“Don’t act like you’re some kind of saint, Azazel. You have done just as many fucked-up things as I have—”
“I gave up everything for you,” I said. “My family, everybody that I had ever trusted, asked me to kill you, and I ran away from those people to save you. And because of you, they are all dead. So, don’t you dare ever question whether you can trust me. You’re all I have, and you’ve made sure of that over and over again.”
He licked his lips.
I was trembling. “Get out.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I mean it, get out.”
He let out a breath, his nostrils flaring. “Azazel—”
“Before you came into my life, I was normal,” I whispered. “And after you came into my life, people started dying all the time. Get. Out.”
He pushed off the doorway and stalked out of the apartment.
CHAPTER THREE
~azazel~
“Okay, I wanted to talk to everybody because I’m getting a little worried about Imri,” said Boone. He was standing at the head of the main meeting room.
Grace was sitting up close to him, hanging on his every word.
Jude sat in the back of the room at the end of the table.
Jason was standing in the doorway, glaring at Jude.
I sat on the opposite side of the room. I was actually surprised that Jason had even shown up to this meeting that Boone had called. After our fight earlier, I figured he’d run off someplace and sulk.
Jason was a big-time sulker.
“This is the third time that I’ve found surveillance equipment in our vans and in headquarters here,” said Boone. “I’m fairly sure they came from Imri. Now, last time, we determined it was better not to confront him about it, but it’s getting ridiculous at this point. If he’s working with us, why is he spying on us?”
No one said anything.
Boone looked out over the four of us. “No one has anything to say?”
Silence.
Boone rubbed his chin. “Jason, when we first decided to work with Imri, you said he was keeping us under surveillance, and it turns out you were right, so, do you have any idea what we should do about it?”
“What?” Jason turned to look at Boone. He obviously hadn’t been paying any attention to what was going on.
“Imri,” said Boone. “He’s spying on us.”
“Yeah, what else is new?” said Jason.
“Well, it’s kind of a problem,” said Boone.
“Haven’t we basically wiped out the vampires now?” said Jason. “You said that the websites on the anonymity network had basically gone dark. No one’s selling blood anymore.”
Boone shrugged. “Well, that’s true. And, honestly Imri hasn’t had any jobs for us in weeks.”
“So, let’s stop working with him,” said Jason.
Jude turned to him. “You think he’d let us stop?”
Jason’s face turned to stone. He looked away from Jude, letting out an audible breath.
It was quiet again.
Boone arched an eyebrow. “Shit. You told Jason, didn’t you, Azazel?”
“She did,” said Jude.
Now that I looked at Jude more clearly, I realized his face was bruised.
Oh. Jason must have lied about not laying a finger on him.
Well, I didn’t care. Jude made me sick.
Jason fixed me with an angry stare. “Did you tell everyone except me?”
“I only told Boone,” I said. “He told Grace.”
“But I didn’t say anything,” said Grace.
“Except to me,” I muttered.
“Well, you and Jude were acting all weird on that mission out west, and I thought maybe I could help,” she said. “It was kind of stupid to pretend like I didn’t know.”
“Great.” Jason smiled. “Wonderful.”
I buried my head in my hands.
“Look, you shouldn’t be mad at her,” said Boone.
“Oh, I shouldn’t?” said Jason.
Boone cringed. “Actually, you know what? You do whatever you want, man. I’m not trying to start anything.” Boone was always a little jumpy around Jason.
Jason rolled his eyes. “Since you guys are all so close and know each other’s secrets, maybe I’ll leave you to it, huh?”
“No, I want your input,” said Boone.
“If you’d been out west, you probably would have figured it out too,” said Grace. “I mean, Azazel was sick all the time. It was kind of obvious.”
Jason nodded. “Yeah, well, I couldn’t go out west because I couldn’t abandon my son for weeks again. And Azazel’s been avoiding me. So, I would have noticed if she was ever around.”
“Hey,” I said. “I’m sitting right here.”
Grace looked down at the table. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Boone put his arm around her. “You don’t have to get pissed at Grace, man.”
Damn. I missed that. I missed what it was like to be young and in love. In the beginning, Jason and I were always on each other’s side. It was me and Jason against the world.
Now…
Now there was so much baggage. Loving him required me to have tunnel vision, to forget every horrible thing he’d ever done, and only focus on his strengths.
He was Jason. I’d never loved anyone the way I loved him.
But sometimes, it seemed like he had so many more weaknesses than strengths.
“I’m not,” said Jason. “Sorry, Grace.” He threw up his hands. “I can’t be here right now.” He walked out of the room.
It was quiet again.
I rounded on Jude. “What the fuck did you say to him?”
Jude regarded me coolly. “He started hitting me. I guess I got a little angry.”
“Everything you do makes it worse, you know that?”
Jude uttered a bitter laugh. He stood up. “Maybe I’ll get out of here too.”
I turned back to Grace and Boone.
