To Love a Shifter: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (128 page)

“It’s definitely what I want,” I told him shakily.  I stood and gazed down at him, wishing I could tell him how badly I wanted to fall in love with him again.

And the unexpected thing happened.

Michael’s eyes opened.  “Deli?” he gasped.

I smiled tremulously.  “Thank you for loving me, Michael.”  I didn’t wait for him to speak.  I turned invisible and jumped out of the window, flying away before I could start crying again.

“Lucian.” 
I remembered Lucian crying out in his mind when he saw me kissing Michael and I winced.  I had seen what
he
thought all the while.  He knew I was reading his mind.  He could have shared some of his thoughts and kept others hidden, like I was doing now, but he had left everything open.

He had repeated the scene over and over.  It was pure torture for Lucian, but he had doggedly replayed the images in his mind.  In the end, I had been so sickened at the sight of myself in Michael’s arms, I had cut the connection between us.

But he hadn’t been as weak.  The bond between us was like a two-way street.  While I had voluntarily stopped reading his thoughts, he could have continued reading mine and he had, every hurtful second of it.

He had listened when Michael said he loved me.  He had heard my answer and when I tried reading his mind, I learned that half of him believed it was true.

“Are you all right, Deli?”

I wanted to cry again.  If my tears had a voice, they would have probably told me I was abusing our friendship.  Surely, I couldn’t cry over every single thing Lucian did?

“Why did you keep on thinking about Michael and me kissing?”

“Mental self-flagellation,”
he replied without hesitation.

I knew a lot of big words, thanks to Davie, but that one completely escaped me. 
“Right.” 
I vowed to look it up in the dictionary as soon as possible.

“I know it’s not much, but suffering somehow makes me feel I could atone for the pain I’ve caused you, even just a little.”

I understood him better this time and I said sharply, guiltily,
“You didn’t have to watch.”

“Yes.  I did.”

We remained silent for a while before Lucian asked again,
“Are you all right?”

“I’m coping.”

“I love you.”

The words came out of the blue and I went cold. 
“Don’t say that.”

“It’s the truth.  I’m done hiding from the truth.  You and I are alike in more ways than you think.  You ignore the truth because you fear it.  I ignore it because I’m arrogant, and I tell myself I don’t need to know the truth, that I don’t need anything because I’ve done well living by myself all these years.”

“Well…I’m glad to help.” 
I couldn’t quite hide my bitterness.

“You could help more if you came back—”

“No.”

“Promise me you’ll call for me when you need me.”

“If,”
I corrected,
“I need you.”

“Very well, then.  If ever you do happen to need my help, I want you to promise me you’ll ask for it.  I can’t let you go if I don’t think you’re safe.”

“Stop pretending like you really care.”

“But I do.” 
Lucian’s voice lowered. 
“You have to believe
—”

“You know what’s funny?  Now that I know the truth about…about this thing we have with our minds, it just made me see things clearly.  Before, I never thought of questioning why you loved me.  I just thought you did and that’s all that mattered.  But I should have.  Because now, I’m trying to think of one reason
—any reason, dammit—that you’d fall in love me and I can’t!”  My voiced cracked at the humiliating truth.

“Maybe it was fate.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I wasn’t looking for love, but there was something about you that instantly drew me.  I remember how my pulse raced for no reason the first time I saw—”

“Oh, please,” I snarled. “Don’t tell me you’re going to say it’s serendipity?”

“What else could it be?  You’re the very opposite of my ideal woman.”

“Thanks a lot!”

“I turned you into one of us simply to save your life. But then I got to hear your voice.  Your real voice, your real thoughts, and I couldn’t get enough of it.  The more I listened, the more I knew about you, the more I fell in love with you.  I tried not to…I tried everything to push you away—”

“And you succeeded,” I finished, not wanting to remember, much less relive, the past.     
  

Sadness and regret mingled in his tone when he asked,
“Do you remember the time you asked The Voice—”

“You mean, I asked you,”
I pointed out flatly.

