Cade stood also, stil calm and unruffled by Bo’s ire.
“You can’t give her my blood and my blood is what she needs.”
“And why is that?” Bo demanded tightly, his fingers curling into fists at his sides.
“Because I can see the future and I know that she needs something that I alone can give her.”
CHAPTER TEN
“You can what?” Bo blurted incredulously.
“I can see glimpses of the future.”
Bo snorted derisively. I knew he wanted to scoff, but he didn’t. I think we’d both seen too much by that point to seriously doubt what he was saying.
“Alright, so you can see the future. What does that have to do with Ridley? Why does she need your blood?”
“Because she is the key to kil ing our father,” he explained evenly.
“She didn’t have to drink your blood for us to know that.
We already knew.”
“No, but she’l need it to give you the information you need to kil him.”
That gave Bo pause. That gave us al pause, even Annika. It made me wonder how much she knew (or rather how much she didn’t know) about Cade’s presence in her life.
“Wel , you’ve accomplished your mission. She drank your blood, so now you can stay the he—”
“Oh, no. She wil need it until every word of Iofiel’s letter is written on her skin.”
Bo shook his head angrily.
“Absolutely not. We’l find another way.”
“There is no other way. This is what must be done if you are serious about ending Sebastian.”
“Of course I’m serious about ending him, but it’s my destiny. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong. You can’t forget that I’m the son of a fal en angel, too. I have a role in his destruction and it’s to help Ridley get you what you need.”
“She could kil you. She could accidental y turn you. Or the loss of life could drive you to madness. You’re wil ing to risk that because you think you can see the future? Because you think you know what Ridley needs?”
“You know as wel as I that her fangs are too immature to infect me. She won’t hurt me. She can’t.”
“You couldn’t possibly know that,” Bo said, but I could see that he immediately regretted his hasty words, knowing what Cade would say.
“As a matter of fact I can.”
“Wel , this is not up to us to decide. It should be up to Ridley,” Bo said, looking back at me.
“Of course,” Cade agreed, “but I can assure you she won’t mind.”
Bo’s head swung back around to Cade, his eyes narrowing.
“And neither wil you, is that it?” Bo’s voice was low and calm. Deadly calm.
“I’m sure you’ve been told of the…sensation that humans can experience with a vampire bite.”
“Only you’re not human. Not real y, are you?”
“In some ways I’m very much human.”
I wanted to slap Cade. He wasn’t helping matters at al .
Annika had been merely an observer up to that point, and of course, she would choose that moment to jump into the fray.
“Surely you trust her to drink a little human blood, don’t you, Bo?”
“I trust h e r completely.” He didn’t need to finish the sentence to get his point across. The words he didn’t say hung in the air like a tangible entity, his intent quite clear to everyone.
Annika snorted. “As if Cade could force her to do anything she didn’t want to do. She is a vampire after al .
Remember?”
“Annika!” Bo snapped, turning his displeased gaze on her. “You’re not helping.”
“Look, Bo,” Cade asserted. “Let’s be reasonable about this. I know what kind of… thing our father is. I know he needs to die and I know that you are the only one who can kil him. I also know that, in order to do that, you need the help of your mate, the mate. The chosen one. What you have to understand is that she needs me.”
Silence stretched out between them like a living, breathing thing, grumbling and pulsing with animosity.
As I thought about Bo’s destiny, the importance of his ultimate mission in life, I felt a surge of panic at the thought of spending eternity walking the earth without him after he regained his mortality. As I’d done many times in recent days, however, I ruthlessly squashed those thoughts, reminding myself that Sebastian was a danger to virtual y every human on the planet. He was like a disease that could easily spread out of control if he wasn’t stopped. And Bo was the only person alive that could stop him. How could I ever stand in the way of that?
It was with that in mind that I came to my feet and spoke into Bo’s ear.
“Bo, if that’s how I’m supposed to help you then maybe you ought to trust him. Maybe his blood had something to do with what happened between us earlier.”
Bo searched my eyes for several seconds before turning back to Cade.
“I don’t want you near her when I’m not around. We can discuss this in more detail later,” Bo said gruffly.
Cade nodded once. “Fair enough.”
Cade’s ebony eyes slid to me before they moved on to Annika. In that one brief instant, I would’ve sworn that I saw anticipation in them. Luckily Bo didn’t see it and I certainly wasn’t going to mention anything.
I was just about to suggest that Bo and I go do something to get out of the house for a while when my phone rang. The cal er ID showed that it was Savannah.
“What’s up, chickie?” she asked by way of greeting in her typical Savannah way.
“Savannah!”
“Uh, yeah. Who were you expecting?”
“Oh, nobody, it’s just that I, um, I’ve been thinking about you.”
“Good stuff I hope. How much you love my hair, how good my perfume smel s, how you wish you had my incredible eyesight.”
I was beginning to get used to her coping mechanisms.
Since she’d lost her sight in a skirmish with Trinity, Savannah had col ected an entire arsenal of blind jokes and flippant remarks related to sight (or lack thereof). At first, I was shocked and a little uncomfortable by her comments, but I’d come to realize that it was just Savannah. Her kooky coping method was as much a part of who she was as her flame red hair.