A Slave to Broken Hearts (A Slave to Love Sequel)

Chapter 66: Eavesdropping

Blade POV

"I'm sorry to bother you, but Lexi was spitballing ideas to prank Ace back with and it was getting rather...extreme," Raoul said sheepishly, meeting me at the door of my parent's house. He'd called me earlier as my parents were out of town for the day and it seemed wisest to put an end to whatever mischief Lexi was up to now, before she got too far ahead in her plans to stop.

"It's fine," I assured him. Better I deal with her now than wait for her to fuck up publicly and put Ace in a difficult position. She'd sworn up and down that she wasn't going to do anything else, but we had all heard that one before, and usually it meant she was cooking up something worse.

"She's on quite a tear today, I'd tread carefully."

"So like every other day then?" I replied. "Also, I've got to ask, what's with the new minty fresh scent?"

Normally Raoul barely smelled like anything at all, no particular scent jumping out besides the smell of the house and the scent-free products he used, which still had a faint aroma, and just a general scent of him. With a vampire's strong sense of smell it was best to avoid any perfumes or heavily scented products; it took many years of abuse to destroy their sense of smell enough to tolerate it, which depending their line of work, was a terrible fucking idea. 

As a guard I had to be extra careful to avoid ruining my nose to be able to follow trails and catch any suspicious people hanging around where they shouldn't, which left me more sensitive than most, but not everyone had to be that diligent, though most of us avoided it anyway. Otherwise, strong odors became a mild annoyance that sometimes resulted in a headache depending how strong it was and how long you were stuck with it.

Lingering scents from other people was fine, it was usually faded enough not to bother unless they'd just freshly spritzed some perfume on in a cloud, though newer vamps were extra sensitive until they adjusted to their new life. Either way, Raoul and those who worked around vampires avoided anything too heavily scented not to bother any of the many vamps they worked around all day or not to get in the way of us needing to track anyone.

"I've started seeing someone new and she bought me this cologne and it felt rude to decline," he said sheepishly, hands behind his back. "I'd seen her this morning and didn't have time to shower before work."

"Congratulations," I said as we turned a corner. 

"Thank you." He stopped at the end of the hallway, still a few turns away from Lexi's room. "If you don't mind, I'm going to go make myself busy somewhere far from here and pretend I know nothing."

"Your secret is safe with me," I assured him. No need to get Lexi to rain Hell down on someone else, even though she usually did reserve a soft spot for a few people, Raoul included.

"Good luck," he said with a dip of his chin, then hurried away, no doubt grateful he wasn't me.

With a sigh, I ambled on, hoping Lexi would be in a better mood and more likely to listen to reason today, though I knew that was one of the most impossible fucking wishes I'd ever made. Especially as I could already hear her before I turned the final corner, her voice loud and irritated and clearly audible, even through her bedroom door.

"It still reeks in here," Lexi bitched, "I could kill Ace for putting those stupid chickens in my room."

"To be fair, you did start it," Alek replied, with only a hint of amusement.

"No, he started it by catching feelings."

"You can't stop someone from having feelings."

"No, but I can certainly hold it against him."

Ace had feelings for someone? Since when? 

I slowed, softening my footsteps to sneak up on them, curiosity piqued, though I was fairly certain she wouldn't notice me creeping down the hall while she ranted. 

"Come on, Lex. It's really not the end of the world."

"I swear, if he wasn't in charge, I'd set his whole fucking car on fire--"

"No, you wouldn't," Alek said, "You'd egg his car, or wrap it in saran wrap, but you wouldn't commit arson."

Nice to know Alek had mostly taken over my role as Lexi's impulse control and moral compass, like a hostage negotiator trying to talk her down and diffuse the situation. I couldn't see why Ace having found someone new had pissed her off so much, though I couldn't help the sigh of relief that I'd been wrong, he and Kiana were just friends after all. I had just been paranoid.

"That depends entirely on what's going on," she said. "He had one job. One. And instead, he had to go and be a big dumb idiot. He's so soft, I should have seen this coming, but I ignored all the signs. I swear if I find out he lied to me and there's even more shit going on like he's sleeping with her, I will absolutely burn everything he owns to a fucking crisp."

"Maybe it's time to let it go," he said.

"Absolutely not. Ace and I are supposed to be a team and he's completely undermining our goal."

"You don't know that, from the way you explained it, it doesn't seem like it."

What goal? What are they on a team for? What the fuck did he do? I crept closer, as if proximity would make them explain themselves better.

Something slammed hard. "Oh please, she showed up to self defense with a hickey on her thigh and expected none of us to notice? I'll give you three guesses as to who gave it to her."

Self defense? Hickey on her--?

"You don't know who did it or that it was a even hickey--"

"I have given and received many hickeys, I know a hickey when I see one, and I'm not buying your 'it's just a bruise' theory. I swear they're both lying to me, I know it, I just can't prove it. There's no one else in the picture that she would bother with, it has to be him," she said, agitated.

I stopped.

She couldn't possibly think that--no. It couldn't be true. She just said she didn't have any proof, so it was just a theory, even if there was some weight to her words, a similar thought having occurred to me before too. And just because Ace suddenly had feelings for her, didn't mean anything had happened. There wasn't proof. Maybe it was just a bruise, she had fallen off Mick's skateboard after all and was pretty banged up. 

So while him having feelings for her was new, it didn't mean she returned those feelings, Lexi hadn't said she did.

But still, I found it hard to swallow all of a sudden.