Wild and Free (The Three #3)(17)

He grabbed a fork, closed the drawer, and looked at me.

“No problem with silver. No problem with holy water. No problem with garlic. Ditto crosses. Don’t need to be invited into anyone’s house. In fact, outside of needing blood to survive, nothin’ you think you might know about vampires or werewolves is true. This includes me not transformin’ to wolf at the full moon. I can do it whenever I want and never do it unless I want to. I also can’t turn people. Not that I’ve tried, but as far as I know, I was born this way.”

“As far as you know?” I asked as he started moving bacon around in the skillet, which was now sizzling.

“Was found in an alley. I was a pup. Had transformed, did it then whenever because I hadn’t learned control. Woman who found me took me in, thinking I was a stray puppy or dumped. Told me later I freaked her shit when I turned into a toddler, though she didn’t use those words.”

At this exceedingly sad story, I felt my insides freeze even as my lips whispered, “Oh my God.”

He stopped scooting bacon around and looked at me. “Yeah.”

“What did she do?” I asked.

He shrugged. “She tried to find my folks, and when that failed, she raised me.”

“Just like that?” I pressed.

“Don’t know her thought process. She didn’t share that with me. All I know is all I knew was her. Her love. Her kindness. Her understanding. Her protection. I have no memories of before her. She figured out all I was before I could form a coherent thought, seeing as I’d catch rats and suck them dry and try to latch on to her whenever I got the chance, baring my fangs. She brought me animals to keep me alive until I learned to do what I needed to do, and only then did she let me go out and find humans.”

I could not believe I was hearing this.

But I was hearing it, and I had to admit, it was utterly fascinating and extraordinary even if it was tremendously sad.

I mean, what kind of person would take into their home and then raise a werewolf vampire?

No other answer to that except a really good one.

“Was she Jian-Li?” I asked.

Something profoundly sad moved over his features as he looked back down to the bacon saying, “No.”

Okay, it was not the time to dig deeper with that.

“Learned to do what you needed to do?” I prompted as he flipped bacon.

He looked to me. “Teeth are sharp, Lilah. Fuck you up. Pain, and that pain is bad. But I got it in me to protect against that. Figured it out on a fluke. Somethin’ happens if I lick the skin before I bite. Means no pain to who I’m drawin’ from.”

“Well, that’s good,” I muttered.

“Yeah.” He grinned. “And I hesitate to wake the wildcat in you that tells her tale through your green eyes, but it’s also bad. Somethin’ happens in my mouth when I feed, so if I’m doin’ something else at the same time, means I can numb things.”

I was confused. “Numb things?”

“Numb…” He paused and leaned slightly into me. “Things. Things you don’t want numbed say I take a break from drawing to do other shit with my mouth.”

I felt my eyes get big as I whispered, “Oh.”

“Yeah.” His eyes went to my mouth. “Oh.”

I swallowed.

He lifted his gaze to mine.

“I eat real food,” he stated, kindly taking the conversation out of the hot zone. “I do not fly. Nothing like that. Don’t turn into a bat, just a wolf. But as you know, I’m a f*ckuva lot faster and stronger than your average man. I hear better, see better, smell better, all that shit.”

“That’s cool, you know,” I told him softly, mostly because, it not being fresh and flipping me out, it absolutely was.

He was back to the bacon. “It’s a burden and a boon.”

I was again confused. “How is it a burden?”

He looked back to me and I held my breath at what was in his eyes.

“You live your whole life being different from everyone, Lilah, things can get shitty. They can also get ugly. People are *s. The good ones are hard to find. There’s no one who knows what I am except Jian-Li, Xun, Wei, Chen, and now you.”

“But…what about the women you…well, used to feed from?”

His lips quirked at my emphasis on “used to” before he turned away and lifted a hand to grab a plate off the shelf. I lifted my own to grab the roll of paper towels and pulled some off to line the plate.

All this was done while he spoke.

He just didn’t say enough.

“I take care of that.”

I finished lining the plate and looked to him. “How?”

He flipped the bacon again, he just didn’t speak.

Uh-oh.

“How, Abel?” I pressed.

I should have known it was coming when he turned off the burner.

Then again, I hadn’t known him for even a day so I really couldn’t have known.

But one thing I could say for him, he gave it to me straight.

“I can control minds.”

I blinked, stared, then took a step away.

Only then did I breathe, “What?”

“I can control minds,” he repeated.

“Oh my God.”

“Don’t do it to Jian-Li or my brothers. Never. And won’t do it to you.”