“I’m the Hunter here. They know that they can’t drink from a human, even if they think she’s the Immortal. I have to stop them. They won’t think twice when they see the girl here, but they’ll start to wonder if you’re here too. I know some of these vampires. Each of us has a Family and some Families are more powerful than others. Some extremely powerful Families are coming here and all of them want the Immortal. I can’t worry that they’ll discover who you are if you’re here. You need to go. You need to hide and you can do that by being normal. Don’t use your powers. They can’t sense your power.”
“What about… where’s your Family?”
“They’re coming.”
He was being vague and I didn’t like that. My eyes sharpened. “Gregory said war. He wasn’t exaggerating.”
“He wasn’t.” Roane looked away and rubbed a tired hand over his jaw. My hand itched to cover his.
“I came here to be normal. I wanted to go to college because that’s the normal thing to do. Kates didn’t understand it, but she’s not like me. She likes being unique or abnormal. She doesn’t understand… I wish she did sometimes.” I looked up and held his gaze. It was alluring, seductive, but I saw the anger that was repressed. It simmered under the surface. “I have a date tonight. I should go on that date, huh?”
He clenched his jaw for the briefest of seconds. “It would be the ‘normal’ thing to do, yes.”
I wondered if it cost him to say that. It cost me to hear it. “Okay. I’ll… I’ll go on that date, then.”
Roane stayed where he was.
I couldn’t bring myself to walk out those doors. “I… I should go.”
He nodded again. “Gregory will be back with the girl shortly. Hopefully, after awhile, things will go back to normal. You should… stay away from Kates. Stay with your roommate, with that boy. Go to classes. Do your normal thing.”
I frowned as a thought came to me. “You said that you needed me to help Kates. Did you? Or was that whole thing just a lie because you thought I was the Immortal?”
‘Did he use my roommate?’
“I used them both, yes.” Roane read my mind again.
I thought my shields were up against him? “And my powers? What if…”
“Try not to get angry. Talia told me that she used to ‘pack it away’. She said some days she was human and the others, she was the Immortal. You could try that.”
“What about the other girl? What are you going to do with her?”
Roane answered swiftly and I caught a glimpse of the Hunter he was. I had felt how fierce he could be, how determined and devoted to his duty he was when I’d been inside of him. I had marveled at his motivation and I saw it again when he replied, “We’ll hide her. When they demand to know where she is, we’ll fight. We’ll win. And then she’ll be seen in another state, another city, and rumors will be told again. They’ll all go there.”
They’d leave Benshire and the real Immortal behind. It was brilliant, but something told me that was just Roane doing his job. It was another day in the office for him.
“This is what you do, isn’t it.” I glided across the room until I stood right before him, within touching distance.
Roane closed his eyes and struggled not to reach out. The same battle was within me… a part of me was starting not to care about the consequences. A part of me was starting to wonder what those consequences actually were. Were there consequences?
Roane caught my hand. I hadn’t been aware of lifting it, but he caught and held it immobile in the air. There it was—the connection between us, again. Both of us looked at our hands. His hand wrapped around my wrist. Slowly, hypnotically, I bent my fingers and caressed his finger, just slightly, but it was enough. Roane drew in a ragged breath. I held my own. Then he growled as he hauled me to his chest and lifted me in the air. I wrapped my legs around his waist and we fell on the bed. His weight pressed me down and I searched for his mouth, desperately.
He found it and claimed me.
Roane slid his hands down to my waist. I arched my back to press against him and wrapped my arms around his neck. It seemed like I couldn’t get any closer, but I needed to.
I couldn’t get enough of him.
And then a phone ring peeled through the air. I cursed under my breath as Roane ripped himself away from me. Instantly, I felt the cold blast against my body and I would’ve done anything to have him back. The phone rang again and Roane paused when he found it. A third time. “It’s… I can’t answer this.” Roane sounded like he had one last nerve of willpower and the phone was quickly eating it away.
I lifted my head and saw that he had my phone. I’d completely forgotten that I had a phone. It seemed like something from a different world, not a world where vampires and Immortals existed.
It rang a fourth time and I felt the impatience across the line. “It’s my roommate.” I held out a heavy hand and snapped it open. “What?”
“What? You just say it like that? What? Your boyfriend is here. He said something about a date. And you ditched out on the convention today. Thanks a lot. Mr. Moser trusted me and I was stupid enough to trust you.”
“Emily…”