Revelation of Blood (26 page)

“Did you offer yourself to that man,” I asked
as the young man got his footing.

“Y-yes,” he replied nervously. I spotted a
few fang marks on his neck and frowned. Since he was in the life,
the young man knew he’d broken a rule and thus, was consequentially
in trouble.

“You know we don’t allow feeding in here,” I
frowned, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m sorry but I’m going
to have to ask you to leave for the night.”

He didn’t hesitate to obey and I was thankful
as I watched him fight his way to the entrance. Dusting my hands
off, I walked back over to Quinn.

“That was funny as hell,” he chuckled as he
slapped one burly hand to my shoulder. “You reminded me of my mom
there for a second. She used to tug me around by my ear, screaming
at me in Polish, when I acted up.”

“And I bet that was often,” I shoulder bumped
him playfully as I started climbing the stairs.

“You know it!” he laughed behind me.

When I got up to the top floor, I sought out
Archer. His eyes immediately found mine and he smiled as he waved
me over to the table. Archer was sitting with three men in suits
and after tuning into their thoughts, I realized they were Dark
Ones. Confused, I headed over.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” I smiled as I
greeted them, wondering what Archer was up to.

Each man stood and took turns shaking my
hand.

“This is Leonardo Castile, leader of the
Castile Coterie, and these are his two eldest sons Vincenzo and
Franco,” Archer said, motioning to each man.

“Pleasure to meet you,” I smiled tightly as I
nodded my head to each man. I then leaned down to kiss Archer and
decided now was a good time to ask him what was going on.

“
You’re sitting with Dark Ones
?” I
asked silently, in my head. “
What’s going on
?”

“
They’re old acquaintances of mine
,”
he explained as he softly kissed my lips. “
I called them here to
see if they could give us any insight into the Dark
arrival
.”

“
And
?
Did you learn
anything
?”

“
Aye
,” Archer said in my head as he
tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “
There is rumored unrest
within the leadership. Some want Atticus out of power
.”

“
Well, that’s not very helpful to us
.
Do they know why the Dark Ones are all here
?”

“
I don’t know yet, but I’m working on it,
baby
,” he said, taking my hand and tenderly kissing the back of
my knuckles. “
If Leonardo knows something, he’ll eventually get
around to telling me
.”

I looked down at him and smiled as I spoke
aloud. “Trey told me Styvi is in your office. Mind if I leave you
boys to your business and go visit with her?”

“Of course not,
cion
,” Archer said
gently. “As soon as business has concluded, I’ll join you
upstairs.”

I bid the men a good night and dodged the
Dark Ones in VIP as I made my way over to the bar. Calling out a
quick hello to a busy Lochlan and Aoife, I turned to Aziza and
greeted her.

“Looking good tonight, Aziza,” I smiled as I
took in her fire engine red leather body suit and thigh high black
leather boots.

“Thanks, love!” she smiled over at me. “What
can I get you to drink?”

“Throw me a bottle of whiskey, will you?”

“Comin’ right up, beautiful,” she said with a
flirty wink then turned to retrieve a bottle from the shelf.

I loved hearing Aziza talk. She had the
sexiest, smoky British accent I’d ever heard. She was a big hit
with the clientele so far, too.

After she handed me the bottle, I gave her a
wave and headed up Archer’s private stairwell to his office. When I
entered, I saw it was empty. Frowning, I set my bag down on his
desk and went to the apartment door. As soon as I opened it, I
smiled. Jameson was curled up on Archer’s bed, taking a nap with
Styvi Nix.

Carefully closing the door behind me, I
tiptoed to the bed. Styvi’s eyes lazily opened and I swear she did
a double take as she saw me. She whimpered and immediately jumped
up with a bark.

“Hi, baby,” I cooed as I sat down on the bed
and let her attack me with kisses. She stopped suddenly and began
to sniff me. After a few whiffs, she backed up, sat down, and
looked up at me confused; her head tilting questioningly side to
side.

“I think she just realized you’re a vampire
now,” Jameson said and I glanced over my shoulder at him.

