“What’s going on?” Matthew picked up a glass of wine. “I’m assuming it’s something I don’t want to know, considering she’s with you.”
Kat looked entirely unimpressed with the statement.
I sat beside her. “I guess we should start from the beginning, and you’re probably going to want to sit.”
“Oh, this is starting out good.” He swirled the liquid inside the glass.
Oh, he had no idea. “Katy saw Bethany yesterday with Vaughn.”
Matthew’s brows shot up, and then he took a long drink of his wine. “That’s not what I was expecting you to say. Katy, are you sure that’s who you saw?”
She nodded. “It was her, Mr. Garrison.”
“Matthew, call me Matthew.” He took a step back, shaking his head as he cleared his throat. “I really don’t know what to say.”
“It gets worse,” she said, rubbing her hands together.
“I know where one of the DOD officers lives,” I chimed in. “And we went there tonight.”
“What?” Matthew lowered his glass. “Are you insane?”
I shrugged. “While we were watching his house, Nancy Husher showed up and guess who else did?”
“Santa?” he said drily.
Kat laughed out loud.
I ignored that. “An Arum showed up and they let him in. Even greeted him by name—Residon.”
Looking away, Matthew downed the entire drink. He set the glass on the mantel above the fireplace. “This isn’t good, Daemon. I know you want to rush up there and find out how Bethany is still alive, but you can’t. This is too dangerous.”
“Do you understand what this means?” I rose, stepping forward. “The DOD has Bethany. Vaughn was one of the officers who came and told us that they were both dead. So they lied about her. And that means they could’ve lied about Dawson.”
“Why would they have Dawson? They told us he was dead. Obviously Bethany isn’t, but that doesn’t mean he’s alive. So get that out of your head, Daemon.”
Anger flashed through me. “If it was one of your siblings, would you ‘get that out of your head’?”
“All my siblings are dead.” Matthew stalked across the room, stopping in front of us. “You guys are all I have left, and I will not stand by and humor false hope that will get you killed or worse!”
I sat down, taking a deep breath. “You’re family to us, too. And Dawson also considered you family, Matthew.”
Pain flashed in Matthew’s ultrabright eyes, and then he looked away. “I know. I know.” Turning, he walked over to his recliner and sat down heavily, shaking his head. “Honestly, it would be best if he weren’t alive, and you know that. I can’t even imagine…”
“But if he is, we need to do something about it.” I paused. “And if he’s truly dead, then…”
“You don’t understand, Daemon. The DOD would have no interest in Bethany unless…unless Dawson healed her.”
I stilled as I stared at Matthew, and I could feel Kat doing the same. I didn’t want him to know about Kat and me. Not yet. “What are you saying, Matthew?”
He rubbed his brow, wincing. “The Elders…they don’t talk about why we’re not allowed to heal humans, and they have good reason. It’s forbidden, not only because of the risk of exposure on our end, but because of what it does to a human. They know. So do I.”
“What?” I glanced at Kat, relieved that she knew to stay quiet. “Do you know what happens?”
He nodded. “It alters the human, splicing his or her DNA with ours. There has to be a true want for it to work, though. The human takes on our abilities, but it doesn’t always stick. Sometimes it fades. Sometimes the human dies from it or the change backfires. But if successful, it forms a connection between the two.”
A true want? What the hell did that mean?
“The connection between a human and a Luxen after a massive healing is unbreakable at a cellular level,” he continued. “It marries the two together. One cannot survive if the other perishes.”
Kat’s sharp inhale echoed in my head as I shot to my feet. Blake had not said that when he talked about Kat being changed. He never mentioned that the Luxen and the human were bonded on an unbreakable level. But that meant…
Oh my God.
I barely got the words out. “Then if Bethany is alive…”
“Then Dawson would have to be alive,” Matthew finished, sounding weary. “If he had in fact healed her.”
Flipping my gaze to the fire, that tiny spark of hope grew stronger. Dawson had to have healed Bethany. I knew it, deep in my core, and that meant that my brother was alive. He was alive, somewhere out there; he was alive.
“But you just said he couldn’t be alive,” Kat spoke up, and I looked at Matthew.
“That was my weakest attempt to persuade this one from getting himself killed,” he said.