Graves chanced a glance at her and this time hedidsmile. Perhaps it was supposed to be intimidating, but it softened him slightly. Yes, a villain but it was as if he was letting her in on a secret. “You felt it.”
“I…” Her hand went to her throat.
But it was Beckham who interrupted. “Are you going to answer our questions now or do you intend to keep putting your hands on my girlfriend?”
“Girlfriend.” Graves frowned, sending his features into shadows. “Such an interesting term you picked.”
“The term wasn’t the point.”
“I thought you’d prefer to go withblood match.Or perhapssoul mate.”
Reyna’s jaw hit the ground. Beckham looked as shaken. How the hell could Graves know that they were blood matched? No one outside of their group at Elle knew that much. It was an incredibly small number of people they would trust with their lives. It wasn’t possible unless…he hadn’t taken it fromher.
Now,shewas seeing things in the shadows. He couldn’tread her mind.
“How?” she murmured.
Graves waved his gloved hand in the air dismissively. “I suspected. But wasn’t certain until I saw you together. It’s been a while since I’ve seen one. They’re always so temperamental.”
“You’ve met another match?”
Reyna couldn’t believe it. He might know more about what they could do or what they were capable of.
“Here and there. They don’t normally last very long.”
“Why?” Her eagerness overrode all logic.
“One usually kills the other,” Graves said as a matter-of-fact. “VeryRomeo and Julietwithout all the family interference.”
“Oh,” Reyna whispered.
“Are they always vampire and human?” Beckham asked, clenching his jaw.
“The ones I’ve met. If they were two humans, they probably wouldn’t have the sensory ability for it. It’s something with the virus that triggers it.”
“Have any of the humans ever been turned?” Reyna whispered as if it were some deep, dark secret.
“Reyna,” Beckham snapped, drawing her back to reality.
Graves leaned back against his table and eyed them as if he suddenly understood everything. “You’d like to be a vampire?”
“It’s out of the question,” Beckham said. “That’s not why we’re here.”
Reyna’s mind filled with the ferocity of Brian and how he maynever come back from that. With Beckham’s help, she didn’t think that it would happen to her. But the brutal truth of being turned had very recently been thrown in her face. It made her hesitate.
“Maybe,” she finally said.
“This is not why we’re here,” Beckham repeated to deaf ears.
“Interesting,” Graves mused. He tilted his head as he looked between them. “Do you think your abilities would follow with the change?”
Reyna nearly doubled over in shock at the words. It was one thing to feel like Graves had used some sort of unseenmagicon her. It was another thing entirely for him to know that she and Beckham shared a sort of blood magic.
“What abilities?” Beckham asked.
“Magic,” Graves said, waving his fingers at them.
“It’s science,” Reyna interjected.