“It’s okay, super star,” I voiced gently as I
held my hand out to her. She whined a few times and looked from my
hand back to my eyes. It seemed she was unsure of me and it broke
my heart. “It’s still me, baby. I’m just like Jameson and Trey now,
though. Come say hi and give me sugar.” I patted my hands on my
lap, emphasizing that I wanted her to come to me.

She looked at Jameson for a second and then
back to me again. Whimpering one last time, she slowly inched her
way to me on her belly. “Oh, honey,” I whispered, my voice
trembling with emotion. It seemed she was reluctant to come, but
would because I had asked her to. She always listened to her mommy.
“You don’t have to be afraid, baby girl. I’m not going to hurt
you.” I slowly inched my hand to her face and let her smell it. She
sniffed at it for a good thirty seconds before she decided to lick
it.

Once she did, it seemed to break her fear and
she sat up and pounced on me. I fell back on the bed and allowed
her to lick and nuzzle my face and neck. “Oh my good girl,” I
laughed, “I’ve missed you too, baby; more than you can
imagine.”

Her stubby little tail wiggled a mile a
minute as she covered me in kisses and rolled with me on the bed.
Jameson’s laughter rang out behind us and I looked up to realize
we’d forced him off the bed with all our tumbling around. Gazing
into his eyes, I smiled and thanked him for bringing Styvi back to
me.

“We’ve been thick as thieves ever since she
came home,” he smiled fondly down at her. “We played ball and
Frisbee for a good hour this afternoon.”

“I bet that made her day,” I laughed, hugging
Styvi to my chest and scratching behind her ears.

“No, I think the T-bone Trey picked up for
her earlier made her day.”

“Oh my goodness,” I chuckled. “Already
getting spoiled, huh Styvi?” She barked once and licked my face
before wiggling out of my hold and bounding across the bed to sit
in front of Jameson. “I think she wants you to get back in
bed.”

Jameson smiled and dove over her onto the
bed; the force of it causing me to bounce. I chuckled and sat
beside him, our backs to the headboard. Silently, I watched them
play together and thought back to the last time Jameson and I had
been in this exact position. It was the morning after I’d learned
they were vampires and had spent the night in Archer’s bed. Jameson
and I’d had breakfast together the next morning and he wrote a song
for me that eventually became our token song. I felt the happy
smile slide off my face as the memory haunted me.

Jameson took notice of my change in mood and
asked me if I was okay as he gently bumped his shoulder against
mine.

“Do you remember the last time we sat in
Archer’s bed like this?” I asked softly as I clutched the bottle of
whiskey to my chest.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his brow
furrow as he studied my face. “Of course I do,” he whispered, his
voice serious. “That’s still the best breakfast I’ve ever had.”

I swallowed thickly and uncapped the liquor,
taking in a huge mouthful. Memories of our time together swam
through my mind and I was inexplicably sad all of the sudden.

“I owe you a huge apology,” he said with a
sigh.

“No. You don’t owe me anything, honey,” I
shook my head, glancing over at him, then handing off the bottle.
“I made that bed.”

“No,” he argued before taking a long drink.
“I treated you like absolute shit, Skye. You didn’t deserve it, and
you sure as hell didn’t deserve what I did to you at my concert in
Boston.”

“Okay, that did suck a little,” I conceded
wryly as I stroked Styvi’s now snuggled form. She was sandwiched
in-between Jameson and me and looked like she was settling in for
round two of her naptime.

Jameson handed me back the bottle and I took
another deep pull. “Can I be honest with you?” he asked after a
silent minute.

“Always,” I answered as I looked over at him.
He was studying his hands, his face betraying his trepidation.

“I was so hurt when you ended things with
me,” he started, his eyes still down. “I really thought what we had
was good and that we’d be together for a long time. That’s why it
was kind of shocking to me.”

“I’m really sorry about the way I handled
that. I broke up with you for the wrong reason, honey,” I said,
picking at the paper label on the bottle, desperate to occupy my
eyes so I wouldn’t look up at him. If I saw pain in his eyes, I
knew I’d cry. “But…if I can be honest with you, our relationship
would have ended eventually anyway. My feelings were torn.”

“I know,” he sighed, taking the bottle from
me and slugging back a few gulps. “I saw the way you and Archer
were together. I knew the attraction and desire was there, I just
thought it would eventually go away.”

