Teagan froze. Her gaze searched his. “Do you mean she might have come across an actual vampire?”
“Why else would she suddenly decide vampires are real? Could someone convince her?”
She shook her head. “My grandmother is very intelligent. She’s very grounded in reality, that’s why none of this made sense to us. We tried to talk to her about it, but she just wouldn’t tell us a thing.”
“She would want to protect you.”
“Even knowing we all thought she was going round the bend? Bonkers? Completely crazy?”
“You tell me, Teagan. Would she protect you from the knowledge that the world had real monsters living side by side with humans?”
She took a breath. It would be something Grandma Trixie would do, especially for her because she was afraid of so many things.
“My grandmother is the best, Andre.” Her voice softened. “She’s always loved us and taken such care of my sisters and me.”
He rubbed her bottom. It felt good. More than good. She could feel the burn starting all over again. Not as desperate or as hungry, but building slow and easy. Still, she felt something in his mind.
“Tell me,” she whispered. “Even if you think I can’t take it.”
“If she tried to harm you, sivamet, I would protect you. I would not hesitate to protect you. My protection is, as a rule, very permanent.”
She knew what he was saying. “I appreciate you might think you would have to protect me from her, after all the things I’ve said, but she would never, under any circumstances hurt me. She would protect me even if she thought I was the undead. Family is everything to her. Absolutely everything. If she accepts you as family, you’ll see what that truly means. She’s fierce, outspoken, funny and I love her more than anything . . . except maybe you and I don’t know how that’s possible.”
He nodded, but she noticed he didn’t reply. He wouldn’t. He wasn’t going to argue with her, or belabor his point. He’d warned her straight up what would happen if her grandmother tried to harm her, but she knew, without a shadow of doubt, that Grandma Trixie would die before she harmed her so she wasn’t worried.
“Tell me your solution,” she said again. “We keep getting off the subject and I think it’s important.”
“You are unique in a lot of ways, at least I think your gifts are. I have not heard of other lifemates, when they were human, being able to take down safeguards in the way that you could. You can also tune your body to a vampire’s. That gives us an advantage when hunting. You can find them and bring down their safeguards.”
She drew in her breath. Andre was actually talking about using her as a partner. She loved that he thought she would be such a help.
“I would not want you to participate at all in the battle, no matter how bad things look,” he warned. “That would be forbidden. You would have to give me your word you will follow instructions.”
She bit her lip hard. She wanted desperately to be his partner, but she knew, if he were in trouble, she would go back on her word.
“I can open my mind to you the entire battle. I cannot be distracted in any way, but you can see clearly what I am aware of and what I plan to do. That way, you will know if I am really going to be surprised or not. If you cannot see awareness in my mind, you will be able to warn me.”
She liked that. She liked that a lot. “That sounds reasonable.” She wouldn’t be paralyzed in the body of an owl feeling helpless.
“And then, there is the fact that you are a superior healer.”
“I am?” She liked that a lot, too. More than anything, she wanted to be good healer. She wanted to be able to help others.
“For most wounds such as those I encountered—other than the gunshot, which was no more than a couple of flesh wounds—I would have had to stay in the ground more than one rising. I could actually feel the tissue regenerating when you were healing me. You definitely are good. That will be a huge bonus to me as well, knowing you are close by and can see to any wound.”
She didn’t like the fact that he so readily accepted that he would be wounded in his battles with the undead, but he’d been hunting and destroying them for centuries, so he knew what he was doing.
“I like your idea very much, Andre,” she whispered. She brushed her lips back and forth against his and began a slow undulation of her hips, moving lazily.
His hands slipped to her waist and he urged her into a sitting position. The moment she sat up, she could feel him pressing deep inside her. So deep. So thick. Filling and stretching her. She loved that more than a lot. His hands moved up her body, lingering a moment where the vampire had slashed her midriff and then higher still until he was cupping her breasts.
“Do you see why your breasts are so perfect for me?” he whispered. “So beautiful.” His palms covered her breasts completely. She fit perfectly into his hand. He had a large hand and the warmth engulfed her. He massaged and kneaded the small curves gently. “So soft. So sensitive.”
Her nipples went hard, pushing into the center of his palms. Two stiff peaks begging for attention. She threw back her head, her hair cascading around her shoulders and down her back to slide over his belly and hips. She began to move faster, riding him the way she had his fingers.
“See, sivamet. Look how beautiful you are.” He watched his palms drift down over her slight curves to once again cup them in his hands.