“You mean you guys can always read each other?” Mary asked with surprise. “It isn’t just a new life mate thing?”
Dante hesitated. He’d really been looking forward to getting back here with the condoms and actually using them. However, that wasn’t looking very likely if he had to explain—Sighing, he pushed those thoughts away. This was important to Mary. He needed to explain, “Immortals can read each other if they do not guard their thoughts. If they are guarding their thoughts, it is impossible to read immortals who are older than themselves, and harder, but not impossible to read the thoughts of immortals about their age or younger than themselves. We quickly learn to guard our thoughts, but it takes constant effort and can be exhausting, and immortals often end up avoiding spending time with each other because of this. Life then can become very lonely if they stay by themselves, or heartbreaking if they befriend mortals who age, sicken and die so quickly in comparison to us. It has led to immortals going rogue and doing things they should not,” he added solemnly. “And that is why we have hunters, or Enforcers.”
“That is also why life mates are so important to us,” he continued without giving her a chance to interrupt. “A life mate is the one person, mortal or immortal, that we cannot read and who cannot read us. We can relax together and enjoy each other without the need to constantly guard our thoughts.”
“If you turn your daughter and she turns her husband and they are not life mates, they would not long stay together. Worse yet, each of them would then be consigned to a life alone with no hope of ever turning a life mate should they meet one.” Dante paused briefly to let that sink in and then added, “And just by the very fact of forcing your grandchildren to turn each other, each of them would lose their opportunity to ever turn a life mate. They would all be left to live a very long, very lonely life with no hope of respite except through death or going rogue.”
Mary’s shoulders dropped miserably. “Isn’t there any way—?”
“No,” he cut her off solemnly. “Each immortal can turn only one. And if you tell your family without the intention of turning them . . .” He paused, his mouth firming. “Well, it would be a wasted effort. Lucian would send a group of Enforcers to ensure their minds were wiped of the memory. And then he would have you locked up in the cells in that building you probably noticed at the back of the property until you could be judged by the council.”
“Judged?” she asked weakly. “What would they do?”
Dante shrugged. “I do not know for certain. I suspect they would search your thoughts to see if you were likely to be a future threat to keeping our presence in the world a secret. If not, they might just keep you locked up for a while.”
“But if they thought I was?” she asked with a frown.
“They might simply perform a three on one and wipe your family and past from your memory, or . . .”
“Or?” Mary prompted, when he paused.
“Or, they might terminate you,” Dante admitted on a sigh, and then added, “I, of course, would try to stop them, would no doubt be killed in the effort, and we would both be dead.”
Mary gaped at him at this prediction, and then they both glanced to the door as someone knocked on it.
Sighing, Dante released Mary and turned to cross the room and answer it. His eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed warily when he saw Lucian in the hall. If the man read his mind and got wind of the discussion he’d interrupted—
“In his report, Russell mentioned that Mary lost her RV and all her possessions in the RV explosion,” Lucian said abruptly.
“Si. She lost everything except the clothes she was wearing and they were badly damaged too,” Dante admitted. “We were going to take her out to buy clothes, but then the kidnappers took her and . . .” He shrugged.
Lucian nodded. “Bastien will arrange for new ID and bank accounts for her. He’ll put in a sum to cover everything she lost, but he needs to know what name to put on the ID and accounts, and what birth date Mary wants. She cannot use her original birth date or the name Winslow anymore,” he pointed out.
“Right,” Dante said with a frown. “I will have to talk to her about that.”
Lucian nodded. “Do that. In the meantime, she will need clothes. We shall have to take her shopping. Would you prefer to do it first thing in the morning before retiring? Or in the afternoon after waking?”
“We?” Dante asked, his voice almost strangled with surprise. Lucian was not the sort to enjoy shopping for women’s clothes, he was sure.
But Lucian nodded. “You and Mary, Russell, Francis and myself.”
“Oh,” he said weakly.
Lucian waited patiently, but when Dante just continued to stare at him, his mind in an uproar, he said, “Late afternoon it is then,” and turned to walk away, leaving Dante staring after him.