Chapter 15

Revenge and Guilt

 

Devlyn walked up her staircase, dragging her feet, praying that she could get inside and into her room before she came across Katerina or Aren. She wasn’t up to an inquisition yet. Not today. Probably not tomorrow. Next week, yes, next week she would tell Katerina everything. But not today.

She nudged her door open, taking in the deep scent of gardenias and sandalwood. Sandalwood? No, she shouldn’t have—

“Eyes, and where have you been all night?” a dark voice purred to her as she closed her door.

She looked up to stare into a pair of wickedly green eyes. “Merrick? What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come for an explanation, Eyes,” he said as he stalked toward her. Before she realized what he was doing, he had pressed her down into a chair in the middle of her bedroom and tied her hands behind her.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, kicking her feet at him as he tied her ankles to the front legs of the wooden chair.

Satisfied that she was properly secured, he took a step back to look at her. Her eyes were puffy, red, as though she had been crying. He didn’t know what that meant, but it could easily mean remorse or guilt. For killing Bane? Her hair was clean, wet, and still clung together in lumps around her shoulders, indicating she had showered recently. To rinse off blood? he wondered. Perhaps.

He crossed his arms in front of him and stared her down. Could this beguiling little creature in front of him actually murder her love with her bare hands? He knew it was possible.

“I paid a visit off of Toulouse, wanted to say hello to my brother while I was in town. He’s not home.”

“I know I had planned to kill him but—” she started.

“You did what?!”

“I…uh…planned to murder him. It made perfectly good sense at the time. He was in my way so—“

“In your way?!” Merrick exploded. “Are you kidding me, Devlynaria? Because Gods have mercy, I hope you are! What did you do to him?” he demanded, mere inches from her face, towering darkly over her.

“Do to him?” she questioned with a tilt of her head. Merrick continued his glare. From this angle her slanted eyes really stood out and she looked even more exotic. “You mean you don’t know?” she taunted, the edges of her lips curled up  in a smile that seemed to fit her current mood, but such a smile he never wished to see on one formerly so pure and innocent.

Merrick looked down sheepishly. The gypsy-eyed little temptress had her own hand of cards up her sleeve. She knew that he was in no way certain of the outcome of The Seduction. The look she gave him told him that she did know, though, what he had been doing. If he hadn’t let his own lust and passion, and the part of him that craved vengeance for his own broken heart, overpower him, he would have been clearheaded enough to know, to see, even, the fruits of the labor. As it was, he only knew that his brother was gone.

“Damn you, Eyes. I want to know! And don’t you dare humor yourself for one second thinking I won’t slit your delicate throat if you don’t tell me. Did you kill my brother? Did you kill Bane?” that feral part of him wanted vengeance, craved it, and he could only beg silently that she start talking before he did something they would both regret…well, only he would live to regret it.

She chuckled softly, but there was a jaded air surrounding such a laugh, and they both knew that the previous night’s events had changed her forever. “You wouldn’t kill me. Hell, you wouldn’t harm me. Bane would slaughter you. And you know it.”

“He can’t slaughter me if he’s already dead, Eyes. What did you do with him?”

“I didn’t do anything with him! You don’t get it! It didn’t work! I failed last night.”

“What happened, Devlyn? I want all of it. Spit it out.”

She blushed crimson—not pink, not a delicate rose petal color, but bright red, forewarning Merrick that it was going to be an eventful tale. “We were at the club dancing, grinding basically. And then we were in his bedroom. The blade was at my back, and I’d been so careful up until this point to shield it from him. We started kissing and…stuff. At some point, I don’t really know when, I guess I let my guard down, and he unsheathed it. I was, uh, already in the moment by then, and I sent the blade into the wall and started kissing him again, throwing all of myself into it.” She looked down at her hands then, ashamed at herself for not accomplishing her goal. She was pale, and yet, she appeared to be blushing at the same time.

“Come on, Devlyn, I’m not letting you go until you finish. Beginning to end.” His arms were crossed along his chest, and he looked his most foreboding. She knew she was going to have to fess up completely if she were to have any hopes of him letting her go and continue on.

“Alright, fine!” she huffed, getting just as agitated as he was. She sighed, then looked up at him to meet his eyes. “We had sex, okay? More than once, actually. He told me, after I had asked him, that what we did there, that night, would have no effect on what happens at home. So, I let loose of all my anger and just gave in to what I really wanted to do to him.”

“Which was?” he prompted, covering up all the humor he was feeling with a perfectly stone face. The entire situation would have had him falling on the floor with laughter had he not been balancing his brother’s life.

She looked up at him and grinned wickedly. “Rock his entire world up one way, then down the other.”

Merrick suddenly couldn’t help himself. He let go of his control and burst out laughing. “My, my, dear. And how did he respond to that?” he asked with a smile.

“Let’s just say that, as a goddess, I’ve never been more worshipped.” The gleam in her eyes was plain enough to see, and Merrick knew there was no way that the woman in front of him could have killed her lover. She was the very picture of a woman well-satisfied, and he was happy that his brother had finally gotten what he had wanted for so long—simply having her in his arms.

