“I thought all loose ends were tied up except for Lisa’s disappearance.”
They really had been looking for her? Who were these people?
“They were. Except for the Humvee. All network special-ops soldiers were accounted for. But one walked out in his underwear and said he’d given his clothes to one of our own. Henderson wasn’t sure if Gershom fucked with the guy’s mind or what and wanted to know if someone from the base had managed to sneak away.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Marcus shifted his weight and grimaced a little. “We, ah…” He sighed. “Ah hell. We didn’t want to bother you. The night Roland and I checked out the motel, rumor had it you were going to take Leah to see Tomasso and Cassandra, then propose to her.”
Seth released Leah’s hand and curled an arm around her. “Why didn’t you tell me afterward?”
Marcus grinned. “Because you spent the next several hours—as Leah would say—getting your kink on and we didn’t want to spoil the moment.”
Lisa’s eyebrows flew up.
Leah’s lips twitched.
Marcus shrugged. “Nothing more came from the motel thing other than what amounted to a prank call from the bored, not very bright motel clerk. And that happened the day before your wedding, so we were all distracted, getting everything ready.” He turned to Lisa. “How did you keep us from seeing you that night? We heard three heartbeats but couldn’t find you. Where were you hiding?”
“On the bed.”
He arched a brow. “We checked the bed. It was empty.”
Amiriska patted his chest. “Taelon can make people see what he wants them to see.”
Marcus’s black brows drew down in a puzzled frown. “I thought the drug was fucking with his gifts.”
Lisa shrugged. “It was. But he said projecting an image into the part of the brain that interprets visual signals is easier than delving into the part of the brain that stores memories, then combing through past and present thoughts. The whole time Roland was there,” she told Marcus, “Taelon struggled to read his thoughts. He barely managed to access them and see Amiriska before Roland left. We kept hoping you’d both return. But you didn’t. So Taelon made the motel clerk see something that tricked your human soldiers into returning. Then we rode back to their headquarters without them seeing us and Taelon read the mind of an immortal woman there.”
“Eliana,” Seth murmured.
“Yes.” Lisa began to nervously pleat and unpleat the hem of her maternity tunic. “It scared the hell out of me. The soldiers mentioned tying up loose ends and not leaving anyone alive to carry tales. And they all seemed to be afraid of Roland, so we thought he was a bad guy.”
“Damn his antisocial ass,” Seth muttered.
“Sorry,” Roland called from the living room.
Marcus laughed.
“But we didn’t know what else to do,” Lisa continued. “And when Taelon read Eliana’s mind, his nose bled. A lot.”
Ami bit her lip. “I’ve never seen that happen before. Telepathy is easy for our kind.”
“That’s what Taelon said. He ended up passing out after I took over driving. His chest wound got worse afterward, too. But he saw this place in Eliana’s mind, so…” She shrugged helplessly. “Here we are.”
Silence fell.
Lisa didn’t think she had ever felt so awkward and uncertain in her life.
Seth offered her a kind smile. “You’ve had a rough go of it and probably need time to process all of this. We’ve a spare bedroom down the hallway you can use.”
“I don’t want to leave Taelon,” she blurted.
Seth inclined his head. “You are welcome to remain with him here in the infirmary. We can transfer him to a bed in the recovery room, and you can take any of the others for yourself.”
She hesitated.
“Or,” Seth continued, “if you prefer it, we can move him to the spare bedroom down the hallway and the two of you may share it.”
Amiriska glanced from Lisa to Taelon. Her face turned pink.
Lisa felt heat creep into her own cheeks and cleared her throat. “We’ll take the spare bedroom.”
Melanie frowned. “I’d like to keep Taelon here in the infirmary where I can monitor him.”
“He should be fine once the tranquilizer wears off,” Seth said, and Lisa found the confidence in his voice reassuring. “If Lisa notices anything that concerns her, she can summon you to their room.” He returned his attention to Lisa. “Or me, if Melanie is gone. David and Roland are both powerful healers as well.”
Lisa thought it best to keep her distance from Roland.
Leah smiled. “This house is chock-full of powerful immortal