Twelve

 

 

 

“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well. We could have done this another time, Clara,” Mrs. Ruth said in response to my ‘migraine’ excuse for wearing sunglasses at the dinner table.

“It’s ok, it’s not too bad, I just wanted to head it off, you know?” I explained and she nodded.

“So, Eli, where are you planning to go to school?” she asked him as she spoon fed one of the babies.

“I’m not sure, to be honest. I’ve thought about moving away somewhere. Like Colorado or something.”

“What’s in Colorado? A certain school you’d like to go to?”

“Well…I actually already took my core college classes, I just need to figure out my major. I’m just not sure what I want to do yet, but I‘d love to live somewhere really secluded. Maybe finish college online.”

“Ahh. Well, Clara would miss you,” she said with certainty. Eli and just looked at each other over our rice pilaf.

“Well,” Pastor replied, “I for one think it’s commendable that you’ve got a head start on college. Clara, it would seem, isn’t all that interested,” he said, stating facts.

“I’m a little confused right now…on what I want to do and what my parents wanted me to do,” I muttered. I hadn’t even realized I’d said it out loud until I felt Mrs. Ruth’s hand on mine. I glanced up to see everyone staring at me in understanding. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she said and patted my hand. “And don’t worry about the dishes. You guys go on and do something, I’ll get them.”

“Would it be alright if I took Clara to the park for a bit?” Eli asked cautiously.

“Sure,” Pastor said easily, “as long as you bring her home-“

“By midnight,” I answered for him and laughed as I grabbed Eli’s hand to drag him with me. “I know.”

“Have fun, kids, and be careful.”

“We will,” I called and shut the door. I didn’t bother to grab anything. “So,” I started, “we’re meeting your jerk of a brother at the park?”

“Yep.”

“Did you text him or something? How do you know that?””

“We’re family. We can call each other in our minds but I’ve been blocking them all out for years. I opened up and told him where.”

He grabbed my hand after we crossed the four lane.

“So, you see this way all the time?” I asked as I squinted at the streetlights. “It’s strange. It’s not like night vision, it’s just…bright.” I again felt a tick of nervousness as having to see this way all the time. What would things look like in the day time? What was I going to do about my green eyes, that I hadn’t even seen myself yet?

“It’s ok,” he assured me and squeezed my fingers, “it’s normal.”

“I think we are well past the realm of normal, Eli,” I muttered even as I continued to take in my surroundings. The string between us was particularly interesting. I copied his earlier movements and wrapped my fingers around it, almost expecting it to cut me with its sharp looking barbs. It floated between my fingers and my palm and it seemed to flex and move with me, like I was a part of it. Or it was a part of me. I couldn’t feel it between my fingers and it didn’t make any sense.

I pulled him to a stop.

“Please tell me what this means,” I said on a voice that left no more room for stalling. He nodded.

“I want to explain it to you before Enoch shows up anyway.”

“Ok,” I edged.

“This,” he moved his fingers along the string, “means that we’re bonded.”

“And that’s different than just being your mate?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “When we choose a mate, that’s exactly what it is. We feel a connection with you and choose to keep you and you don’t really have much say. Yes, you feel strange around us and you feel connected but other than that, technically you could walk away and be fine if we let you. But this…this linkage is a decision, Clara.”

“A decision? What…you decided to bond yourself to me?”

“No, Clara.” He paused for an agonizing dramatic affect. “You did.”

“What?” I said in my stunned high voice. “How could I have known? I don’t even know what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying,” he said softly and pulled me to him. His hands held my waist loosely, as if he was telling me he wanted to touch me but wasn’t holding me against my will. I could leave when I wanted. “You may not have realized what it meant, but somehow, you made the decision subconsciously…that you wanted to keep me.”

Even though this was Eli, even though we knew there was more between us than some lame crush, I still flushed at his implication. I saw his smile as he gazed at me, but oddly he didn’t flinch or gasp as he registered my emotion. And his smile was genuine, not cocky, not smug. I swallowed hard and took a deep breath, my hands made their way to his upper arms.

“So you’re saying that this is my fault,” I said and motioned between us. “I don’t understand how this is different from the mating thing.”

