A Slave to Love

Chapter 55: Something in the Family

Dead silence. The only reason I knew Ace was still here was because he was holding my tattooed arm between us. 

His lack of response had nothing to do with my question, but everything to do with the fact that Blade had come in behind me, could feel his presence in the mark on my arm that was slowly changing the further apart we drifted. I opened my eyes, and Ace was still in front of me, but his gaze was focused over my shoulder at Blade.

I didn't want to look. It would be easier to pretend that Blade didn't care about the answer to my question, or that he would be thrilled and we could finally be apart and free from all this pain. 

As with most of my decisions involving Blade, I couldn't resist, and regretted my choice instantly the second he was within my sights.

The look on his face was a knife in my heart. He looked as if I just taken away everything he had.

"No," he breathed, taking a step in.

"Blade..." I said, trailing off helplessly. I hadn't wanted him to hear this. I had only wanted to know, it was curiosity...but I couldn't deny a little part of me thought if we got rid of our bond this would all be easier. Maybe for all of us. No one would get hurt anymore if I wasn't in the picture. People like Jill or even Blade and I. This situation wasn't even fair to Mona, and I didn't even like her.

"You can't do that," he shouted, striding into the room, eyes blazing like fire.

"Blade it's not—"

"What it looks like?" he finished furiously. "Spare me the excuse, sweetheart. I know what I heard."

Ace swung me behind him by his grip on my arm, putting himself between us like a referee before a fight broke out. "Blade, you need to calm down. Don't do something stupid."

I put a hand on Ace's shoulder, bracing myself. "Ace, I can deal with this," I said quietly, unable to look away from Blade's tormented expression. I didn't want to deal with Blade right now or ever, but it was too late for that. My question had a crossed a line and if not now, Blade would only find me later to continue this and I refused to be ambushed again.

"Are you sure?" Ace asked, glancing back at me over his shoulder.

 I gave him a half hearted shove. "Yeah, it's okay, just go."

"No, why don't you stay? I'm sure we're all just dying to hear the answer. So do you know any vampires? Do you?" Blade said, stepping to block Ace's path.

"Seriously? Knock it off, Blade," Ace said, going toe to toe with him. "You've been like this before and you know what'll happen if you cross the line again. They don't give second chances, so tread carefully."

I had no idea what that meant and judging by the way they were staring each other down, I wasn't sure I wanted to. Tension sizzled between them until Blade stepped aside and Ace took off with one last muttered 'goodbye'.

Then we were all alone.

Blade turned to me and for once I let myself look at his arm, fully on display thanks to his t-shirt, red with a thick black outline. It was so much worse than mine. How had I not noticed either of our marks getting so bad?

"Blade, I'm sorry," I whispered, "I just..."

"Just what?" His words came out sharp like broken glass. "You're sick of all this? Well so am I sweetheart, you're not the only one."

"Yeah, I get that—"

"No, I don't think you do. You've been so absorbed with yourself and I cannot believe it."

"Absorbed with myself?" I sputtered.

"Yeah. You think you feel bad about what happened? What about me? You think I don't regret hurting you every damn day? You won't talk to me, you won't even look at me, you were attacked and you didn't even tell me. You called everyone else under the sun and only called me as an absolute last resort. You were in trouble and I didn't even know about it!" He threw his arms wide. "Just now is the icing on the fucking cake!"