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abilities when you
were younger, and that’s when they started taking your blood too? Maybe by the
time they knew for sure I had abilities I was too old to force into giving
blood. They had to do something to get me to go along with it.”
    Oliver’s brow wrinkled, but he nodded. “I could buy that.
Remind me some time to tell you what happened when I was fifteen, the only other
time I gave them my blood.” After hearing about her accident, that had happened
right around the same time, he was fairly certain his own horrific incident had
been staged too, at the cost of his brother Derek’s life.
    Lost in her thoughts, Miranda was silent for a minute, then
she shook her head as if scattering her disturbing memories. “Okay, we’ll file
this stuff away with the rest. They’re capable of anything to get what they
want and probably have been manipulating us since we were kids. That’s the main
thing I’m getting from everything we’ve shared so far.”
    “We can’t believe anything they ever told us, or be sure
about anything we thought we knew before.” Though they’d agreed on that up
front, saying it was one thing, accepting it would be much harder.
    Pulling Miranda closer, he settled her on his lap and slid
his fingers into her short hair, gazing into her worried blue eyes. “The sooner
we let go of the past, the sooner we can start building a future.”
    It sounded like something some self-help guru would say.
Oliver kicked himself for not finding anything more reassuring to offer her.
Things were topsy-turvy and the lies were so entangled with everything else, he
didn’t know if they’d ever know what was real.
    She kissed him, and then turned her face, sweeping his
cheeks with her lashes.
    “Butterfly kisses make everything better. My mom always said
so,” she told him.
    Oliver smiled, running his hand over her back, slipping his
fingers under her shirt. He wished they could spend this time naked, making love
instead of sorting through everything.
    “We’ll make things better together.” He kissed her tenderly.
    “I know. It’s all just so scary. Like the foundation on my
house just blew away and tossed me into the ocean without a raft,” she said
when he broke the kiss.
    “I’m your raft, Baby.” He kissed her again, breathing into
her, wishing they could sail away to a place where nothing would ever hurt her
again.
    “You’re my heart,” she said softly.
    “You’re mine,” he replied, meaning it but feeling slight
dorky saying it. This gushy-mushy love thing was new. A part of him just wanted
to growl, toss her on the bed and show her how much he loved her. The other
part felt like this kind of gentle sharing was important as they began to bond
and open up about themselves.
    Miranda sighed and slid her arms around his neck, resting
her head in the crook of his shoulder.
    Oliver liked the way she managed to fit herself to him, no
matter what position they were in, like a puzzle-piece. He took a moment to go
back over things they’d discussed so far, not wanting to miss something as love
made his brain soft and his dick hard.
    “Have you ever heard anything about vampires dying, other
than at the hands of vampire hunters?” he asked.
    “No, but they didn’t tell me about much.”
    “My mom didn’t either.”
    “Maybe they kept us in the dark because they knew we were
different.”
    “They didn’t seem eager for us to know what was going on,
that’s for sure. So, it’s odd that they suddenly told us what they did.”
    “I think it’s important we figure out why. If all they
wanted was our blood, they could have taken it from us back when we thought
they were our family and we were safe with them.”
    “Yeah, why send you to where they knew I’d be, let us get to
know one another and get on a plane to the one place they knew you’d go, follow
us, stick us in cages and . . .” Oliver stopped talking as his mind raced
ahead.
    Miranda sat back up. Her eyes were wide with the