Adalasia wasn’t going to put her on the spot any further. It wouldn’t be fair. She nodded. “Do you know much about vampires?”
“I was born human just as you were,” Jaxon said. “I was a cop with knowledge of serial killers but not vampires. And yes, such evil creatures do exist. No doubt, your lifemate would prefer you never meet one. I prefer to never meet one, yet I have, all too often. They can only be killed by extracting their heart and incinerating it. Believe me, it isn’t easy. Their blood is like acid. No matter what you do to them, they rise again and again unless the heart is incinerated. They’re hideous creatures.”
Adalasia wasn’t shocked in the least. That was another thing her unique deck of tarot cards had prepared her for. She knew there were monsters in the world. Not human monsters. She had never encountered one, but she knew there was more than one kind. She did know that Sandu had battled the undead for centuries. He’d told her he had, and she believed him. Having Jaxon confirm it only made his confession all the more real.
“I was taught to believe in demons,” Adalasia admitted. She turned back to look at the titles behind the glass case. The tomes were very old, and she was drawn to antiques, to anything old. “I trained from the time I was a child to fight them. Just in case. I also prepared just in case the stranger came. It was predicated with each birth of a daughter that he might come. If he didn’t by a certain age, I was to find a husband, a man of a certain bloodline, and we would produce a child—a daughter. She would be given the same legacy.”
“That’s fascinating,” Jaxon said. “Absolutely fascinating. The soul had to have been passed from mother to daughter at conception. Did you know? Were you always aware you were the keeper of his soul?” There was curiosity in Jaxon’s voice. “It would be such a heavy burden to carry.”
It was Adalasia’s turn to hesitate. Her family’s legacy was a secret, one she guarded carefully. Her fingers ached to stroke the cards in the pouch kept on her body at all times. They gave her comfort and courage. “I knew we were soulmates. He carried a piece of me with him, and I carried a piece of him with me. I don’t know if that makes any sense. I thought, when I heard him so clearly, it was because of that. Our souls reaching for one another.”
She felt silly saying that aloud to anyone. No one talked about souls. Hearts—yes. Souls weren’t something anyone could define. Not even her. She felt the weight of Sandu’s soul often. It wasn’t a burden. It was a gift. That was how she would have described it. She was fierce about protecting that gift. She had never said a word to anyone—not even her mother—about the strange feeling of having something so valuable and immense in her that she knew belonged to someone else.
She’d been a young girl—a teen—when she first became aware of that gift. It was as if she could feel another being far off calling to her. The voice was too faint to be heard, but when she felt alone—and more often than not, she was alone—that gift inside her comforted her. In her family, they didn’t encourage friendships. They were always polite and, on the outside, appeared to be outgoing, but they kept to themselves. No child was invited into their home. There were no birthday parties. She was often lonely, but she would wrap herself in that warmth, and the loneliness would be gone.
“Anything of Sandu was never a burden for me. He . . . saved me more than once. I have been in training most of my life, separate from others. That can be very lonely.”
Jaxon was so silent that Adalasia faced her again and caught the look of complete understanding. She knew. She had firsthand knowledge of what Adalasia was talking about. Maybe they were more alike than she’d first thought.
Jaxon’s fingers stroked her throat. “There was a serial killer in my life for years. He stalked me, believing he was my father. He killed anyone he thought came between the two of us. No one was safe, not even a neighbor who was kind to me. I was afraid to smile at anyone, even a clerk in a grocery store.”
“Jaxon,” Adalasia whispered. “How terrible.”
“No one seemed to be able to stop him. He killed my family and then my foster family. Everyone I cared about. I was terrified for Lucian.”
“But Lucian is Carpathian, with so many powers.”
“Exactly. And used to being so powerful. He dismisses the ordinary as if it could never harm him when that isn’t true. Carpathians are not immortal. They have longevity, but they can be killed under the right circumstances. He took so many chances.” Her voice trembled as if she were reliving those days.