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“For sleeping with the vampire king.”
“I was surprised. But I’m not disgusted. Far from it.” A smile. “He’s handsome. I get it. Not my usual taste, but I wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating toast.”
Ha! I loved that. “I never expected him.”
“Aren’t they the best twists in life?”
Yes. “I…I don’t know. Not in this case.” I told him about the curse, far too trusting for my own good. But I also felt safe with Declan, and comfortable enough to tell him things.
His forehead was deeply creased by the end of it. “Shite. That is…shite.”
“Yeah.”
His nostrils flared slightly. “I can smell him all over you. And I don’t mean that to be creepy, but I can. Your eyes also light up when you talk about him.”
Oof. Talk about being exposed by a stranger peeling back the layers. “Am I that obvious?”
“It’s not an insult.”
I tried changing the subject. “Tell me more about you.”
He laughed, staring at me for a few moments. “Don’t feel bad for wanting him. You’re fated mates. That’s special. Well, if it wasn’t for the knife thing.”
I swigged some beer to keep me from speaking.
“I’m gutted I can’t make a move on you.”
Cue me spitting the beer all over the table. “Fuck!” I choked, spluttered, and snorted, completely humiliating myself.
Idiot!
Declan slapped the table, roaring with laughter so booming it could shake the foundations of the house.
I’d never blushed so hard, my face felt like it shamed the red of a tomato.
“Let me—” I coughed, struggling to regain my dignity. “Let me—”
But he was already cleaning up my mess, handing me a fresh tea towel. Well, fresh in a musty way.
I apologized profusely and then some, about to go back to bed cloaked in embarrassment.
“When I first met you, I thought wow,” he said, sitting back down again. “You’re one of the prettiest men I’ve ever seen. Right up my alley.”
Did he want my flesh to melt off my skull from humiliation?
He shrugged. “Until I realized the truth.”
The heat in my face cooled, leaving behind an aura of numbness. I didn’t know what to say, but stupid shit flooded me. A whole vat of ‘what if’ junk. Like what if Silvanus wasn’t woven into my destiny? There’d been a weird moment back in the Lost Valley where I’d wanted to hug Declan, even though we’d just met. What did that mean? That a part of me wanted him to be the one for me? You know, like he was an easier sell than a vampire king, someone Pearl would have been behind.
The alpha found me attractive, and he was very easy on the eye. So why couldn’t we be a match? It would spare the vampire king and his people all this grief. No tormented emotions, no fucking drama.
Damn. Why did I have to go down this road? Why did any of this matter when there were bigger things to worry about? Aidan, my parents, my brother, all of the shit that still needed dealing with.
The Silvanus issue, as much as it pained me to say, had a simple solution—stay away from each other, don’t make any confessions. Done. Move on. Cry about it later.
“Excuse the arrogance,” Declan said, cutting through my spiraling.
My eyes itched. “Huh?”
