Wild and Free (The Three #3)(29)

In the end, it was so bad, I didn’t know how I got to sleep. You would think I’d be used to it, but it being gone, then having it back again, it all seemed fresh.

And excruciating.

I just knew that when Abel touched my hair and told me he was home, I wasn’t very awake, but I felt the pain was gone.

That was not something I relished, needing to be attached at the hip to some guy, and I hoped it was the situation that caused it, not his distance.

“Fine,” Abel answered, taking my thoughts from yesterday-him back to the right-there him.

“Sure?” I asked quietly.

“Yeah, Lilah,” he answered quietly.

“Thanks for the bathroom,” I said.

He shook his head and his lips tipped up, but he didn’t say anything or move any further.

“Dad called,” I told him. “He and the boys are making good time, but they won’t be here until around two today.”

“You tell Jian-Li?” he asked.

I nodded my head on the pillow.

“She’ll see to a welcome spread.”

“She says she’s closing the restaurant after lunch,” I shared.

“Like I said, she’ll see to a welcome spread.”

I grinned at him.

His eyes dropped to my mouth and he frowned at me.

That was weird.

Then again, he seemed weird. Not that he was a normal guy, just that he seemed weirder than normal.

I pushed up to put my head in my hand, elbow in the pillow. “You sure you’re okay?”

“No.”

Oh man.

“What?” I asked. “Did you find something yesterday?”

“Nothin’ happened yesterday, Lilah.”

Well, at least that was good.

Still, I studied him, stretched out in his chair, ankles crossed, hands sitting loosely on his thick thighs, neck supported by the back of the chair, but head up, eyes on me.

There was something that wasn’t right about that, a casualness that seemed false, and I didn’t like it.

“Why are you not okay?” I asked.

“I lied yesterday.”

Great.

I did not like this.

Lying sucked. I didn’t do it. Dad taught me not to, and the lesson I’d had meant I’d only done it once, mostly because when he’d caught me in the lie I told (a lie I didn’t remember, just his reaction to it), he was disappointed in me and that killed.

I could count on three fingers the times he’d been disappointed in me.

The first was when I’d dated a preppy who drove his parents’ hand-me-down Mercedes. His family had a stable of thoroughbred horses, a huge house, and he wore pastel-colored sweaters draped over his shoulders (we’d only gone out five times, but that was five times too many for Dad).

The second was when I’d told him in a moment of weakness that I thought maybe Mom was right and I was whacked in the head.

And last, when I’d lied.

I’d never done it again. As far as I knew, Dad never did it with me either. He might not tell me everything, but that wasn’t the same as lying to someone’s face.

And if I made a list of what I’d want in a man, that would be in the necessary column.

Well, at least Abel was owning up to it. That was something.

“What did you lie about?” I asked, pushing up to sit cross-legged in the bed, the covers over my lap.

But when I did this, his body visibly tensed, his eyes dropped to my lap, and his jaw went hard.

I stared.

What was that?

“Abel?”

He sliced his eyes to mine and I saw a muscle jump in his cheek before he said, “That card the vampires gave me, it said something.”

“I reckoned that,” I replied.

He nodded once and continued, “It said they mean you and me no harm and invited me to The Biltmore.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered, not taking this as a good thing.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“Are you going?” I asked.

“I’m considering it.”

My eyes got huge and my voice was two octaves higher when I cried, “Why?”

I did this because I knew one good supernatural being: Abel. The rest left a lot to be desired, considering they wanted us both dead. Therefore, I didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

It was more, though. I didn’t want Abel to have anything to do with them. He was strong, he had backup, but there were only so many times you could be outnumbered and come out the victor.

He drew in a breath and sat forward, putting his elbows on his knees but keeping hold of my eyes, just like he did the morning before.

Then, with no warning, he commenced in breaking my heart.

“I’m a monster, Lilah.”

“What?” I whispered.

“I’m a werewolf vampire. I exist on human blood. I can tear a man’s head off and I have. I’m a monster.”

“You—”

“I am,” he stated flatly. “And the first chance I’ve had in all my years to understand why I am as I am is to go to that f*ckin’ hotel.”

I stared at him, then straightened my body so I was fully facing him. This caused his jaw to get hard again, but I ignored that and stated, “Okay, let’s break this down.”