“I did love you, Jameson,” I whispered as I
slowly slid my eyes to his. “And I still do. It’s a different kind
of love now, but that doesn’t lessen it. When you came home to heal
me, I was so happy to see you; I’d missed you so much.”

“And I treated you horribly then, too,” he
said, rubbing his forehead. “Fuck, I’m such a prick sometimes.”

“You had every right to be angry with me,” I
frowned as I leaned my head over on his shoulder. He lifted his arm
and pulled me into the crook as I moved my head to his chest and
hugged him. “I think my relationship with Archer was inevitable,
but we could have gone about it differently; we could have tried to
wait longer…we could have talked to you first.”

“Archer told me you finally admitted your
feelings when you thought
An Dilis
was going to kill you,”
he said gently, whispering into my hair as he rested his lips on
the top of my head.

“Yes, before the tests,” I nodded, swallowing
thickly. “I honestly didn’t think I’d walk out of that basement
alive and I needed him to know that I cared about him.”

“I wish I had been there for you,” he sighed.
“I wish I had known what was happening.”

“Archer didn’t want to take you away from
your dream, Jameson. He said you guys were close to landing a
record deal. No one wanted to jeopardize that for you and the band.
You worked too hard.”

I felt him shake his head as he tightened his
arms around me, squeezing me to him. “You were my dream, Skye,” he
whispered so quietly I almost didn’t hear him.

I swallowed hard as I clenched my eyes
closed; his words running through me like a dull knife. Everything
I wanted to say to him sounded so trite in my head, so I changed
the subject. “Syd mentioned that you’ve been getting drunk every
night before your shows.”

“Syd should mind his own business,” Jameson
said with a scowl as he uncapped the bottle of whiskey and took
another slug.

“What are you doing, Jameson? You’ve got a
good thing going with The Manky Langer. Don’t throw it away because
you’re hurting.”

“What do you know of my pain?” he scoffed
softly, not unkindly, and handed me back the bottle. I tilted my
head back against his shoulder and looked up into his eyes; the
pain there barely masked.

“I know that your pain is my pain, brother,”
I whispered as I lightly stroked his chin with my thumb. “I’ve
suffered as you have, just in my own way. Losing you, in any
capacity, was heartbreaking for me. You’re my friend, Jameson, and
you’ll always be my family. I have to have you in my life. I’ve
tried living without you and it feels like part of me is missing. I
need you here. I’ve really missed my friend.”

“How can you forgive me for the things I said
to you, the things I did in front of you?” he asked, his brow
furrowing in confusion. “You didn’t deserve a lot of it and you
definitely didn’t deserve what I did to you backstage in
Boston.”

Flashes of Jameson with his pants lowered
around his hips and the groupie sucking him off flitted through my
mind and I squeezed my eyes closed in an attempt to shut them out.
It was a relatively painful memory for me. It wasn’t the act that
bothered me the most; it was his state of mind at the time. Jameson
showed me a darker side of himself and I wasn’t used to seeing him
in that light. I sighed and smoothed his shirt against his chest.
“Everybody needs to get laid, honey,” I shrugged one shoulder.

He was silent for a long time as we passed
the bottle back and forth; we were lost in our own thoughts.
Finally, he broke it with a dry, humorless chuckle. “You know, I
only fucked redheads. How sick is that? Every night I’d pick a girl
who looked most like you and take her backstage. I just wanted that
connection with you again, I think. And every night it was the
same, me fucking the girl or watching her suck me off and
daydreaming it was you in front of me and not someone else.”

“That’s not very healthy, honey,” I frowned
as I gazed up at him. “Please tell me you don’t still feel that
way.”

“Sometimes,” he admitted honestly as he
looked down at me and brushed the hair from my forehead. “I miss
the connection we once had; it was absolutely electric…the best sex
I’ve ever had.”

I groaned uncomfortably and buried my head in
his chest as he continued. “Do you know what my biggest regret is?”
he asked softly as he held me to him. I reluctantly tilted my head
up to look at him and saw moisture beginning to pool in his eyes.
My brow furrowed a little in confusion as I shook my head. “My
biggest regret is that I didn’t kiss you goodbye.”