“If I tell you, how do I know you won’t come back after you drop me off and bother me? I like my privacy.”
“I suppose that’s a chance you’re going to have to take,” he said. “If it’s any comfort, I plan to go kill the demon that stole your blood. I’ll be too busy to bother you.”
That thought drove all others out of her in a single instant. As pissed as she should have been at him, fear over him facing more demons and whatever was going to happen to her now made that anger pale in comparison. “What will that thing do with my blood?”
“We don’t know. And I don’t plan for you to find out the hard way. I’ll kill it first.”
“How do you even know where it went?”
“I don’t, but I’ve hunted down plenty of demons in my lifetime. And if I can’t locate its nest, Logan will be able to help.”
“How?”
“He’s smelled your blood. He should be able to track that scent back to the demon.”
Rory let her head fall against the seat in overwhelming defeat. “I don’t understand any of this. I don’t know how Logan can smell my blood. I don’t know why the demons want it. I don’t know why your touch blocks my visions or how it can make me feel like this. All I know is that I want to live my life in peace, without monsters hunting me all the time.”
“That’s all any of us want, Rory. But you and I aren’t like humans. We don’t get that kind of life.”
She was human, albeit a fucked-up version of one, and no one could persuade her otherwise. But there was another question his comment brought up, one she could barely stand to ask. If it hadn’t been for the curiosity that was burning a hole in her brain, making all logical thought dribble out, she would have stayed silent. “What kind of life do you have?”
He didn’t say anything for several seconds. His jaw was tense and a vein pulsed in his temple. He really was a handsome man in a barbaric kind of way—not at all like the type of guy she normally went for, all artistic and flimsy—but that was part of his appeal. She’d made so many bad choices in the past, it was comforting to be sitting next to a guy so utterly different.
Rory would have been willing to bet Nana’s house that the man didn’t have a single flimsy spot on his entire body.
He pulled in a deep breath that expanded his thick chest even further. “There are two kinds of Theronai: those who are joined as they were meant to be, and those that aren’t.”
“And which are you?”
He glanced at their twined fingers, and she swore she could feel a sense of sadness and loss radiating out of his touch.
“I’m like most of my kind. We live a long time. We hunt and kill demons. We protect humans and each other, and try not to think too hard about the things that we can never have.”
“Sounds like a pile of suck.”
His mouth twitched. “It’s a life filled with honor, duty and purpose. It’s more than many ever have.”
It was more than Rory had, which was disgustingly pathetic. Ever since she’d lost Nana, she’d been lost. The only friendships she could manage were long-distance ones—people online she’d never meet in person for fear of what she might see through their eyes. They helped fill the void, but there were still gaping holes Rory knew would never be whole. She was twenty-five and hadn’t been able to go to a normal school or hold down a job or keep a boyfriend for more than a few days—at least not one who wasn’t planning to hand her over to a demon in exchange for drugs.
She’d stopped dreaming about a future years ago. The only thing that drove her was her quest to find the person who made her visions go away. It was her white whale, her reason for getting up in the morning.
Now she was holding the hand of a man who blocked her visions, and as nice as that was, it wasn’t enough. It was hollow. Worse than that, it allowed her to see just how empty her life had become. How worthless.
Once her visions were gone, then what? What would get her out of bed then?
She had no answer, which made a whole writhing mass of fear spring to life in her stomach. She wasn’t the type of person who panicked, but she could feel that now, cutting at the edges of her confidence, wearing it away, bit by bit.
Her visions had defined her life. She couldn’t live with them, but she wasn’t sure she could live without them, either.
Rory didn’t know how to calm her fears. She didn’t even know if it was possible. What she did know was that the man she’d pitied only a few moments ago for his crappy life had a better life than she did, and if she didn’t start taking some chances, she was never going to be able to make something of herself.
“Head south at the next exit,” she told him.
“You’re going to let me take you home?”
“Looks like.”
She was quiet for a long time, only speaking to give him directions to Nana’s house out in the country. “These people you said might be able to help me? Would they be willing to come see me or meet me somewhere—somewhere without a lot of people around?”
“The men would swim entire oceans to meet you.”
That sounded a little over the top and left her confused. “But not the women?”
“The women can’t help you. That’s not the way it works.”
“Then how does it work?”
“Our kind—Theronai—were created to work in pairs. One man, one woman.”
“You don’t know I’m your kind.”
“I do. Your ring-shaped birthmark proves it.”
Outrage slammed into her, and if he hadn’t had a firm hold on her fingers, she would have pulled away in shock. “You looked at my ass when I was asleep?”
A slow smile pulled at his mouth. “No, but now I know you have the mark. No denying it.”
“You tricked me.”
He shrugged and she felt the powerful movement all the way up her arm. “Denial will get you nowhere. It could even kill you, which is something I can’t allow. We all have to face reality, and yours isn’t going to change just because you don’t like it.”
“You say that like you know my life better than I do.”
“Not your past, maybe, but I know your future.”