I chugged back the rest of my drink and set it on the glass bar. “Ever hear of a human becoming one of us?”
“Nope,” Keir said.
“Think he’s shittin’ me?”
“Nope.”
“Yeah, figured that.”
A KNOCK SOUNDED AND I smiled, anticipating Balen after his ‘testosterone only’ conference.
I opened the door and my smile faded at the sight of Anstice. I half closed the door in her face then stopped myself, remembering Balen’s words. Being rude was just plain immature.
“Come to tell more lies?” I could still be a bitch. I turned and walked back to finish making the bed. My hurt from Anstice not telling me about Balen being her brother was still fresh. God, how could she? We’d been friends since, well, forever.
“I just wanted to see . . . Danni, please look at me. I want to explain.” Anstice approached me, but stopped several feet away. “Every time you painted his portrait, it destroyed me not to tell you, but I couldn’t. I was sworn to secrecy and I thought . . .” She wrung her hands together. “I thought you’d get over him. I don’t know . . . maybe that you’d stop painting him. But then . . . then he came back and it all changed.”
I pulled the duvet up over the pillows and smoothed it out. “It changed way before that, Anstice. It changed when you met Keir and you damn well know it. You quit your job. God, you loved being a vet. But I supported you. You wanted to be at Keir’s beck and call. I never said shit. I trusted you to tell me things. I thought we confided in each other.”
Anstice reached out and grabbed my hand. I stopped fiddling with the duvet. “Danni, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Balen.” She hesitated as if she was having difficulty getting words past a large lump in her throat. “Ryszard was after me. He used you and Balen to get to me.”
I jerked my eyes to Anstice. What the fuck?
Anstice continued, “We’re different. Keir, Balen, Damien, Jedrik, me, all of us—and, well there are more of us.”
Oh, God, this didn’t sound good.
Anstice slipped her hand from mine then sat on the bed. “I didn’t know any of this until I met Keir. I didn’t know I had a brother or that I was different. Remember when Keir was attacked in the alley and I went to help.” I nodded. “Well, that’s when I found out. If I hadn’t seen it firsthand, I wouldn’t have believed it either. I had to trust him.”
“So, different in that they have their own laws? Like a biker gang.” I snorted because the idea made damn sense. Keir even had a bike, although I never saw Jedrik on one. Keir was tatted up, didn’t take shit from anyone and, yeah, this place was like a clubhouse. And the laws . . . Balen said he broke them. Betrayed them. That shit wasn’t allowed in a Motorcycle Club. No wonder they were after him. “That’s why you couldn’t tell me?”
“Well, yes and no. They have their own laws, yes, and I was sworn to secrecy, so I guess you could make the comparison. But it’s . . .” She sighed. “Remember when we were kids and my hands burned?”
“When you touch injured people.”
Anstice nodded. “I’m called a Healer. A Scar Healer.”
“A what?” I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like what Anstice was going to tell me, and yet, I still needed to know.
“We’re called Scars.”
“Keir is part of a biker gang called Scars? And you’re what, their doctor for when they get shot or knifed? Damn, I would’ve expected a better name than that. Maybe Black Deviled Scars or something.” Shit, did that mean Balen was part of a gang? I didn’t like that idea. Actually, I hated the idea that Anstice was a part of it. No wonder she was different after she met Keir. And when Keir was attacked in the alley . . . shit, that was probably another biker gang. One with fangs. I shivered, rubbing my arms.
Anstice smiled. “Ah, no. We’re more like a group that have unique abilities.” She bit her lip and hesitated. “Umm . . . when I touch someone who is ill or wounded, I can heal them.”
I felt like laughing and crying at the same time. I did neither. Anstice looked serious, and after all, vampires were . . . real. Yeah, that still was not sitting well. “Okay, say this is true. Then why didn’t you heal me when I fell off my bike and broke my arm that time when I was eight? Or can you only heal certain injuries? Or maybe there is the possibility that Keir’s Scars are involved with drugs and he’s slipping you something to make you think you have this . . . ability.” God, and I thought I was insane. Now Anstice was going to end up in a padded cell with me.
“You don’t believe me.” Anstice looked up at me.
I sighed. “Anst, healing with the touch of your hands? It’s a little hard to swallow. You don’t have to make things up in order to try to make amends, okay? We’ve been friends a long time. I hate that you kept shit from me, but I’m not going to throw our relationship away because you swore to some secret about your husband’s criminal activity. I just needed to be pissed off for a bit. Did Balen and Keir screw over this Ryszard guy? Is he part of another gang?”
“He’s . . . was a vampire, Danni.”
“A vampire,” I repeated. Scary, shaved-head doctor guy told me that too.
Anstice sighed, her fingers curling together. “If I’d told you two years ago that the guy who abducted you was a vampire, do you think you’d have believed me? You were talking to the police, what if you’d told them what I’d said? We, the Scars can’t allow that, Danni. It’s forbidden for humans to know about us. Can you imagine if the world knew we existed?” Anstice hesitated and I stopped pacing to look at her. “Ryszard wanted me, so I could heal him. I’m one of a rare few that have the ability to heal vampires. He was using you to get to me until, well, until Balen made the deal with him. In exchange for your life, Balen gave Ryszard the location of where the Scars were hiding me.”