I tried to pull away my hand as my answer, but he held me closer and yanked harder, pulling me over to him to lay on his lap.
Glaring up at his chin, I squeezed his hand. “You’re pushing your luck, Mr. Thorbørn.”
“How am I supposed to know how far my luck stretches if I do not push it?” he questioned, letting go of me as I sat up, and I realized why I was letting him hold my hand, why I kept holding his hand.
It was warm. Right now, my hands, in his, were warm. “Feeling warmth,” I said slowly, trying to find something interesting in the city as it passed through the window. “That’s a sign of finding a mate?”
“That is a sign of being with your mate.”
“Mrs. Lucy said we’d feel almost mortal again.”
“I do not know, for I’ve never had a mate before. Some say it is as if the sun is beating on their face; others say it as if the world is spinning; some claim they became human again in their moments of intimacy and can sleep. Indications are different for every mated pair. I feel warmth with you, true warmth, a feeling I had long thought was impossible.”
I nodded, watching as we drove past the invisible line that divided rich Washington and the ghetto, heading into northern Virginia, toward Fairfax.
“Where are they taking us exactly?”
“The airport.”
At that, I turned my head to him. “The airport?”
“The capital of the American Republic is in Montréal.”
“Montréal, Canada?” When they had said America, I was thinking the United States, not the whole continent. “One family rules all of the Americas?”
“They came to power in 1901. They are new to me. Though I have heard of the family before,” he said.
“Can we trust him?”
“When your device rang this evening, it was the woman, Lucy Ming, who was on the other line. She recognized my voice instinctively, and said, I thought you were not going to return until next year.”
“They know you…personally?” I whispered and drifted off, not saying more aloud.
He nodded, and I realized that could be the first clue to figuring out what happened to him. What could have possibly happened that made him lose his memory?
“I believe so.”
“Is it all right that I don’t have a passport?”
He looked at me like it was a ridiculous question. “Neither do I, Druella, but I doubt the President’s family or his guest travel alongside the mortals.”
Okay, it was a stupid question.
Of course, they would have their own private jet or something.
Chapter 11
They did not have their own private jet.
They had their own private airport, and it was hidden, of course, cloaked in the thick trees and forest of Northern Virginia. Right above the Loca Waterfalls, a large slick black private jet sat on a tarmac. On the tail of it was a golden pair of twin swans, their necks locked together and their heads bowed, almost as if they were hugging.
There was a knock on the dividing glass between the front and the back. Theseus glanced around the back seat, looking for how to open it. He searched to see the switch on the vents in front, and holding it, the glass slid down with it.
“We’re here, sir.”
“Leave us,” Theseus commanded the driver. The vampire just bowed his head slightly before getting out, closing the door gently. When he was gone, Theseus cupped my cheek and brought me closer to him.
“Theseus.”