The Hidden (The Hidden Trilogy) (39 page)

“And you are…?”

She laughed, the sound lilting. “Where are my manners? I’m Cassandra,” she said, placing her hand on her chest. “Matt’s my brother. We’re twins.”

“Oh.” Now I could see it–same shade of brown hair, same green eyes. “I didn’t know he had a sister.”

She shrugged. “I’m not surprised.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I glanced back down the hall to the library, where Thomas still hadn’t left. I thought I heard yelling, but with the din of the party, I couldn’t be sure.

“They’re almost finished,” Cassandra said, like she’d read my thoughts.

I nodded, keeping my eyes anywhere but on her, when it occurred to me that I had no idea how long ago Matt–and apparently Cassandra–came into Thomas and Mel’s life. “How long have you known Thomas?” I asked her.

She smiled. “We go way back. Feels like a century.”

For all I knew, it
could’ve
been a century. I smiled politely and tried not to fidget with my necklace, just as the library door swung open.

Thomas stalked down the hallway, his scowl deepening when he saw us. Was he mad at
me
? It wasn’t my intention to cause a fight between him and his mom. When I got him alone, I’d explain–

“What’d you say to her, Cass?” His voice was hard, but his touch was gentle as he took my hand.

He wasn’t mad at me. I exhaled slowly as my heart restarted itself.

“Nothing, I was just getting to know your Emily a little better.” She looked at me and smiled, slow and wide.

I squeezed Thomas’s hand, moving closer to him as I tried not to shiver. What was
with
these people? And how could Thomas be one of them? He was
nothing
like them, and for that, I was thankful.

He looked down, studying me.

My brows pulled together as I mouthed, “What?”

His glare shifted back to Cassandra. “If you’ll excuse us, Emily and I were just leaving.”

“That’s all right.” She stepped aside to let us pass. “I have a feeling Emily and I will have all the time in the world to get better acquainted.”

Thomas pulled me along, walking a little too quickly for me in these stupid heels. We made it to the foyer without having to go through the crowd of party guests again, then waited outside for the valet to pull Thomas’s car around.

He’d released my hand, but had yet to say anything, his scowl still firmly in place and his body tense. The car pulled up and I climbed in as he walked around to the driver’s side. He peeled out before I could even get my seatbelt on.

We drove in silence for several minutes, his knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel. He was liable to rip the damn thing off if he wasn’t careful. I watched the tic of his jaw as he clenched and unclenched it, his eyes nearly black as he stared out at the road.

I wanted to say something, comfort him somehow, but where to begin? I had no idea what was going on in his head. So instead, I looked out the window, watching the passing traffic on the four-lane highway.

“I’m sorry.” Thomas’s voice was rough. “I never should’ve taken you there.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“What happened back there’s not your fault.” I placed my hand on his arm. Even through the fabric of his tux, I felt his muscles flexing, hard as concrete.

“I still should’ve known that would happen.” He laughed out of nowhere, his sudden hysteria making me cock an eyebrow at him. “I can’t believe I actually thought she could be civil,” he said to himself.

I remained quiet and let him cool down, his tense body slowly relaxing the further we drove.

He rolled his neck, his hand leaving the wheel to rub his jaw. “You want to talk about it?”

I knew he was talking about the big, fat elephant in the room, and not the shitstorm of an evening in general. “There’s nothing to talk about. Your mother wants you to knock up as many women as possible, and I fit into that plan in
no way
, so…like I said, nothing to talk about.” I wanted to appear strong. Instead, it just came out harsh.

“That’s not really accurate.”

“Which part? The part where you’re supposed to impregnate a bunch of girls, or–”

“It’s not
a bunch
, it’s
one
.” He let out a sharp breath before signaling to take the next exit. “When they mate with someone, it’s for life.”

“They’re monogamous?” That was surprising, considering what Thomas had told me about them. They didn’t really seem like the moral type.
At all
.

He shifted in his seat, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. “Not exactly.” He pulled into a small rest area, then put the car in park and faced me. “First, let me explain what a mate is, okay?”

I nodded, hating the way my palms grew sweaty.

