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“Well let’s go. What are we—” My questions cuts off at the curse I let loose when I move my leg.
“That. That's what we're waiting for. It'll take a day or two more to heal. I could just carry you, but I want, and I think you'd want, to be whole too, when you meet everyone, especially Grace again.”
I hesitate, desperate to see my sister, but just knowing she's alive is its own relief that I never imagined I would have. He cannot know how I have mourned her death but had to keep it all inside for the sake of being there for Leah.
“I do know,” he says.
I look up at him with furrowed brows. “Huh?”
“I do know all that you've been through this past year missing one sister while protecting another.”
“I didn't say that out—” My eyes widen as another memory from the kitchen comes back to me. “You can read my mind, can't you?”
He hums. “I don't know if read is the right word. It’s just…more? I can hear your thoughts, see what you see, and feel your emotions.”
“All this time?” He nods and my eyes widen. “I could have sworn you were responding to things I didn't say in the kitchen. I thought I just must have been talking and didn't realize.”
He chuckles. “Yes, panic did make me rather careless with that secret at the time.”
Some of that panic is still evident in his voice, making me look closer at him. He has bags under his eyes, and a worry in his gaze that wasn’t there before. I reach up and bring my hands to his cheeks. He closes his eyes and leans into my left hand, as if he thought he might never get the chance to again.
“I did think that, Keri,” he says quietly. “It was the most dreadful thought of my entire life.”
“How long was I sleeping?”
“Unconscious,” he corrects me, because yeah, I can see how one is much worse than the other. “Two days. Two very long, miserable days. The only thing that kept me from going insane was that I could see your dreams. I knew you weren’t dead, not if you were dreaming.”
“What did I dream of?”
“Your sisters.” He smiles, those red eyes of his opening to meet mine. “Me. Doing some very naughty things to you.”
I roll my eyes, chuckling. “I would say you were making that up if it weren't for the fact that I've had dreams like that before.”
His smile turns into a salacious grin. “Oh, I know. I've enjoyed lying beside you and watching them play out.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “So, all the times I was wondering just how you knew exactly what I wanted without me saying a word, you were cheating.”
“Cheating?” he gasps out. “I can't help it if I can hear your thoughts. You're my mate.”
“Your mate,” I repeat low. “I have a…mate. But—” I shake my head. “Why does the government lie to us about it all, sending us down here terrified? Wouldn’t it just look bad for them if a sacrifice does ever decide not to stay, and they'd have to explain why she was sent back up?”
“I couldn't tell you why they choose to go this horrible route. We fear if a sacrifice ever wanted to go back that your leaders may just kill her to contain their secret.”
I think of Leah, her fear of men, and of people in general, really, but thanks to our good for nothing father, especially men. I don't know how she will react to being drafted, being sent down here, being in the dark with a monster she'll think is about to devour her just like I did when I came down.
“Kayo will ease her fears,” Linc states, reminding me that he just heard my every thought.
“Our father, he made her so afraid of anyone's touch other than mine and Grace’s.”
“I know,” he growls out.
I look down, trying to remember all the times I thought of my father since I've been down here, and the memories he must have seen. I hate that he saw them. Hate that he saw me afraid and weak, and—
“Don't ever call yourself weak,” he interrupts my thoughts. “He was no man to harm you and your sisters in the ways he did.”
“I still can't quite find peace about him, even though he's gone now. I wish I knew he didn't have some gentle end, not after all the pain he gave us.”
“He didn’t.”
