AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She grinned at him. “You have a gift for understatement. So what’s your favorite movie? I bet it’sLadyhawke. Is itLadyhawke?”
“It is, actually.”
Iris beamed at him. “You are such a good sport to play along like that. Anyway…”
Eli pulled into the driveway behind her car. He could have told her it wasn’t a joke—that he’d loved the movie after Gammastreamed it for him. Not just because of the hawk, but it was a beautiful fairy tale of a movie, and, yeah, he was absolutely that person.
She took a deep breath, seeming somewhat nervous.
“You were about to say something?” he prompted.
“Yeah. Since we’re disclosing…and you trusted me with your personal business, I should offer the same. I’m…not exactly from a typical family either. If I was properly awakened, I’d have informed you before you moved in.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, turning to face her with curiosity bubbling inside him, more potent than a witch’s potion.
“My family are vampires,” she replied without looking at him. “Not the blood-drinking kind. Psychic. And before you say it, no, I’m not joking, and yes, I’m sure.”
In all honesty, that was news to him. He’d kept to the fringes of the shifter community and didn’t really try to connect despite Gamma’s urging. So he hadn’t met too many like him, let alone others. Like anyone else, he’d encountered folks he found exhausting, but he’d always assumed that wasperception.Now he was hearing some of them might have literally been draining his energy? Wild.
Eli hesitated. “I have questions, but I’m not sure if it’s okay to ask.”
“I can guess what they are. Yes, we eat food, and yes, we age. But we require that extra component to thrive. In return, we have small…aptitudes. My oldest sister is a healer. Not only can she absorb someone’s pain, she can also expedite healing and cure some illnesses that are supposed to be untreatable. Notallof them, obviously, or she’d already be in a government lab.”
“Holy shit,” Eli whispered.
“Iknow. In my opinion, Olive is the best of us, but I also think that’s why she left the country. ‘Miracles’ would attract too much attention here. She might not be safe, especially with groups like HAPI gathering momentum and hosting rallies.”
“That actually makes sense.” He’d been pretty tense there for a minute without even realizing it, and hearing that they had this in common as well set his mind at ease.
Not that they were the same, exactly, but she didn’t hate him after learning who he really was. Eli wouldn’t have been able to handle it if she’d flipped out and admitted to belonging to one of those hate groups.
She went on, “Rose eats anger, and she’s wildly charismatic. I suspect that’s why she’s never lost a case. Lily ‘counsels’ people and devours their grief. She’s lauded for her ability to help people resolve emotional trauma.”
“I’m stunned. I didn’t even know any of that was possible. But what about you?”
“Like I said, I’m not…awakened. I don’t have the power to absorb anyone’s energy, and I have no cool extras.”
“So you’re human?” That didn’t necessarily align with the unusual traces at the edges of her scent, so fascinating that he couldn’t even pin them down.
“You don’t think so?”
“I’m not sure.” He saw no reason to confuse her when he wasn’t even sure what he was sensing about her. Though he’d been fairly certain that she wasn’t a run-of-the-mill human, he couldn’t be sure of anything else. So he let the matter go, choosing to dodge the questions he saw swirling in her gray eyes.
“This was a good talk,” Iris said. “We definitely know each other better now.”
Eli made an agreeable sound as he hopped out of the truck. Iris followed suit and immediately started unloading pails of paint. Together, they hauled all the supplies upstairs and got ready to work.
To Eli’s surprise, Henry Dale had already moved the furniture in each bedroom to the center of the space, so setting up went even faster. Henry Dale had also expertly taped all the windows and trim, reducing the time wasted before they got started. Sooner than Eli could have imagined, he and Iris were painting away in the first bedroom while tunes played on a Bluetooth speaker she’d suctioned to the windowpane. The thing was cute, like a little gray mushroom, and he approved of her upbeat playlist, which started with “I Will Survive,” slid into “No Scrubs,” took a sidestep to “The Best,” and grooved into “Hey Ya.”
“Nothing modern in the painting rotation?” he asked.
They were working on opposite walls so they didn’t get in each other’s way. He was doing the high parts and she the low ones, and then they planned to swap. If they did it quickly enough, it should work out beautifully.
“I could dig some up, but these are easy. Old favorites that I heard when I was little in old movies or in a fan video somebody made.”
“Ilovewatching dance videos,” he said.
“You too? I swear, the best ones are filmed in parking lots with everybody in sweats and then justbringingit.”
