Thomas felt his heart stutter to a halt. There was no doubt about what Eddie was saying. He wanted to move out. He searched for an explanation. Maybe this was an old recording, something that Eddie had discussed with his sister way before he and Eddie had become lovers.
“This proves nothing!” he said to Kasper. “You can’t prove that this recording is even recent.”
“Can’t I?” Kasper grinned wickedly. “Continue to listen.”
Thomas sucked in a breath, about to protest, when Nina’s voice sounded from the speakers of the iPhone again. “I guess then you’re not going to like the one in the Marina that I saw.”
“The Marina is on landfill, Sis. After that earthquake three days ago, I’m not interested in living on anything but bedrock. Even Thomas’s house shook pretty heavily. I don’t even want to know—”
Kasper switched off the recording. But Thomas didn’t need to hear any more. There had been an earthquake three days earlier, the only major one since Eddie had moved in with him. There was no doubt now that the conversation between Nina and Eddie had taken place earlier that day.
And Eddie had even admitted to needing to see Nina when he’d left the house.
Thomas felt a sharp spear of pain lodge in his chest. Right after they’d made love there on the floor of his garage, Eddie had gone out to look at an apartment so he could move out. Eddie had planned all along to leave him. He’d never had any intention of continuing their relationship.
All he’d wanted was some sexual experimentation.
The feeling of betrayal that now rushed through him wasn’t anything he’d ever experienced.
He sensed his hands trembling and his knees going soft as all hope left his body. Eddie didn’t love him, despite the intimacies they’d shared. It had all been an illusion. A lie.
Fury charged through him, igniting his cells and rattling on the door to the cage in which he kept his dark power locked away.
“He used you,” Kasper said, his voice penetrating the fog in Thomas’s mind.
Used. Yes, he felt used. Like an old toy a kid played with once, and then discarded because his friends didn’t find it acceptable.
“You’ll show him that you don’t need him!” Kasper continued, the words sinking deeper into Thomas’s mind, making inroads there.
“I don’t need him,” Thomas repeated. No, he needed no lying, deceitful lover in his life.
The dark power in him agreed and pushed against the door of its cage, shoving it open. A roar went through his body.
“Yes, you feel it now, don’t you?” Kasper coaxed. “It’s been chained up for too long, hasn’t it?”
Thomas sensed the power as it was drawn to Kasper and the power swirling around him freely now. Bright sparks illuminated the shadows around them. Thomas closed his eyes and let the energy flow, for the first time in his life not putting any reins on the beast inside him.
“Welcome back!” Kasper put his hand on his shoulder, but Thomas instantly shook it off.
Glaring at him, he snarled, “You owe me an explanation! Talk now! And talk fast. I might not know how to control my powers the way you do, but I have nothing to lose anymore. Do you hear me? Nothing! And that makes me dangerous.”
Kasper’s face remained impassive despite Thomas’s threat. “What I tell you now will forever be our secret. None of my followers know. And they can never find out.”
Thomas didn’t answer. He would make no promises to Kasper or anybody else. Never again.
He lifted his clenched fist, his fangs descending. A sheen of red color tinted his vision. Electrical sparks released from his hands. “Talk!”
Kasper nodded briefly. “The man your people killed was my identical twin, Keegan.”
Thomas’s heartbeat shot up. Twins? There had been two of them? How had he never found out about Kasper’s twin?
“Yes, there were always two of us, but we lived as one. To everybody else, we were known as Kasper. We traded places to emphasize our strengths and to control our followers. We could be at two places at the same time, giving the impression that we were more powerful than any other vampire.” He paused.
Thomas could barely trust his ears. Was that the reason why he’d often thought that Kasper had a split personality, being kind and loving one minute and violent and uncaring the next?
Because they were two different people parading as one?
“Don’t get me wrong. We were more powerful than others, because our blood made us stronger. And the dark power ran equally strong in both of us. Nobody could tell us apart. Not even you, my sweet Thomas. Not even you.”