Page 64 of Dante's Circle Reborn

She shook her head, looking down at her hands. “No, because he’s going to want to kick your ass, and we don’t have time for that, do we?”

“I would say he could try, but I would probably let him beat me at this point.” He reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. She froze, the contact new and exciting.

“Seth has a very powerful mate. Two of them, in fact.”

“One of the fabled triads, then?”

“I know of a few of them, not so fabled. Dante, the dragon you were looking for? I’m friends with him, as well. He’s also in a triad.”

Misha frowned but nodded. “I shouldn’t have come into the Conclave like that. I should have found another way. But we were running out of time.”

“Why? You keep saying that. But I don’t understand.”

Misha lowered his hand and then began to pace again. “The Conclave won’t let us create our own realm or have a voice, not when we are hidden from existence. Meaning, we’ve had to stay hidden from the paranormals, as well. We can’t congregate, not in large numbers anyway. So, we’ve had to spread out over time. That causes a chink in the communication lines of our kind. And when that happens, I’m not able to protect all the people that I need to. The weak, the ones who can’t protect themselves? They need us to help them, and we can’t do it. Not with enough power to keep them protected from our own kind anyway.”

“That was another vampire that attacked you, then? I guessed, but I wanted to make sure.”

“He attacked us, yes. He’s a dark one. One who has killed humans and paranormals alike. He lost his soul in the process.”

She took a step back, her eyes wide. “I thought only demons lost their souls,” she whispered.

Misha shook his head. “If a demon doesn’t take a soul, he loses his own. With vampires, if they take enough life forces, they slowly drain their own soul in the process. The dark one has been coming for my people because he wants to control all of them. He wants the weak to be purged, and then he wants to take the Conclave by force.” Misha let out a laugh, but there was no humor in it. “As if he could.”

“What can I do?” Caly asked, not knowing what else to say. Because she was tied to this man forever now. There was no going back. Only, according to whatever visions she sometimes had, there never had been any avoiding it.

“I’m going to take you to one of the areas where some of my people are. That way, you can meet them.” He ran his hand through his hair. “And then, I’m going to ask you to go with me to the Conclave.”

She twisted her hands in front of her but nodded. “We need to know why the elders shunned you.” She paused. “Did you deserve it?”

His eyes glowed red, but then he closed them tightly, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry. Our eyes glow red when the predator is at full force.”

“Mine sometimes glow blue, and wolves’ glow gold. It’s who we are as paranormals. Just because your eyes are a different color, doesn’t mean that you’re evil.”

He snorted. “The whole no pulse and not needing to breathe thing doesn’t help. And we’re technically dead because of that, at least according to the elders.”

Pieces clicked. “That’s how you got underwater.”

He nodded tightly. “I don’t need oxygen.” He raised a brow. “Of course, that can come in handy for some sensual things.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to blush. And we’re not going to talk about that. We’ll deal with exactly what this bond means, and the fact that we might have had the best sex of my life later.”

“Best?”

“Later.”

“Come with me,” he said, holding out his hand. She shook her head.

“First, we need to get a few things straight.”

He tilted his head but didn’t lower his hand. “Okay.”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen next between us. And that’s just fine. But I had a feeling the elders were being hinky about this, just like they were with the shades before you.”

“They only do what’s best for themselves.”

“Perhaps now, but I don’t think that was always the case.”

“And yet we’ve never been allowed to be part of the Conclave.”

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