Nik sat up, pleased that the room spun only a few seconds before coming to a halt. “I’d like to meet her, actually. Other than my dad, who wouldn’t talk about it and advised me to wear gloves all the time, I have never met another person with psychic abilities. Tell me about her—and I’m okay for feeding. I know you guys are short on feeders.”
Cage stood up. “We’ll see—Hannah needs it more than me. I’ll fill you in before we walk over. She’s at Aidan’s house.”
For the next few minutes, Nik heard the capsule version of Hannah’s story, most of which he’d already learned from the colonel’s dossier. What hadn’t been there were the more recent events—mostly that her familiars, an adult couple who were feeders as well as parental figures, had been killed by Matthias in his siege of Penton. How she’d been withdrawn since then.
“I thought she was pulling out of it when Max settled in here—she liked him, although I have no idea why because he’s a total arsewipe,” Cage said. “She had Max and she had the bloody dog. Now that Max is gone, she hasn’t spoken to anyone. I thought she might talk to you if you spoke to her about your abilities.”
“She has visions of the future, right?”
Cage nodded. “They aren’t like yours, where they’re tied to touching a person or object. They just come to her in pieces. I’d hoped to work with her eventually to see if we could figure out how to let her access them when she wanted and avoid them when she didn’t. But things got too crazy too fast.”
While they’d been standing on the porch and talking, Penton had slowly come to life around them. The vampires were out and about, and Nik saw the blonde vampire he’d run into the night of the fire, Shawn, leave the house two doors down—halfway between Mirren’s house and the burned-out hulk of his own. She was accompanied by a young, dark-haired woman. She waved when she saw Nik and Cage.
“You met Shawn the night of the fire, right?”
Nik nodded. “I think she inherited me as a feeder, or the other woman, Britta—not sure which.”
Cage laughed. “It’ll be more pleasant than with me, no doubt.”
“Yeah, about that.” Nik liked the Brit and all, but he really didn’t want to get a hard-on from having the guy suck on his forearm. That was fucking warped. Maybe that effect had been exaggerated. All he’d done with Mirren was relax. “Am I gonna, you know . . . uh . . .”
“Want to fuck me?” Cage smiled. “No, I don’t think so. And if you do, keep it to yourself, right?”
“No problem.” Nik never would’ve believed it, but shifters were downright simple compared to vampires. Blood. Sunlight. Silver reduced their strength. At least Robin just sprouted feathers and flew around.
They walked across the street and up the steps. Cage unlocked the door and led the way to the room Hannah had taken in the front.
He knocked, but there was no answer, so he tried the doorknob and opened it.
Someone had tried to make the room cheerful. Exotic flowers sat in a bright blue vase in the corner, and colorful pillows had been tossed on chairs and on the bed.
“Where—” Nik had started to ask where Hannah was, but Cage put a hand on his arm and jerked his head toward the corner.
God, she was tiny. He knew she’d been turned at twelve and that on some level she was still twelve, but he’d expected her to look more vampirish. She was smaller than Robin and looked like a little kid.
Cage patted him on the back and stepped back into the hallway, leaving Nik alone with the girl. She sat wedged into the corner, a big, wrinkled mass of reddish-brown fur filling her lap.
Nik walked over and sat cross-legged on the floor facing her. “Is this Barnabas?”
She nodded and ran a small hand over the dog’s head and down the length of a floppy ear. Bloodshot eyes opened and looked at her adoringly.
“He loves you. Look at that expression.”
She cocked her head and scratched under Barnabas’s chin before looking up. Her jet-black eyes widened, and her mouth opened to form a small O.
“You’re the one. The one who’s like me.”
Nik nodded. “My name is Nik—Nikolas. I’m sort of like you. I can see things in the past, where you see the future, right?”
Hannah smiled, and the difference it made in her face was remarkable—and horrifying. She looked even more like a little kid. Nik was glad Aidan had killed the monster who stole her childhood and the life she should’ve had. “Maybe we can work together and learn to use our gifts better. I could use some help.”
To Nik’s dismay, she began to cry. He thought vampires couldn’t cry. Maybe the rule book got thrown out on a technicality if the vampire was a kid.