“When we mate, like I said, it’s something that happens to us both but ultimately, it’s almost slavery. They really shouldn’t even call it a mate because it’s anything but romantic. A consort is more like it. The Devourer owns them, carts them everywhere, parades them around. The mate just stays because of the strange feelings they have for the Devourer. And most of them are shady and don’t mind the protection and lifestyle they get from us.”

“So,” I thought carefully, “that’s what I’m going to be? Just following you around everywhere like a puppy?”

“No. Of course not.”

“But before this you said I was your mate. What were you going to do with me?” I asked, not unkindly.

“I wasn’t sure. I had no plans to use you if that’s what you mean.”

“I just meant…I don’t know what I mean,” I sighed and looked at the ground between us. “I just don’t know how to take all this. You’re telling me that I chose this, wanted this. But I don’t see how that’s possible when I didn’t know it was something I could do.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He smiled a brilliantly bright and happy smile. “Do you have any idea what it means, that you did this. I can keep you safe now, my family has no choice but to protect you. I won’t need anything but you for the rest of my life to sustain me.”

I got his meaning and it thrilled me in an odd way.

“Is that why you aren’t freaking out and breathing funny?”

He chuckled.

“Yes.” He laughed again. “Yes, that’s why. The bond gives me everything I need. I’ll only actually feel it when you have a sudden or intense spike of emotion.” He leaned forward and kissed the corner of my mouth. I sucked in a quick breath and he laughed before he groaned slightly. “Like that.”

I allowed him to pull me up to him and kiss me. He moved with surety and conviction, like there was nothing else to do in the moment. As he held me, I felt something in my world crack. I realized that I should be completely freaking out. Completely.

This guy I’d only known for a few short weeks had somehow convinced me that I’d bound myself to him, literally, with an invisible barbed connection from my wrist to his. My life in the past few days seemed to have been flushed down the toilet in a un-ceremonial kind of way and then lifted up again by someone who could only be described as a bad guy turned good.

It wasn’t the first time I’d thought about what my parents would think of my dating him. I had so many questions that my head hurt to even begin to organize them. But in the turmoil of my internal tirade I’d come to one conclusion; somehow, this guy who seemed to know me, who cared about me, who was intensely enjoying my lips right now, had saved me.

Saved me from what, you say? I had an ok life, you say? I was spoiled and privileged and had everything most people wanted and could never have, you say?

True to all accounts except for one minor thing and in my book the most important thing. I wasn’t free.

I had been trapped; in my life, my memories, my friends, my guilt, my need to be what everyone else wanted me to. No one could save me from that life. No one but someone on the outside who saw me for who I was and not what everyone else had painted me to be.

Eli saved me from myself. I had every intention of taking advantage of it and figuring out exactly who I wanted to be from this day on.

He interrupted anything else I may have thought or said by pulling slightly away and looking down into my face.

“Wait…” He stepped back and I knew nothing good would come from that act. “Wait. No, this is wrong.”

“What?” I asked confused.

“I could no sooner ask you to do this than I could ask you ask you to run away with me.”

That idea actually sounded kind of appealing but I jerked back to attention as he went on.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he said in a voice that was like boxes being dragged on concrete. “You were right, you had no idea and somehow did this haphazardly. I’m sorry, I can’t tell how sorry I am to have dragged you into all this. I’ll find a way - a way to release you-“

“What are you talking about?” Talk about an about-face. “Where did all that come from? I thought you were happy about this?”

“Clara, it’s too much. I couldn’t ask it of you.”

“I didn’t ask you to. I’m offering.”

“Don’t,” he ground out. “Don’t tempt me to just take you. I can’t do that. You have a life here, a way of living that suits you. I’m just a passing distraction, a phase. You’ll forget about me one day and be ok.”

“I hate this part,” I sighed in aggravation and jerked the sunglasses from my eyes, setting them atop my head into my hair.

“What?” he said in a voice that clearly didn’t understand where I could be leading things.

“This is where the leading man tries to save the girl from herself. She is willing to give up everything for him and he, in his misguided attempt to save her, tells her he’s skipping for the hills and she has to beg him to stay and convince him that her love is real and that she is sound of mind.”

