Blakeshire (Insight #9)(79)
His jaw flinched as anger flared in his soul. “I thought we were chasing your obsessions together?”
“So did I, then you decided to lock me in this wing and go off and do whatever.”
“I didn’t lock you in any room!”
I turned crimson, knowing that was more than likely true. I was just too mad to figure out how to open the freaking door. “I thought you did.”
“I went to figure out what the hell was wrong with Alamos.”
“How’d that go?” I asked as I tried to decide if I wanted to tell him what I had seen and smelled coming from that man when we first came back.
His eyes rapidly moved across my image before he sighed and took his seat once more. “It was odd. He acted like nothing had happened before. Started telling me about obligations I had, meetings he’d had with Xavier and the others.”
“Meetings about draining my energy so you will have a vessel for Willow’s soul.”
“Do what?” he roared.
I took in a deep breath as my eyes rushed over him. I tried to understand what was real and what wasn’t. “Britain’s thoughts. He was there during that conversation. But I didn’t see that in the thoughts of the Alamos that came to tell us about dinner. He was distracting me by telling me about removing a spell from you.”
“In the one that came for you at dinner?”
“Wasn’t the same one that greeted us.”
“Madison Marie...” He thought I was insane. I knew he did.
My eyes filled with sympathy as I stared into him. “The man that was there when we came back had a face made of ink and he reeked of sulfur. I only knew it was Alamos because I recognized his voice. That didn’t happen when I saw him again.”
He raked his fingers through his dark, wayward hair as he glared at the door. “Listen to me,” he said as his eyes met mine. “You need to see me now. You need to look into my mind and understand that I never once was convinced that Willow’s soul should be placed in another body. I told all of them that. I told them no spell would hinder true love. At first they convinced me that she had plotted this in a past life, that all I had to do was tell her that she had a way out. They said that would be her hold out, that she would not kill herself because she loved me too much. I did tell Willow that on the night of the blue moon, along with all the other crap that Donalt told me she would want to hear; obviously, it was all lies,” he breathed out. “Months later, she managed to get her soul stuck in a dying body. Donalt told me she did it on purpose, that she had escaped Landen to be with me. That to save her I had to move her soul into a new vessel. The thought of it made me sick, but she was in so much pain, Madison Marie. She was in agony, and I couldn’t let her suffer like that. Back then, my mind was ravaged with grief over losing my father, discovering a secret family. On top of that, all of Donalt’s words coming true days after he’d spoken them. Rage and grief; those were the only two emotions I was capable of feeling then.”
His eyes rapidly moved across my engaged expression. “I don’t know what the hell Britain heard, but I will gut anyone who ever comes near your soul with my bare hands.”
As he had spoken, I had seen fragments, mere flashes of what he described. Didn’t matter, though. The truth was in his eyes. Donalt had his claws in Drake at the time, and slowly Drake has been fighting for control of his life. For over a month now, he had played out his role as the wronged king, but deep in his eyes, deep within his self-sacrificing moments you could see that he was convinced that I had been stolen. Of course, then he thought Willow was me. He could not bear to believe that there were two girls that bore my image.
And when he did, in those all too brief moments when Willow had nearly convinced him that I did exist, that he had been played, instead of joy or relief he felt intense grief. Grief that was born with the idea that he ever could have been unfaithful to love what was between us.
Now, I had seen these moments before. I had seen them all too clearly in his mind when I was ‘found.’ Yet, when I judged his emotions, his actions, I judged them with an accusatory stare. I took him at face value. I saw what I wanted to when I wanted to.
Knowing this Drake, feeling this connection to him, it was clear to see that instead of feeling the emotion of jealousy I should be filled with pride. He had clearly displayed how loyal a lover he was for the fact that no matter whose eyes he was looking into, no matter who was in his arms, I was the only one he had ever seen.
That was the simple, obsessive logic of it all. Yet, my Scorpio heart was still stuck on the dark side, was still fragile, unwilling to make herself vulnerable to anyone.
“I see it,” I promised him with a quiver in my voice as my mind and soul pulled me in two different directions.
Relief absorbed him as some of the tension left his shoulders.
“I really am worried that your alliance with Alamos may be failing. I don’t know if he was on stage or not. I just know what I saw when we came back…I don’t get why Xavier’s face didn’t look like that at dinner, but everyone else’s did.”
“Everyone?” he asked, clearly thinking of Britain.
“Britain’s was clear, too.”
He balled his fist as I felt rage waving off him. “I don’t know anything about a meeting between Xavier and Alamos. That is the first thing I’m going to figure out tomorrow.”