Page 61 of Thief of Night
“I can make you feel better,” Adeline was promising.
Charlie stopped, alarm bells going off in her head. Adeline’s voice was a purr, the offer unambiguous. Charlie had thought thatRemyand Adeline had a tangled, incestuous relationship, with Red on the outside of it.
But maybe Adeline thought of Red as an extension of Remy. A substitute.
“I don’t need—” Red told her, voice stiff.
“Oh come on.” There was a rustle of fabric, as though she’d moved closer to him.
“Adeline,” he said. “Enough.”
More rustling fabric and a soft sound from her, like a moan. “Oh yes,” she said. “Like that.”
Charlie’s face flushed with shame. Right, she needed to leave. She needed to get out of that house right then and she needed to do it without him.
“Don’t,” he said, panic in his voice. Panic that froze Charlie in place.
Adeline. Adeline,don’t. The words he’d said while dreaming. When he was Vince.
Red was much stronger than Adeline. He could push her away.
Couldn’t he?
Charlie pushed open the door. If she was about to make a fool of herself, she could weather the embarrassment—surely a drop in the bucket after the night before. Adeline straddled his lap, her skirt pushed up. Red’s hands were circled around her upper arms, keeping the top half of her body away from his. When he turned his face toward Charlie, he looked lost.
“You’re interrupting,” Adeline snapped, not moving from his lap.
“We need to go,” Charlie said, although the idea of ordering him to do anything in that moment felt abhorrent.
Adeline stared at her in outrage. Charlie stared back.
“I have an appointment with Malhar,” she continued, as though she wasn’t chilled to the bone by what she’d walked in on.
“You can’t force him to stay with you forever,” Adeline said, pushing off his legs to stand. “You’re nobody, Charlie Hall.”
Red rose like an automaton, his expression utterly blank. He didn’t even look at Charlie as he staggered past her into the hall. She kept her gaze on his face. Whatever his body’s response had been to what happened, she didn’t need to know.
In the doorway, Charlie turned. “He’s your fucking cousin—or whatever. He’s your family,” she said.
“Red?” Adeline laughed.
“Didn’t you say he was what was left of Remy?”
“Probably the best part.” Adeline’s mirth had twisted into a small, smug smile. “But it’s not like we’d make two-headed babies or anything. He’s a shadow.”
Reeling, Charlie headed into the hall—where Red wasn’t—and then down the stairs.
She found him in the hall, waiting for her, jaw hard. She couldn’t help but take in his height and the muscles defining his arms. He was a big man. He could have thrown Adeline across the room, and it hadn’t helped him.
Barefoot, in pajamas, she headed for the door. “I don’t want to be in this house for one second more.”
Red got his coat from the closet, which he held out to her. “Don’t run into the cold again.”
With a sigh, she slid her arms into it. As she did, she spotted a pair of boots that seemed big, but serviceable. She shoved her feet in them, not caring if she looked like a child playing dress-up.
Footsteps thudded down the stairs.
Charlie spun. “Leave him alone!” Only to find herself looking at Fiona, the older woman’s eyebrows raised.
