“You!” Delilah screeched, jabbing a finger her father’s way as Abel felt the rest of the crew flood through the door behind him. “You were in on this too?”
“Now, little girl—” her father started, hands up in a placating gesture.
But he should have known better. He had years where Abel only had weeks, and still, Abel knew there was no placating this Delilah.
“Don’t you fucking ‘little girl’ me, Dad. I cannot believe you!” she yelled, then moved her finger between the two of them. “Either of you!”
“And, might I add at this juncture, I cannot either, and that includes you, Mighty Vampire Lucien,” Leah drawled dangerously, her eyes slits and aimed at her husband.
“I would think of something clever to say, my king,” Sonia put in. “But I’m having difficulty not ripping someone’s throat out with”—she lost it and leaned forward, eyes narrowed and locked on her husband—“my teeth.”
“Perhaps we can move this out of the foyer,” Lucien suggested.
“Fuck that!” Delilah shouted, her gaze glued to Abel. Then she asked in a saccharine-sweet voice, “You know how I woke up, baby?”
“Bao bei—” he started but did it knowing it was futile.
And it was futile.
“With pain so fucking bad, so fucking hideous, I thought my insides were melting,” she hissed, and Abel flinched. “I couldn’t even crawl out of the bed, it was that fucking bad.”
“Lilah—” he began in a gentle voice, no longer feeling like shit but missing that feeling because the pain of guilt was a far sight worse.
“Excruciating,” she cut him off to hiss. “Paralyzing. And worse, I thought it was that bad, could only be that bad, because you were dead.”
Fuck.
“Baby,” he whispered, moving toward her, but she stepped back.
“And even worse,” she kept going, “was that I was powerless. Drained. I couldn’t even move to find someone to tell them they had to find you.”
She hit wall and Abel kept moving toward her.
“Don’t get near me,” she warned, a warning he didn’t heed.
She tried to fight him. But in half a second, she lost and Abel had her over his shoulder and behind closed doors in one of the living rooms.
He put her on her feet and she quickly stepped back. “That’s a ride I’m unwilling to take again for at least half a century, Abel Jin. You pick me up again only when I expressly allow that shit.”
“You need to calm down and listen to me,” he said quietly.
“Fuck calm, Abel. Did you miss the part about me being in so much pain I thought my insides were melting?” she asked sarcastically.
“Right, then don’t calm down. Just listen,” he kept at her and continued to do it quietly.
“So you’ve got something to say? Something that explains you lying to me and causing me that kind of pain when you know that shit happens when you leave me and I don’t know where you are?” she demanded.
“I thought if you thought you knew where I was, even if it wasn’t where I actually was, you wouldn’t experience the pain,” he explained.
“Wrong!” she yelled. “Very, very”—she leaned toward him—“wrong!”
“I get that now and it won’t happen again,” he promised.
She crossed her arms on her chest. “Yeah? You sure? You can say that for certain?”
“I can,” he confirmed.
“Right, you can. Now, next question. How the fuck am I supposed to believe you when you’re totally okay with”—another lean—“lying to me?”
Fuck, he’d screwed this up, and huge.
Now he had to see if he could find a way to fix it.
He started with conceding, “I deserved that.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “No fucking shit?”
He stared at her, deciding not to share that she was cute when she was pissed.
“No fucking shit,” he replied.
Her face changed and Abel braced because he didn’t like the change even a little bit.
Her voice changed too and he liked that even less.
“You can’t be sweet and you can’t be hot and you can’t be reassuring,” she stated, soft and low but firm and full of hurt. “Not after you lied. After you lie, Abel, it takes a fuckuva lot more than that to earn back what you lost.”
“I had to get out of here, bao bei. I had to do something and I wasn’t alone,” he told her.
“You knew I knew you were going stir-crazy,” she reminded him.
He nodded and replied, “I knew you knew. I also knew you wouldn’t be fired up about what we were planning and it was something we had to do, all of us.”
“I actually don’t even know what you were planning to do, but if it was taking you out of safety and into harm’s way, you’re right. I wouldn’t be fired up about it. But I wouldn’t hand you shit about it either.”
Suddenly, she threw an arm straight up in the air, apparently indicating herself by what she said next.
“Clue in, Abel, I am not your normal bitch. I grew up with bikers. Bikers do what they want when they want because they got something inside them that makes them have to do that. And nothing can stand in their way. Not a job. Not a law. Not a woman. So if you love them, you don’t stand in their way. Ever. I’ve also learned if you give them that, it’ll be worth it. It’ll come around with them giving you what you need because they get it.”