AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Nolan, please. Even if he’s not a vampire, but a normal fucking guy, let me help you. I can be helpful or scary for normal old criminals, too.”
He cracked. His chest had become earth that had gone far too long without a drop of water. It split open, exposing all his feelings of pain, frustration, and humiliation.
“I fucked up, Sky,” he choked out.
Suddenly, a set of arms wrapped around him from behind, squeezing him so tight Nolan almost thought the necromancer could pull the two fragmented sides together. Sky pressed his face into Nolan’s back, right between his shoulder blades. He kissed him through his thick hoodie, and the suffocating pain receded enough for him to take a breath.
“Everything can be fixed,” Sky stated, his voice slightly muffled by the hoodie.
“No—”
“It can,” Sky interrupted, his tone immovable. “It might not always be fixed how we want it to be, but things can always be fixed.”
Nolan allowed Sky to pull him over to the sofa. They sat together, the witch keeping an arm on his waist, holding him close, while Nolan rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his face into his hands.
“I don’t want to bother you with this, too. It’s bad enough you got pulled into that bullshit my brother stirred up, but now I…fuck…all this time, I thought I had my shit together but I’m no different from Owen. Just another fucking idiot.”
Sky’s hand squeezed his waist. “Don’t talk like that! You’re not like your brother. Owen had no problem putting his own flesh and blood in danger. You would never do that!”
Nolan’s head jerked up, and he glared at Sky. “Which is all the more reason for you to leave right this second! I told you to stay away!”
Despite shouting right in his face, Sky didn’t flinch. No, the crazy necromancer actually smiled at him. A big dopey grin. He even sighed. “Grammy said you were trying to protect me, and she was right. You are the sweetest man.”
“Sky, I’m serious.”
“I know, but you’re so hot when you’re angry and protective.”
Nolan clapped his hands loudly in front of Sky’s face, getting him to at least blink away the dreamy look in his green eyes. “Focus! Scary people who could kill you. That’s what I’m talking about.”
“I’m not worried about that.”
“I am!”
Sky covered both of Nolan’s hands with one of his before he could clap at him again. “Then tell me what’s going on. How did you fuck up? Who’s the man who keeps bothering you?”
When Nolan dropped his head in his hands, his forehead was resting on the back of Sky’s hand. There was something so calming about being able to touch him. “His name is Christoph…Christoph Sandor. He’s the head of the Sandor Clan.”
“Oh, that is bad,” Sky whispered.
Nolan turned his head to look at the witch beside him, and he found Sky’s lips parted slightly in an O and his eyes staring off at some distant point. He had a feeling that Christoph wasn’t the type to be handed the role of vampire clan leader. That was likely to be something a vampire earned from being the strongest and possibly the most deadly. Sky had handled Colette and Aldo easily enough. Even some of their bodyguards. But a vampire clan leader had to be a different matter altogether.
“Okay…not good,” Sky continued, his voice low and steady, as if even he were fighting to stay calm. “But I don’t understand how he could get into your house with the wards I put in place. Those bastards would stop any vampire—clan leaders or regular scrub. Did he say something to convince you to let him in? Did he threaten my life?”
Nolan gave a small, single nod. “But that wasn’t how he got in.” He pulled one hand free of Sky’s grip and grabbed the neck of his hoodie, pulling it aside. Sky leaned forward to get a better view of Nolan’s throat. Nolan didn’t need to see Sky’s reaction. The witch’s gasp cut through the silence of the room like a knife.
“He bit you!” Sky launched to his feet, looming over Nolan. His entire body was trembling, with his hands balled into fists at his sides. “That fucking bastard stuck his fangs in you? I’m going to turn him into a mosquito and squash him with a fly swatter!” Nolan looked up at his flushed face and winced when Sky turned his gaze on him. “But how?”
“Tonight wasn’t the first time. He bit me for the first time…at that nightclub, Phoenix.”
Sky jerked a full step away from Nolan, his mouth hanging open. Nolan could see the software in Sky’s mind had frozen as it tried to process that new bit of data. His brain rebooted and the witch held his hands out toward him. “Nolan Walter Banks! How could you not tell me?” he screeched.
But now it was Nolan’s turn to stumble.Walter?
“What did you call me?” Nolan asked.
“Walter.” Sky paced away, both of his hands shoved into his hair as he continued to mutter under his breath to himself.
“That’s not my middle name.”