He watched me and took a small step towards me even as he tilted his head a little.

“Love?” he whispered.

Had I said that? Yikes. I ignored that he’d said that at all and continued on.

“Furthermore, I think it’s juvenile to assume that just because a girl makes a romantic gesture that she can’t possibly know what’s in her own head.” He moved even closer but I kept my gaze on the top button of his shirt. I felt a little loony but the words kept spewing forth. “I didn’t exactly have a great life here, you knew that, and for you to just assume like you could come in here and alter everything I knew like this and then just leave is-“ my breath caught as he made that last inch between us non-existent. “It’s just cruel. I mean, you gave me these green eyes. You made me want you and then you want to just-“

He pulled my face up to look into his but I kept my eyes away. He sat silently until I caved and directed my gaze to his. When I took in the amount of gratitude and - oh, I must be imagining the rest – I shivered in response.

He didn’t say anything, just snaked an arm around my back and held me tightly as he looked at me for several long loaded seconds. Then he bent his head and let his lips skim my forehead.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I know what I want,” I answered in rebuttal.

“Why don’t you let me lay it all out for you?” He pulled back to look at me. “My world is…dangerous, crazy, it never sleeps. You may want no part in it when you know exactly what comes in the whole package.”

“I’m so glad we’re back to treating me like some ditsy damsel in distress that can’t decide what’s good for her,” I said sulkily.

He chuckled at me, which in any other circumstance might have made me mad. But right then, I was just trying to figure out why he wanted me to say ‘no’ so badly.

“Clara,” he sighed my name. “Ok,” he gave in, “I’ll let you decide for yourself but just let it be said when you hate me one day that I tried to warn you.”

His words were harsh but his expression was solemn and deciding.

“I could never hate you, Eli. And I may not know everything about your world and the people who we’ll meet along the way, but I’m graduating soon and I have no intentions of staying in this town. I want to…go everywhere, see everything. I want to go with you anywhere you’ll take me…and I want you to want to take me with you.”

“I do,” he said roughly and let his fingers move across my chin. “I want you. This isn’t about not wanting you. It’s about keeping you safe and you not regretting your life.”

“Then trust me. I think the safest place for me is with you, and I won’t regret it. I don’t regret anything. The things that we do and the things that happen…to us,” I gulped and pushed down memories, “they make us who we are.”

“You are a fascinating, breathtaking creature, CB. I hope you understand that to the fullest.”

“I do,” I said coyly and he cracked a smile. A real smile that was genuine and in no way to appease me.

“Last time I’ll ask and then I’m done. You’re sure you want this? You’re sure that I’m worth this?”

“No question. I think…” I felt the answer to one of my earlier internal questions come flitting to me and I rubbed my promise ring, “if my mom were here, she would have loved you.”

“You have no idea what you’ve done for me,” he said and his face twisted into an anguished expression. His hands on my sides squeezed a little and it hurt to see him so upset. “I’ve spent my whole life being a…parasite. I never wanted this, Clara,” he said in a vehement beg. “Do you understand? I never wanted to be what I am.”

My breathing took ragged steps to work properly as I tried to comfort him by saying, “I know. But Eli, you’re not the same person anymore.”

“Because of you,” he said with a conviction that rumbled into my bones. “I won’t ever feed again from anyone. You’ve given me a gift beyond what I can imagine. I’ll never have to hurt anyone to survive again. I’ll be able to live normally and be myself with no fear of my nature taking me over. I’ll be free,” he mused and I smiled in understanding and nodded my head but he continued. “You saved me from being the monster I could have been.”

We were both free now and the impact of everything he said hit me like a piano from the second floor.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said softly as he wiped under my eye. “I was harsh.”

“No, dummy. They’re tears of happiness.”

“Then, I’m honored,” he said quietly.

I smiled and hugged him tighter, my wet cheek resting on his chest. His warm arms encircled me once more and he kneaded my body with them, as if to assure and comfort me. He pressed and moved and I felt him kiss my hair. We stayed like that, content in our own thinking processes of what was happening.

And then the jerk who shared my guy’s face came and decided to grace us with his presence.

“Gross,” he muttered behind us. “If I’m going to have to bear witness to this every day, just kill me now.”