Tirade (Heven and Hell #3)(55)
Author: Cambria Hebert

His whiskey-colored eyes were intense as he looked down. “This is exactly why I didn’t want him around,” he whispered. God, the deep, smoky tone of his voice was wonderful. He cupped my face in his palms. “Riley is twisted. He would backstab his own mother and now we find out he’s cursed, but yet… he’s likable.” His fingers flexed against my jaw.

“He helped me. He helped you.” I protested, trying to prove he wasn’t all bad. I didn’t want to believe he was.

“Yeah.” He dropped his hands and walked across the room. “And now I owe him.”

“No.” I protested. “It isn’t like that.”

“With Riley, it’s always like that.” He turned to stare at me with hardened eyes. “Don’t let his charm fool you, Hev. You can like him, but remember he’ll turn on you if he’s offered something better. There’s a reason he’s back. He wasn’t helping you out of the goodness of his heart. He wants something.”

I didn’t want to believe that. But I could feel Sam thought he was telling me the truth and Sam had good instincts. The best. Which made what I had to admit next even worse.

“There’s something else,” I whispered.

His whole body tensed as if preparing for a blow. I took a breath and the words rushed out. “He spent the night with me.”

There was a charged moment of silence before Sam erupted. His body began to shake and swell, and for a moment I thought he might turn.

He was in your room? In your bed? Sam demanded, the words slapping into my brain with force. His eyes were flashing gold and I wondered if maybe I made a mistake. But if I hadn’t told him I would feel like a liar forever. I didn’t want to feel like I was hiding things from him. It made me feel dirty.

“It was nothing! He stayed to keep the Dream Walker out of my mind.” I wanted to retch when he turned away.

Tears welled in my eyes. “Those scars…” I pushed away a tear that dropped from my lashes. “You got those because Beelzebub was mad he couldn’t get into my mind. Because Riley was there.” I spent the night with another man and Sam was beaten for it. “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t care about the damn scars!” he yelled.

“I was only trying to get some peace,” I said wearily. “I was so tired and the demon, it was the worst yet.”

“What demon?”

I closed my eyes. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “It was under the bed. It tried to pull me into some kind of vortex or something. I fought it off, but it managed to get the upper hand. Riley showed up and killed it.”

He protected you.

This hurt him worse than anything, I think. There wasn’t anything I could say.

Did he touch you?

No! It wasn’t like that. I got up and went to face him so he could see the truth in my eyes. We were fully dressed.

He didn’t say anything, but stood there with his jaw clenched and looking over my head. After a few minutes I turned away, going back to the bed and climbing in. I should have just taken my chances with the Dream Walker, anything to spare Sam. He didn’t speak and I was afraid if I did, it would only make it worse. Besides, offering excuses for what I did was wrong.

Behind me, the bed dipped with his weight as he lay down, wrapping an arm around me and pulling me against him. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he rasped against my ear.

I wanted to laugh. “You have a right to be angry.” If Sam spent the night with some girl, I’d probably claw out her eyes.

“I’m glad he was there to keep that psycho out of your head. I just wish it was me, not him.”

“It is you,” I whispered. “It’s always you.”

A purr vibrated in his chest and I rolled in his arms to face him. “Can you forgive me?”

“On one condition.”

“What is it?” I would do anything.

“Kiss me.” He smiled.

Chapter Seventeen

Sam

I jolted awake, not sure what caused the disturbance, but my senses were instantly alert and listening. It took a moment to remember where I was as I lay there in the dark, but the feeling of something soft and warm pressed against me was all the reminder I needed.

I smiled slowly. I was at home. In bed. With Heven.

Memories of what we had done washed over me and I forgot about waking suddenly, instead just reliving a few of those moments. Everything I went through down there—the feelings of hate, anger and regret—I would experience them all a thousand times over just to end up exactly where I was now.

Slowly, I moved, wrapping my arm a little tighter around her and pressing a kiss to the soft hair on her head. God, how I missed her.

Whatever caused me to awaken seemed to disturb me once more. I lay there and listened to everything around us, looking for something, but finding nothing—we were alone. I sensed no threat lurking. I heard no sounds other than the occasional car passing by and the low hum of the air-conditioner.

My stomach growled, hungry even after I ate that pizza. I was probably going to be hungry for days. I thought about getting up, seeing if there was anything else in the fridge, but I didn’t want to move. I’d waited so long for this that giving it up wasn’t going to happen.

I relaxed back onto the bed and drifted back into a light sleep, part of me still alert just in case. I don’t know how long I lay there—it could have been minutes or an hour—but Heven began to stir. She just shifted in sleep a few times, but then she began to shake and curl in on herself before straightening back out again. After a few moments, she slid out from my embrace, wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and tiptoed quietly away from the bed. I opened my eyes and watched her as she rushed into the bathroom. She didn’t bother to turn on the light and several moments later she began to retch.

I jumped up from the bed and went into the bathroom, flipping on the light and crouching beside her. “Hey, not feeling so hot, huh?”

“I just started feeling… strange,” she said, reaching out to close the toilet lid. I helped her up and the blanket around her fell off her shoulder. I caught my breath.

“What the hell is that?” I demanded, looking at the welts across her back. I had just seen every inch of her and those marks had not been there. I reached out to touch one and she shrank back, a sound of pain escaping her lips.

It’s like she was scratched from the inside out, I thought to myself, staring in horror at the wounds. They looked angry and red, puffed up underneath her once-smooth skin. The skin over the wound was bubbled and stretched thin, looking like it might break open at any moment.