Seduced by Darkness (The Seduced Saga)(6)

I nodded, and was about to speak, when she spotted my flowers.

"Ah, you in trouble with wifey, yes? Greta make it right." She bustled around the kitchen, pulling out a small red tin and filling it with chocolates from her secret stash behind the spices. Everyone knew about her secret stash, but if she ever noticed her chocolates missing, she never said.

She sealed the tin and handed it to me. "You go say sorry, you hear?"

I scoffed. "How do you know I was the one at fault?"

To that she grinned knowingly, kissed my cheek and bustled me out of the kitchen. "You the man and that Rose of yours, she no mess up. Now shoo! I have cook to make."

I shooed, heading straight to my little cabin at the edge of the woods, hoping Rose would be there and be happy to see me.



Rose looked down at the chocolates, and I could tell she wanted one badly, but she covered the tin and set it on the kitchen counter, then put the flowers in a vase and set them aside, all in a soft silence that nearly broke me.

"Rose, please, I hate fighting with you." I pulled her into my arms and kissed her deeply, but she pulled away, her face a vision of conflict.

"I hate it too, Derek, but flowers and chocolates and kisses can't fix this one. We need to talk. I need you to understand my point of view."

My temper rose again. "To understand it, or agree with it?"

She scowled at me. "Obviously I'd love for you to agree with me, but for now I'd settle for genuine understanding. You're not willing to do that."

"I do understand, I just don't agree." I folded my arms over my chest.

"No, you don't. You don't want to understand because you're afraid if you do, if you allow yourself to truly hear me, to truly understand more about Ryder, then you'll have to face what you did, and that terrifies you."





FOUR





A Weapon





SAM





Behold, I have a weapon;

A better never did itself sustain

Upon a soldier's thigh:

— William Shakespeare, Othello




RELATIONSHIPS ARE COMPLICATED things. We are inextricably tied to another human being, through love, through need, through desire, and yet there always remains a distance. We can never be as close as we may want, as connected as we may feel.

I could read my husband's mind, something most people can't say. And yet, even I didn't know how to reach him. Drake had been avoiding me since he woke up transformed into Nephilim and had bitten me.

I covered my hand over the spot on my neck, now fully healed, and took a deep breath. That all ended tonight.

I lit the last candle, our bedroom now alight with hundreds of flickering flames. Rose petals had been sprinkled over our bed, a trail leading Drake from the front door to here.

My red lingerie curved and cupped my body perfectly, and I'd let my long dark hair hang down my back in shiny waves and applied make-up for the first time in a long time. Being a mom didn't always allow for dress-up but with Luke and Lucy in town I had built-in babysitters, and they agreed eagerly to keep Ana for the night so I could fix things with my husband.

The music seemed too loud, so I turned it down just as the front door opened. Drake would see a path made of candles and rose petals leading to me.

"Sam?"

I spoke in his mind. Follow the path.

His footsteps echoed on the hardwood floor.

I checked to make sure everything was perfect. Our dark purple comforter and red rose petals looked sexy and inviting, and I hoped I did, too.

When he opened the door to our room, he sucked in his breath, then exhaled slowly. "Sam?"

"Drake."

"What is all this?"

I frowned. "If you have to ask, I must be doing it wrong."

But looking down at his pants, I didn't think that was the case. I grinned at the power I held to make him hard so quickly.

"You're not doing it wrong." His voice sounded husky, deep and needy, but fear flickered over his face.

"I know what you're thinking," I said, to which he smirked at that. "Occupational hazard, but seriously, I understand. You're scared. You don't want to hurt me. I get it."

"Do you?" He ran a tanned hand through his blond hair. "Because I don't. I don't understand what's happening to me and I don't know what I'm capable of. I can't risk you or Ana."

"Which is why you've suddenly had double the work at Elysium that keeps you away from the house as much as possible?" I cocked my hip and locked eyes with him.

He looked down, but didn't say anything.

"Drake, let's not even start on the fact that I have no desire to be a single mom. We won't talk about the inherent unfairness of you leaving all childcare work to me because of your fear, or the fact that your remarkable daughter thought you were going to die and needs her daddy."

He flinched at my words, but I didn't feel bad.

"But we will talk about the bite. About your change. About the fact that I still need my husband."

He took a step toward me, but then stopped. "What if I hurt you?"

Now I had my own confession to make. I blushed. Not as sexually adventurous as Rose and Ocean, I'd only just started learning how to express what I wanted, how to… talk dirty. It was scary…and exhilarating, freeing, to embrace my own sexuality and I wanted more. "You didn't hurt me." I closed the distance between us and placed a hand on his chest, reveling in his strength and sexiness. "I… liked it."