“You can’t deny it,” Abaddon accused. “You enjoyed it.”
Divine’s gaze shot to Marcus and then quickly away when she saw him looking at her with concern. Scowling at Abaddon, she muttered. “Go to hell.”
“I expect to,” Abaddon said, relaxing. “In fact, I expect to like it.”
“This isn’t because she rejected your offer of protection all those years ago,” Marcus said suddenly. “All the energy you’ve expended on making her miserable all these years, ensuring she never felt it was safe to turn to her family, ensuring she was always alone, lying to make her keep feeding off the hoof when you knew that was no longer allowed . . . and calling her in to whisk Leonius away when Lucian and the others had captured him . . .” Marcus shook his head, eyes narrowed on the man. “You could have done the saving yourself, but you deliberately called her in to do it because you knew it would make her rogue and ensure she would never be accepted back into the fold. Or you hoped it would.”
“So?” Abaddon scowled.
“So those aren’t the actions of a man who was rejected,” Marcus said calmly, and then added, “Those are the actions of a jealous wife who blames a mistress for stealing a husband.”
Divine’s eyes widened incredulously and she glanced to Abaddon to see that his face was turning color, reddening first, and then purpling to fury.
“What happened, Abaddon?” Marcus asked. “You couldn’t read Leonius and he couldn’t read you? You wanted him for your life mate, and didn’t even mind that he was busy with torturing his little toys so long as he let you be a part of it. But then Divine came along. How did you know he’d take to her as he did? You must have known that to offer her protection. Although I suspect you only offered that thinking that Leonius wouldn’t want her if she went to you willingly.”
“It was the way he looked at her,” Abaddon snarled and then glared at Divine. “From the moment you ran into the clearing, it was like he was star-struck. He’d never looked at any of the other women like that. I knew . . .” His mouth set and he scowled at Divine. “So I took you up on my horse before he could, and I made that offer on the ride back to camp, but oh no, you wanted Leonius, my Leonius.”
He turned to Marcus. “He didn’t just ban me from the tent once he started on her, he wanted to stop playing with the others. Not right away, of course, it took a session or two before he started to not bother with the others. I had to remind him over and over again about our plans and the need for an army of his sons. But it was only when I said the Argeneaus would come take her away from him if he didn’t have an army strong enough to hold them off that he gave his attentions to the others again. He let me watch again too, but it was obvious his heart wasn’t in it anymore. All he wanted was her,” he said with disgust.
“She was a possible life mate too,” Marcus said with sudden understanding, and Divine glanced at him sharply.
Leonius Livius a life mate? The thought was unbearable. Besides—“I thought we each had only one life mate? You’re my life mate.”
Marcus shook his head. “Life mates are rare, but not that rare. Others have encountered more than one in a lifetime,” he said gently, and then turned to Abaddon and repeated coldly, “Divine was a possible life mate for him too, and he chose her over you . . . and you hated her for it.”
Divine remained silent, her mind racing. She wanted to deny what he was saying, but it explained so much. The pleasure she’d felt and fought when Leonius had raped and tortured her . . . it could have been his pleasure in the act. If so, it hadn’t been a sign that she was as deviant and dirty as the things he did to her . . . and that had been her biggest fear, what had allowed her to believe his claims that her family would not want her, that she had shamed them, that she had shamed herself.
“You don’t plan on keeping to the bargain and letting Divine go,” Marcus said suddenly and Divine glanced to him again. He was no longer looking at her. His gaze was now firmly on Abaddon as he said, “You can’t. She knows too much now, and she’ll tell Damian all of it. How you’ve manipulated her and ensured she was alone and lonely all these years. How you kept them both from her family when his father wanted him to be raised among them. And the reason why, that she was his father’s life mate.”
“She shouldn’t have been. She wasn’t good enough for him. She was a stupid little child and—” He paused and glanced down to his pocket with surprise as it gave off the foghorn sound again. Letting his breath out on a slow sigh, he reached for his phone and stood to move away from the table as he read it.
“How will you explain killing her to Damian?” Marcus asked idly as Abaddon began to type an answer into his phone.
“I’ll tell him that you convinced her he wasn’t her son and told her what he’s been up to. I’ll tell him that she wanted to turn him in. I had no choice,” Abaddon murmured, still typing away.
“If you thought he’d accept that as reason enough to kill me, you wouldn’t have arranged to meet me on the sly,” Divine said, pushing all other issues away for the moment. She’d learned long ago to compartmentalize when necessary, and sitting there fretting over the fact that she had probably been a life mate to Leonius Livius wasn’t going to help them get out of there alive. When Abaddon didn’t respond, she added, “Damian won’t be happy I’m dead. As you said, he has mommy issues. And my knowing about him now won’t be a good enough excuse for killing me when all he has to do is stop giving me his address. He already has Lucian and all of his Rogue Hunters after him; hiding from me as well would hardly be a hardship.”
Abaddon heaved a long-suffering sigh and tore his gaze from the phone to glare at her. “Then I’ll have to tell him your uncle caught up with and killed you both and we found you here.”
“Oh, right. Well, make sure you take the chains off our bodies before he sees them then,” she said dryly and followed it up with a short laugh as he returned to typing.
“What?” Abaddon asked, scowling at her.
“What what?” she asked innocently.
“You laughed as if you thought of something, but I was distracted with my phone and wasn’t reading your mind. What were you thinking?”
Divine shrugged. “I was just thinking that Danny here behind me, or number Seventeen as I think I’ve heard Damian call him, isn’t likely to keep his mouth shut about what happened here today. Neither will the others. They were always greedy little boys. Every time they want something, they’ll blackmail you with this, and good Lord, don’t say or do anything to piss them off or they’ll tell their dad about this just to spite you.”
Abaddon stared at her blankly for a minute and then shifted his gaze to the man behind her. She didn’t turn to look, but if she were to hazard a guess, Divine would have said Damian’s son must have been grinning and nodding or something stupid like that because Abaddon suddenly pulled a gun from the pocket of his joggers and shot Danny.
Divine did turn then, and just in time to see that he’d been hit dead center in the middle of his forehead. The young no-fanger dropped like a stone without even enough time to look surprised. He was no-fanger, however, and not dead. Given time he’d heal, his body pushing the bullet right out of his head. Or he would have except Abaddon then slid his phone in his pocket, opened one of the cupboards along the wall beside the refrigerator, pulled out an axe, hefted it, and then walked over and cut off Danny’s head with one blow.
“There,” he said, straightening with satisfaction. “Now Danny won’t tell anyone anything, will he? I’ll take care of the others later, when their usefulness has worn off. Leonius can always make more. Lord knows he works at it hard enough. He’s worse than his father for rutting. He seems to actually enjoy that as much as, or more than, causing them pain. Something I was hoping he’d grow out of, but so far no luck,” he muttered, pulling his phone from his pocket as it made the foghorn sound again.