“Let me ask you this. I think the answer might help you put everything into perspective.”
I nodded, indicating I was ready.
But I should have known better. I was rarely ready for anything my aunt threw at me.
“Do you love him?”
I blinked at her, mumbling a few nonsensical noises before managing a strangled, “I don’t know.”
Her lips twitched with the most knowing of smiles.
“I think, dear heart, that you do.”
Sin
My chest fucking cavedin as Lilith’s words hit me from my position outside her partially open door. Merri loved him. She loved Lucifer. Even worse, she wasmatedto him. It wasn’t the sudden addition to the team that bowled me over. It was that Merri hadn’t breathed a word of this. To any of us.
I stumbled away from Lilith’s office, my goal of tracking my mate down and bringing her back to bed long forgotten.
Why had she lied to us? To me?
And before you get all high and mighty, saying she didn’t lie, a lie of omission is still a lie.
Sharing a little detail like coming back to us with a brand new mate who is also the devil in the flesh seemed pretty important to me. If the tables were turned and I had something that life-altering to tell her, you bet my killer abs it’d be the first thing we talked about.
Sure, there were a few other things the five of us had needed to talk about, but even so, this should have been in the top three.
Fuck. I thought we’d repaired the rift, but clearly she still didn’t trust us. It was the only explanation.
A pit opened in my stomach as another realization hit me. I knew exactly how a mate bond was forged. I’d fucking lived it with Merri. They’d had sex. She’d had him inside her and couldn’t even tell us it had happened.
Did she think we would judge her? We knew what she was. Knew her nature and needs. She had to know there wasn’t anything we wouldn’t do for her. I mean, Grim might balk a bit, but he’d come around. But me? We were the same. She should know that I, even more than the others, would get it.
Unless . . .
That pit grew wider, and something more sinister took hold. I wouldn’t put it past Lucifer to manipulate her for his own benefit. Maybe he thought the bond would be a way to control her—and us—for his own gain. What if he’d forced the mate bond? That would definitely explain why she didn’t want to talk about it.
That motherfucker.
If he raped her, I would fucking end him.
I didn’t care who or what he was. By the time I was through, he’d be little more than a red mist coating the walls.
My chest rose and fell in rapid breaths, and I hadn’t realized I’d come to a sudden stop in the hallway until I caught the nervous glances of other people. Forcing myself to take a calming breath, I resumed walking.
See? This is why she should have come to us first thing. Now I was doom spiraling and plotting an execution, and I didn’t even know if it was warranted.
I needed to talk to her. It was the only way I could get any kind of clarity. I owed her that much. Did it hurt to know she hadn’t trusted us? Yes. But had we done anything to truly earn complete trust from her leading up to this point? No. We’ddamaged so much between us before her time with Lucifer, it stood to reason she would be guarded.
Either way, I had to make sure Merri knew we were here for her, even if her distrust was hurtful. A sharp pain stabbed behind my breastbone as the truth settled there. We weren’t as connected as I thought. I was one-hundred percent certain of her, but she wasn’t fully certain of me.
Fuck.
Chapter
Seven
GRIM
