I sank into his embrace. All of what he just said filled my heart with a certain kind of peace. “I guess I should probably thank you. I know the past years without me must have been hard.”
“Hard…” he repeated, incredulous. He dropped his hand as a loud laugh spilled from his lips, “is putting it lightly, dear.” His gaze was as intent as it was soft. “Your happiness is all—and will always be—what is important. If this life you have now pleases you, than I am content with that.”
I smiled as happiness coursed through my body and leaned forward to bring my face close to his. “You know you are perfect, right?”
He grinned, haughtily. “Yes, I do know this.”
I shook my head at him, laughing. Classic, arrogant Kellen. How I missed his confidence. “So what’s the plan?”
“Make the call—if we find out this is the hospital, we’ll take Chase with us to go and talk with this Doctor. But first we’ll take a quick trip to see Mistress Ellery to claim him.”
“We?” I repeated. Did I hear him right? Was he really that accepting of all this? I couldn’t believe my ears.
“He is important to you,” Kellen replied with a smile that showed he just enjoyed shocking me.
“If I claim him too, it will give him a stronger protection.”
“You think he could be in danger?” I hadn’t even considered that a possibility.
Kellen glanced away from me for a moment. When he met my gaze again, there was guilt in the depth of his eyes. “I am a shield again, Hadley.” His look was firm and serious. “You know what that means.”
I did know. It meant danger of every sort. I hadn’t wanted to go back to the memory of all the times I found myself in precarious situations before I left Kellen. But it was those reasons he loved and thrived on by being a shield. The only reason I never put up a stink about it was because Kellen was a strong protector. I never was in serious danger.
Now, things were different and the idea of bringing Chase into this world was very unsettling.
“Have you been in danger recently?”
Kellen let out a self-righteous laugh, then his grin settled. “Not likely. If I happen to piss someone off and they know my bride has a consort, they may use him as an act of revenge. If I claim him too, it is more likely they won’t.”
The thought of anything happening to Chase sent a shudder straight through me. Just as that settled, I felt entirely grateful Kellen would offer this. No matter how long we’d been together, he could still surprise me. “You would really do that for me?”
“Darling…” Kellen arched a brow, “I would lay my life down for you. This is not putting me out by any means.”
I could only smile in return, unable to explain how I felt about this with words. I was beginning to remember why I loved Kellen so much. The man didn’t have a selfish bone in his body. I knew he was now, and would always be, a better person than I could be on a good day.
Resolved to get back to the matter at hand, I picked up the phone and dialled the number. Only two rings in a soft voice answered, “Aurora Psychiatric Hospital, how may I help you?”
“This is Special Agent Hadley Sloan. I am working a case with the Milwaukee Police Department, and wondered if you at some point had a patient there by the name of Chad McKinney.” Silence filled the line. “Hello?”
“I’m sorry,” the woman’s voice said in a soft tone. “I suppose we should have expected this call.”
My dead heart leapt into my throat. That was just the response that I’d been hoping to hear over the past hour. Her response, though, irked me. Why wouldn’t they offer their help on the information they had on him? Damn, mortals could be so annoying. “So, he was a patient there, then?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I let out a long deep sigh, relieved that we had gotten somewhere. “We need to come and speak with you immediately.”
“But it is the middle of the night. Dr. Peterson, who treated Mr. McKinney, worked the day shift today. He will be sleeping now.”
“This cannot wait until morning.” Not only because this was urgent, but also because I couldn’t go out in the daylight to talk to him. We needed to act now. As it was, we were going to lose some time going to Mistress Ellery’s.
This choice was the only one we had. Kellen had enemies that would love to expose such a secret as what I had going on with Chase. “You need to wake him up. We’ll be there in…” I looked at Kellen, who raised two fingers. “Two hours. Make sure he’s there.” Then, without another word, I hung up.
Kellen grinned. “Now then, let’s go and claim ourselves a consort.”
Chapter Seven
“I take it since you are driving in the opposite direction of the hospital, we’re not going there.”
Chase gave me a stern look from the backseat of Kellen’s car. “Mind telling me where we are going?”
I shifted in the front seat to look back at him, wondering just how I was going to put this. And furthermore, just what his reaction would be. I suspected he wasn’t going to be happy. “All right, take a deep breath and don’t throw a shit fit.”
Chase’s brows furrowed and his eyes narrowed. “All right.” His voice was hesitant and very guarded.
“Under vampire law…” I hesitated a moment, pondered what to say next or if I even wanted to continue at all. After a moment, I sucked back the hesitation and finished in a hurried breath, “I have to claim you as a consort for you to know about us.”
Chase’s suspicious expression shifted to one of blatant confusion. “A what?”
“A consort, it’s like a human…” I almost blurted out a word that he’d definitely not appreciate. I was only glad my mouth clamped shut before I made a terrible mistake.
“A pet,” Kellen finished for me shamelessly.
Chase’s expression returned to outrage so quickly, I was a surprise I managed to withhold my laughter. He crossed his arms over his chest in defiance. “You are not going to claim me as your pet, Hadley.”
I smiled and it was definitely forced. “It’s not really that bad.” What else could I say? I wouldn’t feed him bullshit or lie to him. What we were about to do was indeed under vampire law—acquire him for our uses. The term pet was exactly how vampires referred to it. I wasn’t about to tell him any different.
My words did nothing to ease Chase’s stern glance. “Hadley, if you think I am going to allow you to claim me as your pet, you’ve clearly lost it.”
I glanced over at Kellen who drove with a smile on his face. Jerk. Looks like I wasn’t about to get any help from him. My gaze returned to Chase. “It doesn’t mean anything to you, only to vampires.”
I hoped he’d see past this. “I don’t think of you that way.”
“Well that’s a f**king good thing.” Chase guffawed.
Kellen laughed and his grin only grew as he glanced at Chase in the rear-view mirror. “What?
You don’t like the idea of being claimed by her?”
Chase snorted and glowered. “Not in the way it’s suggested, no.”
My hands clenched together as anxiousness set in. We were doing this, on our way to do this. I needed Chase to come to terms with it without scaring him. He was not agreeable in any way and this was part of the ceremony, the only way we would be able to stay together. He had to accept this. “It’s just what vampires do. It really doesn’t mean anything.”
“Then what is the point of it?” Chase demanded.
Kellen took a quick right and let out a long deep sigh that sounded very annoyed.
“So you don’t get your ass killed.”
I snapped my gaze toward him and my glare came quick. “Must you be so forward?”
He wasn’t helping. We had to take this slowly. There was so much to my world that Chase didn’t know, simply because I didn’t want him to. I had to ease him into this as gently as I could.
Kellen gave me a sideways glance with a smug grin on that handsome face. “I must.”
Then he focused his attention back on the road.
I snorted and looked back at Chase. Instantly, I felt mortified. He had so many emotions running across his face I couldn’t even decipher them, and I could only imagine how difficult hearing all this was.
You need to become my pet because if you don’t, you could die. Not really how I wanted to ask him to be my consort. Damn Kellen for making this much more difficult than it had to be.
“It’s just protection,” I told him as gently as I could. “It’s the way we do things. By letting us stake the claim on you, you could never be touched by another vampire.”
Chase’s brows rose up to his hairline. “Us?”
“You will belong to me too,” Kellen said with a smirk.
“The f**k I will.” Chase pounded on the back of Kellen’s seat with his fist, but Kellen just laughed it off.
I sighed. Will he never shut up? “Enough, Kellen.” I focused on Chase. “It’s just added protection. Kellen is a shield.”