To Love a Shifter: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (103 page)

“Close your eyes.” 
There it was again.  I hadn’t been imagining the voice inside my head.  It also sounded
unmistakably like Lucian’s. 
Tomorrow,
I promised myself again.  Lucian’s voice in my head would be question number two I’d ponder.

Then Lucian started to move, so fast I could almost imagine his very speed was creating a trail of wind behind us.  I opened my eyes and immediately wished I hadn’t.

How could I be at eye-level
with treetops?

I looked down almost reluctantly and this time, I closed my eyes, shutting reality out.  That did it.  I just couldn’t possibly be looking down on trees and mountains.  We couldn’t be flying.  That was impossible.  I had a concussion.  That was it.  Tomorrow, I’d wake up and all this would be a dream.  Yes, that was it.

“Rest.  I will keep you safe.”

Yes, the voice is right.  I just have to rest.

I snuggled closer.  Lucian stiffened.  I ignored it.  Too bad for him, I’m good at ignoring lots of things.  Dyvian chuckled somewhere to my left, and I ignored that, too. 
Tomorrow
, I promised myself. 
Tomorrow, I’ll force myself to handle reality.

My nightmares used to have something to do with ugly prom dresses, failing in Trig, or having Dad hear me talk about the S-word.  But now, I wake up screaming because of hissing monsters, the look of fear—frozen by death—on my parents’ faces, and a pair of forest green eyes
.

“Wake up, Deli.  Wake up.”

The voice lifted me past my subconscious, and I woke up reluctantly, a scream straining to escape from inside me.  I was scared, thinking that when I opened my eyes I’d see the same images.

My sleep-blurred gaze slowly cleared.  My muscles loosened up at the familiar sight of mahogany-paneled walls.  I had glimpsed the same sight in my brief snatches of consciousness.  But I could barely remember anything else about the time I had spent here.  I didn’t even know how long I had been here.  All I could vaguely recall was burning up with fever and having the Chevalier brothers look after me.

A face stared down at me, and it took me seconds to realize who it was. 
Dyvian. 
Relief coursed through my body, and I sank deeper into my bed.  I stretched a bit, feeling like I hadn’t left the bed for ages.

The night lamp next to me cast shadows all over the place, alive and hungry.  I turned away hurriedly and my head spun at the abrupt movement.  I was a lot weaker than I realized.  My gaze landed on the windows to my left.  It was dark outside, but there were no shadows at least, just empty blackness, which was fine by me.

“Are you okay?”

Tonight he had on a white undershirt with its collars folded on top of a silvery sweater.  A pale gray knee-length overcoat, beige khakis accessorized by a white leather belt with a gleaming platinum buckle and black Italian leather shoes completed the look.

Dyvian looked better suited to attend a movie premier than to babysit a stranger his brother rescued.  That stranger was, of course, me.

“What time is it?”  My voice sounded scratchy to my ears.  I pushed myself up carefully, not wanting the room to spin again.  I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror across from my bed.  My long black hair stood up in all directions.  Huge circles made my brown eyes darker, and my skin had the pallor of an invalid.

He glanced at his watch, which I could see was glittering with diamonds even from my position.  They were that huge.  “Just a few minutes past midnight.  Your fever broke earlier this morning.”

“H-how long have I been here?”

“Three nights.  You’ve been unconscious most of that time.”

I bit my lip.  “I’m so sorry you guys had to play nursemaid—”

“It was no bother.”  He hesitated.  “Are you okay now?”

I didn’t answer.

He winced.  “Are the nightmares that bad?”

“Yes.”  I didn’t have to elaborate.  He had been there, too.  Why could I forget so many things but not the ones I didn’t want to remember?

“I’m sorry, Delilah.”

“Maybe…we should talk about it?”  I ventured slowly even as I dreaded his agreement.  “I just think I wouldn’t dream too much if I understood things better.”  I squeezed the pillow between my hands restlessly.  “I just don’t understand.”

Dyvian hesitated before nodding.  “All right.”  He dragged the chair from the dressing table and sat, stretching out his long legs in front him.  He squirmed, trying to make himself comfortable on a chair too small for his size.

His squirming made me smile, which was good because it made me forget what I kept reliving in my dreams, even if just for a little while.

When I saw that he was as comfortable as he could be, I began carefully, “This Evian thing—”

He made a face.  “
Evren,
Delilah.”  He sighed.  “Why do you insist on calling us a bottle of water?”

“It’s Deli,” I corrected him.

He smiled and I knew he had done it to make me forget some more.

The subtle act of kindness threatened to release the tears I was trying to hold at bay.  “Thanks,” I told him with a shaky smile.  “I appreciate what you’ve done—”

“
Uh-oh
.  No waterworks, please,
Deli
?  I said it to make you laugh and not cry.”

His panicky expression made me laugh again.  I willed my tears not to fall.  I owed him that much.

Dyvian glanced at me warily.  “Okay now?”

“As much as I can be.”

He sighed.  “Shouldn’t we take a rain check on this?  I don’t think—”

“I
need
to hear it.  I need to know the truth, Dyvian.”  I glanced down at the pillow I was wringing with my bare hands.  I forced myself to let go and smoothed the creases away, using the time to relax myself.  “You told me the other night that you knew something about my family.”