“So, my dear, if the both of you found making love to be so rewarding, why is he gone?”

The smile dropped from Devlyn so suddenly, and Merrick knew that he had just stomped on one of the most delicate of subjects unwittingly. He had just tromped on an open heart. “I don’t know, Merri. I stayed with him that night, fell asleep with his arms wrapped around me, and it was nice and peaceful, and honestly, I wish I could have stayed that way. But it wasn’t a feeling to last. I got up to go take a shower, and he was gone. I haven’t seen him since I fell asleep.”

Merrick’s brows furrowed. It wasn’t like his brother to pull a shag-n-bale. When situation warranted, perhaps, but one night stands were well aware of their place, and he knew that Bane would not be so foolish as to even give Devlyn the impression of a one-nighter.  He might have reassured her that there would be no everlasting consequences of their night together here, but he would never let her think it was just a tumble. At least, he hoped his brother wasn’t that foolish. But then, he had let Devlyn go to begin with. That alone proved just how much of an idiot he was when it came to this woman.

So where was he? Even if he had intended for his night of passion with Devlyn to be a solitary event, it still did not account for him hiding. He could understand if the roles were reversed, if Devlyn was the one to go into confinement and hide herself off from the rest of the world, but Devlyn was facing this with her head held high. Mostly. Right now, the poor dear felt used. He would kill his brother himself with his bare hands if he had hurt her intentionally like this.

“I don’t know, Devlyn. I believe you didn’t hurt him. But I also don’t believe he’s just up and run off from you. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe I wasn’t good enough—” she started.

He swung around at that. “Don’t you dare think that for an instant! Banish the thought, luv. You did absolutely nothing wrong.” He shook his head. “I know you stubbornly refuse to admit this, though it’s quite true, the two of you are meant for one another. You, a goddess, should appreciate what all that means.”

She glared up at him, tears in her eyes. “My parents were also meant for each other. It doesn’t mean that they can stand to be in the same room as each other without pouncing on the other one, in one way or another. There’s a reason that they only have me, and that my father has so many other children. They are miserable both together and apart.”

So that’s where the fear inside all of this truly rested. He shook his head. “Devlyn, your parents are an isolated case. But they do love one another. But their vary natures are at war, not their souls. And it is the combination of those natures that makes you so very special, and is the reason there is both heat and passion with Bane. Yes, you are pure and, well, were innocent, and still are in many ways. This is all true. But you also have a lot of your father in you. It is where you get your mischievousness from, m ‘dear.  There is a natural darkness inside you that your mother never had. It is a good darkness, though. Dark, but not evil.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re just saying that because you’re on his side,” she argued.

“No, Devlyn. I’m on both of your sides. I want to see you both happy.”

She looked up at him, stared into his dark eyes that were so gentle with her. A dark man, yes, but he was capable of kindness, of softness. “Why couldn’t I just have been chosen for you instead? Why couldn’t it have been you?” she asked softly.

He chuckled. “Because, dear, my nature isn’t Bane’s. I do not have his patience. If you would have ran from me the way you have from him, I’m afraid I wouldn’t have been as lenient as he was. It hurt him, Eyes. You hurt him when you left him. And I’m afraid that if you would have done the same to me, my thirst for vengeance would have ended badly for us all.”

“I hurt him? How in the world do you figure that?”

He shook his head. “If you don’t know any more than that, I’m the last person who needs to teach you.”

She looked at him quizzically.

“Just trust me, Eyes.

She nodded to him. “Does that mean you’re going to untie me now?” she asked dryly. “Come on, Merrick. Whatever hurt I did to him, it was unintentional, mostly. I mean, don’t get me wrong. The past few months, I have enjoyed any barbs that I was fortunate enough to get in, but before that it was never about hurting him. I just wanted my own right to make my own decisions. I’ve done that. I chose him last night. And he hurt me this morning. That’s all I know.”

He shook his head at her. “I don’t think so, Eyes. He loves you. He’s proved that time and again to you, you are just too stubborn to listen when it calls. He would not have done that without a damn good reason. I’m sure of it.”

She let out an unladylike snort. “Either way, untie me, Merrick. You’ve detained me long enough. I just want to be alone for a little while. Can you tell that to Katerina when you see her?” she asked quietly.

            He looked down as he untied her bounds and shifted uncomfortably. “Uhh… yeah. I doubt I’ll be speaking to your Katerina any time soon.”

            “My Katerina? What did you do?” she demanded in a dark tone as she stood up. Her hands naturally went to her hips and it was all she could do not to poke him with her index finger, right in the chest.

“It was about you, if you must know, Ms. I’ll Just Kill My Betrothed! She accidently let it slip that she was concerned about you this morning, and I pried it out of her the reason. I fumed. I threatened. I nearly ruined everything all over again.”

She hit him in the shoulder. “What the hell were you thinking? That you were going to just come over here and kill me, then go back to her and think that everything was just going to be all right? Jeez, Merrick! I thought you were supposed to be the older and wiser of all of us!”