TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 206

Two hundred and six

Cameron POV

My fingers tightened around the steering wheel as one of the guards climbed into the passenger seat. The headlights of the van behind us came alive across the gravel as I pulled onto the dark road.

The drive home barely registered. Time kept vanishing. One moment I was staring at the white lane markings, the next the Alpha estate gates were opening in front of me.

The guard beside me kept glancing toward my face, his boots shifting nervously against the floor mat, but I ignored him.

I slammed the car door and walked into the mansion. I hadn’t even reached the staircase before Evangeline stepped out.

She wore a dark fitted dress, her hair pinned tightly despite the late hour.

Her eyes narrowed when she saw me. The pain behind my forehead throbbed harder.

“Please,” I muttered, lifting a hand. “Not now.”

“What did you do?” she asked sharply. “I can smell her on you.”

“Eva, I have a headache.”

“Do you have any idea how much you’re hurting me?”

She stood rigidly near the stairs.

“What are you talking about?” I muttered, trying to move past her. “I just want to sleep. You sent me there.”

She laughed sharply.

“You’re delusional.”

Our eyes met.

“You told me something.”

“What exactly did I supposedly tell you?”

My pulse sped up as she stared at me.

“You told me the baby was making me worse.’

Evangeline crossed the distance between us quickly and grabbed my jaw hard enough to hurt.

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“Cameron, don’t you dare accuse me of saying that.”

My chest rose unevenly beneath my open shirt.

“But you said the baby complicated things. You said everything would fall apart if it stayed.”

“I did not,” she snapped, shoving me backward. “You coward. Look at yourself. You went there because you wanted her, and now suddenly I’m the villain?”

The hallway tilted badly.

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“You see?” she continued. “This is exactly what I’ve been trying to protect you from. You don’t even know what you’re doing anymore.”

The word protect felt wrong.

Lisa’s terrified face flashed through my head again, along with my hands clamping down on her skin.

“Go upstairs,” Evangeline snapped. “Take a bath and sleep this insanity off.”

I stayed where I was.

“You made me do it,” I repeated.

“How convenient,” she spat, turning away from me toward the fireplace. “You can’t accept responsibility for your own actions, so now I’m the liar?”

She spun back around and pointed a finger at my face.

“You wouldn’t stop saying Lisa’s name. You wouldn’t stop talking about her. Now suddenly your excuse is that I manipulated you into hurting a baby? Do you hear yourself?”

Heat rushed through my body. The fog in my skull thinned.

“Don’t condemn me for something you’pushed me toward,” I said quietly.

I stepped toward her. She stepped backward immediately.

“What are you going to do?” she demanded, though fear had already entered her voice. “Hit me? Go on. Do it.”

I kept moving closer.

“You said you owned me.”

“Because I do.”

“No.”

“I do.”

Her hand struck my jaw hard. I barely reacted.

She hit me again.

“I do,” she repeated breathlessly. “I fucking do.”

The sting cut through the fog. For the first time all night, I saw her clearly. She was terrified that I was finally looking at her properly.

Her hand rose again. This time I caught her wrist before it landed. My grip tightened until she gasped.

“Let go of me,” she whimpered, trying to pull back. “You’re hurting me.”

“You do not own me.”

“Oh really?” she shot back, lifting her chin despite the fear in her eyes. “You want to test that theory?”

“What the hell is going on?”

Franklin’s boots pounded across the hallway rug with Nadia close behind him. I still hadn’t released Evangeline’s

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wrist.

“She doesn’t own me. She… she made me do something tonight.”

“That’s not true,” Evangeline cried, twisting as she tried to break free. “You’re just a coward. An adulterous, cheating coward spinning lies about me. And yes, I own you!”

“She’s destroying him,” Nadia whispered. “She’s actually saying it out loud.”

“Oh, shut up,” Evangeline snapped at her. “All of you pushed him into this. Every single one of you. Filling his head with paranoia and dragging him toward that dirty surrogate every chance you get.”

“She has a name,” Franklin said coldly.

“I don’t care.”

My grip tightened harder around her wrist, making her wince.

“You sent me there,” I said. “You made me hurt the baby.”

Her eyes locked onto mine.

“You went there because you’re a spineless coward.”

“You told me the baby was making me sick.”

“Because it is!” she exploded.

The room went silent.

She seemed to realize too late that she had said it out loud.

Nadia stared at her in horror. Evangeline laughed harshly, trying to recover.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. You’ve all seen him deteriorating for months.”

“She’s stabilizing him,” Franklin said. “You broke the ultrasound because it was stabilizing him.”

Evangeline let out a short laugh.

“Oh, wonderful. Franklin finally solved the mystery. Should we carve your discovery into stone next?”

Her mouth twisted sharply.

“That thing inside her is destroying my bond!”

The words echoed through the night.

Nadia looked disgusted now.

“You really did it,” she said softly. “You actually turned him into this.”

Evangeline jerked her wrist again, still trapped in my grip.

“You don’t understand anything,” she snapped. “If Cameron breaks away from me now, he will completely lose his mind. Do you hear me? Completely.”

“What does that mean?” Franklin asked calmly.

“It means none of you idiots understand what Dominion actually does. You think this is some game?” She pointed

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at me with her free hand. “His mind is now reorganized around me. If he leaves me, he dies.”

Nadia’s face drained of color.

“You’re lying.”

“I wish I was,” Evangeline shot back.

My headache worsened instantly.

“You’re insane,” Nadia whispered. “You sent him to hurt Lisa.”

“I sent him toward the source of the instability,” she corrected immediately. “I didn’t tell him to attack anyone.”

“You hear yourself?” Nadia cried. “You sound like he’s an experiment.”

“He’s my mate!”

“No,” I said weakly.

Everybody looked at me.

I finally released her wrist.

My hand dropped heavily to my side.

The pressure in my skull kept building, but the fog wasn’t fully swallowing me this time.

“Try leaving me completely. Try it.”

Nadia rushed to me and pulled me toward her,

“Don’t listen to her.”

Evangeline ignored her.

“You think these blackouts are bad now?” she continued, staring only at me. “Walk away from me fully and see what happens to your mind. See how long you stay recognizable.”

Franklin swore under his breath.

“Stop threatening him, Evangeline. We know you’re a vessel, but the Meridian aren’t the only people with powers.”

Evangeline laughed softly, then looked straight at Franklin.

“You still think this is about power? How adorable.”

Her smile faded into something colder.

“You think you can save him because you finally noticed the cracks?” she said. “Cameron crossed too far already. If he leaves me now, his mind will tear itself apart. There’s no rescue left.”

“You’re lying.”

A pulse of nausea rolled through me.

“I’m telling the truth none of you want to accept.”

“You’re finally admitting you did something to him,” Nadia said. “It’s shameful that your version of love is

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making him dependent on you and turning him into a shell, just like your father.”

Evangeline laughed bitterly.

“And now it’s too late to undo it. Accept this reality. He’s mine, and no one can take him from me.”

My legs suddenly felt unsteady. I grabbed the edge of the staircase railing.

Blood dripped from my nose onto the marble floor…

Nadia screamed. Franklin rushed toward me.

“Cameron.”

“I’m fine,” I muttered.

Evangeline scoffed.

“He needs rest,” she said mockingly. “That’s all this is.”

“Take me… take me out of here,” were the last words I said before I blacked out.

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