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“Is…is that how you became friends?”
No. But Levka couldn’t tell her that. How could he break the news that they had been friends long before this and only when the onset of the bloody plague infected them, did they gain their telepathic abilities? “It’s one of the things that keeps us together,” he said, skirting around the truth.
She took a deep breath. “I knew you were different. From the first time I saw you, I knew it.”
“Are you disappointed?”
She reached for his hand and when he offered it, she used his strength to pull herself up from the bed. Her mouth suddenly gaped. “You’re…you’re walking.”
“I’m almost as good as new.” Which was mostly the truth. His rib wasn’t quite healed, but everything else felt back to normal.
“I’m so glad.” Her words sounded as if the sentiments came from the heart.
“He’s too ornery for any injury to keep him down,” Ruric joked, trying to pull Levka out of the quicksand.
She gave half a smile, but didn’t contradict Ruric.
Levka steered her to the door, wishing she would say his meeting her was the best thing that could have ever happened. Yet, the way he treated her at first wasn’t exactly Texas friendly.
“I’ve only known one other who could talk to me like this,” she suddenly said.
Levka’s heartbeat quickened. “Who was he?” He couldn’t squash the annoyance he felt that he had not been the first. And why he assumed it was a guy, he couldn’t fathom.
“He had a name like yours. Russian sounding. He said it was Vlad.”
Russian. A vampire? If it was so, knowing another vampire had targeted her and could add to their growing troubles, Levka couldn’t look at his friends. “Are you still in touch with him?”
“After the accident, I didn’t see him again. But then, I was pretty much out of it for several months. He might have seen me, and I never knew it. Then he gave up on me.”
Guardedly relieved, Levka wrapped his arm around her shoulders and guided her into the elevator. “Let’s go to one of the lounges.”
“Can you help me overcome my fear of water?”
“I can try.”
She slipped her arm around his waist, making him realize he was getting in way too deep. “Then take me to one of the lounges with a view of the ocean.”
Ruric shook his head. “Deeper and deeper into the darkest space we go without a single star to light our way,” he said for Stasio and Levka’s benefit.
Levka gave Ruric a scathing glance. “If the vampire left her to fend for herself in her darkest hour, he has no claim to her.”
Ruric opened the door to the lounge. “Didn’t I tell you Levka had staked his claim to her for his own?”
“Do not use the stake word, but yes, we knew that from the beginning when she reached her hand out to the beast, she had captured his heart,” Stasio said.
“I have not claimed her as you put it,” Levka argued privately with them. “I will not go there.”
They both smiled at him, the look they gave him, saying they knew him better.
When Levka escorted Caitlin into the Blue Lounge near the bow of the ship with an ocean view, Arman communicated to them from somewhere else on the ship, “I haven’t located Alicia yet. Is Caitlin all right?”
“Under Levka’s spell, and he is totally under hers, if you call that all right,” Ruric answered, his tone amused.
“Where are you?”
“The Blue Lounge, bow of ship,” Levka responded.
“I’ll…”
