Wild and Free (The Three #3)(112)

So unfortunately, it was Abel who went through the door first.

He saw her just inside and she looked sweet. Red Harley tank, tight, some rhinestones, the letters stretched out across her tits. Shorts, ragged hem and cut short as in short, affording a nice view of lots of leg. Hair wild, like it was when she just woke up.

And eyes flashing in a way-the-f*ck-pissed-off kind of way.

That was all he took in before he had to duck, seeing as she threw something at him.

He didn’t know what it was. He just knew whatever it was was fragile since it exploded with a crash against the doorjamb behind him.

“Early morning training session?” Delilah shrieked, turned, and that was when he saw she had allies. He saw this because Sonia and Leah were lined up beside her, Leah handing her a vase.

A vase she threw.

“Jesus! What the f*ck?” Hook shouted after he jumped out of the way and the vase flew out the door, smashing on the flagstone outside.

“You!” Delilah screeched, jabbing a finger her father’s way as Abel felt the rest of the crew flood through the door behind him. “You were in on this too?”

“Now, little girl—” her father started, hands up in a placating gesture.

But he should have known better. He had years where Abel only had weeks, and still, Abel knew there was no placating this Delilah.

“Don’t you f*cking ‘little girl’ me, Dad. I cannot believe you!” she yelled, then moved her finger between the two of them. “Either of you!”

“And, might I add at this juncture, I cannot either, and that includes you, Mighty Vampire Lucien,” Leah drawled dangerously, her eyes slits and aimed at her husband.

“I would think of something clever to say, my king,” Sonia put in. “But I’m having difficulty not ripping someone’s throat out with”—she lost it and leaned forward, eyes narrowed and locked on her husband—“my teeth.”

“Perhaps we can move this out of the foyer,” Lucien suggested.

“Fuck that!” Delilah shouted, her gaze glued to Abel. Then she asked in a saccharine-sweet voice, “You know how I woke up, baby?”

“Bao bei—” he started but did it knowing it was futile.

And it was futile.

“With pain so f*cking bad, so f*cking hideous, I thought my insides were melting,” she hissed, and Abel flinched. “I couldn’t even crawl out of the bed, it was that f*cking bad.”

“Lilah—” he began in a gentle voice, no longer feeling like shit but missing that feeling because the pain of guilt was a far sight worse.

“Excruciating,” she cut him off to hiss. “Paralyzing. And worse, I thought it was that bad, could only be that bad, because you were dead.”

Fuck.

“Baby,” he whispered, moving toward her, but she stepped back.

“And even worse,” she kept going, “was that I was powerless. Drained. I couldn’t even move to find someone to tell them they had to find you.”

She hit wall and Abel kept moving toward her.

“Don’t get near me,” she warned, a warning he didn’t heed.

She tried to fight him. But in half a second, she lost and Abel had her over his shoulder and behind closed doors in one of the living rooms.

He put her on her feet and she quickly stepped back. “That’s a ride I’m unwilling to take again for at least half a century, Abel Jin. You pick me up again only when I expressly allow that shit.”

“You need to calm down and listen to me,” he said quietly.

“Fuck calm, Abel. Did you miss the part about me being in so much pain I thought my insides were melting?” she asked sarcastically.

“Right, then don’t calm down. Just listen,” he kept at her and continued to do it quietly.

“So you’ve got something to say? Something that explains you lying to me and causing me that kind of pain when you know that shit happens when you leave me and I don’t know where you are?” she demanded.

“I thought if you thought you knew where I was, even if it wasn’t where I actually was, you wouldn’t experience the pain,” he explained.

“Wrong!” she yelled. “Very, very”—she leaned toward him—“wrong!”

“I get that now and it won’t happen again,” he promised.

She crossed her arms on her chest. “Yeah? You sure? You can say that for certain?”

“I can,” he confirmed.

“Right, you can. Now, next question. How the f*ck am I supposed to believe you when you’re totally okay with”—another lean—“lying to me?”

Fuck, he’d screwed this up, and huge.

Now he had to see if he could find a way to fix it.

He started with conceding, “I deserved that.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “No f*cking shit?”

He stared at her, deciding not to share that she was cute when she was pissed.

“No f*cking shit,” he replied.

Her face changed and Abel braced because he didn’t like the change even a little bit.

Her voice changed too and he liked that even less.

“You can’t be sweet and you can’t be hot and you can’t be reassuring,” she stated, soft and low but firm and full of hurt. “Not after you lied. After you lie, Abel, it takes a f*ckuva lot more than that to earn back what you lost.”