“And have you?”
“No.”
Cassie studied Devon’s hard profile. His jaw was clenched tight, a muscle jumped in his cheek as he stared hard at Chris. Though his tone was flat, his hand had tightened around hers as he sought comfort and forgiveness from her. Cassie stroked her thumb gently over his cool skin, trying hard to assure him of her unwavering love.
“The sun,” Melissa said, obviously looking to change the tense subject. “How are you able to go out in the sun?”
A small smile curved Devon’s lips, his eyes warmed with amusement. “Well, that took awhile. As my powers grew, I began to gradually expose myself to the suns deadly rays. Slowly, I was able to expose myself to more and more of it, building up a sort of immunity to it.”
“How long did that take?”
Devon shrugged, his tight grip on Cassie eased slightly. “I’ve been working on it for about three hundred years now. I still burn easily if I am exposed for too long, and it depletes my powers a little faster than I would like, but at least I’m able to be in it for periods of time without bursting into flames.”
“Why would you take such a risk in the first place?” Cassie asked softly, horror filling her at the realization that he could have been killed.
He glanced down at her, his smile slipping slightly. “In the beginning, simply to see if I could. I knew of one other vampire that had succeeded in being able to walk about in daylight, and I wasn’t about to be second best to anyone. But then I began to remember what it felt like to be in the sun, to feel the heat of it.” He shrugged again, his gaze darting to the far wall. “I missed it. I wanted it back.”
“And it allowed for more hunting time,” Chris guessed.
Devon’s face was impassive as he turned toward him, but tension hummed through his body once more. Cassie hated the conflict between them, but there was nothing that she could do about it right now. Chris would either come to accept Devon, or he wouldn’t. But eventually he would have to realize that they must get along, because Cassie wasn’t going to part with either one of them.
She only hoped that it didn’t get to the point where they couldn’t be near each other. Chris was her rock, her best friend, without him she would have been lost long ago. But Devon was her heart, her soul. She would be nothing without him. Swallowing heavily, she shoved away her fear and worry. It had only been a few hours, she was sure that with more time Chris would come to see that Devon was not a monster. Chris would come to see that Devon was good, and that he would do anything to keep her safe, and protected.
“Yes,” Devon answered.
Cassie fought a shudder as she tried to block out the awful image of Devon killing innocent, unsuspecting people. She tried desperately to block out the murder and terror that he must have reigned down upon those innocents. That was not the Devon standing next to her now, she had to remember that. She did not know what had made him change, what had made him stop killing, but she did know that the man beside her now was kind, compassionate, and loving. He was not a killer anymore.
Still, she could not shake the uneasiness that clung to her. “Can Julian go out in the sun?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know, but I doubt it,” he answered slowly. “Julian has always relished in the darkness, and in the misery and pain of our existence. He would not relish the warmth of the sun’s rays.”
“But it would expand his hunting time,” Chris said flatly.
Devon simply nodded. Cassie shifted slightly, pulling the blanket off her lap. Devon glanced sharply down at her, taking a step forward in an attempt to stop her if she tried to rise. Cassie frowned fiercely at him as she shook her head. She had no intention of going anywhere, not yet anyway, the blanket was just hot and confining now. Besides, she was perfectly fine and she didn’t need him hovering over her like a mother hen.
Cassie waved him off as she swung her legs to the floor, feeling better without the cloying blanket on her. She knew it was not the weight of the blanket that truly bothered her, but all the awful events and truths that had come out. Unfortunately, there was no easy way to throw them off.
“Does Julian have the same powers as you?” Cassie inquired, fearful of the ability for mind control in Julian’s hands.
Devon shook his head, his eyes troubled and dark. “He does not have mind control, but he does have Psychometry.”
“Psycho what?” Cassie asked, not at all liking the sound of it.
Devon stared silently down at her, displeasure radiating from him. “Psychometry, it’s the ability to learn about a person by touching them, or by touching an object that they have touched. He gets impressions from these things, he can tell what has happened in the past, and he can learn about you.”
“Well that’s not so bad, at least it’s not mind control,” Chris said with a pointed look at Devon.
Devon shook his head, ignoring Chris’s baiting. “No it’s not mind control, but Julian uses it to get inside a person’s head, to torture them, to taunt them. He can learn about you, your abilities, your families, whatever he wants to know about you. It’s fun for him to drive a person crazy with his knowledge of them, before killing them. He likes to see them break mentally first. It’s not mind control, but with the way that Julian uses it, it’s even worse.”
Cassie’s mouth dropped, Chris inhaled sharply, and Luther cleaned his glasses off again. Melissa leaned heavily against the fireplace mantle, but her grandmother remained unmoving. “Wonderful,” Melissa moaned, rubbing the bridge of her nose.
“Psycho, just psycho, that’s all I need to know about that ability,” Chris mumbled.
The heartbeat in Cassie’s chest began to increase; the palms of her hands became sweaty. Cold terror crept through her. “He touched me,” she managed to croak out.
Devon’s eyes were fierce, his hand hard on hers. “He won’t ever touch you again,” he vowed. “And he will never get close enough to use his knowledge against you.”
“But he does have knowledge of me?”
Though she could tell that he wanted to sugarcoat it, that he did not want to be brutally honest with her, in the end, he was. “Yes, but he didn’t touch you for long so he probably only had a brief glimpse into you.”
Cassie blinked; it was the only reaction she could make. He knew about her. That monster knew about her! What did he know? What had he seen? Cassie’s fingers curled into the blanket, she was suddenly ice cold, but she knew the blanket would do little to warm her. Devon knelt beside her, gently nudging her chin up.