Page 72 of Eternally Bound
“Like the Savages.”
“And what do they smell like?” He knew what they smelled like to him, but to learn they may also smell to a hunter wasn’t something he’d expected.
“Like garbage,” she murmured. “Like death. It’s not a strong aroma, but it’s there. I smelled it that first night in the alley, then with Joseph, and again on you last night. It must have been because you had their blood on you.”
Ronan was too shocked by the revelation to continue forward for a minute. The hunters could smell the difference too, not even a turned vampire had the ability to smell the Savages, only purebreds did, and now hunters. It didn’t sound as if she smelled the aroma as strongly as he did, but perhaps there was more demon in the hunters than he’d realized.
“I see. Do other hunters smell it?”
“We assumed it was what all vampires smelled like, something else we were wrong about,” she said as she rested her head against his chest and placed her hand over his heart. She loved the solid pulse of it beneath her palm. “You smell like cinnamon and the ozone scent of power. I like it.”
“I’m glad you like it,” he said and kissed her ear. “To smell the difference between us is an unusual ability to have. All purebred vampires can smell the foulness of the Savages, but the turned ones can’t.”
“You smell it?”
He smiled at her as he continued walking again. “I do. For every human life a vampire takes, the scent increases. When I was forced to kill hunters before, I acquired the smell for a while. It has faded over the years.”
“So hunters can tell the difference between Savages and those who aren’t, and we don’t know it?”
“It seems that way.”
“I will talk to Nathan again and tell him.”
“After last night, I’m not sure your brother wants to hear anything you have to say about vampires.”
“Did you hurt him?”
“I did, but he will live, and he deserved it.”
She didn’t flinch away from his blunt words. Her fingers rested against the fading red mark from where a bolt had pierced him. Her brother and her lover could have killed each other last night over a complete misunderstanding. This insanity had to stop.
“Nathan injured you too.”
“Barely felt it.”
She sniffed. “Tough guy, huh?”
He didn’t tell her that he could take a bolt to the chest and barely feel it, yet the idea of losing her again could knock him to his knees. He nudged the door to her room open with his foot.
“I can talk to Nathan. Icanmake him listen, make him see reason,” she insisted.
“Not today, Kadence. One battle at a time.”
“I couldn’t stand it if something happened to either one of you when I might be able to stop it.”
Whether she realized it or not, she’d just admitted to caring for him. He didn’t know what the strange sensation filling his chest was, didn’t know how to react to it as it robbed him of his breath.
“Is there anything else about vampires we have wrong?” she asked.
“There are other things,” he replied.
“Such as?”
“Not now.”
“You still don’t trust me?”
He set her on the bed and stepped away. “There are many things I have to tell you, but there is something else we need to get straight between us first.”
