“It will work out. I see the way you look at him.”

“He’s everything to me. I’d always dreamed about finding someone like him.” Dusti paused. “Well, not like him exactly, since I never knew about this world, but you know what I mean.”

“I do. Your love is strong and so is his.”

“I’m still freaked out about the mind-reading thing.” She studied Peva. “How do you handle that?”

“You learn control. It’s difficult at first. I once hurt Maku’s feelings when I thought too hard about his feet.”

“What about them?”

“Look at my mate’s feet. They are huge!” Peva laughed. “We were newly mated and I was watching him sleep. He woke to overhear my thoughts as I studied his body. He’s perfect except his feet are too large. He took that to his heart. I felt bad. And I once caught him thinking about my cooking. He had a lover once who made better deer stew than I can. He thought about contacting her to get the recipe and wondered if I’d be upset if he gave it to me. I was. He shares my bed so he can deal with eating my bad stew.”

Dusti chuckled. “Damn straight.”

Peva grew somber. “I don’t want him to speak to any woman he bedded before me. It makes me jealous. He’s the only lover I’ve had. I used to wonder if I pleased him enough in bed. I didn’t have the experience those women had.”

“I totally understand that. Drantos isn’t the first guy I’ve slept with but I got the feeling he had a lot of lovers.”

“I still feel jealousy because I hate the thought of someone once touching Maku, but I learned that nothing compares to a mate, Dusti. It’s why I don’t track down Maku’s past lovers and kill them. I’m the one he loves. He didn’t have a bond with them. You mentioned reading minds. Your bond is in place. You know what I mean. You feel what he does and he feels what you do. Nothing compares to that.”

“That’s true.”

“If ever a woman from Drantos’s past approaches you to throw it in your face that she was once his lover, don’t allow it to hurt you. Feel pity. They are jealous that you are his mate and not them.”

“It’s already happened. Yonda gave me the impression her and Drantos were dating, and that he cheated on her with me. I was pissed at him and that’s how the whole rejection thing happened. I said I didn’t want to go home with him. I thought he was a cheater.”

“So that explains it. I wondered why you’d hurt him that way. You think like a human does. Yonda wanted Drantos to settle with her. They were just lovers but without a bond. Do you understand? He was free to bed anyone he wished and so was she. As a matter of fact, she visits another clan regularly to see one of their males. It isn’t to say hello. She spends the night there and returns the next day still carrying his scent. She wants a mate and keeps a few men in her bed in the hopes one will agree. It would have been different if they’d agreed to share a home. Then it’s implied they are off-limits to others. That they’re testing to see if they’re compatible enough to have a lasting relationship. Drantos never allowed women into his home.”

“I get that now.”

“Good. Feel pity for Yonda. Drantos is quite a catch for a VampLycan. He has high standing as the next leader when his father steps down and he’s an honorable man. His looks don’t hurt either. The women consider him quite handsome.” Peva chuckled. “So I hear. I see him like family. He and some of the others were really good to me when I lost my brother. They stepped up and kind of adopted me as their little sister.”

“I’m sorry about your brother.”

She nodded, her expression growing somber. “We’re hard to kill but not impossible. It happens sometimes. Not near as much as it does in the human world. Their bodies are more fragile than ours and they don’t have the ability to heal as fast.”

Dusti wanted to ask how it happened but didn’t want to be rude. Peva seemed to guess at her thoughts.

“He was an enforcer and not mated yet. He hadn’t found the woman who was his. Our kind polices those who aren’t human. We hear of a problem and sometimes our enforcers are sent to handle the trouble. Well, there was a rash of disappearances in Anchorage. It was making the human news. A few bodies were eventually discovered and they’d all been drained of blood. The human authorities believed it was a serial killer but we suspected it was a nest of rogue Vampires. Those are the ones that break the laws and put us all at risk. It’s one thing to feed off humans, but they aren’t allowed to kill. It draws attention.

“Rener offered to go hunt the Vampires down and take them out. He was always so proud. He refused to take another enforcer with him, felt he could handle it alone. We lost contact with him so two more enforcers were sent to find him.” She paused. “The nest was larger than expected. There were over fifty of them and they’d boasted about killing a VampLycan to other nests that weren’t rogue.”

“I really am sorry, Peva.”

“Drantos and his cousin Redson were the ones who went after my brother. They annihilated that nest and avenged him. I consider them family and I became their little sister. Kraven’s too. I’m just closer to Drantos and Redson than him.” She paused. “Nests aren’t usually that large. They keep their numbers lower to avoid detection, but they were all crazy Vamps who apparently didn’t care if humans discovered what they were.”

“I admit I’m a little freaked-out now that I know Vampires really exist. I wonder if I’ve ever met one but didn’t know it.”

She shrugged. “It’s possible. You’re lucky a Vamp didn’t decide to make a meal out of you. They probably would have tasted your blood and known you weren’t fully human. You wouldn’t have woken up in your bed the next day with your memory wiped. They would have killed you. They fear VampLycans. We’re their enemies. It would have been a great bragging right for a Vamp to kill one of ours.”

Dusti shuddered.

“That’s why we live in clans. It’s safer in numbers.”

She thought of her hairy neighbor. “What about Werewolves? Would they have killed me if they knew what my mother was?”

Peva looked thoughtful. “It depends on the pack. We’re friendly with some. They’ve actually called us to request an enforcer help them if they have human or Vampire trouble. Some just fear us and want to avoid our kind at all costs. They worry we’ll take over their packs. It would be easy for one of our men to kill their alphas in a fight. They admire strength but they want full-blooded Lycans to lead them, not mixed breeds. They know our history.”