“Excuse me?”
“I really hope that my sources are wrong and that you aren’t planning on abducting a human.”
“Well, it’s not like that,” I floundered for just a second. I was usually so in-control, but being called out on my bullshit had a way of making me uncomfortable.
“Really?”
“She’s my mate, Helena.”
“Does she know that?” Helena asked. “Did she agree to that? Because the last time I checked, we don’t just kidnap people who are trying to hunt us, Liam. We kill them first.”
“You turned Raven.”
“Raven was drunk in a bar,” Helena said. Her look darkened. “You were there. Besides, she agreed to it.”
“You can’t consent when you’re drunk,” I pointed out. “This is the 21st century, Helena. Get with the program.”
“Nobody from this century says bullshit like get with the program.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“I do,” she said. “You can’t just go after people.”
“I’m going after her,” I said.
“Why her?” Helena demanded. “Why this girl? You say she’s your mate. How do you know that? Tell me.”
There was more than anger behind Helena’s words. There was desperation. That was when I realized what she was really asking.
“This isn’t about Kimberly,” I said slowly. “This is about Raven.”
“No shit it’s about Raven,” she whispered. “Tell me how you know.”
“It’s been five years since I touched her,” I said. “And she almost killed me that night, Helena.”
“Almost, but not quite.”
“Almost, but not quite,” I repeated slowly. “No human has ever gotten that close to me.”
“How could she? What was so different?”
“I can’t read her mind.”
“Bullshit,” Helena whispered. “You can read any human you want to. With enough patience and enough focus, you can read anyone.”
It wasn’t exactly a secret that not all vampires could use their powers on humans. Some vampires were too fresh to use powers, and some were too old and jaded, but some of us could. I was especially good at reading humans. I couldn’t just smell them coming from a mile away. I could also hear their desires.
When someone is loudly thinking, “I’d like to kill that vampire dickhead,” I’ve always been smart enough to listen to that and kill the poor sucker first.
With Kimberly, I had no read at all.
I wanted to know so many things, but most of all, I wanted to know why I couldn’t get inside of her mind. It was going to bother me, I knew, if I couldn’t figure that out.
“It has to be because she’s my mate,” I told Helena.
“There could be a different explanation.”
“Really? Like what?”