This can’t be good.

“A mate is someone of the opposite sex who’s come to an agreement to reproduce with you, and
only
you. It’s not like marriage, because love is rarely involved. You’re more like business partners.” He bit his lip. “You with me so far?”

I nodded. “I think so.”

“Since there’s no surefire birth control that works on us, the only way to honor the agreement is to remain faithful to your mate…within our race.”

At my confused look, he said, “Humans are the loophole to the agreement, since we can’t reproduce with them.”

My stomach dropped and my heart all but stopped in my chest. I fought to breathe. “You have a mate, don’t you? I’m just your loophole.” He wavered in my vision as tears sprung.

“No, no, no,” he murmured, wiping my tears away with his thumbs. “It’s nothing like that. I don’t even have a mate.”

His gaze held steady and I relaxed a bit, wiping the rest of my tears. “Promise?”

He laughed and kissed my forehead. “Cross my heart.”

A painful thought popped into my head, and I had to get him to clarify it for me, just to be sure. “So you
don’t
have any kids.”

“No, I don’t.”

I let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”

God
, the thought of anyone else bearing his children hurt. I knew
I
wouldn’t be able to do it–not that I was even
remotely
ready for kids–but there was still a painful stab of jealousy when I realized someday, someone would, and it wouldn’t be me.

He reversed out of the parking spot and merged back onto the highway. “Do you still want to stay in town tonight, or do you want to go home?”

I flipped down the visor to check my makeup, trying to make sure I didn’t have long black mascara tracks running down my face. “We’re all dressed up. There’s no point in letting them ruin the rest of the night, too.”

I saw him smile out of the corner of my eye as he sped up. “Town it is.”

Frowning, I lowered my voice. “Can I ask you something?”

Thomas paused mid-chew, glancing around the crowded restaurant as he set down his fork. He swallowed and took a drink of water. “Shoot.”

“Can two unmated people sleep together? Is that allowed?”

He cleared his throat, looking rather uncomfortable. “Yeah, but they have to mate if it results in pregnancy, although that’s rare.”

“What do you mean? What about that is ‘rare’?”

“The pregnancy part. It doesn’t come easy for us.”

“Why not?”

“Our women don’t ovulate regularly. It could be five months, five years, five decades, or five centuries between cycles. There’s really no way of telling when the next window of opportunity is. Some couples try for centuries to get pregnant.”

Then it dawned on me. “That’s why your mom’s so adamant about you finding a mate. ’Cause it’d probably take you a while to get her pregnant.” Naturally, she didn’t want him to waste any more time than necessary. And
damn
, did that little bit of knowledge sting. Imagining him with someone else, trying to get
someone else
pregnant–

I looked around at all the people in the restaurant, quietly conversing as they ate dinner, and tried to force my welling tears
back
into the tear ducts from which they somehow escaped. Bastards didn’t listen, of course.

I wiped my eyes as discretely as I could.

“Em–”

“So how does that work?” My voice cracked, but I didn’t care. “Human women eventually go through menopause, so…” I refused to look at him, refused to see the pitiful look I knew was on his face.

He sighed. “It doesn’t work that way for us. There’s no expiration date for our women.”

“So why doesn’t your mom just have more kids of her own, instead of pressuring you?”

He frowned. “She’s tried. Hell, I’m sure she’s
still
trying–it’s usually stipulated in the contract. But in the seven-hundred years she’s been mated to my father, they’ve only produced Mel and I.”

Jesus
. “How old are your parents? And
what
contract?”

“My father’s a thousand and three. My mother’s seven-hundred and nineteen.”

My breath left me in a rush. Goddamn… And here I thought
Thomas
was old. He was a baby compared to them.

“The contract I’m referring to is the mating contract,” he continued. “I told you, it’s like a business deal. Both parties negotiate a contract, and then they sign it.”

“There’s no ceremony beforehand, like a wedding, or…?”

He shook his head. “No, but there’s a party held in the mated couple’s honor after the contracts are signed.”

“What’s in these contracts?”

