Chapter 403: An agreement.
Leilani.
My eyes fluttered open tiredly as I awoke from my much needed but also very un-peaceful sleep if I must say.
After the whole thing with Caelum, I had gone to bed, hoping to quickly fall back asleep; But do you know what happened instead?
I tossed and turned uncomfortably.
I went from one end of my space on the bed to the other, again and again over and over in such a way that I did not make any noise until I finally slept off about two hours later.
And that is when the dreams started.
The wet dreams. The erotic ’nightmares’ that Caelum had cursed me with.
They plagued my sleeping and waking moments and continuously replayed itself behind my closed eyes until I had no other choice but to remain awake.
I tiredly rolled out of bed and went into the adjoining bathroom to clean my face and brush my teeth, and when I finally stepped out several minutes later, Maya was there, sitting on the bed and waiting for me.
Her eyes were filled with a kind of curiosity that I found confusing, and her eyebrows furrowed as she watched me get out of the bathroom.
"You look like shit," she muttered after a while and I shook my head.
"I feel like shit," I snapped back, "in fact, I am shit."
Hearing my words, she sat up quickly, a flicker of worry crossing her features as she asked; "Is this about the triplets again?"
And while it was obviously about them and me, and the weird feelings I have begun to develop for them, I shook my head quickly. "No. This is about Keisha and a guy called Gerald."
"Gerald? Who the fuck is Gerald?"
"Did you know that some time ago, Jarek and Keisha were mates?" I asked slowly, wanting— no needing— to start from the baseline of the story I knew of, and when she nodded expectantly, I smiled.
"I know. I witnessed that phase as well."
Oh, true! Sometimes I tend to forget that she belongs in his pack! That she is one of his subjects!
"Good," I sighed. "So you also know that she left him for someone else, right?"
"Yes, a Lycan whom she had fallen in love with shortly after she found out that she was a little bit of both sides."
She is up to date. I like that.
I crossed my arms over my chest as I leaned against the wall behind me, and in a voice so small, I was sure that she would strain to hear me, I continued; "Yeah, Gerald. The guy who she ran off with was Gerald." I drawled, not missing the way her eyes widened in surprise, and in the same breath, I added; "...the said Gerald was here last night."
"Oh."
"And he came to inform me about Keisha’s plans for me. He also urged me to leave NYC. But there’s a problem."
"A problem?" She asked confusedly,
"He acted strangely shortly before he left, when I touched him, and mentioned something along the lines of how the Moonveil draught no longer has any effects on me."
"But I thought—"
"I know what you think," I said, interrupting her softly. "You’re about to tell me about how I’ve lost touch with my beast ever since, and I told him exactly that. But he was adamant."
She frowned. "Well, that’s new."
"He insists that she’s still here. And says that I am the one who hasn’t felt her or that I didn’t try to... it was something along those lines. I cannot remember exactly how he said it."
Confusion creased her eyebrows as she pondered over the things I had said and then after a moment of complete silence, she finally looked up and said excitedly; "What if he is right?"
I toiled my head to the side. "Huh?"
"What if your wolf never left? What if there’s just a little rupture in your bond? What will you do?"
"I’ll fix the bond and go back for Keisha, and I will make sure I kill her myself before she tries to hurt someone else that I care about."
A small smile made its way across her face when I said that, and after a while, she drawled; "I trust you and I think that that is what we should do. But first, let’s go down for breakfast!"
At the mention of the word: ’breakfast’, my heart sank, especially since I remembered that it also means that I would have to share a table with Caelum and his brothers.
I didn’t want that.
I didn’t want a repeat of the tension we’d felt last night. Hell, I didn’t want him to take one look at me and realize that I had spent the rest of the night battling with dreams of him and his brothers.
Heat rushed to my face at the thought and I quickly shook my head.
"No."
"No, I do not wish to eat breakfast." I said quickly, "I am not hungry."
But Maya was fast to see through my facade. She was quick to realize I was lying especially since my stomach chose that exact time to rumble in hungry protest.
She took one glance at me and shook her head, her voice laced with mockery as she said; "I’ll bring some food up to you. However, I do not know how you’ll continue to eat around here when I finally leave later today."
And at her words, I spun around, held both of her arms and cried; "Let me go with you!"
"No."
"Please," I was pushy. In fact, pushy was such a small word to describe just how much I pressed on, "I won’t be a bother. Hell, you won’t even know that I am there. Let me come with you!"
"No." She answered again,
Oh, scratch that! It wasn’t her! It was someone else standing by the door.
"Zevran," I drawled dryly, "what is it?"
"You cannot leave." He answered with a smile— one that didn’t quite reach his eyes, "I know you want to leave because it has become uncomfortable for you, but I cannot allow it, especially now that Darius knows you’re alive... and especially since you’ve agreed to help us out with the other Valemont."
"Because I agreed to do it?" I snarled and he rolled his eyes.
"No. It is mostly because of Darius, you uptight little woman."
And with that, he strolled away, leaving me to curse at him as he went.
And guess what?
He heard me— very clearly. And he only laughed.
However, it wasn’t until he was gone that his words echoed again and again in my head, and my heart instantly dropped to my rectum when I remembered his words:
’Darius knows,’
Oh, hell no!
