by Amira Rain
As a result, now it was going to be even more difficult to make an escape and return to Dylan. My escape would not only be difficult on a logistical level but an emotional one as well.
However, while I leaned against the side of the shower stall, just thinking, I realized that my escape might not be so difficult, at least on an emotional level. After all, I figured that me leaving North Haven didn't necessarily have to be the end of whatever very new, very fragile connection I'd forged with Mark.
Once I had my family back, I figured I could contact him, explain everything, and make him understand why I'd done what I'd done. Maybe he'd then help us all get back to North Haven, and then he and I could pick up where we'd left off.
I realized I could also come clean to him in the present, explaining why I needed to get back to Dylan and begging him to just let me do it. I knew he never would just let me, though. He'd say it was too dangerous. He'd say that he didn't trust Dylan to do for me what he'd promised he'd do once I fulfilled my contract. He'd say that only because he just didn't know Dylan like I did.
He hadn't spent nearly three years with him, seeing that although he was certainly a murderer and a despicable human being on nearly all levels, he did keep his promises. I'd seen it, just as he'd said I would. So, I had no reason to doubt that he'd keep his promise to me. As horrible a person as he was, I trusted him.
One thing about Dylan had been nagging at me recently, though, and that was how he'd always told me that non-Angel shifters and Gifteds hated all those who fought alongside the Angels, and would kill any and all Angel fighters if given the chance. He'd used this to give me additional motivation before battles, not that I needed any additional motivation, considering that my family was on the line.
Nonetheless, he'd seemed to have wanted to impress upon me just how dangerous our enemies were to me. But clearly, what he'd told me hadn't turned out to be the case. Not only had I not been killed by North Haven villagers, no one in the village had been anything but kind and welcoming to me. Which made me wonder just a bit if it was possible that my trust in Dylan was unfounded. However, I thought that it probably wasn't, and that maybe Dylan had only told me what he had because that had been his experience.
Battling shifters and Gifteds for the previous half-decade of his life in his quest to grab more territory, he certainly had been on the receiving end of a lot of hate, and every shifter and Gifted he'd ever encountered had wanted him dead. So, it just stood to reason that he'd probably thought that I'd have the same experience, regardless of the fact that I was a Gifted and not an Angel or an Angel shifter myself.
Bottom line, I couldn't come clean to Mark because he didn't know and trust Dylan like I did, and he'd never let me return to him. Another reason why I couldn't tell Mark was if he learned exactly why I wanted to return to Dylan and what was driving me, he'd probably have me guarded even more closely, knowing that my desperation would cause me to make another escape attempt sooner or later.
So, the way I saw it, me coming clean to him about my motivation for wanting to return to Dylan would just be me shooting myself in the foot, because it would solve nothing and just make it harder for me to accomplish my goal in the end.
In addition to all this, I realized I now had another matter to consider. If and when I ever did get back to Dylan, I knew it was possible that he'd require me to fulfill the rest of my three-year contract by once again participating in a fight against Mark and the rest of the North Haven shifters and Gifteds.
Now, obviously, it would be incredibly hard for me to do, being that I cared about two of them in particular, Mark and Christy, and I also cared about the community as a whole, including one very sweet dog and two very sweet cats that I'd grown to love. I just wasn't sure how I could ever fight against the people of North Haven again.
I honestly wasn't sure I could physically force myself to do it, force myself to zap people I cared about, causing them extreme pain, some of them the mothers and fathers of children who'd petted Rocky and hugged my legs at the "playroom" center. Just the thought made me shudder, as did the thought of possibly having to zap Mark or Christy in order to defend Dylan. If I could actually force myself to do it, I was pretty sure I'd become physically ill in the process or immediately after.
At the same time, though, part of me still felt like I could and would do anything I had to in order to defend Dylan, because defending Dylan was the same thing as defending my family, in a way. Because without Dylan and his skills as a resurrectionist, my family members could never be brought back to life.
I had to wonder if there was maybe a way around the possibility of me having to hurt people I cared about. Maybe Dylan would allow me to serve out the remaining few days of my three-year contract in a different capacity than as a defense fighter, like maybe he'd allow me to be part of a defense garrison at one of the numerous cities and villages he'd already conquered in the northern part of the state.
Maybe he wouldn't even require me to do that. Because of the loyalty I'd displayed over the years, I thought it was possible that he already considered my contract fulfilled, since I'd gotten so close, and now it was just a matter of me returning to him and accompanying him back to Traverse City at some point to resurrect my family.
I wished I could just talk to Dylan and find out what he was thinking, but without access to a phone, that was impossible. I hadn't found a computer in the house or another device I might send an email from, either. I'd only found a desk in an alcove adjacent to the living room, and this desk had faint dust marks that made it appear like a computer might have sat there until very recently. I figured Mark had probably removed it from the house when I'd arrived.
