"Stopped? Not bitten you back? Are you crazy?"
Carlos dragged his fingers through his hair, staring at her. "Me pull out, then? Impossible. Make you stop? Never happen. The wound wouldn't even immediately seal when you lifted your head from my throat. But in that state, I would have let you bleed me out dry."
"But I picked up that you wanted..."
"I did, baby. You have no idea how much. I ain't gonna lie - but only from you. That was my darkest fantasy, but I tried to tell you not to go there. I almost begged you to stop playing with me like that." He shook his head, and broke eye contact with her. "Masters have an Achilles' heel, too, you know, and you've been mine for a long time, girl."
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I just didn't understand that it was... I mean, that, I didn't - "
"Trust," he said, cutting her off, speaking slowly with a lethal quality to his words, "that I didn't have some bitch on my mind."
All she could do was nod, and look away from him. What was there to say?
He turned away and stretched out his arm, leaning on the cracked plaster of the wall, studying the ruined floor. "Then I had to suffer the ultimate humiliation and show your people just how bad it was, and they still didn't understand, didn't get it - that I wasn't feeding you from my wrists. You weren't on your knees as some submissive, scrambling for a blood hit. You're my f**king equal, and I tried to show them that. I had to stand there and listen to your boys question whether or not I knew when I'd delivered a turn bite or not, like I'm some damned amateur!"
"But at the compound, that was a feeding," she said fast. "I was - "
She stepped back two paces when his fist took out a section of the wall and he pushed away from it, his eyes glowing crimson.
"You are pissing me off, D! Even a feeding at the throat from a mate sends nothing but pleasure. That shit is so erotic that it makes time stand still. But after the bite, I didn't have it in me to explain it. I had to get out of there. Now they think I'm Satan."
When she didn't answer, he looked at her with total fury blazing in his eyes. "Don't you ever take me there again. Don't you know how private an exchange that is? And don't you know by now that's the most vulnerable moment for a master to be in? If they were to open my lair in the daylight, I would still have enough strength and awareness to take a body before I torched. But during a mate bite, of any kind, f**k it, they could smoke me before I'd ever know what hit me. I didn't even hear my own marked man, Berkfield, calling me. My lieutenants did! Your mate can only give you pleasure or open you up like that, that's why you choose one with care!" He walked in a hot circle. "And that's why they were able to take an innocent that had my mark of protection on him, while I was with you tonight!" He pointed a her. "Fuck a key."
She covered her mouth with her hand and closed her eyes. "Oh, shit..."
"Yeah. Oh shit. And I stood up for you in front of a room full of armed Guardians wide-open, totally blitzed. Die with honor-please. Then I send my squad off on boundary security detail, just to save your team and try to salvage my pride in front of my boyz, because I knew the details of this situation would come out on the south lawn! Don't you ever question how I feel about you!"
He flung the heavy front door open so hard that it banged against the side glass panels before it left its hinges, shattering what remained of them. "I'm taking your ass to the edge of the compound lights, and I'll pray that you live. But don't f**king call me, hear? What? Live in exile from you for four or five hundred years, if I'm lucky, or until I get dusted? I want you out of my system, Damali! So, don't start that shit, don't mess with me in dreams, do not go down memory lane and dredge up one of our encounters, especially not St. Lucia in your mind, or ever think about that last bite. Purge it. Don't even take that one to the grave. I can feel past the grave, remember, even if you're gone! Do not make my already jacked-up life a living hell. Fair? You know what this shit is like."
"I'm going after the key, Carlos. If I live, I'll do the best I can," she whispered, as the winds he called swept around him. "Because if I do accidentally think about us, it'll only be 'cause I couldn't help it. I'm human."
Carlos didn't say another word. He'd simply vanished. Weary from the confrontation, Damali looked at the mansion's front doors, which were still hanging off their hinges. She glanced around for the dogs, but they, too, were nowhere to be found. They didn't even growl when she walked deeper into the mansion, her gaze noting that the fissures in the walls, the broken-out windows, the shattered chandelier and banister posts, had not been repaired when Carlos vanished. This was bad. This was not Carlos. This was not how her man lived, or functioned.
Her feet moved on their own accord, drawing her deeper into the house, past the huge foyer, into the sumptuous living room, and then dining room, and she stood in the middle of the floor trying to figure out how to get down into his sealed lair. She'd never seen a trap door, or a way in - had only been transported in or out. Fact was, she wasn't even sure where he'd gone.
"Carlos!" she yelled out, causing an eerie echo. "I owe you an apology, and just want one more word. Five minutes, tops."
No response. She let her breath out hard. "Open the door."
Not even the breeze from outside circulated in the abandoned house. Men.
She plunged the Isis sword into the polished floor, put her dagger in her jeans' back pocket, and waited a moment before calling out again. "My team left me here with the Isis and you. That should count for something. Don't you at least want to know why?"
Slowly the large west wall fireplace began to dissolve, giving way to a black opening and marble steps. Only a narrow gap existed, and she quickly grabbed her blade and slipped through it. Immediately, total darkness surrounded her.
Twelve glowing eyes blinked, something let out a low grumbling growl, and an unseen mass before her parted, sending six eyes to either side of the opening. Not even the torches were on, and she let her breath out hard as she passed the invisible beasts to descend the stairs, feeling the wall.
She couldn't see a thing, and not even her night vision could help her. He'd obviously not just turned out the torches to create darkness, but had practically painted the air black. The oppressive density was suffocating, as she picked her way down the steps, and used her sword like a blind person uses a cane to detect furniture or foreign objects that might make her trip and fall.
Finally in some sort of clearing, she patiently gathered her thoughts, stood tall, and spoke as calmly as she could.
"Baby, listen - "
"Do not use that term of endearment," a sullen voice replied, reverberating off the walls. "Not on me."
"Okay," she murmured, leaning on her sword, trying to get a bead on where Carlos's unseeable form might be in the room. "That's fair."
Silence gathered the tension in the room as she formed her next verbal approach.