Page 39 of Becoming D'Vaire
“You wish.”
“Now you’re going to climb in bed with a vampire, and he’s going to laugh right in your face when you try to please him. He’ll never be satisfied with such a shitty lover. Grigori will wake up every morning cursing Fate that she stuck him with you.”
His words cut like knives and awakened every insecurity Delaney had, but he wasn’t going to give the shifter the satisfaction of knowing it nor was he going to allow his nerves to get the best of him. “I said get out.”
“Say hi to Grigori for me,” Duff taunted as he stood and slowly waltzed out.
After rising to his feet, Delaney gathered a bit of magic and created a black ball. With a loud grunt, he threw it and as it careened across the room, he muttered a word which caused it to explode violently. He cast it all for show, so not a single thing was marred in the space. It did little to calm his emotions except for the anger. That he let go, which allowed his fear of leaving D’Vaire to flourish.
He was still frowning ferociously at nothing when Carter and Idris appeared in the doorway.
“What’s wrong?” Idris asked as he scooted around to his desk.
Delaney relaxed the muscles in his face, so his expression smoothed out, and he made a concerted effort to brush off his altercation with Duff. “Nothing, I’m fine.”
“You suck at lying,” Idris remarked.
“We ran into your best pal Duff in the hall,” Carter added.
“I just don’t like him.”
“There’s fresh magic in the air. Casting a spell perhaps or exploding something because Duff pissed you off?” Idris asked.
“We’ve known each other too long.”
“Just tell us,” Idris pleaded.
“I don’t want to give that asshat any more of my time today,” Delaney retorted.
“I’m sure he had plenty to say about Grigori. He’s jealous and he can’t understand why Grigori didn’t give him a second glance,” Carter revealed.
“Duh, they’re mates and for the record, Duff isn’t as good-looking as Del,” Idris stated with a roll of his eyes.
“Oh, agreed,” Carter threw in.
“Somebody explain to me how we went from being friends to him taking every opportunity to get on my last fucking nerve,” Delaney shot out as he lowered his body back into his chair.
“Ball in your court, Idris. I didn’t get here until after the big divide,” Carter said as he too grabbed a seat.
Idris pursed his lips. “Well, I’m not sure since no one will give me a full explanation of why there’s such a big divide in the first place. All I know is that he accused Del and me of having sex.” He turned from Carter to Delaney. “He teased you about having sex with him. You aren’t petty, so I don’t know how it escalated from there to him going out of his way to be a jerk to you.”
“You’re right, I would’ve let it go. There were just stupid, flippant comments but from there, he’s decided to insult me constantly whenever we’re alone,” Delaney confided. “Idris, he calls me Scary.”
Carter frowned. “I’m not trying to be a jerk myself, but a lot of idiots think you’re scary. You’ve always seemed to shrug that shit off.”
“It’s one thing to say Del’s scary, it’s another to refer to him as ‘Scary.’ That’s the name he had when Vadimas met him at the orphanage. No one gave him a real name, so some asshat registered that for his identification card. That’s something Del doesn’t tell people, but since we were such good friends with Duff, he trusted him with that secret,” Idris confessed.
“I hated that. I knew when I was little what it meant and that no one cared enough to think up a real name for me. I was the scary little kid, and no one wanted anything to do with me. Not until Vadimas met me and saw my potential.”
“You confided in Duff, and him using that information to cut into you—that is a real shit move,” Carter retorted.
“I don’t know what I did to him. I wish I knew. I hate having a family member I can’t stand to be around. All I can think of is what happened with Derwin and how it still tears Dre’Kariston up knowing they couldn’t ever find common ground. Now Derwin’s dead, and Dre’Kariston struggles with forgiving himself, although he couldn’t have known his former familiar’s stupid plan to run off and find Latarian. Duff can’t use Cwylld stones to hurt himself, and I doubt he’d ever run off, but I hate this. We’re all D’Vaires, and we should stick together. Or at least I’m a D’Vaire for now.”
“Duff gave you shit about possibly leaving, didn’t he?” Carter asked.
“He may be right. Grigori might want to stay with his family.”
“You should talk to him about it. I mean I want you here, but maybe if he wants to stay in Vegas, you two could come up with a plan like Cadlyr and Evlithar had where they split their time. It didn’t work out for them because Evlithar was being used by that awful Tamlisyr, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an option in a normal arrangement. Don’t get all worried over it. Discuss it with Grigori,” Idris urged.
