Even when she stopped in front of us, she didn’t look at me. What cheesed me off most was that she actually reached out to cup Jared’s cheek. He didn’t back away. He did something even better. He growled so menacingly that everyone within hearing range froze. Just like that, most of the squad were gathered behind me.
She dropped her hand, but she didn’t drop her sultry smile. “It’s been so long, Jared. I’ve been so looking forward to seeing you again.” Her consort didn’t appear to like that, going by the scowl he was wearing and the jealousy shining from his eyes. It would seem that she had this one totally enamoured.
“I can’t say I feel the same.” Jared slipped his arm around me – a move that forced her to acknowledge my presence. She actually looked down her nose at me. That confirmed that she was, in fact, a silly little mare who was curious to know what it would feel like to have my fist crashing into her face.
I cocked my head. “Males who Turn people are referred to as ‘Sires’, so with you being a female, I guess that makes you…a ‘Bitch’.” Ignoring the muffled laughs coming from the squad, I gave her a winning smile.
Her answering one was thin and fake. “I have been looking forward to meeting you.”
I almost snorted at that.
“Wait…is she a Sventé?” her consort asked disbelievingly, bursting into laughter.
Before I knew what was happening, my whip was in my hand and I’d cracked it around his throat, cutting off his laugh. Yes, I should be used to this by now and be easily able to shrug it off, but, well, I preferred not to.
Jared kissed my temple, grinning. “I think he’s learned his lesson, baby.”
I sighed. He was no fun. “Fine.” I allowed the whip to fade away.
“A Sventé Feeder,” said Magda to her red-faced, coughing consort. “I wouldn’t have thought it possible, Brook. But, then, I wouldn’t have thought it possible for Jared to claim someone, considering his issues with women in general.”
There was an odd note to her voice that told me I was being baited. Obviously I wondered what she meant by that, especially since Jared was a mystery to me in some ways, and it got to me that I didn’t know him as well as I wished to. But she would know that, wouldn’t she? She was already using her gift against me.
Evan appeared then, wearing the mother of all scowls. He stopped at Jared’s side, glaring at the woman in a way that said he’d happily kill her and think nothing of it.
“Evan,” she crooned, “it is good to see you also.”
“She’s kidding, right?” he said to Jared, who tightened his arm around me.
“I heard about your mother. My condolences to both of you.” To Jared, she then said, “I imagine, what with everything that happened, that you’re not attending the funeral.”
He’d be attending hers if she tried to touch him again. Slut. And here she was baiting me a second time. “Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to be on fire, Magda?” I asked casually. Her brow wrinkled. “Use your gift on me, and I’ll use mine on you. That’s how it’s going to work. Don’t test me on that. Unless, of course, you do have a curiosity about burning – I’d be more than happy to help you out with that.”
“Someone seems a little jealous,” said Brook.
I arched a brow at him. “Should I take that as an indication that you’d like to become better acquainted with my whip?” He swallowed hard, losing his smirk. Arsewipe.
“I think you may be right, Brook.” Magda turned back to me, grinning. “I suppose it’s only to be expected, considering I have a blood-link with the man you love.”
I went nose to nose with her, smiling at the way it clearly unnerved her. So she wasn’t as confident as she appeared to be. “Let’s look at it this way: you need to use a gift to piss me off and make me jealous. All I have to do to have that effect on you is breathe.”
Turning on my heel, I headed for the balcony, hoping to get a little fresh air. There was no point in acting as though her words hadn’t had the desired effect. With her gift, she would know how they would make me feel. Annoying me even more, I knew she’d be enjoying it. However, what was pissing me off the most was that Jared had clearly opened up to her about his past when he had told me bugger all.
That was why I avoided his touch when he came up beside me. “I need a few minutes alone,” I snapped.
“Don’t give her what she wants, Sam.”
It was too late. I already had. But if the wanker next to me had simply opened up to me like he’d opened up to her, I wouldn’t be feeling like this at all. With that reasoning, all I wanted right then was for him to be far away from me. “I said, I need a few minutes alone.”
He reached for me. “Baby—”
I pulled away. “Don’t call me that.” That was my kneejerk reaction whenever he upset me – to deny him the right to call me anything even remotely possessive. What complicated things a little was that his kneejerk reaction to that was to fuck me senseless to prove that I was his. At least he wouldn’t be able to do that right now. Suddenly he caged my wrist with his hand and there was a queasy feeling in my stomach as he teleported us into one of the empty conference rooms in the mansion. Shit.
He shook his head at me as he removed his tie. “You said you wouldn’t do this. You said you wouldn’t let her come between us, but you are. You’re doing it.”
He was right. I was. And I hated myself for it, even as I couldn’t help it.
“You know that I don’t want her, Sam.”
I snickered. “If I thought you wanted her, I’d be juggling your eyeballs right now. This is not about that.”
He began to unbutton his shirt, but he didn’t move his eyes from mine. “I’m not going to say it’s unreasonable for you to be jealous and upset. If our positions were reversed, and I had to be around someone who had touched you and been inside you, it would be the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever dealt with. But I would never have let those feelings, or that person, fuck up what we have.”
Ignoring the element of guilt I was feeling, I threw the question at him that simply wouldn’t stop bugging me. “Why won’t you go to your mum’s funeral, Jared?”
He sighed and paused in his actions for a short moment. “Sam—”
Seeing what he was about to do, I pointed a finger at him. “No, don’t you do that again. Don’t you shut down again.”
He shrugged his shoulders, suddenly defensive. “I just don’t want to talk about her. Doesn’t everyone have things they don’t want to talk about?”
“Good point, yet irrelevant. I want to hear about her, I want to understand.”
“Why? What the fuck does it matter? I don’t want to go, and that’s that.”
“So Magda can know, but I can’t?”
He double-blinked, removing his shirt. “What does she have to do with it?”
“You let her in.”
“I didn’t let her in, and I never would have. She doesn’t know any details − only what emotions her gift allowed her to pick up.” Obviously seeing the doubt in my eyes, he held up his hands. “Baby, I swear, she’s the last person I’d let in.”
Mollified, I went to say something, but it was difficult to keep on topic when looking at his well-defined, solidly built chest. The sod was well aware of that, of course. And then he lowered his zipper. The sound seemed to echo in the room. I didn’t need to look to know that he was commando. “Don’t think you can use sex to distract me.”
“Would I do that?” he asked, all innocence.
“Yes, you would, and you are. Because you’re an inconsiderate, selfish, cocky little bastard.”