Killean had hopedshe’d forgotten that question or decided to drop it; he should have known better. “Would you have preferred I left you there?”
“Of course not,” she replied. “I’m just trying to understand why you didn’t leave me there when, after we kissed on the beach, you acted like I disgusted you.”
She didn’t like recalling that day; between him and Nathan, it had been humiliating. She’d considered it the worst day of her life until she was taken, and then the degradation Joseph put her through made that day seem like a day in the park.
“So why did you come after me?” she asked.
“Because I didn’t want you to become one of them.”
“But why? Was it because we kissed?”
“That’s the only answer I’m going to give you, so let it go and be happy you’re not there with the others.”
Simone didn’t think he’d rescued her because he cared for her. They didn’t know each other well enough for that, and she didn’t see Killean as the type to become emotionally attached to anyone, but she wasn’t going to give up until she learned the truth. Continuing to press him now though would get her nowhere. She’d just have to keep hammering at his walls until she finally found a weak spot that caused them to collapse.
“Fair enough,” she murmured and turned to look out the window again.
Silence stretched between them as the tires hummed over the pavement. A few vehicles passed them going the other way, but they had the road mostly to themselves. When she glanced at the clock, she and saw it was nearly nine.
“Have you ever heard of any other hunters becoming a vampire?” Killean asked when he recalled the being he encountered in the bunker. “I mean besides Kadence, Nathan, and you. It wouldn’t have happened recently, but probably occurred millennia ago.”
Simone bit her lip as she shook her head. “I studied our history, but I never heard of such a thing happening. They might not have taught it to us though.”
“Might not have taught it to all the hunters or just the women?”
“I would like to say all, but probably just the women.”
“Hmm,” he grunted. “While you were a prisoner, did you see a vampire who was over seven feet tall, but had the white-blue eyes of a hunter?”
For some reason, his description of this creature made her skin crawl. “No, but after the first couple of days, I didn’t register much beyond the hunger. You saw this thing?”
“Yes.”
“And you think it was another turned hunter?”
“I don’t know what else it could be, not with those eyes. And judging by the power it emitted, it was ancient.”
“How much power?” she asked in a hoarse voice.
“More than I’ve ever encountered before.”
Her breath caught at this revelation. She’d felt the aura of power surrounding Ronan, and if this thing was even more powerful than that…
She shuddered and rubbed at her arms when goose bumps broke out on them.
“How old are you?” she asked to distract herself from the horrible possibilities of what something so ancient and evil could unleash on them.
“I fully matured and stopped aging at twenty-four, so I will forever look that age. I’m four hundred fifty-two now.”
“Wow,” she breathed.
“And how old are you?”
“Twenty-three, but I’ll be twenty-four July first.” As if that would somehow make a dent in their age difference.
“And I will be four hundred and fifty-three on November sixteenth.”
“You’ll officially be ancient then,” she replied.
