Page 76 of Pretty Little Shadow

"What does it feel like?"

She considered it, taking a seat in one of the desk chairs and waving me toward the other. I sat down, handing her the to-go box of cake.

She opened it the box immediately, grabbing two plastic forks out of a drawer nearby and handing one over. "Try a bite."

"I don't really eat much sugar. It makes me bloodthirsty." Probably because I was only partially alive.

"This is worth the bloodthirst."

My lips curved slightly, and I accepted the fork, digging into the cake. The bite I had was good, but a little too sweet for me.

"The bond basically just feels like your minds are connected. It's a lot like having a wolf, but you obviously don't have to share a body. You can communicate mentally, and you can feel each other's emotions when they get strong. It's pretty intimate."

I nodded.

Having Darius in my head would be... a lot.I wasn't necessarily against it, but I doubted I'd ever really feel ready for it. I never felt ready for things.

"So? What do you think?" she prodded.

"About the bond?" I had no idea what I thought about that.

"About the cake."

Oh.

Right.

"It's good, but I couldn't eat much."

"Too sweet?" She reached across her desk, grabbing a few different packages in various shapes and sizes. "Here. Try these ones."

I made a face.

"Come on. Callum knows I'm eating chocolate obsessively right now. I need you to make a dent in that while I eat this, so he doesn't know that I had you smuggle cake.” Kat took a gigantic bite as she turned to her computer and pulled up some kind of security website.

When she logged in, she poked the keys with one finger, one at a time. I could've watched to figure out what her password was, but I didn't.

She'd invited me into her home and shared her food with me, so it would've felt wrong to break her trust that way.

I reluctantly opened a box of dark chocolate truffles. They were all different flavors, and after I scanned the label, I picked one that sounded decent.

As soon I bit into it, a groan escaped me, and I basically inhaled the rest.

Kat shot me a knowing smile. "Those ones are really good when you need chocolate but don't want something sweet."

I looked down at the box, suddenly far more interested in the contents. "No kidding. They're amazing."

"Eat all of them. Please. All I want is cake. I should've had you bring way more than this." She clicked around on the site before she pulled up a camera that showed the register in one of her cafés.

Darius was off to the side of the camera's view, but not by much.

"Hmm..." Kat clicked around, flipping through a few different views. She put her fork in her mouth for a minute so she could use both hands. "Can you drag Callum's screen over?"

I leaned across the desk and carefully pulled it through an ocean of chocolate treats. Kat handed me a cord, and I plugged it into the computer for her.

The screen lit up. After she typed for a minute, another camera's footage appeared on it.

We could now see Dare's interactions with the customers from the side, too, so we saw part of both of their faces.