“No.”
“Are you sure? Listen. Close your eyes and concentrate. Can you hear it?” Kate stared at him with her head cocked, an are-you-serious look on her face.
“Kate, please. This is important.”
“Fine.” She closed her eyes and concentrated. “I…I can’t hear anything.”
“Let’s do an experiment.”
He stood and grabbed her hand, scooping her up in his arms. “Come.”
“Where are we going? I can walk, you know.”
He ignored her, carrying her down to the game room. “Do you hear it now?”
“No…I—wait. Put me down.” Reluctantly he complied. Then she barely whispered, “Yes. Yes, I hear it again. What the hell is that?”
Chapter 32
Dev
“Ren, is everyone in the basement?”
“Yes. In their sleeping quarters.”
Dev shut his eyes and listened, letting everything else fall away. All he could hear was blood being pushed through the arteries and veins of his friends in the lower levels. Holy shit. Was that what she heard? If so, how was that possible? Only born vampires had hearing that keen. Bonded mates would not possess that ability, at least not for decades. He didn’t hear it anymore as he was so used to the sound after so many centuries.
This made no sense. Keen hearing and eyesight, hearing his thoughts before they were bonded, the super-ability of stasis? Those were all vampire traits…
“I don’t know, but I’ll check it out after we get you back upstairs, okay?”
“Ren, when will the blood test results be back on Kate?”
“Big D said it’d take a few hours, so it should be anytime now.”
“Kate has regained consciousness. Contact him and see if he can speed things along.”
“Of course.”
Dev put his hand on the small of Kate’s back, leading her back out of the room. “Why don’t we get you back upstairs? You took a nasty fall. Do you remember anything else about the men downstairs?”
“No. But why were they here?”
Uh oh. Time for some ’splainin’. “Why were who where?”
Kate laughed, wincing slightly as she grabbed her head. “Dev, for someone so articulate, that didn’t make a lick of sense. Why were all of those men in the basement? And for that matter, why is there a secret basement with creepy, medieval tunnels and a bunch of underground rooms anyway?”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Are you hungry?”
“Are you evading?”
He chuckled. “No, I promise. I just thought maybe it would be a good idea to get something in your stomach first. You didn’t eat much yesterday and we have a lengthy discussion in front of us.”
“Okay. I guess I am a little hungry. But after that, you need to start talking.”
He nodded once and put his hand on the small of her back to usher her toward the kitchen.
___________
Kate
They sat at the kitchen island and ate fresh fruit medley and a chocolate muffin so good it could rival any orgasm. They ate in silence, and while Dev seemed distracted, it was a comfortable silence. Kate liked comfortable silence. Not every minute needed to be filled with meaningless words and it was rare to find someone with whom you could just…be.
She was still a little groggy, her head pounding a bit from the fall and the strange noise, but a memory was on the fringes of her brain. Something important about last night was trying to surface but wouldn’t quite come. It made her head hurt worse to think about it. She would remember eventually.
After they finished their meals, Dev cleaned up and put their dishes away.
“Let’s go back upstairs.” He held out his hand to her.
She nodded and took it. The electric charge that was always present between them ran up her arm and through her whole body. She couldn’t understand why she was so drawn to him, but it was clear something had changed in her since she’d met him. Things seemed crisper, sharper, clearer. It was odd and unnerving and she couldn’t understand it really, let alone explain it. Her senses seemed…supersized. That was the best way she could think to describe it.
They settled in the lounge area of her bedroom, Kate on a leather chair, Dev on the loveseat, and she waited for Dev to start the conversation. She was nervous, as if something was about to happen that would change the course of her life forever.
Dramatic much?
“So…” He looked nervous and was very fidgety. Not at all like the self-assured Dev she’d come to know over the last few days.
“So…just spill it, Dev.”
“Okay.” He stopped, staring at her with an intensity she hadn’t seen before. “I am vampire and you are my Moira, my fated mate.”