Chapter Twenty
Reasa stared into the open fridge, frustration threatening to spark her temper. She was tired and cranky from the long hours spent in the injured vampires’ minds, and to top everything off, her stomach was making the most ridiculous of sounds.
“Hungry much?”
The unexpected male voice startled her in the darkened kitchen, and she shrieked and spun around, the light from the refrigerator revealing Karn, the second in command at the Praetorian Compound.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” the blond vampire continued, reaching inside to grab a quart of milk. “Do you still have enhanced sight?” He gestured to the lack of light in the kitchen. “Only with your hearing now muted I would have thought your eyesight would be too.
“It is,” she answered looking away from his all-seeing eyes. “I didn’t want to disturb anyone by turning on a light.”
He watched her for a second and then crossed the room and turned on the light. “We can’t be having you bumping into things and doing yourself an injury. We don’t want Liam to put everyone back into a coma again, do we?”
She hadn’t really thought about it, but then, she tried her hardest to concentrate on the task at hand and not think about the redheaded Vârcolac who was starting to be able to read her every thought and emotion the more time they spent inside each other’s heads.
“Why don’t you have a seat at the table?” Karn commented when she didn’t speak. “I suggest you snack on something light like cereal as it’s the middle of the night. It should blunt your hunger enough to get back to sleep but not be too heavy to keep you awake. I’ll have a word with Mac in the morning to ensure both you and Liam get enough rest and food breaks. Both of you look exhausted all the time.”
She watched him pour out some cereal into a bowl and add some milk. Then he placed it in front of her with a spoon and sat down at the table beside her. She couldn’t fathom out why he was being so nice to her. He had nothing to gain from it.
When she just sat there looking at him he smiled and waved a hand at the plate. “It won’t eat itself, girlie.”
She recognised that tone. It was the one she heard him use regularly around the others; it conveyed both admonishment and humour. She had particularly noticed it became especially noticeable around Elina. He appeared to delight in pushing at Liam’s cousin to try to get a reaction. Most of the time the other woman treated him with haughty distain, but every so often there would be a flash of irritation in her eyes that only served to make the blond vampire grin from ear to ear. She could tell it was the reaction he was hoping for. It was also apparent that Elina was clueless to the fact that she was rising to his bait.
Swirling her spoon around the bowl a couple of times, Reasa finally gave into her hunger pangs and took a spoonful of cereal. As she ate she watched Karn, and his gaze never left her face. “Why are you being so nice to me? Everyone else pretty much pretends I’m not here, with the exception of Liam, Elina, Mac, Lily and Brandon.”
He appeared to consider her question before he gave her a small smile. “You frighten the others.”
Reasa spluttered over her next spoonful of cereal, almost choking as it went down the wrong way. “I frighten them?!” She wiped at her mouth with the napkin Karn hastily produced. “How can I possibly frighten them? I’m human. It’s not as if I can do them any harm.”
“You forget that a handful of weeks ago you were them, Reasa. That is what frightens them. The fact that there is a possibility that they could have their immortality removed and become as human as you now are. I didn’t say there was any merit to the way they feel, just that they do feel that way.”