Though normally a shower did wonders to clear my mind, on this particular day, I felt like I was just becoming increasingly mentally taxed the longer I remained under the warm spray, leaning against the side of the stall. So, after washing up quickly, I got out, deciding that my best course of action would be to try to go about convincing Mark to trust me, so that I could eventually make my escape, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Then, after I got my family back, maybe Mark would forgive me and we could pick up where we left off.
I hated the idea of lulling him into a false sense of trust in me, though. Hated it. However, I didn't see that I had much of a choice.
When I went out to the kitchen, finding Rocky, Butterscotch, and Lily-Rose chasing each other in circles, I also found something else. Peeking through the curtains, I found that all the lion guards that had positioned out back all week were still there, prowling around with alert eyes that rapidly darted around the yard, as if they expected me to try to make an escape at any second.
This somehow made me feel slightly better about the idea of getting Mark to trust me, just this knowing that even after the passion we'd shared, he still hadn't called off the guards, or even decreased their numbers.
I didn't see him for the rest of the day, and when I went to bed around midnight, he still hadn't come home yet. Christy came by earlier and told me that there was some kind of trouble with several Angel scouts to the north of the village, so I hadn't really expected Mark home at any regular hour anyway.
It was only around two in the morning that I finally heard his heavy boots thudding down the hardwood flooring in the hallway. After entering the bedroom, he took a shower, then climbed into bed beside me and took me in his arms. Soon, as if I'd subconsciously been waiting for the feeling of security and protection that I got from being wrapped in his strength, I was enjoying the deepest sleep I had all night. I slept so hard, in fact, that when I awoke around eight in the morning, I found him gone, and I hadn't even felt him leave.
With the Angel scouts apparently still causing problems to the north, he was gone all day. Trailed by my ever-present lion shifter security detail, I spent the afternoon in the village with Christy, helping her, Britt, and a few other Gifteds clean out a large, dusty storage room in the back of The Hub, between the mini-grocery an
d the playroom. Though the storage room wasn't very large, Christy had gotten the idea that it might be just large enough to house a village lending library, with several shelves for books, and another for movies.
Although I thought the lending library was a great idea, and would be a wonderful addition to The Hub, I kind of got the feeling that Christy had initiated plans for it less for these reasons, and more because she was becoming increasingly determined to stay busy during all possible minutes of the day so that she wouldn't have to think about Nolan.
She really didn't even like to slow down to have a full conversation anymore, possibly out of fear that someone would bring up his name, I thought. Several times during our afternoon of cleaning, moving, and organizing, I saw Britt giving her funny little sidelong looks, looks that indicated that maybe I wasn't the only one noticing Christy's borderline-mania-level enthusiasm for the library project.
Although I was growing to deeply care about her as a friend, Christy’s issues and troubles immediately took a back burner in my mind that evening, when Mark returned home. Having thought about him a lot throughout the day, and hoping he'd be home early enough to share a meal, I'd put a pan of homemade lasagna in the oven, and he smiled, smelling it, when he came into the kitchen.
"Something smells amazing."
However, after taking me into his arms and giving me a tender, lingering kiss, he looked at me with a serious expression, his sky blue eyes not even holding a hint of a smile. "We need to talk."
CHAPTER 14
Instantly alarmed, I asked Mark what he wanted to talk about, continuing when he didn't answer right away, "Dinner won't be done for twenty more minutes, so let's sit down right now, because I want to hear whatever it is that you have to say to me."
Mark said okay, led me to the table by the hand, and then took a seat in his usual chair, pulling me on his lap, surprising me. And also making me think that whatever he wanted to talk to me about, it couldn't be that serious, as his expression had first made me think.
After giving me another slow, tender kiss, he started by simply saying that he'd started to develop "very deep feelings of affection" for me. "And I think maybe you've started to develop some of those same kinds of feelings for me."
"I have."
"Good." Pausing, he ran a lazy, caressing hand up and down my arm a few times. "That makes me happy to know that we're both on the same page about that...because this brand-new bond between us is something I'd like to explore, and strengthen. However...at the same time...."
He paused again, and this time, his hand was still, not caressing my arm in any way, making me think that I wasn't going to like what he was going to say next.
"At the same time, I still don't trust you completely, Paulina. I can't. Not yet. Not when the safety of my people here in North Haven is at stake, which it very well could be, if you ever decide to try to escape the village and return to the Angels, for whatever reason. Not when my people trust me to protect them."
Being mindful of sticking to my plan of getting him to trust me fully so that I could make an escape, I nodded. "I understand."
