So, yeah, I could understand why neither of them had told me beforehand. The question bugging me now was…why hadn’t Sam mentioned this afterwards? She wasn’t exactly someone who would care about risking my wrath. She’d snort and flip me off if I yelled at her. So why keep this from me? Why keep me out like that?

Unfortunately, none of that could distract me from the bone-deep fear circulating through me. Yes, the brothers had assured me that Sam wouldn’t become ill, but if their ‘equations’ weren’t adding up, then there was every chance that something bad would happen to her, even if they hadn’t meant for it to.

This whole thing sucked.

The scent that suddenly drifted downwind to me instantly made my blood boil. This was not what I needed. “I don’t know why you’re out here and I don’t care, just go.”

A very scantily dressed Magda sat gingerly on the lounger beside mine. “I sensed your anger and fear, Jared. Naturally I was going to come to you.”

The false concern in her voice nibbled at what patience I had left. “Not now. I really don’t want to have to deal with your shit right now.”

“Did it ever occur to you that I might wish to make amends?”

I snorted. “No, because you don’t. What you want is to play games. It’s what you’re good at.”

“You used to think I was good at a lot of things.”

“I also used to think that vampires didn’t exist.” I enjoyed watching that practiced sultry smile fall from her face.

“If I thought you were happy with Sam, I would wish you well” – Yeah, right – “but you’re not happy. You may seem it at times, but you’re not truly happy. A Binding is life-long. I would hate to see you trapped in a stale relationship.”

“Really? Strange, because that’s pretty much what you’d wanted when you Turned me all those years ago.”

Her eyes flared and her irises were suddenly glowing amber. “What we had was not stale. When I revealed what I was to you, I had two choices. Turn you at some point, or kill you – that is how it works, and you know that. I chose the first option and I do not regret that.”

“And that’s all it was? You Turned me purely to save me from death?” My words were dripping with scepticism. Magda wasn’t a stickler for rules. She would have gotten a kick out of risking punishment.

“Of course. You know this, just as you know that what we had was not stale. You may wish to believe that it had been, you may prefer to think differently, but you know in your own mind that it was not.”

“I know that you used me, just like you use everyone else around you. I know that, to you, I was just a toy. I know that you didn’t Turn me to save me, or because you cared; you did it out of spite, just as you Turned my brother out of spite. That’s what I know.”

“It wasn’t out of spite, but I can see why you might think that. I was hurt when you didn’t return to me. I panicked. I didn’t want to believe that you had stopped caring for me and I convinced myself that the only thing in our way was Evan being human. I used him to tempt you, yes, but not to hurt you. I would never have wished to do that.”

And wasn’t that the biggest load of shit I’d ever heard. If I hadn’t known her as well as I did, though, I might have fallen for that act. “Why are you here, Magda? Here at The Hollow? I know you don’t like that I’m Binding with Sam, and I know you get off on trying to separate us, but you have to know that your schemes won’t work. So why stay?”

“As I said, if I can be convinced that you’re truly happy with Sam, I shall no longer interfere. But if she continues to upset you as she clearly has now, well…”

I growled at the threat in her voice. “You stay away from Sam.”

Magda rolled her eyes. “These growls and warnings are wasted on me, Jared. You have a blood-link to me, you would never hurt me.”

She really believed that? Wow. “There are only three people in this world that will never come to any harm from me. Sam, Evan, and Antonio.”

“You do not wish to harm me, Jared,” she insisted, inserting authority into her tone. She might have Turned me, but she had no authority over me as far as I was concerned. “You were happy with me. Granted, I made a mess of things—”

“That’s putting it lightly, don’t you think?”

“—but before that, you were happy with me.”

Again, there was authority in her tone that was much like a subtle push. I looked at her curiously. “What do you think you are, a f**king Jedi?”

“You made love to me as no other man before, or after you, has done.”

I slowly sat upright on the lounger and swung my legs over the side, facing her. “Let’s get one thing straight, Magda. I f**ked you, but that’s all. Only with Sam has sex ever been anything more than that for me.”

Anger flashed on her face. “Perhaps it’s that way for you. But is it that way for her? Does she truly feel as strongly for you? If so, I have to wonder why you aren’t happy and why you are currently so angry.”

I knew she was playing mind games with me and it made me want to slap her – female or not. I almost did when she grabbed my arm. Instead, I shook off her grip. “Yeah, I’m pissed with Sam,” I admitted. “I’m pissed with her big time. In fact, I get pissed with her a lot, just as she does with me. But I still love her, and that’s not going to change.” I stood sharply, almost unbalancing the lounger.

“You say these things…but you have not totally opened yourself up to her, have you? You persist in holding back from her, even though it hurts her. Odd, then, that you claim to love her.”

But Magda was wrong. I wasn’t holding back from Sam, although that was how both women saw it. Telling Sam about my past would mean going back to that place in time in my head, and it would mean taking Sam there with me. I didn’t want her being touched by that shit.

Similarly, I didn’t want her to see the anxieties that lurked very deep inside me in spite of my efforts to get rid of them. I was broken in many ways, but I’d done a good job of hiding it, of denying it even to myself. It didn’t matter that I knew those anxieties were needless − when you were told things every single day of your childhood, those things had a way of embedding themselves inside you; lurking there, and appearing to torment you at your low moments. Knowing that none of it was true didn’t make it completely go away. And if your own mother couldn’t love you, it was so easy to believe that nobody else was ever going to.