“Bloodsucker? You mean a vampire?” Keeley asked in astonishment.
Reece quickly sat down on the side of the bed and reached out for Keeley’s hand, giving it a small squeeze, as all of the color left his face. “In the technical sense, yes, but not like you see in the movies. A bloodsucker does drink blood from victims, or donors as they call them. Most of what you’ve seen in the movies is all lies.”
“Most?” Keeley squeaked. “What do you mean most?”
Reece laid his hand on Keeley’s arm, stroking the silky skin gently “Calm down, Keeley, and I’ll explain everything, okay?”
“You calm down, damn it. I was bitten by a vampire!”
“Bloodsucker,” Reece said.
“Why are you quibbling? I was fucking bitten!” Keeley spat out, glaring at Reece. “Bitten is bitten any way you say it.”
“Keeley, you need to calm down. Yes, you were bitten, but nothing is going to happen to you. She took some blood. I imagine she was trying to weaken you to the point where you couldn’t fight back when she tried to kill you.”
Keeley snorted. “That certainly worked out well for her, didn’t it?”
“I’m pretty sure she wasn’t expecting you to fight back,” Reece remarked, trying to control his anger at Adrianna. “Usually when a bloodsucker takes blood, they put their donor into a trance so that they won’t remember anything. I’m sure Adrianna wasn’t expecting it to not work on you.”
“How do you know it didn’t work on me?” Keeley asked curiously, finally calming down enough to listen to what Reece had to tell him.
“Because you remembered Adrianna biting you and you fought back. If it had worked, you wouldn’t have fought back. And you certainly wouldn’t have remembered any of it. That’s why they do it—no witnesses.”
Reece still didn’t understand how Keeley had been able to prevent himself from falling under Adrianna’s spell. He had never heard of something like that happening before. He was just grateful that it had.
Maybe it was because Keeley was mated to a shape shifter or because of his own gift? And maybe it was because his little mate was far stronger than anyone gave him credit?
“Am I going to turn into one of them?”
Reece shook his head. “Not any more than my biting you will turn you into a werewolf. It doesn’t work that way. The only thing that will happen to you is a sore neck for a couple of days. Other than that, there should be no other effects.”
“Should? Does that mean you don’t know?” Keeley asked anxiously.
Reece took a deep breath, then let it out. “I’ll admit I don’t know everything about bloodsuckers, and frankly, I don’t want to. However, everything I do know says you’re going to be fine.”
“Well, gee, now I feel so relieved,” Keeley said sarcastically.
“Keeley!”
“What?”
Reece sighed. “Okay, bloodsuckers drink blood to survive. We drink blood to cement the bond with our mates. Bloodsuckers cannot change shape, but we can. They are as strong as we are, however.”
Reece just hoped that they weren’t as smart. He needed some sort of edge to get his mate out of this situation.
“Well, that’s just peachy,” Keeley murmured under his breath. Reece raised an eyebrow at him. “Okay, okay, I’m listening.”
“Bloodsuckers are not that much different than werewolves really. We both try to keep ourselves secret from humans for the safety of our races. We both have mates that are predestined for us by fate and our family structure is pretty much the same.”
“You mean they have betas and alphas just like you do?”
“Yes, but in their case, they’re referred to princes and princesses, stuff like that,” Reece replied.
“Why don’t you like them?”
“It’s not that I don’t like them, Keeley, but the dealings I have had with them haven’t endeared me to them. Which is funny, considering that in ancient times we lived together rather peacefully.”
“Seriously?”
Reece nodded his head. “Yes. From what I have been taught and what I have been able to learn on my own, bloodsuckers and werewolves lived together, even mating each other. But at some point, there was some sort of war between them. That pretty much ended things. We all went our separate ways.”
Keeley was silent for a few moments then he looked up at Reece.
“Okay, so, basically, I was bitten by a bloodsucker, but I should be fine, right?”
Reece nodded.
“So, why was I bitten?”
Reece wished he knew. From everything he had been able to put together so far, Keeley was meant to die when he was bitten. Reece clenched his hands as the very thought went through his mind. He wasn’t going to let that happen.
