“Nothing. Forget I brought either of them up.”
His answering chuckle was grim. “You ask too much, Naomi.”
She hiked up her chin. “Tell me how you know my other name. I think you owe me that much, don’t you?”
For a moment, she wasn’t sure he’d respond. He seemed lost in his own thoughts, pacing a tight track on the other side of the bed from her while Sam slept like the dead between them.
“Every one of the Breed is born with an extrasensory or other preternatural ability unique to them,” he explained. She nodded, not entirely ignorant of a few of the basics of their species, much as she wished to be. “My gift—though I use the term loosely—is the ability to experience full sensory recall of another person’s memories when I touch someone. Only the most painful ones. The traumas. The moments of darkest fear or agony. The memories never fade. Once I feel them, they never leave me again.”
“I’m sorry, Asher. I don’t . . . I can only guess what that must be like for you.” Naomi stared at him, losing a bit of her grasp on the anger and indignation she felt just a moment ago. She couldn’t imagine anything so awful. Being cursed to bear someone else’s worst experiences and never be able to escape them.
Which meant he now knew some of her pain too.
“You touched me last night?”
“Not intentionally. I’m careful.” His lips pressed together, then he exhaled another harsh curse. “Last night when I came in to give you water and pain pills, you grew agitated. You were tossing your head on the pillow and I . . . reached for you. For a moment, I touched your face.”
She blinked at him, recalling as in a dream all of the times he came in to check on her, to gently rouse her and make sure she was okay and not in any discomfort.
“What did you see?” God, she hated how small her voice sounded, how weak and afraid.
“You were young, I’m guessing four or five. Your mother was with you in a studio apartment. She was wearing a red silk dress, getting ready to leave on a date with someone waiting in a limousine outside.”
Naomi’s breath leaked out of her on a sharp sigh. “I remember that night. It wasn’t the first, or the last. But I remember the red dress.”
“You begged her not to go,” Asher went on, his deep voice quiet, sober. “You didn’t like her new boyfriend because he was abusing her. Even at your young age, you recognized that. And you were crying. You were afraid for her, and terrified to be left alone.”
Naomi felt those emotions gathering in the back of her throat now. She remembered everything about that moment. She remembered thinking that one night her mother was never going to come back.
And then one night, finally, she didn’t.
She inhaled, pushing the memory down before it made her feel any weaker for how she had failed to protect her beautiful mother. The only person who had ever cared for her, loved her. At least until Michael came along and gave her the sibling she never had. During their shared time on the streets as orphans hustling tourists and scraping to get by however they could, they had cobbled together an unconventional little family of misfits.
And none of the people she loved would ever need to scrape or hustle again as long as Naomi had something to say about it.
Which meant she really needed to get her ass back to Vegas, and soon.
Smoothing her rumpled clothing and hair, she came around her side of the bed, edging toward the open door. She wasn’t going to kid herself that she could outrun Asher, but she hoped by showing him that she was steady on her feet he might be inclined to grant her that phone call.
She cleared her throat. “I guess this is the part where I say thanks a lot or sorry for the memories, then get on my way. Unfortunately, Gordo trashed my cell along with my ID back at the casino, so do you have a land line out here, or maybe a satellite phone?”
She took a step nearer to the threshold, and suddenly the bedroom door slammed shut all on its own. “Holy shit.”
She whirled to find Asher still standing several feet behind her, his face unreadable. But those deep blue pools were sober and determined. “We need to talk, Naomi.”
“I thought we just did.” She swallowed, but kept her facade of flippant confidence firmly in place. “This was fun, Asher, but I’ve got people waiting for me to come home, so I’ll thank you to let me go now.”
He didn’t budge. “You have a mark under your chin, Naomi.”
“I’ve got marks all over me, thanks to Gordo and his asshole buddies,” she scoffed, pretending she didn’t understand in spite of the alarm that was building inside her.
But Asher wasn’t playing her game. No, the Breed male was as deadly serious as she’d seen him thus far. “I’m talking about the symbol. The teardrop-and-crescent-moon. I’m talking about the fact that you’re a Breedmate.”
She shook her head as if she could refute both the birthmark and what it meant.
“You’re a Breedmate,” he insisted. “One of a small number of women on this planet who are something more than mortal. Something more than simply human.”
Naomi swallowed hard. She had been twelve years old before she learned that the unusual red birthmark she bore had separated her from other girls. She’d simply counted herself lucky that she never got sick—not even a sniffle—and that she’d been born naturally strong and athletic.