He tightened his grip on her. She wrapped her arms around his waist.
I looked away.
“Uh, maybe we can talk about Imri another time,” said Boone.
I nodded, getting up from the table. “Maybe.”
* * *
There was a knock on my bedroom door.
I was in my pajamas, reading on my kindle. In the book I was reading, some girl in college was discovering that underneath his rough exterior, the super-attractive guy she couldn’t get out of her head was actually a really sweet person who cared about his little sister. Apparently, they’d both been in an abusive situation or something.
He was in a motorcycle gang now, but he was going to give up his life of violence to settle down with the college girl, because she was more important to him than crime.
I was about ready to throw the damned kindle across the room.
Usually, I read books like that to escape, but today, all they were doing was highlighting the failures of my own relationship and my own boyfriend.
I was kind of glad that someone was knocking on the door to distract me from all of that.
I got out of bed and opened the door.
Jason was standing there.
“Oh,” I said. “Hey.”
“Can I come in?”
“It’s your room too,” I said. He hadn’t slept up here with me last night, not after I told him, but then that hardly meant anything. We often slept apart for various reasons. We had busy lives. I was often working on stuff at headquarters, and Jason was a full-time dad for Chance.
“That mean yes?”
I moved away from the door.
He walked into the middle of the room and shoved his hands into his pockets.
I closed the door after him.
“Do you remember that time that we went to the movies?”
I furrowed my brow. “Which time?”
“The first time,” he said. “It was maybe two months after all the Sons died, and we’d just moved into this house w
ith Hallam and Marlena and Big Chance and Mina and… and baby Jenna.”
I looked away. I didn’t like to think about Mina’s baby. I’d used magic to calm her down and keep her from crying, but it had turned out that the baby had been crying so much because she was really sick and dying. And I pacified her and basically let her die. I went over to the bed and sat down. “We went to the movies?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t remember what we saw, but I remember we went. We’d been together for over a year at that point, and we’d been through so much, but we’d never actually gone to the movies. I remember I asked you in Florida a few times, but you worked at that theater, and you didn’t want to go back to work.”
That was true. I nodded. “Yeah, I remember saying no in Bradenton.”
“But you don’t remember saying yes?”
I tried to think about it. “Maybe.”
“We went to the movies,” he said. “And we bought popcorn, and we sat in the back row, and—”
“Oh yeah,” I said, giggling. “I don’t remember what that movie was either. We didn’t even watch it.”
He gave me a sheepish grin. “Yeah, we kind of just made out, didn’t we?”
I nodded. “Yeah. You spilled popcorn down my shirt, and then…”
“Well, I couldn’t leave the popcorn kernels in your bra. That would have been rude.”
I laughed.
He came over to the bed and sat down next to me. “And then I remember I drove back from the theater as quick as I could, and we rushed up into this room, and then…”
I smiled up at the ceiling. “And then we had a lot of sex.”
“Yeah, we ran out of condoms.”
I touched his face. “We were so young, then.”
He put his hand on my knee. “I remember lying there in the dark, holding onto you, and it wasn’t like we’d never done it before, you know, but it had always been like we were stealing moments to try to be together. But here we were in this house, with no one after us anymore, and you were so pretty. And soft. And just… the way you felt in my arms was...” He tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “I remember feeling like I couldn’t believe that I was so lucky. Like I never thought I’d have a moment like that. I thought my whole life was going to be… violence and people trying to kill me.”
“And it has been,” I said, laughing a little.
He ran his knuckles over my cheek. “Not all of it.”
I looked into his eyes.
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Azazel. I know I’m not the best thing that ever happened to you, but—”
“Jason.” I put my fingers over his lips. “I shouldn’t have said those things to you.”
He kissed my fingertips.
I trailed my fingers down over his chin.
“The things you said were true.”
I shook my head. “No, I was angry. And you’re right, I did lie to you.”
He nodded. “Yes, you did. But we’ve been through so much worse than this, like you said. And we’re going to get through this too.”
“Are we?”
“I’ll deal with it, babe,” he said. “Look, it’s not perfect, but what is? You’re having a baby. And however that baby happened, you and I are going to love that baby.”
My heart swelled. “Do you mean that?”
“Yes.”
I kissed him.
CHAPTER FOUR
~jason~
I held up my little pocketknife, arching an eyebrow. “So?”
Azazel was lying on my chest. She lifted her head. “Jason, no, we can’t.”
It was morning. We’d made love the night before, but it had been slow and soft, and we’d both fallen asleep afterward. Which was different than our more recent couplings, which often included a good bit of Azazel drinking my blood—a sort of oddly erotic experience for both of us. She needed my blood to stay alive, and I liked how much she liked it.
“Why can’t we?” I said.
Her hair was mussed from sleeping, and she looked adorable. She closed her eyes. “Because it’ll age me back, and it might age the baby too. I don’t know what that would do to it.”