He shrugged. “It varies from couple to couple, but it usually includes things like how often they’ll have sex, and where they’ll reside once they do have children.”

“How
often
they’ll have sex? They actually put that in there?”

He nodded. “Trying to conceive takes diligence. They have to do it every other day,
at least
.”

“Huh…” I gnawed on my lip, lost in thought. It occurred to me that Matt and Mel could very well have kids.
Fully grown
kids. She was the same age as Thomas, and three hundred years seemed like ample opportunity to make a baby or two. “Does Mel have kids?”

“No. Her and Matt have been trying for almost a hundred years now.”

Oh, man. I pushed the thought of Matt and Mel gettin’ it on out of my head, just as something else Thomas said earlier popped in. “Do they love each other?”

He shrugged. “They’re fond of each other. I think that’s pretty good, given their situation.”

I frowned. “What’s their situation?”

“It’s an arranged mating, set up by my parents and Matt’s.”

My jaw dropped. “They
do
that?”

“Sometimes.”

“Why did Mel agree to something so archaic?”

“If Mel had refused, she would’ve been excommunicated.”

“You mean forced to live among humans?”

He nodded. “For us, it’s the ultimate punishment. Well, that and death.”

Another thing occurred to me then, about what Thomas had called “loopholes” to the mating agreement. “Do Matt and Mel sleep with humans?”

He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I know Matt does on occasion, but I’m not sure about Mel. I doubt it, given her distaste for them.”

Huh… Well, after tonight I’d never be able to look either one of them in the face again, that was for damn sure. Some stuff just couldn’t be unlearned. I sighed and said, “So what about you? Why hasn’t your mom tried to arrange a mating if she wants you to settle down so bad?”

“Working for Isaac gave me some leeway. It didn’t leave me time for a mate and…all that goes with it. Plus, I was already doing a service to the race, so it’s not like my parents had any room to complain. But when I stopped working for Isaac, that changed. I was no longer being ‘useful’ to my people.”

I could infer what that meant… “So your mom tried to set you up with someone once you left.”

He nodded. “Cassandra. We’d known each other for a while, and she was more than willing.” He gave me a dry smile. “That’s all that matters, right?”

“Did you sleep with her?” The words were out of my mouth before the filter in my brain could stop them.

He shook his head. “I’ve never had any interest in her.”

“Why not? She’s beautiful.” Creepy as all get out, but beautiful nonetheless.

He shrugged, his leg brushing up against mine under the table. “I guess I was just waiting for someone better to come along.”

He’d meant it to be sweet and flattering, but it just hurt, because that someone could never be me. I moved my leg away and averted my gaze. “So how’d you get out of mating her?”

“I refused. By that time I’d already exiled myself, so my mother had no leverage.”

I nodded, trying to think of more questions. “What about Matt and Mel? Why do they live like you?”

“Well, they don’t really. They’re only here to try and get me to come home… For good.”

I took a sip of water, twirling my straw in the glass. “Oh.” It was lame, but…what
else
was I supposed to say?

He stilled my hand, his warm skin enveloping mine. “I’m not going anywhere, Em. Don’t worry.”

I smiled and glanced up at him, about to say some smartass remark when our waiter appeared at our table, pushing the dessert cart. “Can I interest you two in something a little sweet?”

Thomas’s eyes flicked over to me, a faint smile tugging on his lips.

Yes, I definitely wanted dessert, but not the kind this guy was peddling. And by the looks of Thomas, he had the same thing in mind.

“
Oh, God
.” I squeezed my eyes shut as my hips rocked atop Thomas, feeling him move from the inside. The built-up pressure in my core exploded, waves of ecstasy washing over me as my back arched.

Thomas gripped my hips, slamming me down as he thrust up, sending little aftershocks rippling through me. He groaned, his muscles straining as he tensed and stilled beneath me. Warmth flooded my insides as he released into me, his breath leaving him on a shudder. I rolled my hips a few times, clenching my walls around him in the process.

His shaft twitched as he groaned again, a pleasurable grimace on his face while he fisted the hotel’s sheets. “You’ll be the death of me,” he panted. “I swear.”