Page 117 of Soft Flannel Hank

“It’s complicated,” Nat replied, rubbing his palm over his mouth.

“If she’s hurt, what the hell are you doing here, Nat?” she hissed.

“I said it’s complicated, Esther,” Nat said, his voice tense.

“Leave it alone, sweetheart,” Hank whispered into Esther’s ear through her hair. “They know their business.”

Hank took in the scene around him. Esther glared at Nat, who glared right back. Robbie sat at the table eating apples. Callum reached his hands out for Jory, who shrieked in his face and pushed him away.

But then Callum took a step back and cut the air in front of him with his hands. “Enough!” he shouted.

* * *

Esther had never seenCallum like this. He looked nauseated and tortured and utterly lacking in anything that even resembled composure. He’d been raking his hands through his hair, which was now disheveled and sticking out at odd ends. Looking miserable, he tried to reach for Jory one more time, but she glared at him and went to stand next to Esther.

“You’re right, Callum. It’s been enough. Hundreds of years more than enough, it seems, and your many sins against me are a different matter entirely. But if you aim to kill her, you’ll have to come through me to do it.”

“Jesus Christ, woman,” Callum said through clenched teeth, looking up at the ceiling. “I wasnae going to kill her!”

Gravity seemed to completely disappear around Esther.

“What?” Esther asked, feeling her heartbeat pounding, hearing the blood rushing in her ears in her light-feeling head.

Callum sighed. “I wasnae ever going to kill ye, lass. I just needed to glamour you so that you forgot what you saw that night and didnae make trouble for me.”

Esther was speechless, staring at Callum with her mouth open and her brows pinched tightly together.

“Make trouble for you?” she said slowly.

Callum continued. “You were a loose end. A big one. And I… I couldnae afford for you to muck things up. Besides, if ye went off blabbing about a vampire-run club, ye’d have jeopardized an entire community and been in far worse trouble than anything with me. I wanted to glamour you and be done with it.”

Esther felt her fury rising, clear and cleansing. “You wanted to glamour me into forgetting that you murdered dozens of innocent people and used me to do it?” She was shrieking by the end.

“What?” Jory roared, but Callum ignored her. He was staring at Esther, his own brows pinched now, confusion clear on his face.

“Murder? What are ye talking about, lass?”

Esther described the night to him. Seeing that basement room, the vampires feeding on the club patrons, the vampire carrying the limp, lifeless body out the back door.

“Ye’re a fucking monster, Callum MacLeod,” Jory spat but Esther heard the catch in her voice. It sounded almost like… disappointment. Heartbreak. Like a sob she’d caught at the very last moment.

Callum sat down heavily in the chair that Robbie had just vacated to go to the sink and get himself a glass of water, moving around the kitchen as if nothing was happening, as if he lived there. “I didnae kill them. Nobody did,” he said. But he wasn’t looking at Esther. He was looking at Jory.

“You dinnae understand. Youcannaeunderstand what it’s like. The cravings. The never-ending cravings. But… I dinnae like the skulking about and attacking unsuspecting people. There isnae honor in that. It’s bad for business anyway.”

“Honor,” Jory scoffed, which seemed to rankle Callum. His eyes flashed.

“Aye.Honor.I was a sword for hire when ye met me, Marjory, but I wasnae a mercenary.” He looked furious, his hands clenched in tight fists on his thighs. “I never killed innocents. I refused. That’s why—” He stopped abruptly.

A strange look crossed Jory’s face. “That’s why what? Go on.”

Callum swallowed hard. “That’s why I lost you in the first place.”

Jory narrowed her eyes at him, but he’d shifted his gaze to Esther.

“I wanted something better for myself. I wanted to be an honorable man again. Or whatever I am. So I created Sanguine and the other clubs like it. Everyone in that basement had signed a waiver. They’d agreed to blood donation. Yer potions just made the experience more… pleasurable. For everyone.”

“I saw one of your people carrying a dead woman out the back door.I saw it,” Esther said through her teeth, fully expecting him to deny it.