The side effect of immortal blood was that it caused people to age backwards. I set the knife down on the bedside table. “Right.”
She groaned, stretching and rolling away from me. “You’re upset.”
I sat up and leaned against the headboard. “I’m not upset.”
“You sound upset.”
I rubbed my eyes, yawning. “No, what you said makes sense. I mean, as much as any of this makes sense. We don’t even know why this baby is keeping you alive.”
She curled up on her side and pulled her pillow close. “I figure it’s because it’s got immortal blood.”
“Well, then, I don’t see why it would hurt for you to drink my blood. If I drink immortal blood, it doesn’t age me backwards.”
She buried her face in her pillow, and her voice was muffled. “I’ll ask the doctor when I go. I’ve got a checkup later this week.”
“The doctor knows about immortal blood?”
“Uh huh. It’s one of Imri’s doctors.”
I snorted. “Oh, well, that’s great. I mean, Boone says the guy’s spying on us, so I’m happy that you’re dependent on him for prenatal care.”
She shoved aside the covers and got out of bed. “Don’t be mad at me about that.”
I watched her stride across the room naked, enjoying the view. “I’m not mad.”
She picked up her nightgown from where we’d flung it last night and pulled it over her head. “Well, you were sarcastic, that’s all.”
“I don’t trust Imri.”
“I know. I don’t trust him either.”
“You know, he kidnapped Chance.”
“He didn’t hurt Chance,” she said.
“No,” I said. “But maybe he would have.”
She headed for the door. “But he didn’t.”
“Where are you going?”
“The bathroom.”
I nodded.
She opened the door and disappeared into the hallway.
I slumped against the headboard. So much for morning sex.
Not that I wanted it because I was a horndog or something. I liked feeling connected to her. I wanted to feel connected to her again. The idea that she had some other guy’s child growing in her made me feel the opposite of connected to her and…
Well, I guess it was stupid, but I thought if I could get my blood in her, get my dick in her again, then maybe I’d feel like she was mine again.
I dragged a hand over my face.
Azazel came back into the room. She sat down on the edge of the bed and gave me a bright smile. “I didn’t throw up.”
I laughed. “Well, that’s good.”
She made a face. “I’ll probably throw up later.”
I leaned forward to rub her back. “Maybe you won’t.”
She closed her eyes and relaxed against my touch. “I’m glad this is all going to be okay. I don’t like it when we’re fighting.”
I scooted over to her, pulling her into my arms. “Me either.” I hated it, in fact.
She snuggled close. “What do you have to do today? Shouldn’t you be getting Chance ready for school?”
“Nah, I asked Mina to do it, so that I could spend the morning with you.”
She shoved me playfully. “You were pretty sure that little story about us going to the movies was going to get you lucky, huh?”
I grinned. “No, I wasn’t sure. But I knew I didn’t want to argue anymore, and I thought I’d cover my bases just in case you felt the same way.”
She kissed me. “So, we have the whole morning, then.”
I stroked her cheek. “Yeah.”
“Can we eat something? In between throwing up, I really do get hungry.”
I laughed. “Yeah, we can eat.”
“Cool.” She got up off the bed.
“Hey, Azaz
el?”
She turned back to me. “Yeah?”
“I, um, was thinking…”
“About?”
I took a deep breath. “Do you ever think about getting married?”
She made a face. “No. Where is this coming from?”
“You know what? Never mind.”
I got out of bed and went to fish my jeans off the floor.
“Jason, I thought we talked about this.”
“We did?” I yanked my pants on. “When?”
“Well, it was a while ago, but I thought we were on the same page about the whole marriage thing.”
I buttoned my pants. “I don’t remember this conversation.”
“How can you not remember it? It was like a big deal. I think we were even in this room when we had it. We were in bed, and—”
“Were you wearing a shirt? Because, you know, when you’re not, I get easily distracted.”
She rolled her eyes.
Damn it. That was supposed to be a joke. I could never tell when to joke with her anymore. “Sorry. What page are we on?”
“Well, I’m not going to tell you what page we’re on. You’re your own person, and you can have your own opinions. You don’t have to have my opinions.”
Great. Now everything was getting confusing. Because she said that I could have my own opinion. But it wasn’t true. The thing was, if I ended up having a different opinion than her, she’d get upset. “You don’t want to get married. It’s fine. Let’s go get breakfast.”
“Well, do you want to get married?”
“No, not if you don’t.”
“That’s not an answer, Jason.”
I sighed, looking around for my shirt. “Don’t make me do this, okay? You’ll push and push and tell me it’s okay to tell you what I think, and then you’ll argue with me about it and tell me why I’m wrong. And it’s too early for that shit, and I want to have a nice morning.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t do that.”
“Fine,” I said. “You don’t do that.”
“Why do you want to get married?”
“I never said that.”
She looked at me expectantly.
There. My shirt. I picked it up.
Gasp Page 4