I had reconnected with his mind and he had let me.  He flinched at my words but it didn’t make him pause. 
“Do you remember the time you asked me if I considered you the person I care for the most in the world?”

I squeezed my eyes shut. 
“Don’t you dare, Lucian,”
I screeched at him.

But he ignored my words and doggedly continued, his voice hoarse,
“I meant it then, and I mean it now.  You are the person I care for—”

I cut him out again, and I opened my eyes just in time to see myself flying straight into a tree.

“Oh, dear,” I said out loud.

And, through my thoughts, Lucian realized what was about to happen and groaned,
“Deli—”

I slammed into its trunk.  The tree shook at the impact of my crash, showering the people underneath us with dozens of loose, dry leaves.  I bit back a painful groan, rubbing my head as I struggled to stay afloat.

“Deli.” 
Lucian’s voice was exasperated and resigned at the same time.

And then he and I were laughing like old times because it
had
been a silly thing for me to allow and yet, it had also been so typical of me.

My smile faded.

Typical because I was stupid—

“Stop it, Deli.  You’re not stupid and you know it.”

“No.  I’m stupid and, yes, I know it.”

“Naïve, innocent, occasionally foolish, yes, delightfully silly, but not stupid, and before you even think about it, they aren’t euphemisms for what I truly think about you because they’re the truth.”

I ignored the jolt of pleasure I experienced when Lucian described me as “delightfully silly.” 
Don’t you let yourself be swept away.  He’s just telling you that because he’s guilty.

I told him waspishly,
“I don’t know what euphemism means but whatever it is, I don’t believe you.”

Lucian was silent and then he sighed in my head,
“Ah, Deli.”

It was so achingly familiar I wanted to cry again.  But I didn’t want to waste any more of my tears on him, so I ruthlessly held them back.  I slowly lowered myself to the ground, materializing to view behind a tree when I was sure no one was watching.

I looked around and knew right away I was in Central Park.

A Korean couple was enjoying a ride in a horse-drawn carriage, their cameras clicking endlessly.  Children were shouting and laughing from the playground to my left, one of the many located in the park.  Couples stood hand in hand while gazing at the panoramic Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir.

For a tiny fraction of time, I forgot about being brokenhearted and became excited at the thought of the many different and better ways I could enjoy Central Park now that I was Evren, capable of flying, turning invisible, and breathing fire.

Little growls from my stomach interrupted my long-term planning.  I was hungry again.  No surprise there, considering I was unused to flying and being invisible for such long hours.  I still had no money and I decided I’d make a collect call to Dyvian later on for a loan.

“Get out of my mind now,”
I told Lucian, still sensing the vibration his mental presence was exuding. 
“I’m done talking to you.”

“I’m not.”

Oh, God, he sounded like a doctor again and it was just one of the thousand things I missed about him.

“Well, I am so I’m cutting this—”

“One last thing.”

I hesitated. 
“What?”

“I know I’ve hurt you and I know you might never forgive me for it.  But I want you to know you’ll always have a home with Dyvian and me.”

He struggled for breath. 
“And if you don’t want me to talk about…about what happened then I won’t.  You can lead your life the way you want to, and I won’t stand in your way.

Do you understand what I’m telling you, Deli?”

“Umm…”

He laughed, but there was something sad about it. 
“I’m saying if you come back and you happen to be in love with someone else, I’m willing to stand aside.  I can be just your brother, your friend, or even a stranger if that’s how you prefer things to be between us.  All I care about is for you to be happy and safe, Deli.  Keep that in mind, will you?”

And then he was gone, Lucian severing the line between us himself.

“Idiot,” I muttered and burst into tears.

Didn’t he know he had me at hello?  Well, okay, he had me at the time he called me
human
.  How could I even stay mad when he said such lovely, weird things?  And it
was
weird.  I could never say the same.  I was just too selfish.  I wanted Lucian, and I wanted him loving me and no one else.

But there were still a lot of things we had to talk about to clear the air properly between us.