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“It sounds to me like the only person you’re trying to help isyou.”
Colter stared at me, shocked at first, but his shock gave way to anger very quickly.
“I don’t have to justify myself to you,” he thundered. “I’m the king of this castle. I built this empire, and I’m running it the way I see fit, and you don’t get to have a say in that. You didn’t do shit to help me get where I am.”
His sudden outburst was a shock.
“And yet, you needed me, so don’t tell me that you could have done it on your own.”
Colter scowled.
“It’s always the same,” he muttered. “A man gets involved with a woman, and she burns down the house he tried to build.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“My dad was a hell of a man… until he wasn’t. He was the alpha, until he let himself be ruled by a woman, and she destroyed everything that was worth respecting about him.”
I stared at him. “Is that what you feel I’m doing?”
Colter shook his head as if he was shaking off the dregs of the past.
“You’re nothing like her,” he said in a dull tone. “You’re nothing like thatwitch,but you’re not someone who set me on this course, either.” He glared at me.
“You’re right!” I cried out. “I’m nobody, but I’m the nobody you decided to put on the project, the nobody you decided to keep here, and the nobody you took to the island to find out what’s going on. I didn’t ask for any of that.”
“So, you’re forced into a situation you didn’t want, is that it?” Colter asked. “What are you still doing here, then?”
“You know what? You’re right. I don’t know what I’m still doing here.” I walked to the mixer and switched it off, leaving the batter as it was, before I turned around and left the kitchen.
Colter didn’t come after me when I packed my stuff. He didn’t try to stop me from leaving when I carried my bags out of the apartment, and he didn’t ask me to come back when I slammed the door behind me.
It turned out he didn’t care about me at all. Well, if that was the case, then it was high time I went back to my own life, my own home.
I wasn’t sure where I belonged now that I’d found out I wasn’t just human. I couldn’t go back and work at the lab, so I had to build a new career, too, and my apartment had been ruined the last time I’d been there, so there was that…
I had less than I’d started with when I’d met Colter, but I was better off on my own.
I’d always been on my own. At least when it was just me, I couldn’t be rejected for who I was, or who I wasn’t.
They said no man was an island, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t true.
I felt pretty damn isolated.
27
LIV
Istood in the door to my apartment, staring at the mess. I was pretty sure it hadn’t looked this bad the last time we’d been here. The whole apartment had been ransacked. Every drawer was open, all my furniture had been upended, and the whole place was a mess.
My heart sank as I stared at what should have been the life I’d left behind. I’d hoped I could come to a space where I belonged, but even this had been turned upside down.
It was so symbolic, and I hated it.
“Liv,” someone said behind me, and I turned.
“Lazlo?” The vampire I’d trained with stood behind me, his hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, and he wore all-black clothes. “What are you doing here?” I stiffened. “If Colter sent you, I’m not—”
“Colter didn’t send me,” Lazlo replied.
