Page 47 of Bite of Sin

“Is the silence helping, Zan?” She cocked her head. “Can you hear if I’m lying?”

I prowled closer to her, and she kept moving, keeping the picnic table between us. She knew what I was trying to do. Listening to heartbeats was the best way to catch lies if I couldn’t entrance. I’d perfected it in the last seven years.

“Lie to me again, and I’ll kill him,” I threatened, needing to shake her enough to hear how her heart reacted to it.

Her heart didn’t patter or skip from my words. It stayed even as she stared at me.Fuck me. She’d had practice. Which meant she’d had training to protect herself against vampires. I wanted to know what else she’d learned.

“You’ve been holding out on me,” I said in a low voice. “Controlling your heartbeat like that takes skill.”

“I didn’t hold out. You never asked.”

I scoffed. “Because you would have told me.”

“Sure, I would have.” She paused for a long second. “Or not. I don’t know. Can you tell if I’m lying?”

“You’ve made your point,” I gritted out. “Were you PARA as a human?”

“Still asking questions when you know I won’t tell you the truth. Not very smart, are you?”

I gaped at her, anger rushing through me. This was not how I was expecting it to go when I brought her out here.

“No, not PARA,” I answered my own question, determined to get back on top of this game. “Tattoos are illegal, and I’ve seen the one on your back. Where’d you get it?”

The flowers that covered the top of her back made me want to see the rest of the tattoo. I’d been curious about it since I saw it the first night she wore the new clothes. Tattoo ink was hard to come by, especially to humans.

She didn’t say a word, so I asked another question. “Why did you let me find out? Why not play it off like you were telling the truth?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Would you have believed me if I answered every single question truthfully?”

“No.”

“Then you would have realized it anyway. I just saved time.”

“What kind of secrets are you keeping?” I suddenly jumped on top of the picnic table and leaped down, landing right in front of her. Surprise filtered across her face, but she didn’t move.

“How long have you been a vampire?” she asked.

“I’m the one asking things tonight,” I snapped.

“You won’t get the truth out of me. Not this way.”

“Shall we go back, then?” I grabbed her arm, tugging her closer. “Because I know of a way to get you to talk.”

The threat of hurting Warner had her anger rising again. “You told me I had a chance to kill you. I haven’t gotten to try yet.”

“We both know that’s not possible.” I’d brought her here to learn about her, but now that it was off the table since I couldn’t tell her lies from her truths, I was done with this game.

“How about if you give me your word that you won’t hurt Warner for a week, I’ll tell the truth to your questions?”

I went rigid when she wrapped an arm around me, willingly pulling me closer to her for the first time since we’d met. She had to keep her head tilted back to look at me, and I searched for any signs of deception.

“A week?” I queried. “That’s too long.”

“Seven days of his safety for my truths.”

“And how do I know you won’t lie?”

“When I make a deal, I keep my word.”

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