“That’s a little dicier, Keeley,” Reece said solemnly. “From what I’ve learned so far, some members of my pack have made a deal with Adrianna to supply her and her coven with werewolf blood.”
“Werewolf blood?” Keeley said, grimacing. “Why would they do that? Wouldn’t it be easier to just go out and find some helpless human?”
“Werewolf blood is like an aphrodisiac for bloodsuckers. That might be why we went to war with them.”
“You think?”
Reece shrugged. “I don’t know, but it would explain a lot.”
“So, what do these people get for turning you over?”
“Money, more territory, prestige. Does it really matter? They made this agreement without my knowledge, and definitely against my wishes. I can’t effectively lead my pack if people are going behind my back and making deals with the devil.”
“Okay, I can see that, but what does that have to do with me?”
“You remember that little thing I told you about where I can’t have sex with anyone else except my mate? Well, if my mate is killed, my bond with you is broken and I can mate again. And, apparently, they really want me to mate with Adrianna.”
“That sucks!” Keeley exclaimed.
“Well, I don’t intend to let that happen, so don’t worry about it. Now that I know about Adrianna’s little plan, I wouldn’t claim with her if she was the last mate on earth. Besides, I already have a mate.”
And he was one Reece intended to keep no matter whom he had to fight. In the small amount of time Reece had known Keeley, the little man had come to mean more than his very life.
“And you’d better not forget it,” Keeley replied.
Reece smiled at the fierce look on Keeley’s face. “I won’t, I promise.”
He patted Keeley on the thigh and stood up. “Now get dressed, baby. Our friends should be here soon and—”
“I know, I know,” Keeley said as he waved his hand at Reece. He scooted to the side of the bed. “No one gets to see my sexy ass but you.”
“Don’t
you
forget that!”
* * * *
Keeley paced back and forth from the bedroom doorway to the window. Once again, he was so nervous he could spit. He briefly wondered if this was a trait of being mated to a werewolf?
Wouldn’t that just be his luck?
It was driving him crazy not knowing what was going on downstairs. It was all he could do not to sneak downstairs and eavesdrop on the conversation going on in the study. He just bet it was an enlightening one for everyone involved.
Agreeing to stay upstairs until everyone arrived was the stupidest thing he had ever done. But a promise was a promise. If Reece couldn’t depend on him to keep his word when things were tough, then they were screwed when things were normal.
Normal
…now there’s a laugh. Keeley’s life hadn’t been normal since the day he had had his first vision. He didn’t think being mated to a werewolf was going to make it normal any time soon.
Still, with the exception of this little fiasco, he wouldn’t trade a single moment with Reece for anything. Keeley was still reeling from the fact that Reece said he loved him. Sure, Keeley meant it when he said it. He just hadn’t expected Reece to respond with the same declaration.
Having a big, strong sexy man mated to you and loving you wasn’t a bad position to be in as far as Keeley was concerned. He just hoped he would be able to make it worth it to Reece.
Keeley ran to the window when he heard a vehicle pull into the driveway. His heart pounded in his chest as he waited to see who had arrived. He clapped his hands together in excitement and ran for the bedroom door the moment he saw Nate step from the car.
He stopped at the bedroom door, peeking around the edge to look downstairs until he saw Reece walk out of the study to the front door. It was all he could do not to run down the stairs, greet his friends, and throw himself into Reece’s arms.
He watched as Reece opened the door and allowed several men in, shaking their hands as they walked past him. He couldn’t hear what Reece said to them, but it seemed pretty solemn. Not a single one of them was smiling.
Keeley started to get worried and his heart beat faster. Reece turned and motioned for him to come down, holding his finger to his lips, indicating for Keeley to be quiet. Keeley went as fast as he could while trying to be quiet, his heart pounding the entire way.
Keeley ignored his friends and walked straight into Reece’s arms. The look on Reece’s face was priceless. He seemed a little stunned. Keeley hoped so. It was his desire to keep Reece always unsure of what exactly he was going to do as often as possible. It would keep him on his toes.
“That was way too long, Reece,” he whispered into Reece’s ear.
“Sorry, baby, but you know how it is—you find a traitor in your pack, you question the traitor, you knock the traitor around a little.” Reece chuckled. “This isn’t something that happens on a quick time schedule. Interrogation takes time,” Reece replied as he wrapped his arms around Keeley.
