“I know, I know. Do you forgive me?” he asks, and I grin, both because I’m glad we’ve gotten it out in the open and I can see Susie returning.
“Nothing to forgive, man, just tell her the truth.” And speaking of telling the truth… “Oh, and I need you to keep an open mind about some of the things I’m going to tell you both later.”
His eyebrows jump, but he nods as Susie sits down. “Okay, so what did I miss?”
“Nothing, I was just asking Mark about the drive here,” I tell her, lying, but he needs to be the one to tell her what we were talking about. He needs to trust that I’ll keep my mouth shut, because this falls on him.
Susie bounces up and down in her chair and grabs his hand. “Did you tell her about the weird gothic mansion that was about an hour out of town? It was so odd. It was like it was built into the hill that was around it, and there were all these trees planted around it, but like fir trees or something, nothing native to the area, and it looked really strange in the middle of the desert. I made Mark pull over and we took some pictures.” She pulls out her phone and swipes across the screen before handing it to me.
Sure enough, it’s exactly how she described it. “I tried to look it up on Google, and all it said was it was called the Pleasure Inn. I’m thinking it’s a bed-and-breakfast.”
Just then our waitress arrives to take our order, and we spend the next two hours drinking and eating before we finally decide to go upstairs. When we get to our room, they both ooh and ahh about how fancy it is, and they find the bedroom Link put their luggage in. I leave them to get settled and have a nap, but fifteen minutes later, Susie joins me on the couch where I’d been lost in thought.
“Okay, spill,” she demands, flopping down next to me with a bottle of champagne and two glasses in her hand. She makes quick work of the bottle and splashes some into each glass before handing me one. “You have been squirrely and twitchy since we got here, and that is not like you. What’s going on? Do we need to make a grab at you and run as fast as we can? Is the circus full of freaks and weirdos?” She has no idea. “Give me something, a sign or a signal, and Mark will have us out of here faster than you can say alien.”
Susie goes silent for a moment before pointing at her eyes after a single blink and shaking her head no. She repeats herself but with two blinks and nods her head yes. Then she starts doing some weird-ass hand gestures like she is trying to get me to read some code. I can’t help but laugh at her brand of crazy.
“No, Susie, it’s nothing like that. I promise.” I try to ease her spiraling by reassuring her I’m fine. “But I have so much to tell you, and I need you to keep an open mind while I do, and by open, I mean Mariana Trench wide. Okay?”
Susie downs her glass of champagne and quickly fills it back up before reaching for the room phone. “Yes, can I get two bottles of champagne delivered to the penthouse and an assortment of snacks please?” She thanks the person on the other end and hangs up. “Okay, shoot.”
“Okay, but before I start you need to make a choice. What I’m about to tell you is classified information. Like it’s so secret it makes Area 51 look like a Starbucks. So you have two choices. I can tell you everything and then make it so you will still retain the knowledge but can’t tell anyone about it. Or I can tell you everything, you can give me your thoughts, and then I’ll have it all removed from your brain.”
Susie’s brow is so furrowed it’s comical, and I would laugh if I wasn’t so serious about this. “Removed? Like through hypnotism?” she asks, sounding skeptical.
“Hmm, yeah, kind of, I guess,” I hedge, not really wanting to spill the beans too early.
“I need to decide this right now before I even know what the information is?” she whines, and I can see her point.
“No, I’ll tell you, but you will have to make a decision. Don’t make me have to make it for you,” I warn her, and she swiftly agrees.
Lila
It takes me several hours and both bottles of champagne to tell Susie everything I’ve been through in the last two weeks. The expressions on her face have ranged from skeptical, to outraged, to downright disbelief, but I think I finally convince her when she faints after I shift into my half form.
Shifting back, I calmly drink my champagne and wait for her to wake up. I begin to worry when she doesn’t immediately return to the land of the living, so I slap her face a couple of times, and she groans before jolting upright and scanning my body with intense scrutiny. She then looks down at the champagne and blinks a couple of times.
“I think I may have had too much to drink. I’m seeing things,” she mutters, placing a hand to her forehead, trying to sort everything out, and I shake my head.
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but nope, it was all true.” She blinks before nodding slowly like she understands what I’m saying but doesn’treallyunderstand.
“Okay, okay, alien circus, okay. And you’re not human and… wow.”
“Yup, could have knocked me over with a feather. But here we are. Still want to be my friend?” I look at her cautiously, studying her expression, because even though we’re kinda sorta joking around about it right now, I’m not really sure if this will sit well with her. That makes me wonder what the outcome will be when she makes her decision.
She’s quiet for a moment before a huge grin crosses her face. “Fuck yeah, Lila! You are the coolest bitch I know, and you havetentacles. Tentacles! That is fucking awesome.” A sense of relief flows through me, and I sag against the seat. God! I was braced for rejection, and I know that Xavier could have removed everything from her mind, but I still would have known that she thought I was a freak.
“But I need you to tell me more about these men of yours. Holy shit, I love Mark and all, but I can’t help but be jealous of the fact that you are getting three, soon to be four, different dicks daily. And a vampire? I need all the deets on being bitten by one. Is it like the books say it is?”
“You know you can’t tell anyone about this, right?”
Her gaze slides to the other room and she frowns. “I don’t like keeping secrets from Mark, and this is fucking huge.”
“I’m sorry, Susie, but I don’t know if my grandpas will give me permission to share this information. There’s more at stake than you realize.”
“Maybe you better have your warlock remove all the details before we say goodbye. It would eat away at me if I knew and couldn’t talk to him about it.” A swift wave of sadness rolls over me, followed by one of understanding. I wouldn’t want to keep a secret so big from my guys either, though the one about the orb is pretty huge. That, however, is a matter of galaxy wide security.
“Okay, but for now, let’s go to the show with your memories intact so you can have the full experience. I can get Xavier to remove them after,” I suggest, a little sad at her decision, but I completely understand. I hate having to hide the orb information from my guys too. Actually, that reminds me, now that Cas and I are mated, we can talk about it, and I make a note to do just that the next time we get a few moments alone.
