hand.
I sit up, inhaling and wanting to go back to sleep but the center of my right hand fucking burns.
The blinds are still drawn, making the room pitch black. I grab my phone, using it for light.
“Fuck,” I grumble, opening up my palm. Holy shit. The little pin-prick is bright red, and there’s a red line extending from it, making its way up my arm, reminding me that I don’t have much time left.