On a Razor's Edge (Darkness #3)(18)

“I don’t know. Maybe a seer, or maybe my survival instinct, or maybe just female intuition.”

“Apparently female intuition is a mark of a seer. I am led to believe more than a few humans have this trait.”

“Ah. And how did you know I had this?”

“That smell you give when you’re aroused. Arousal has to come naturally, however. Since we are rarely without the pheromones when dealing with humans, manipulating their lust or some other emotion, well…”

That wasn’t the cause for concern. The shoe had yet to drop.

“You have to go away,” he said.

And there it was. I turned my face into his shoulder. “Without you, I take it.”

“Yes, but only for a short time. Dominicous is sending you and Toa into the Mata territory as some sort of…exchange program. You will go as a delegation. As my mate.”

My body froze, a tear nearly wobbling free from the first piece of news. I straightened up slowly, my eyes meeting his. I could just make out his perfect face in the shadow, breathtaking as always, but with a slow smile and softening of eyes that he wouldn’t show in public.

“I love you.”

It was the first thing that came to me.

He leaned over slowly, brushing his lips with mine. “I love you, too. I know a human tradition is to ask for your hand with jewelry and surprise and all that, and I will do that for you, but this exchange is, unfortunately, business.”

I shook my head, tears at the surface for a different reason. “You don’t need to.”

He nibbled my lips, softly brushing them with his tongue, but backed off before I could deepen it. “Your status as my mate is my intention. It is not cemented, unfortunately. My clan has to accept you as co-leader. Which means you actually need to learn to lead.” He smiled at me in jest. “Dominicous thinks it is wise to train you away from prying eyes.

“This progression is important, and your status as human and my mate is important. You are very much one of us, but also human. You cross that line. We hope…” He paused, a vein popping out on his jaw from how hard his jaw clenched.

I nudged him with a grin.

“I am supposed to hope,” he amended, “that you develop a positive relationship with them. To unite our two factions.”

“Who are these Meta?”

“Mata. Shape Changers. Varmints and critters and useless fools that think I should make way for their strange rituals and odd behavior.”

“I’m sorry—ˮ I leaned forward to think for a second. I turned to him on the bench, needing to be absolutely clear about this. “Shape Changers? As in…werewolves?”

“Yes, and no. Well, not really. There are wolves—the stinky, mangy animals. But also other absurd human mutations.”

“Okay, I am getting the feeling that you don’t like these people—ˮ

“Mata.”

“—but I am stuck on the ‘turning into an animal’ part of the story. How is that real?”

“I’ll let them explain it. There is one other thing. Who are your parents?”

That took me aback. “Because of the lineage thing? I don’t know. I lost them when I was five years old in a multiple car accident. I told you that, remember?”

“But you survived.”

“Yes. I was found a mile away in a park sitting on my own. Do you not listen to me?”

“And you have no idea how you got there?”

I shook my head, returning Stefan’s intense gaze. “Why?”

“Dominicous. He…is claiming you as his.”

Two emotions warred through me. One was an intense confusion, because since I first walked into the room with him, I’d felt something. It was very faint, almost a non-thing, but…it was vaguely familiar. Like I’d known him all my life.

The next was a thrill of fear, dropping my jaw. “So you had to challenge him, or whatever? Because I am not sleeping with that man!”

Stefan chuckled, and then looked around to make sure the big bad leader wasn’t caught actually laughing. We wouldn’t want a mass challenge because he had a sense of humor…

“He put you in that park. He saw you that night, a little girl standing amongst the carnage, flame starting to lick up your leg. He removed you, fed you his blood to ensure you lived until found, and then waited until you were. He’s as close to a father as you have. He has put himself in that role. I’m sure your power level helped solidify his decision regarding this.”

My world tilted and reeled. Then fell over.

A huge chunk of my life had just surfaced. The last piece that helped me put it all in perspective.

I had always been able to see the shadow men and women lurking in the night, huge people no one else had noticed. I could sense their presence, knowing I shared the world with something else, but never able to identify it with a likeminded person. Strange events had mentally crippled others, but energized me. I rushed into scuffles and battles where others, like Jared, whimpered.

“Would his blood have any lasting effect?” I asked in a daze.

Stefan pulled me into his body, sensing my strangeness to this news. “We don’t know. Trauma is a funny thing, especially to a child. But you resist our pheromones easily, and you have a soft link to him, though the experiences of the day have probably masked that. He thinks of you as blood, since he gave you blood as a child. Usually, giving blood once isn’t enough for any sort of lasting link.”