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“I will get the workers to….”
“No.Youwill clean this up. You and your lover.”
Ray hesitated. “Have I displeased you?”
“No, not at all. I adore being abandoned by both my sons. You to save your own skin, Maddox presumably with that damned wolf. It all brings me a great deal of pleasure to experience your disloyalty first hand and be left holding the baby when humans come with weapons to slay us. If history holds true, next time they will come with silver, and Carter will have no protection against that.”
“I apologize, father. I did not intend to abandon you. I thought Carter would flee.”
“Yes. Cowards always assume everyone else is a coward,” Gideon said, his tone cutting.
Ray looked stricken. He did not know what to do with himself if he was not the favored son. His shame was evident, which Gideon enjoyed. It had been too long since Ray was reminded that his place came with obligation as well as privilege.
“Father, I…”
“So much cleaning to do,” Gideon interrupted. “Come, Carter.”
Carter muttered something and followed in his wake, still buried in the infernal device. He did not notice the harsh, cutting stare delivered by Chauvelin in particular.
11
Twenty-four hours of intense half-dressed sulking later, Will was growing hungry. He had feasted on his last victims, and that had sated the beast side of him, but the human appetites remained, and Maddox was poised to take advantage of them.
“It has been a long time since you had these,” Maddox said, putting a box of toaster pastry down in front of him.
“I’m not hungry,” Will lied. He was looking for escape, but he was never left out of someone’s sight. Sometimes it was Henry, sometimes Lorien. For the most part, it was Maddox. The master vampire had stopped trying to start conversations with Will, but remained nearby him, watching quietly in a way that infuriated Will beyond belief. He did not appreciate the close observation, nor the overtones of intimacy that remained between them in this remote cottage prison.
Maddox was dangerous, and being here was dangerous. Perhaps Maddox truly regretted his lies, but that didn’t change the nature of the situation. Will was being held captive by someone who had taken him captive before, and who had watched him be captive to another as well.
“They will be there when you are,” Maddox said. “If you are not hungry, it is time we talk. There is much to be said.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“Then you should listen.”
“No. I won’t. There are no words I want to hear out of your face. You took everything from me when you lied to me. I had never trusted anybody until I trusted you. And the whole time you were keeping one of the most important facts of my life from me.”
“I apologize.”
Will let out a borderline hysterical laugh and decided to have the fight.
“Do you? Really? Because the last thing you ever do is apologize, Maddox. And for months, you’ve been lingering around, licking Gideon’s ass, and watching me be treated as a slave. There’s not enough time in the world for you to say sorry as many times as you need to say sorry.”
“If I wanted to be close to you, I had to tolerate what Gideon did to you. My presence undoubtedly caused you more pain, I cannot deny that. I had to pretend to be indifferent.”
“But you weren’t indifferent. You never are. You’re a fucking sadist, and you enjoyed it. Seeing me bleed, seeing me hurt. You must have been so fucking hard. Did you fuck my little brother and think of me?”
Maddox made an expression of mild disgust at that suggestion. “I have never touched Carter in a carnal fashion. I have barely touched him at all. He is my forced fledgling. I did not choose him. And he never replaced you, not in any sense.”
* * *
Will’s lower lip was quivering with the attempt to maintain his angry self-control. Maddox wanted nothing more than to pull his boy into his arms and cradle him close, but he knew there were better than even odds that Will would violently reject him out of sheer fear and misery. It would take time to tame him again.
“Gideon is distracted,” Maddox said. “Your mother is drawing his fire. So, I have time to deal with you now. Time to remind you who owns you truly, whether you like it or not.”
“You don’t fucking own me,” Will cursed. “I own myself. You own nothing.”
“You think it did not hurt me, every moment of every day I was unable to be with you? Gideon knew your importance to me. He forced me to choose between separation from you and your death. I chose the former, because I would endure any pain than see you dead, Will.”
