Taken Over (The Ravening #2)(55)
Author: Erica Stevens

“You deserve to have as much of a normal life as you can have under these circumstances. You deserve to have everything that you want in this life. You could even come back to me; I would take you back always.”

“No! Stop it Cade! Stop it!” I was infuriated at his words, shaken by the fact that he thought I would do such a thing. “How could you think I would do that? What do you think of me?”

“I think you’re amazing. I also think that you deserve everything that this world has left to offer you, things I can’t offer you. I think I would do anything to see you happy even if it destroyed me. That’s what I think of you Bethany, that’s what I think of us. If one day you decide you want to have a child I will support you any way I can.”

“I don’t want a child Cade, not in this world, not to be hunted, afraid and hungry…”

“It may not always be like that.”

Anger flared hotly through me. “And I most certainly would not want another man’s child Cade. If we cannot have children then I will not have them. I’m ok with that. I am not ok with this conversation though so please stop, please.”

He sighed softly as he nodded slowly. “If that’s what you want.”

Though he said it, I knew he did not agree with it, or even consider the matter completely dropped as his eyes remained entirely black. I wasn’t willing to continue with the conversation, not when there were other more important things. “Why do you think I’m not completely human? What did you do Cade?” 

He took hold of my hands, but they still felt eerily cold within his warm grip. “You’re not one of the Frozen Ones because of me love.” I stared at him, but I was having a hard time focusing on him. Here was my answer, finally, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to hear it anymore. “Because I was able to change you.”

I struggled to see him, struggled to make out the face I loved so much through my suddenly blurred vision. “I don’t understand; how is that possible?”

He rubbed his hands over mine, his eyes distant as they slowly returned to the eyes I knew so well. “Don’t hate me.”

I swallowed the tight lump in my throat heavily. “Cade, what did you do?” I whispered.

“When they told me that they were going to start to release the gas soon, and who they intended to effect with it, I was determined to find out what your blood type was. I had to know what would become of you and if there was some way that I could stop it. I was able to get a hold of your medical records.” I didn’t ask how, I was certain he could do anything he put his mind to. Hell for all I knew my doctor was one of them too. “I considered allowing you to freeze and trying to keep you safe after that, but I knew there was no way I could guarantee your safety, or any certainty that I would be able to wake you up again. There was no way to know if they would kill you immediately if I brought you to one of the holding cells. To move you…”

I shook my head at him. I knew how hard it would have been to move me, to keep me safe in that state. We had lost my mom, and Peter, soon after The Freezing had occurred. It had been so difficult to keep my mother alive, so hard to even get her even that far into our journey. I didn’t need to hear it from him now, not when I already knew how hard it was.

“There was only one thing I could do, no matter how dangerous it would be for you. I gave you some of my blood.” My eyes shot up, my mouth dropped. I could only sit there and gape at him stupidly. “It was a risk, the biggest risk I have ever taken. My kind has performed many experiments on humans over the centuries; giving them our blood has been given to humans in the past. Few have survived.”

My insides were curdling up, but they were no longer the same insides that I had been born with. I recalled Bishop’s words about my abnormal cells and I wanted to cry. That hunger, that craving. Iron deficiency my ass, I thought derisively. I wanted to scream, I wanted to rip out my hair as I fled headlong into the woods, running until I simply couldn’t run anymore. 

“I had to take the chance that you would survive the infusion of my blood into your system. You wouldn’t have kept moving after The Freezing if I didn’t take the chance. I hoped that my intense reaction to you, and the way that you affected me meant that you were special, that you would be able to handle my blood when most wouldn’t. That there was a reason I had met you; that you would survive whatever it did to you. After I gave it to you I monitored you carefully, watched you constantly. I searched for any sign that something might go drastically wrong. But you seemed to be doing well with it, thankfully. I didn’t know what I was going to do if it went the other way, it wasn’t a possibility I wanted to consider. If you had died…”

He broke off, anguish twisted his features. His hands tightened on my face, he leaned even closer. His onyx eyes filled my vision; I could feel his desperate need for my forgiveness, my understanding. I was still too shocked to offer him anything more than numbed silence at the moment. “My blood inside of you was how I was able to find you again; it was also how I was able to enter your dream. My blood linked us permanently; I’ll always be able to find you anywhere as long as you want me to. It’s how I found you the day of The Freezing, how I was able to save you.”

My eyes widened in surprise. I had thought it was just a lucky coincidence that Cade had been near the store that day; instead he had been following me, preparing to intervene when everything I knew went to hell. The depth of everything I had never known or suspected was staggering. My head was spinning, my heart lumbered painfully in my chest as I struggled to keep a tight grip on my unraveling composure.

“When did you do this? How did you do this?”

“Graduation. I was able to put some of my blood into your drink when you went to the bathroom.”

I had been roofied with alien blood at my brother’s graduation. I found sick humor in that knowledge. “What happened to the other people that survived?”

Cade closed his eyes, looking slightly pained. “They began to exhibit differences at a cellular level. They were studied for awhile, but ultimately destroyed when it was determined that the effects were nothing more than abnormal blood cells.”

“How long?”

“What?”

I cleared my throat as I struggled to get the words out. “How long were they allowed to live for, and studied, before they were killed?”

“A month, maybe two.”