Opposition (Lux, #5)(15)

She faced me, her eyes narrowing in a way that reminded me of the woman in the grocery store after the Luxen had snatched her body. “You smell like blood and sweat.”

My brows shot up my forehead.

“It’s kind of repulsive.” She paused, her nose wrinkling. “Just saying.”

Oookay. I slumped back against the headboard. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Wrong with me?” Dee laughed again. “For once, there’s nothing wrong with me.”

I stared at her. “I . . . I don’t understand.”

“Of course you do. You’re not stupid. And you know what else you’re not?”

“What?” I whispered.

Dee’s lips curled into a cruel, almost mocking smile that transferred her beauty into something venomous. “You’re also—”

She launched toward me, her hand rising, and I reacted without thinking. My right arm snapped up, and I caught her wrist before her palm connected with my cheek.

“You’re also not weak,” she said, easily pulling her arm free from my grasp. Backing up, she placed her hands on her slender hips. “So you can continue to sit there and look at me like you’re half stupid, but we don’t have a lot of time to play catch-up, especially since it appears Daemon healed you.”

Shaken by her attitude and the realization that I had been blasted with the Source twice and I probably should be concerned by that, I glanced down at my hand. Creases of dried blood marred my palm. I reached back to my left shoulder. The shirt was burned and the flesh tender, but it was in one piece.

I lifted my gaze. “He . . . he was here?”

“Was.”

My heart turned over heavily, and then I moved. Forget Dee and her bitchiness or the fact that I apparently smelled. I needed to see Daemon. Flipping off the blanket, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. No shoes. No socks. What the? Didn’t matter. “Where is he now?”

“I really don’t know.” Sighing, she pulled back the curtain covering the one window and stared out. “But the last I saw, he was heading into one of the bedrooms.” The curtain slipped from her fingers, drifting back into place as she faced me with a chilling smile. “Not alone.”

I stilled.

“Sadi was following him. Something that she’s quickly made a habit of doing. She’s probably in the process of attempting to molest him.” She paused, tapping her finger on her chin. “Then again, I don’t think it’s really molesting when it’s wanted.”

Tiny balls of ice formed in my stomach. “Sadi?”

“That’s right. You don’t know her. I’m sure you will, though.”

I shook my head as my entire being rebelled against what she was insinuating. “No. No way.” I stood on shaky legs. “I don’t know what your problem is or what happened to you, but Daemon would never do anything like that. Ever.”

Dee’s gaze sharpened as she eyed me like I wasn’t worth the ground she stepped on. “Things aren’t the way they used to be, Katy. The sooner you get with the program the better, because right now, you’re his weak link. That’s all you are to him.” She took a measured step forward, and I held my ground. “The only reason you’re alive right now is because of him. And not because he loves you, because that boat sailed the big old ocean blue the moment we opened our eyes. Thank God.”

I flinched at her words, and the ice grew bigger, spreading into my veins.

“And it’s about time,” she continued, tilting her head to the side. “Ever since you came into his life—our lives—everything has been messed up. If I could take you out right now without killing him, I would. I’d relish it. So would he. You’re nothing to us anymore, or to him. Nothing more than a problem we need to figure out how to handle.”

I sucked in a breath that didn’t seem to do any good. A knot formed in my throat, making it hard to swallow, and I told myself that it didn’t matter what Dee was saying. Something was definitely wrong with her, because Daemon didn’t just love me; he was in love with me, and he’d do anything to be with me. Just as I would for him, and nothing could change that. The commitment we’d made to each other in Vegas may not have been technically the most legal of all things, but it had been real to me—to us. But her words . . . they still cut worse than any blade could ever inflict.

Dee’s lashes lowered as her features pinched tight. “So . . . ?”

I opened my mouth, but the ball of emotion cut me off for a moment, and when I spoke, my voice was hoarse. “What do you want me to say to that?”

She shrugged. “Nothing really, but I need to take you to see him.”

“Daemon?” I tensed.

“No.” She chuckled, the sound light and airy, and for a moment, it sounded like the Dee I knew. “Not him.”

When she didn’t elaborate and I didn’t move, she clucked her tongue in frustration and then popped forward. Grabbing my arm in a tight grasp, she all but dragged me out of the bedroom and into a wide hall.

“Come on,” she urged, impatient.

I struggled to keep up with her long-legged pace. Bare-foot and exhausted and beyond confused, I was feeling more human than hybrid, but when we got to the landing, she’d nearly pulled my arm out of my socket and had my shoulder aching something fierce.