Chapter Fifteen
After Silas retreated to his own room, Jared found it impossible to sleep. There were too many questions on his mind for him to rest. Should he not have kissed Silas, even when he'd asked for it? Was it a good idea to give him the dog?
What had he meant when he said he could only ever be with his sire?
Would he always choose to be loyal to the vampires?
Was anything Jared was doing having any effect at all?
If he'd just held on to Silas instead of letting him go back to his own room...
Absent-mindedly, he touched his lips, remembering the taste of Silas's mouth, the way he'd felt in his lap, moaning and asking for more. Jared had wanted to give it to him. He would have given him anything.
But maybe it was too late for that now.
If he had just kissed Michael back then, all those years ago...
No, he couldn't start thinking like that. There was no point. Nicolai might still have picked him, whether he was with Jared or not. That was what vampires did. They took whatever they wanted whenever they wanted it.
That image of Michael bleeding on the ground, though… He could have stoppedthat.
Jared turned on the lamp on the table next to his bed and got up. He would never get to sleep now. He picked up the framed picture on his bedside table. It was one of the few things he'd brought from his apartment. One of the few things he brought everywhere.It showed his family—his biological family. His dad, his mom, his little brother and him. It had been taken on his little brother's fifth birthday. His mother had wrapped a purple bow in his hair. He'd hated it, but she'd told him to leave it in 'just for the picture.' In his head, Jared could hear them squabbling as if it had been yesterday. In the picture, they looked happy, though.
And they'd all died in a house fire, two weeks later.
Jared couldn't help but wonder if it had been anything like the fire in the vampire basement. It was hard to tell. He hadn't been there when the coven's headquarters went up in flames, and he hadn't been there when his family home burned down either. He'd been staying at a friend's house. He'd beenlucky.
He really hated that word.
Putting the photograph down again, he turned to his desk, where his latest model ship was only a few hours away from completion. He'd stopped working on it when Aldrich had brought Silas into the house, but maybe he should finish it.
First, though, he was going to get something to drink.
Stepping out into the hallway, he noticed a thin beam of light creeping onto the floorboards in front of the room to his right. Remy's room. So he was still up too—and apparently he'd heard Jared walking about, because now he poked his head out of his room.
"You got a minute?" he asked.
Jared nodded and followed his adoptive brother inside.
Remy's bed looked entirely unslept in, but several pieces of paper lined the top of his desk, letting Jared know what his brother had been up to instead of sleeping.
"What have you been writing?" he asked.
Remy shook his head instead of responding. It was only now that Jared noticed the deep lines under his brother's eyes. He glanced at the bed again. Exactly how long had it been since Remy had slept in it?
"Are you having trouble sleeping?"
"Not exactly." Remy sat on his bed and motioned for Jared to sit as well. "Are you getting anywhere with the vampire?"
"His name is Silas."
"Sorry. Are you getting anywhere with Silas?"
"We're going to be taking care of a dog for a few days."
"What?" Remy frowned, skepticism fluttering across his features. "Why a dog? We need to know about the gem, you haven't forgotten that, right?"
Jared had not forgotten, but it hadn't been his first priority. "Silas doesn't want the vampires of his coven to get hurt anymore. They're his family." Remy had to understand that, right? The vampire coven wasn't related by blood, but neither were he and Jared—and Jared would go to hell and back to ensure Remy's safety.
