Taken Over (The Ravening #2)(58)
Author: Erica Stevens

I shuddered at the thought. “Thankfully.”  

“It is a new technology, one that they haven’t mastered yet, but they wanted to make sure that their creatures, or pets if you will, were at the very least able to reawaken the humans and they wanted to make sure they suffered in the awakening. They also had to make sure that the humans that were awakened again were kept immobile until they could be brought to a holding area.”

“And that pain definitely keeps someone immobile.”

His hand tightened on my arm. “I wish I could take that from you.”

I shook my head, brushing back a loose strand of hair. “I’m glad I know, I suppose.” I wished that I could forget, but it was something I was stuck with, and I was glad I knew what those other people were going through. “You knew that when you hurt Peter though.”

“I didn’t burn Peter; he wasn’t a bad old man I wouldn’t hurt him for no reason.”

“But I smelled hair…”

“I heal fast.” I gaped up at him. He hadn’t hurt Peter after all, even if it had been only to make us realize that normal pain wasn’t enough to help them. Maybe there was a little more human in him than I had thought.

“Those things don’t drain the soul?”

“No. That’s only us.”

“Have they always been able to mimic a human being?”

I didn’t like the dark look that crossed his face, nor the tight set of his clenched jaws. “That is a new talent,” he said slowly. “One that I didn’t even know about, but the leaders don’t share all of their secrets, especially not with the ones of us that have been put on Earth.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged absently. “We’re not privy to the inner circle, not once we’re placed here. Our main duties are to infiltrate and report our findings. The politics that play out amongst the leaders have little impact on our lives. I was only told when the invasion was going to happen a month before graduation.”

“I see.” I frowned as I thought over his words. “If this hadn’t happened, you never would have come for me would you have? You would have let me stay with Bret.”

His hand tightened on me, he was silent for a long moment. “I hated you with him, I truly did, but yes I would have left you alone to live your own life. If I thought they would have allowed me to be with you, to marry you, I would have come for you in a heartbeat but though we do not have children with them we are only allowed to marry influential and powerful people, if we marry people at all. I was to marry one of my kind, she was adopted by couple who possessed old money and lots of power. It was a match that was made as soon as I was placed with the Marshall’s, we were going to meet at college and marry after graduation. I’ve never met her.”

Pain flashed through me, I could only gape at him. He was so cold, so analytical about marrying a girl he’d never even known. And he would have, I was certain of it. “If I’d ever hinted that I wanted to marry you, wanted to be with you, they would have killed you. If I’d tried to deny the arrangement they would have killed me.”

“You would have married her.”

“And I would have known where you were every moment of it. When they decided to invade I still would have come for you. I would have taken you, Bret, your children…”

“Cade…”

“And I would have saved you all if it made you happy Bethany. It would have destroyed me to let another man have you but I never would have put your life in danger.”

“You could have come to me, you could have explained,” I breathed. “I would have listened to you, I would have believed you; I would have run away with you.”

“And left your family behind?” I opened my mouth to say yes, but the word froze in my throat. “They had already known the loss of your father; would you have left them still?”

“I would have loved you.”

His head tilted, a single strand of midnight hair fell into the corner of his eye. “I know you would have and it would have gotten you nothing but a life of secrets, pain, and misery. It may have even cost you your life. I wasn’t going to let that happen, no matter how badly I wanted it to.”  

My heart swelled with love for him, tears slid silently down my face. “What do you take your souls from?”

“Animals mostly, but when it’s been absolutely necessary I have taken from a person without their knowledge. Not you,” he reminded me forcefully when I looked at him in shock. “I never take too much either. But sometimes the craving is too strong for just an animal to help me. It’s rare that happens though, maybe twice a year, sometimes three. It’s the blood we need more than the soul. That’s at least once a week, preferably more. And since all of this has started my hunger has been even more intense, more demanding.”  

It was disconcerting, but not awful I decided. His gaze came slowly down to me. The ice in his eyes thawed, affection lit the darkness. “It’s harder when I’m around, isn’t it?”

“Not so much harder.” His voice was tight, hoarse. “I just want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything.” I gazed in wide eyed wonder up at him, frightened and yet enthralled by his words. “Nothing will satisfy me the way that I know you would.”

My mouth parted, my heart hammered with excitement and desire as my toes curled. What did that say about me? What normal person would actually want for someone to feed off of their soul, off of their blood? I didn’t want to think too much on it, I was disconcerted by the implications of my intense need for him to touch me in such a way. “You could…”

“No,” he interrupted briskly, his face hardening. “That cannot happen. I won’t take the chance of possibly hurting you.”

“You’re amazing to deny yourself even when I’m offering myself freely to you.”

“Am I?” he inquired, his eyebrow quirked in wry amusement.

“Yes.”

“Careful love, you shouldn’t flatter the devil too much.”

I started at the reminder of what the girls in school had called him. The black devil. They hadn’t known just how spot on they had been with that description. Perhaps that’s the way another legend had been born. I imagined that these invaders must have resembled the devil when they arrived to decimate populations.

“What are we going to tell the others about Ian?”