also said she was important. But he and his friends made some mean jokes about her, so I didn’t like that very much.
“Bardhyl!” her mother’s warm, patient voice sounded.
“Hi,” I turned red because Ophelia’s mom was also really pretty, they had the same eyes. I wish I had known my mom, I bet she would have had pretty eyes also.
“His daddy is being mean and wouldn’t give him dinner,” Ophelia said immediately.
Her mother put out two plates. “I know. Don’t worry. Mr. Donahue and I will be having a talk tomorrow.”
I wanted to tell her not to. It would only make it worse.
She had, though, and while her intentions had been good, I’d gotten hit so bad I had to stay home from school. It was even worse after she died, and he stopped caring about me going out in public so I had bruises often until I was strong enough to fight back. He still sometimes would get a hit in and it got frustrating enough and made Ophelia sad enough that I finally lost it and killed him. Bastard deserved it anyway because he was more like Denise than I cared to admit.
A soft shuffle had me looking up as Ophelia walked out of the room with a small yawn, Koa rolling over so he was practically cuddling with Merrick. I wanted to snap a photo because Koa would hate that, but I was distracted by Ophelia and how she curled up next to me on the couch, her eyes half-closed as she leaned into me.
“Aren’t you more comfortable on the bed?” I asked softly, running my fingers through her hair.
“I missed you.” Those simple words did a number on my heart and I pulled her closer, grabbing a pillow so she could lay her head in my lap. Of course, my dick took notice and I tried to not get hard thinking about her mouth so close to it. It was like a constant problem being turned on around her. I wanted to solve it but I felt like the woman still didn’t trust me fully and when I took her, I wanted her to be 100% sure in her trust for me.
Mostly because the things that I wanted to do to her would require that. I wanted her to give herself to me completely. I wanted her to look me in the eye and scream out my name and how much she loved me back as I pounded into her. I wanted everything from her and nothing else would do. So I didn’t think she was ready for that.
It had killed me to dismiss her so much in school and if her safety hadn’t taken precedence I would have dropped the plan. In retrospect, I was glad we had waited until we had more backup because frankly, while I trusted us, I think numbers always helped. In less than two days, Denise had already noted the difference and locked Ophelia up, so we had been doing the right thing despite it being painful.
My eyes trailed her soft lips and I ran a finger across them thinking about how she had been planning to leave all of this. Leave us. I should turn her ass bright red for even thinking about it. My jaw clenched thinking about the men overseas that would get the pleasure of living with her. Not anymore. If she wanted to go overseas I would be going with her.
I could accept the place that these five other men had in her life, really. But I wasn’t positive I could handle anything more, especially the fucking vampire and his demon. I had heard all about Adrian but I had thought it was his century in Chicago, clearly, I’d been wrong. The worse part? I could see the affection and trust Ophelia had for them.
It was also clear she had left her phone at home whenever she went out, making me wonder just how much she knew, even subconsciously, about us tracking her. I would have gone immediately to Kansas City had I known. No, really, all I did every weekend was sit at home with Koa. Any rumors about being with anyone were exactly that and usually because people were talking about how much time we spent with Ophelia.
It was why we had sat with those girls in the coffee shop. Something the girls felt immensely guilty about and now were a bit afraid of Ophelia due to how upset she got. This town