Page 38 of Magnum, Volume 2

Magnum had said Brooke was scary powerful, but I hadn’t understood what that meant. Fuck.

My memories are who I am. My entire career is based on finding the truth, and I finally had it, but this… vampire could fuck with my mind and take it from me, so I’d walk off this boat with nothing. No proof. No memory that any of this had ever happened. I wouldn’t even know what I’d lost.

I breathed through my terror and did my best to sit still and consider my next actions.

I considered the facts: This creature had somehow violated my mind and dropped a marker in, mid-scene, without asking, the same way I’d flag a cut point on a rough draft nobody’s seen yet. My memory wasn’t mine while I was in her presence, and possibly even when she wasn’t anywhere close. I had no way of knowing that, so I stuck to what I knew — she owned every memory that’d happened since I stepped onto this boat. Everything from that point forward existed on her terms, subject to her judgment about what stayed in the final cut — and if I said the wrong thing, or felt the wrong way, or even fucking thought the wrong thing… a single choice she didn’t approve of, and she’d make this entire conversation quietly, permanently, never have happened. She could erase the last hour of my life as easily as hitting delete on a keyboard, and she’d said it as if it was just another day for her. Nothing special. Completely normal in her world.

“I’m not interested in reporting the paranormal,” I told her. “And I have no idea what this means for me and Magnum, but I can’t imagine ever wanting to bring him into the light of day.” I looked around at the rest of the boat. “Or the rest of his club, who I’m guessing are all…” I blew out a breath. “Not human. It’s hard to even say that, but I saw Squatch change into a wolf…” I narrowed my eyes at her. “If you can delete memories and add them back in, then it’s probably possible for you to make me think I saw him change into a wolf, but that would prove that you’re a vampire, so…” I shrugged. “Doesn’t make sense for you to have done that.”

No one said anything, and I went back into question mode. It’s what I do.

“Why are we doing this on the boat?”

“For me,” Mason said. “My therapist has discovered I get more stressed talking about my captivity indoors. We do all our sessions outside now. This hasn’t been about me, and I’d have been fine inside, but Gears decided we needed to do it outside.”

“I believe it was also for me,” Brooke said. “I’ve enjoyed the boat ride, and I’m hoping Magnum will agree to take me again.”

“Certainly,” Magnum said from beside me. “I’m sure Squatch and Kitty will enjoy bringing you, and perhaps Dev can come as well.”

She smiled. “Yes, he can bring his owl, though maybe we’ll leave the cougars at home.”

The wolf huffed, and Brooke smiled at him. “You’re welcome, dear Squatch.”

She looked back to me. “Let Magnum put a few drops of your blood on the saucer, so I can lick them off undiluted.”

I stared at her while Magnum used the pressure injector on the side of my finger, squeezed a few seconds and wiped the blood on the saucer, then put a piece of cotton over the hole.

Brooke accepted the saucer, licked it, closed her eyes as if she was savoring it, and then opened them to say, “Think in your head, ‘I will keep your secrets,’ while you consider everything you’ve learned tonight about shifters and vampires, and you understand that the promise applies to anything you learn about supernaturals in the future as well. Drink the wine, and then think all of it again.”

Gears handed me the wine glass, I did as Brooke said, and… I’m not sure what I felt. Not a click, but maybe a slide of something inside me? I didn’t think it was physical, exactly, and yet, maybe it was since I fucking felt it, and since whatever it was had made the hairs on my arms lift.

Brooke took the glass from me and passed it to Gears, then handed me a small notepad and a pen, and I had no idea where they came from, but I accepted them.

“I’d like you to write that your boyfriend is a shapeshifter.”

I frowned at her, but I wrote, My boyfriend is a s…

And I couldn’t write the h.

When I tried, my fingers lifted the pen away from the paper while I made the motions of writing.

I stared at the incomplete word, and my pulse started to race.

“Excellent,” Brooke said. “Turn the page and write that you met an actual vampire.”

This time, I could only write half of the ‘v’ before the pen lifted, and fear began to take hold inside me. This, more than anything, made everything real.

I tried to breathe through the terror, but it threatened to take me over. My hand had refused the orders my brain sent to it. The words I intended simply would not form. She’d somehow made the words in my oath fucking real. An icy chill spread from my core outward, until even my skin went cold, and my breath went as shallow as it does when he first tightens the cincher.

“I’m here,” Magnum said from beside me, and his arm came around me. “It’s a shock, I know, but it means you’re safe. It means the magic took hold, and that means you still have your freedom.”

But my freedom wouldn’t have been in jeopardy if Magnum hadn’t put me into this position! Fuck!

“He wanted you to know what he is,” Brooke told me. “You only know a small portion of him. A shifter’s inner animal is a large part of who they are. Also, shifters have better senses than humans, and he’s felt from the beginning that he was forced into dishonesty by omission with you. He hasn’t liked that. He wanted to be honest with you, and this was the only way.”

“I’m glad you aren’t shying away from my touch,” Magnum said from beside me. “I can scent fear and anger, but also a little shock.”

I could only stare at him, too many thoughts going through my head to zero in on a single one.