Page 20 of Forsaken Fate

“She doesn’t need to go to any trouble,” I said. “Grayson is still sleeping and I’m not much of a breakfast person. We can fend for ourselves. In fact, why don’t the two of you take the day off?” Translation: Grayson signs your pay checks now, so back off, bitch.

“We’ll keep our hours, Ms. Carrington,” she said. She didn’t wait for me to respond but turned on her heel and walked back toward the stairs. My guess was she would try to make as much of a racket near Grayson’s door as possible to wake him up.

Fine.

I walked through the great marble foyer and wound up back in the living room. The smell of cigar smoke still lingered from last night. A few of Grayson’s guests struck up a card game and drew him into it. It had kept him occupied for a couple of hours. If it hadn’t ... if he had wandered off to find me ...

What had I been thinking? Tangling with Theo ... no ... I could lie to everyone around me, the minute I started lying to myself I’d be in trouble ... fucking Theo was a mistake on every level. What if we’d been caught? What if Theo decided to brag about it? Well, the former wasn’t a risk anymore but what about the latter? I barely knew him, but something about Theo made me believe that kissing and telling wasn’t in his nature. We had both made our choice, but there was no denying I was the one who initiated it. I’d been so careful up until now, what had made me so reckless last night?

The answer was Theo. When he looked at me, he seemed to see right through me. When he touched me, it was the first time I’d felt anything real in months. It was intoxicating and dangerous and worth it, maybe, just this once. But there was something else as well. It was as if…his blood called to mine. I knew I wasn’t imagining it. I felt his pulse inside my own head. My body. His touch had awakened something very dark inside me. Something feral. Something I knew could ruin everything if I wasn’t careful.

“Baby?” I jumped. Grayson came up behind me and snaked his hands around my waist, pulling me back until I leaned against his chest. “Where were you? I woke up and I couldn’t find you.”

I turned in his arms and planted a kiss on his lips. “Just across the hall. You were tossing so much in your sleep, I wanted to give you some room. I didn’t go far.”

He squeezed me against him. He wore drawstring pajama pants and nothing else. The wiry blond hair of his chest bristled against my cheek as he held me close. Then he let me go, turned and padded toward the kitchen in bare feet. “Let’s eat. I want to talk to you about something.”

I followed. Diana’s kitchen wasn’t really designed to be eaten in. It was set up like a commercial kitchen with four deep stainless-steel sinks, two ovens and a large island with a griddle on top. Her refrigerator took up almost half the wall, the doors were made of glass. It was stocked with great amounts of organic fruits, vegetables, yogurt and other concoctions that went into the mysterious juices she drank like a fanatic. It kept her fit and trim, but I smirked, thinking a fat lot of good it did her in the end. She still dropped dead at just fifty-eight years old. All that power she was supposed to have. Diana Dorran, the great water mage. Gone. All gone.

Grayson drew me to the island and pulled up two bar stools. Mrs. Walters, Diana’s cook, gave him a sidelong glance when he waved her off. “I can manage a fucking bowl of oatmeal,” he snapped. “Why don’t you go jogging or something?” It was unnecessarily mean, and I flinched. Mrs. Walters was a short woman with cheeks so round they squeezed her eyes into a perpetual squint. She was human, like me. I’d hoped it would make her an ally. I was wrong.

She somehow narrowed those eyes even more at me. Grayson could be a dick to her all day long, yet she saved the hairy eyeball for me. But she left us alone. Grayson took my hands in his and drew my arms across the counter toward him.

“I’ve been thinking ever since we came here yesterday, and I want to ask you something.”

“I’m listening.”

“I want you to move in with me. Now.”

My heart tripped in my chest. This wasn’t the first time Grayson had asked me. My reasons for saying no before mostly centered on Diana. She already didn’t approve of me. Why don’t we wait until I’d taken Grayson’s mark, I’d said. What’s a few more months? I hadn’t expected him to ask again so close to the Gathering.

“I don’t ...”

“Don’t give me an excuse this time,” Grayson said. “I want you with me, Brynna. All the time. I need you.”

“Grayson,” I said, my mind in a whirl. “I get that. I want to be with you, too. But what sense does it make for me to pack up my things twice? We can’t live in your apartment after I’m marked. Even you said that. It will be too small.”

Grayson’s smile broadened. “I know. I’m not talking about my apartment. I’m talking about here. Why don’t we both move in here? There’s no reason not to now.”

The air went out of my lungs. Here. Live in Diana’s house. With Diana’s things and all of the secrets and magic they might ... that they had to contain. I was afraid to breathe. Afraid that if I did, the last ten seconds would go away. Poof!

“But I ... are you ... really?” My hands were trembling in Grayson’s and he took it as excitement. It was, but not for the reason he thought.

“Yes, baby,” he said. “I mean it’s not a definite for sure. It’s a ninety-five percent for sure. I meet with my mother’s lawyer tomorrow to go over the final details of everything. But my mother told me she was leaving the house to me. There won’t be a problem. I mean ... maybe someday we’ll think it’s too big for us. But not for now. For now, let’s just do it. And it’ll be easier. Someday…if I decide to marry you…we could even do it here.”

I tasted bile. If he decided to marry me? I plastered on a smile and thought of the bigger picture. How long would it take for me to find what I was looking for? Days ... a week? It couldn’t be much longer than that if I had access to Diana’s entire house. Her grimoire and her spell books were here somewhere. They had to be. I could find them. I would have to be careful, but I could do it.

“Yes,” I said, though my hands nearly slipped out of his, they shook so badly. Grayson dropped them and gathered me into his lap. He showered my neck with kisses as a thin sheen of sweat formed between my breasts. He gave voice to the other part of the equation. The one that had me shuddering beneath his smothering embrace.

“I want to be with you, Brynna,” he said. “Every day. Every night. From now on. I realized that last night. You were great at the party. Everyone there was watching you. Everyone there wanted you, but you belong to me. And they know it. I want everyone to know it.” Grayson shifted his weight and hooked his hands under me, drawing my legs around either side of his waist so I straddled him.

Every day. Every night. You will belong to him. I felt that familiar flare of heat at the base of my neck. The place where he would bite me. Mark me. Open his mind to me once and for all. That was the bigger picture. If I lived in Diana’s house, I could search for her secrets. When I let Grayson mark me, I could search for his.

Could I do it? Could I sacrifice my own freedom – just for a little while – so I could finally uncover Diana’s greatest sin once and for all? Could I keep up my own lie under Grayson’s smothering attention? I could. I knew I could. It would be worth it.

“I want that too, Grayson,” I said, taking a deep breath and stilling my heart. I leaned down and kissed him. I could do this. I could.

I had no choice.

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