“I will see you in the morning. Like you said in front of the whole pack, Michael, there is no safer place than in that cell.”
“There are no more vampires, Cal. Who does she need to be safe from?”
Calum wanted to tell him from himself. He was so upset with her, he was liable to do something that he was going to regret later. He didn’t want to. He wanted to calm down and really think about it but talking about it wasn’t helping at all. It wasn’t helping that he had to argue his point. Cal knew what he saw.
“I will see you in the morning, Calum. Just know that it’s going to be okay now.”
Calum wasn’t so sure about that, but he wanted to believe it. A lot had been accomplished today. Tomorrow would be there for all the rest of it.
He went to stay in a house that was set up for him. It wasn’t near as grand, and though several of his brothers had offered up their houses to him, he liked the small cottage. It fit him now, and a new house would be built on the ruined rubble of the last one. It was all unimportant.
What was important was Ali. They should be laying in bed, celebrating, but instead, he was left to lie alone and wonder what he’d done to make her want to leave him, again.
* * *
Ali was stillin the same spot that he had left her. Cal couldn’t sleep, so he went down to see her. Really, he just wanted to ask her some questions and find out more than anything, why she had done what she had done. He wanted to know why she was going to leave, and with Trenton no less. He worried that it was the human blood that he had given her. She’d changed in minutes, and now maybe he wasn’t needed by her.
He didn’t know what to say for a time, so he pulled a chair in front of her cell and sat down. Cal was still pretty worked up over it, but he was convinced that he’d thought up every possible scenario that could have made this happen. He knew that there was no way that it could be worse than he’d thought of in his head, so he was ready.
“Why were you going to leave me, Ali?”
Cal had hoped that it would come out different. He sounded desperate, and he hated it. He didn’t want to feel that way, but he was hurt more than he could have imagined. He felt worse about her leaving than he did about his own brother trying to kill off the whole pack.
“I wasn’t.”
“You handed the keys to Trenton.”
“Yes, but that was because he was playing with my head or something. I can look into his eyes, or could, and he would be able to control me in some way. After he bit me, it was even worse, the compelling I felt.”
“You expect me to believe that sad excuse for your betrayal?”
Ali was sick of being accused. She’d had several hours of thinking and not sleeping to play it all out in her head, and she was not going to be nice anymore. He was being mean and acting like she’d done something wrong. Ali hadn’t meant to, couldn’t stop it, so she wasn’t going to let him berate her about it.
“You are going to believe whatever you want to, Calum. I know how you feel about my kind. Do what you feel like you must.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Is that what you tell yourself to sleep at night?”
Cal couldn’t believe her anger. He was the one that was wronged, and he went out of the building, unable to answer her. The last thing that he wanted was for her to stay in the cell, but he didn’t trust her, and too much was riding on what she carried.
He could hear her yell out his name as he was leaving, but he ignored it. Calum was going to have to think on it some more because he was running out of answers to the many questions that he had.
* * *
“You haven’t cometo see me in over a month, Cal. I don’t know why you are here now, but I don’t care. I don’t have anything to say to you anymore.”
Calum had stayed away because he couldn’t bear to be around her. Michael had tried to help him see that he was wrong, what he saw was wrong and as much as he wanted to believe it, Cal didn’t. She was going to leave him again, and he couldn’t deal with the idea of it. If she were locked up, she wouldn’t be able to hurt him in that way again, and more importantly, she wouldn’t be able to leave.
He’d decked the room out and blew out the wall to another to give her more space. The bed and all the furnishings were the best that he could get. She was not suffering, but she was not free either.
It had been so long since he’d seen her that Calum didn’t realize how far along she was. He’d been told, but seeing her like that, filled with his child and glowing, it was a sight to be seen.
“You don’t have to talk. We’re moving you, and I wanted to make sure that it went smoothly. This was never meant to be a permanent place, and it’s not made for the elements. It will be cold soon at night, and you’re going to need something more. Besides, the windows let in too much light, and you have to stay in the corner most of the day.”
“How would you know any of that when you never come?”
“Just because I haven’t seen you and you haven’t seen me, doesn’t mean that I don’t know what’s going on with you. I know everything.”
