Bloodlines (The New Order 2)

Chapter 21

The phone rang again. It was a loud ringing that echoed through the house, certainly awakening everyone that had been sleeping. I stood beside it, fingers curled around the telephone, urging to pick up the call while everything else within me didn't want to. Knox was asleep. It was the middle of the night yet my thoughts had kept me awake.

The phone had rang before, ten minutes before.

It was Cain and I wasn't ready to talk to him.

Not yet.

The ringing continued for several minutes more. At the edge, I chewed the insides of my mouth while still holding onto to the telephone. He wanted to talk to me but I had left my cell back home along with everything else when I went for a walk with grandfather. I had retrieved nothing from there nor intended onto.

"Don't fucking cut the call again." He growled in my ear as I picked up his fourth call. Anymore and Knox was going to be awake, wondering what I was doing beside the telephone.

"It's late—" I opened my mouth to find a reason to delay the talk he wanted to have with me.

It had just been a couple hours since Knox left his mark over my body and it was enough time for Cain to sense that I had been marked by him.

"I know what you've done." He sounded enraged and furious.

I kept my cool and straightened my shoulders while my voice remained low, almost like a whisper. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't act so innocent."

I closed my eyes. My heart beat quickly in my chest but the scent lingering over my body kept me calm. There was nothing I needed to worry about. "Sad, isn't it?" I asked him, pushing him to the edge. "Can't get into my head anymore?"

The mate bond I shared with Cain had weakened. He couldn't slip into my head anymore or appear in my dreams with ease. He had to struggle now. There was one benefit that I had just remembered when I thought of Cain. He could no longer, ever, find the location of the sword that had been dying to get his hands on.

It was truly exciting.

"Do you really think that I can't get in your head, Candice? I can and I will whenever I want to. I'll admit it made a little angry when I felt you had my mark replaced but the jealousy passed by soon." He said, sounding a bit calm.

"Then why are you calling me?" I cocked a brow in confusion.

There was a long silence on his end before he responded to me, "Gideon wants to speak with you."

"I don't." I instantly snapped back at him.

"Listen to me first, Candice." His voice grew loud in my ears. I pursued my lips, keeping my mouth shut while hoping to listen to the rest of his reason to call me at this time of the night. "I told him about your family, and your grandfather. He wants to talk to you. He's not going to hurt you." For a moment, Cain sounded assuring but I stopped myself from believing him.

"No."

"With or without a mark, he certainly can get in your head. Do you want that? Do you want me to tell him to slip into your head and ruin your life while you're making your bed with Knox?" He asked, breathing heavily against the phone.

I grew still while my eyes widened a little at the revelation. Since ever, Gideon could always read my thoughts and everything that went in my head. He could read me in a way no one else could.

I turned around a little and leaned back against the small coffee table where the telephone was placed. The lights of the house were all switched off. It was deadly silent here. My own voice echoed through the walls and up the staircase.