“I would have preferred to hear it from you. How did you know something was wrong?”
Liam’s chest brushed mine as he closed in, snagging the back of my neck and tilting my face up toward his. One thumb caressed the vein in the side of my neck. “Blood reveals all of our secrets,mo chuisle. After you did what you did for Ahrun, you tasted different. Darker. I was worried.”
I pulled back from his touch. “Something you neglected to share with me.”
A fact I was still a little mad about.
Liam looked away from me. “I wanted answers first.”
“And did you get them? Answers, I mean.”
Regret was in Liam’s eyes as he met my gaze. “Not the ones I wanted.”
I stood there, feeling like an icy bucket of water had been dumped over my head. The heat and passion from earlier nothing but ash in my veins.
“He convinced you that I needed to stay in Noctessa until this was done,” I guessed.
The knowledge was written on his face.
“Did he also tell you it could take centuries? There are things here—” I broke off, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I just got my family back, Liam. I can’t lose them.”
I didn’t fight as Liam took me in his arms, needing his comfort despite still being a little mad.
He rocked me back and forth, making comforting sounds in the back of his throat. “We’ll figure something out. I promise you.”
“You can’t turn them into vampires,” I said, lifting my head to look at him. “Unless it’s their decision,” I added as an afterthought.
I didn’t think my mom or dad would go that route. A hunter becoming the very thing he hunted? Madness. And my mom was unlikely to take that step without him.
Jenna, though. She was a wild card. As was my niece.
I knew how it felt to have the choice made for you, and I didn’t want that for them.
“And you can’t pressure them either,” I added, knowing Liam. He was absolutely capable of crossing boundaries if he thought it would save me heartbreak.
Liam tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear, a trace of amusement in his face. “Such faith in me. I’m humbled.”
While we were on the subject…
“You remember when the hunters were in town?”
Liam watched me quietly, his expression unreadable.
I couldn’t hold his eyes for long, fixing my gaze on a spot over his shoulder. This was something that I probably should have shared immediately after it happened.
Feeling a little guilty, I kept going, the words tumbling out of me now that I’d started. “Two of those hunters were waiting to ambush me at my parents’ house.”
“Your family knows, don’t they?”
My gaze flicked to his and then away. I dipped my chin in a hesitant nod.
“All of them?”
“My parents and sister. I’m not sure whether my niece was told or not.”
I was thinking not, but couldn’t say for sure.
Liam tipped his face to the ceiling, inhaling once and seeming to count to four in his head. “You’re just now getting around to telling me this?”