“In a way.”

“How?”

“To answer that, I’ll have to tell you a little about us first.”  He paused.  “About what you’ve become.”

I tried not to cringe.  I could still remember the monstrous entity that had bathed me with its fire.  Would I be
that
ugly?

“It’s not that ugly,”
a Lucian-like voice protested inside my head.  It was the same voice I had heard the night of my rescue, just moments before I had succumbed to fever and exhaustion.  I was afraid it was a sign of insanity.  I hadn’t told Dyvian, much less Lucian, about it.  If I was crazy, it was a secret I was determined to keep—maybe even from myself—for the rest of my life.

“Deli?”  Dyvian frowned.

I blinked.  “Sorry.  I was remembering what, uh, you guys really look like.”

He smirked.  “What
we
look like.”

“Whatever,” I snapped, but I was smiling.  When I wasn’t so bothered by my nightmares and I wasn’t feeling so weak, I could always count on Dyvian to make me laugh with our arguments.  I liked him a lot.  He reminded me of myself and that certainly wasn’t a bad thing.

“Do you want me to finish or what?”

“I’m keeping quiet.”

“Good.  Now, the first thing you have to know about Evren is our soul.”

“Thank God,” I blurted out.  “I mean, I’m just happy that we still have them.  I was scared that we didn’t like—”  I frowned.  “That’s what you’re going to say, right?  We do still have souls, don’t we?”

Dyvian’s face was grim.  “No, Deli.  We don’t.”

My heart jumped to my throat. 
Soulless? 
Tears filled my eyes. 
I’m going to hell.  I’m one of the damned—

“Just joking,” he retracted hastily when my tears trailed down my cheeks.  “We have them, Deli.”

“
Dyvian.
”
 
I wiped the silly tears away, relieved all the same that I still had a soul.

“I’m sorry.”  But his grin implied otherwise and his next words confirmed it.  “But you’re just too irresistibly fun to tease, Deli.”  He rolled his eyes.  “How could you even think we didn’t have souls?  Humans aren’t the only creatures of God.”

“I know that, but we’re…
different.
”

He smiled gently.  “We may not be entirely human, but we do descend from them.”  He wagged a finger.  “Now, will you let me continue without any more interruptions?”

I crossed my heart.

“Good girl.  Listen carefully because I’m going to tell you the most important thing to know about Evren.”  He stopped talking, as if waiting for me to interrupt him.  I didn’t.

His eyes twinkled.  “Evren, Deli, have dragons for their souls.”

I waited for the punch line, but when he only looked at me with expectant silence, my eyes widened in disbelief.  “You have got to be joking, right?”

The twinkle in his eyes became more pronounced.  “Nope.”

“
Dragons.
”  The mere idea strangled my voice. “I should have known…”  I banged my head with my fist in chagrin.  “Ugly beast, fire-breathing powers,
sheesh…
how could it be anything but?”  Davie always did say I had appalling deductive skills.

“Obviously, they aren’t mythical creatures like most people think.  They’re real.  They’re ancient.  Pure dragons no longer exist, of course, but a part of them resides in us, and it is their blood that allows us to have certain qualities humans don’t possess.”

My mind was busy retracing the past, reanalyzing what I had seen and experienced.  “Oh, my God.  Th-that monster.  It was Lucian, wasn’t it?”  Those forest green eyes were unmistakable.

Dyvian wagged his finger again.  “Uh-uh.  I wouldn’t call him that to his face if I were you, but yes, that
was
him.”

“You can turn like that, too?”

“All three of us—” he looked at me pointedly, “—can turn like that.”

“But I don’t want to turn like that,” I wailed before I could stop myself.  “No offense, Dyvian, but it’s kinda icky, having scales and all that.”  I glanced down at my hands, realizing in horror that my very lovely normal hands could turn into claws any moment.

“Tough.”  He sounded more amused than sympathetic.  “But that’s exactly what you are now.”

His words only made me cherish my hands all the more.  Life was so cruel.  My hands weren’t meant to be ugly.  But the truth seemed even worse.  It was supposed to set me free from my nightmares, not add to them.

I grimaced.  “What else do I have to know about being Evren?”

He wagged his finger again.  “I’m not finished about the soul bit yet.  An Evren’s soul is slightly different from a human’s.  It’s a separate entity, you see.”

“Separate entity?” I echoed.  “Does this mean someone, no,
something
else is living inside me?”  I felt violated all of a sudden.

Dyvian shifted in his seat, looking slightly apologetic.  “Something like that, yes.  When Lucian made you Evren, he had to change your soul, too.  I guess you could say he woke it up.  An Evren’s soul is the source of its power.  It will give you the ability to fly, turn invisible, breathe fire, live on heat, and things like that.”

My head started to spin again.  This was too much to take in.  It just proved that inconvenient truths were best left buried.  “Fly,” I parroted hoarsely.  That meant I hadn’t imagined flying in Lucian’s arms.

“And turn invisible…”  Dyvian’s tone was gleeful.