Page 114 of Cursed to Be Mine
I smile at her but don’t mention that hiding upstairs was what I did long before I learned about sups.
“I have to go,” Khalid says as he leans forward to kiss me. He woke me up with his head between my legs, and I can smell me on his breath. My pussy spasms. My cheeks burst into flame, and I want to disappear into the ground, wondering if his ma could tell when he was talking to her.
“I’ll be back later,” he says, and I want to ask to go with him even though I know he won’t take me. We already had this conversation when he mentioned he would have to leave me for the day after making me scream his name three times. He’s going to work, and it’s definitelynotas a landscaper.
He didn’t go into the specifics, but he’s leaving withhis brothers to a meeting with the Boss of the Blood Fangs.
Worry for him spikes in my pulse as he straightens. I didn’t get the chance to read anything about vampires at Derek’s –there being a lot of information to get through, and my focus being on wolves– but the Blood Fangs are in the news a lot for assaults, violent crime, and human trafficking.
And I know the Shadow Domain isn’t peaceful, and Derek’s corpse haunts me, but… Khalid isn’timmortal. He can still get hurt. Can still die...
He tilts my chin up with the side of his forefinger and looks into my eyes. “It’s a peace meeting,kira. I promise. We’re going to be fine. I’ll see you soon.”
He kisses my head, then walks past me. I turn to watch him disappear down the hall. Left behind, I don’t know what to do with myself. The safety of his room beckons…
“I could use some help in the kitchen, Scarlett.” She moves up beside me, and her voice softens. “It helps doing something when they are out.”
“Do they go...out a lot?” I ask, my chest tightening with the realization of what a life with Khalid will really mean now that I’m not in the bubble of his room.
I won’t ever be strong enough to go with him. I’ll just be stuck behind, waiting for him to come home.
And what if one day he doesn’t?
Like when I’m pregnant with the child he wants?
My lungs tighten as I think about motherhood. In the safety of his bedroom, it feels like a dream. A white picket fence. Two kids who love each other and behave well and who I can love back.
But out here?
In the kitchen with his ma, when he’s gone and theworld is spinning fast, no longer still like up in his room?
Then it’sreal.
And reality isn’t a daydream. It’s harsh and horrible, and ithurts.
What if I hurt Khalid’s kid like ma hurt me?
Tears burning my eyes, I flinch when a hand squeezes my shoulder.
“They’re going to be fine,” his ma murmurs, a hardness in her voice, a factual honesty that makes me want to believe her.
“How do you know?” I whisper, wanting,needingto know what she does.
Her face tenses, and she studies me for a long moment. She and Khalid have the same eyes, not in color but in the intensity of their stare. “Aleric,” she says at length, “the vampire they’re going to meet...he and I go a long way back. There is a lot of pain between our families, triggered by the two of us, but he needs our alliance.” She pauses as she stirs the pot, a coppery red soup that froths with a hint of chili and smoked paprika.
“If he harms any one of my boys, he will be left to fight the Death Hunt himself, and he cannot win against them alone. He is vengeful but not stupid.”
I want to relax from her words, but there is a stillness in her that makes me tense in horrible expectancy.
“But although they are safe today, Scarlett, I will not lie to you and say Khalid always will be. He is the reaper of this Family. His job is dangerous, and even if it wasn’t, we are about to head to war.” Her lips tighten as my heart pounds in my ears. I reach out for the counter, steadying myself with one hand.
“What’s a reaper?” I rasp, wondering just how many bodies Khalid has left in his wake. How many Derek’s… Does he kill like that werewolf did? Does he enjoy it? Take pleasure in the blood and pain he spills?
Shuddering, my knuckles turn white.
Tapping the ladle on the edge of the pot, shaking off drops of soup, she then places it down on the counter. Turning to me, she looks me in the eyes. “He kills the members of Shadow Domain who betray this Family.”
My legs don’t want to hold my weight anymore, but I force my knees to lock, knowing by the look in her eyes, it’s worse than that. There’s so much sorrow for her son, so much worry for me. As if she thinks I won’t be strong enough to handle it.
