“Ask me,” she ordered Dalton.
“On a scale of one to ten, what would you rate?—”
“Seventy-five,” Rosemary said before he’d finished. Her gaze moved slowly to me.
“Rosie,” I whispered, the knowledge knocking the wind out of me.
“I’d rate it a seventy-five,” she repeated, her eyes on mine.
She looked away. “Now ask me about that time in Grenada.”
Dalton cleared his throat. “On a scale of one to ten, what would you rate your pain when you were stabbed in Grenada?”
“Fourteen,” she said quietly.
“You were stabbed?” I asked in disbelief. I hadn’t noticed any scars, and I’d seen every inch of her body. She shifted uncomfortably on her feet, and I remembered the blood on the floor of her room. “Why are your feet bleeding?”
“They aren’t anymore,” she replied, moving past me to sit at the table.
I ground my teeth together in frustration.
“She went for a little run when she woke up and realized you hadn’t come back,” Gary answered for her.
“Pop,” she hissed in warning.
“Oh, are we just going to ignore this shit some more?” he chastised. “Tell your mate what happened.”
Rosemary stared at him mutinously, her lips pressed tightly closed.
Gary turned to me. “She lost it. Took off running before I could stop her. She made it to the road before Dalton got there.”
“Where the hell were you going?” I asked in disbelief.
“To find you,” Gary told me, looking at his daughter. “Didn’t even stop to put shoes on.”
“Quiet, Pop,” Rosemary ordered. He looked away from her.
“She’s handled the separation. Pukin’ her guts out, the shakes, the fever, the muscle aches. Losin’ weight because she can’t hardly keep anythin’ down. But apparently, you not showin’ up when you’re supposed to was too much.”
Guilt was my constant companion. We were old friends. I’d learned to live with its voice in my ear, whispering about all theshit I should’ve done and all the things I shouldn’t have. I was used to it.
This was something different.
This felt more like shame.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked Rosemary, taking a step toward her.
“What was there to say?” she asked simply. “You knew before you left that there would be physical repercussions.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but stopped when her head gave a little jerk.
“Every Vampire knows that,” she said dryly. “It’s common knowledge that any separation between mates causes the symptoms to intensify. You also know that a human mate’s symptoms are worse than the Vampire’s, but I guess if your pain level was only asix…” She let out a little laugh. “You get the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you didn’t think my symptoms would be very bad if yours were somanageable.”
“You should’ve said something,” I argued.
I thought back to every time I found Rosemary after I’d been at my parents’ house. Always freshly showered. A little subdued, but glad to see me. Not once had she made any reference to having a rough time while I was gone. Not once had she complained or mentioned the mating heat being too much.
“What is there to say?” she asked dully. “You made up your mind. You were going without me, whether I wanted you to or not.”