“Likely story,” Keeley murmured quietly, a smile on his face as he turned in Reece’s arms to face his friends. He leaned back in Reece’s arms, a smile on his face as he looked at Nate standing in Joe’s arms. “Nate.”
“Keeley,” Nate said, nodding at him. He reached out his hand, grabbing the one that Keeley held out to him. A smile broke out over his face at the emotions he felt coming from him. “Ooh, nice.”
Keeley grinned. “I know.”
“Details?” Nate asked, grinning back at him.
Keeley tilted his head back to look up at Reece. “Do you need me right now?”
“No, why?” Reece asked in confusion.
“Nate and I need to talk.”
“About what?”
Keeley and Nate both giggled. “You.”
* * * *
Reece watched Keeley and Nate go up the stairs and race down the walkway to the bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind them. He turned back to look at Joe in bewilderment. “What just happened here?”
Joe chuckled. “Nate happened.”
Reece raised an eyebrow at him in query. “And that means what exactly?”
“Nate is a sempath. A sensitive emotion empath,” Joe replied. “He can feel other people’s emotions by touching them.” He looked up to the second-floor bedroom door, smiling. “Apparently, he feels the need to talk to Keeley about what he felt when he touched him.”
“That’s why he was so insistent that Nate be here? Because he’s an emotion empath?”
“Maybe, but I think it’s more because Nate is also a human lie detector. He can tell if someone is lying or not. A slight side effect of being an emotion empath,” Joe replied.
“Slight side effect?” Reece choked out. “I’d say being a human lie detector is more than slight.”
Joe burst out laughing. “You should try being mated to him. I can’t get anything past the little bugger.”
Reece realized the implications of what Joe was saying. He was suddenly very grateful that Keeley only received strange visions. While he didn’t want to lie to Keeley, he still liked the idea of keeping his thoughts to himself.
“Dude,” Devlin exclaimed, drawing Reece’s attention. “You are so totally screwed.”
Joe just shrugged his shoulders. “Not really. Knowing I can’t lie to Nate, I don’t even try. If I have something I can’t tell him, I just tell him I can’t share and he leaves it alone. It cuts down on the crap between us. It also makes it easier for him to believe me when I tell him something important, like how much I care for him. He knows I’m telling the truth.”
“Okay, I guess I can see where that might be useful, but don’t you find it a little strange?” Reece would. He was still trying to deal with the fact that Keeley had premonitions.
“Not any stranger than he found it being mated to a shape shifter,” Joe replied.
Devlin grinned. “Yeah, I guess I can see that, too.”
Reece started chuckling along with Joe as he turned to the other men in the room. “Donovan, it’s good to have you home again. Keeley informed me that you and Chase were instrumental in freeing him from the Teacher. Thank you.”
Donovan nodded. “I really didn’t have that much to do with it. Chase called in a few friends and they went in to free them. I was too busy getting my ass shot.”
“Shot? You got shot?” Reece exclaimed, stepping towards the man he had known most of his life. He stopped and stepped back quickly when the man standing next to him let out a low growl.
“Jim,” Donovan said, reaching his hand out for the man that growled, drawing him closer to him. “It’s okay. This is Quilliam Reece, my alpha.” He glanced over at Reece, looking somewhat sheepish. “Reece, my mate, James Nash.”
“Uh, Donovan? I thought you were—”
“So did I, but apparently we were both wrong. Considering the little man that just ran upstairs, though, I guess I could say the same thing about you,” Donovan said, his eyebrow raised.
Reece could feel his face heat up a little. “Yeah, well, what are you to do when you find your mate, huh?”
“No doubt.”
Reece held out his hand to Donovan’s mate. “James, it’s nice to meet you. You couldn’t have a better mate,” Reece said, smiling.
“Please, call me Jim, and I’m sorry about before. I’m still getting used to being mated, and to a man no less,” Jim said as he shook Reece’s hand.
“I know the feeling,” Reece replied dryly. “I’d never been with a man before Keeley, but now that I have, I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.”
Reece, smiling to himself, watched the tender look that Jim gave Donovan. He wondered if he had the same look on his face when he looked at Keeley. He probably did.