Break the Day - Lara Adrian Page 0,67
you were still part of the Order? Stealing weeks of my work and my father’s, and then giving it to your comrades behind my back?” She shook her head. “I guess you learned a few tricks from that mole from Opus, didn’t you?”
“That’s not fair,” he said calmly. “Even if I do deserve every bit of your anger.”
She refused to be lulled by his sincerity now. Not when he’d left her in this same room only an hour ago with the ache of his guilt carving a hollow in her breast. He’d made a mistake with her. That’s what he told everyone in that room just now.
She had made an even bigger one by trusting him.
By falling in love with him.
And now he knew all of that because he could feel her strongest emotions through their bond. The bond he had regretted almost from the instant he let her take the first sip from his vein.
“How far would you have gone to get what you wanted from me, Rafe? God, I didn’t even make you work that hard. You didn’t have to seduce me for the information. I was all too happy to throw myself at you.”
His brow furrowed into a deep scowl. “It was never about that. Nothing we did together had anything to do with my wanting your intel. We have nothing to do with my work for the Order. Christ, it couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“Were you ever cut loose from the Order?”
“No. That was part of my cover.” He went on without her asking for further explanation. “I began distancing myself from my teammates not long after I returned from Montreal. Then we manufactured some public displays of my insubordination, enough to get tongues wagging before Chase and Lucan fabricated my release from the Order. Very few people knew the truth. My commanders, my parents. It had to be solid. We needed Cruz and his associates to believe I’d been ousted so they’d give me a chance. So they’d trust me enough to let me in.”
“I needed to believe it too. Right?”
He nodded, his expression grave.
“You could’ve told me, Rafe. I would’ve kept your secret. You could have trusted me.” He had no answer for that, no reply. She knew she was asking him to choose her over his duty to the Order, but dammit, she wanted to think he might have at least considered it. His silence was killing her. “When did you give the Order my files and intel?”
“The night after we made love the first time.” He exhaled a short sigh. “I didn’t do it to hurt you. If anything, I wanted to help you.”
“Help me.” She scoffed, her throat raw with emotion. “And if we had actually gotten close to our goal together, if we’d closed in on Opus, would you have helped me destroy whoever killed my family?”
He said nothing for a long moment, then, finally, he shook his head. “No, Devony. I wouldn’t have let you anywhere near that kind of danger. I still won’t.”
“You have nothing to say about that.”
“Yes, I do.” He took a step toward her, cautiously, as if she were a wild animal about to bolt. “I have something to say about it because my blood lives in you now, and yours in me.”
She groaned, desperate to get away from him now. “Don’t talk to me about our bond. I felt your regret, Rafe. I felt how badly you wished we could take it back.”
“Yes, I did,” he said, a sharpness edging his deep voice. “I wanted to take it back because I knew I hadn’t been honest with you.”
“Well, now we have honesty,” she shot back, on the verge of tears she refused to shed in front of him. “And now we’re stuck with a blood bond neither one of wants anymore.”
The sting of that statement crossed his features like a lash. “Goddamn it, Devony.”
He reached for her and she dodged his touch. As soon as she cleared him, she flashed out of the guestroom and through the residential wing of the mansion.
But Rafe was Breed, too. He was faster, already standing in front of her when she slowed in the foyer and reached for the polished brass handle of the door. He blocked her way out, his eyes smoldering with amber sparks.
His sharp fangs glinted as he spoke. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like? I’m leaving.”
“Where?”
She didn’t know. She would figure it out later. All she knew was she had to