"Good. I hope you really do understand, because believe me, I'm not saying anything to hurt you...and, in fact, I do trust you a great deal already. As you've said before, I would never leave you alone with the animals if I didn't...if I thought you were a typical Angel fighter. I definitely don't, though. I believe you're a good person with a good heart...which I find incredibly attractive, even more so than your gorgeous face and body.
“It's just that I need to get you know you better before I can ever trust you fully. For example, I know nothing about your life before you started fighting for the Angels. Will you tell me some about it?"
I wasn't really sure if I could tell him much, not without getting into very tricky territory in regards to inadvertently giving clues as to why I'd spent several years fighting for the Angels and currently wanted to get back to them. However, I figured maybe I could tell Mark just some very bare-bone basics.
Besides, I knew he might get suspicious if I refused to say anything. And as far as me possibly just making up a story about my past, some kind of a complete fabrication, saying that my family was all alive and well or something, I just knew I wasn't that good of a liar. Really, I knew I wasn't a good one at all. Which was why I knew I had to keep things very simple, sticking to brief facts only.
Still sitting comfortably on Mark's lap, with an arm around his broad shoulders, I took a deep breath before speaking. "I grew up in Traverse City, among all the cherry blossoms and the tourists. It was a wonderful childhood...a wonderful life. My parents ran a bed-and-breakfast...this enormous, rambling, three-story 'mega log cabin' house. We also had an orchard, a vineyard, and a winery, all on the same property."
"It sounds heavenly."
I smiled, though with my heart aching. "It was. It was really paradise. But then I grew up, and then came college. Although after a few semesters, I realized that my heart was still at the bed-and-breakfast, and my parents and I had a talk that maybe I'd end up running it when they were ready to retire and start traveling the country and the world, like they'd always wanted to do, which they thought they'd be more than ready to do in about ten years.
“So, I came back home and started helping my parents with the day-to-day operations of the bed-and-breakfast, the orchard, and the winery...not that I hadn't helped them all throughout my growing-up years, but now I really started getting into the business side of things. Anyway...a couple years passed. Everyone was as happy as we'd always been...my parents, me, my three little sisters, Abbey, Jennie, and Cassie, who were all teenagers by this point.
“When my other grandparents passed away, my one remaining grandfather came to live with us. Then, the Takeover happened, so my little cousin Danny came to live with us when his parents were killed in all the chaos down south. My parents gladly adopted him, thinking that we could give him a loving, safe, home, because at that time, northern Michigan was pretty safe. Safe enough that the tourism industry in Traverse was still booming."
Realizing that although I hadn't said anything in regard to my motivation for wanting to return to Dylan, I was still saying more than I wanted, I paused.
Mark waited for a moment or two, then gave my arm a light, reassuring squeeze, telling me to please continue. "I'm enjoying finding out more about you, and I'd like to hear more."
Unfortunately, I didn't feel exactly comfortable saying too much more, but I knew I couldn't just abruptly cut off my family recollections.
So, gathering my thoughts, I took a deep breath before continuing. "I don't know if there's too much else to say, other than we were just an incredibly happy family. We argued sometimes, like all families, and we definitely got on each other's nerves at times, but at the heart of our family...there was just always so much love.
“Most days, I'd wake up just filled with gratitude to have been blessed with a family like mine. But then...the Angels overran Traverse."
Turning my gaze from Mark's face to his chest, I paused. "And everyone's all gone now. My whole family is dead."
When Mark spoke after a long moment, his voice was filled with unmistakable sympathy.
"I'm so very sorry, Paulina. I can't even imagine your loss."
Suddenly slightly misty-eyed, I really, really wanted this conversation to end.
Raising my gaze to Mark's face, I thanked him for what he'd said. "I just try to remember the love now, though...that's what I hold in my heart to give me strength every day."
With his expression one of clear understanding and sympathy, Mark gave my arm another gentle squeeze, but then, over the course of a moment that somehow felt like a year to me, his expression changed, though I wasn't even sure what kind of an expression it had changed into. It had changed into an expression I just couldn't read. And when Mark spoke, I couldn't quite get a read on the tone of his voice, either.
"It sounds like your love for your family was a love worth fighting for.
"
"It's a love worth...everything. It will always be a love worth fighting for."
I realized too late that I'd said it's a love worth fighting for, contraction of it is, present tense, as in I was still fighting for it, which of course, I was. But before I could cover my mistake, Mark spoke again, searching my face.
"Paulina, are you telling me the truth when you say that all your family members are dead?"
"Yes...that's the truth. All my family members are dead...every single one."
I'd responded with no hesitation, and without feeling any desire to break eye contact with Mark while I did so, probably because my response wasn't a lie at all. My omission of the fact that I was fighting to have my family resurrected could probably be seen as one, though.
After continuing to search my face for another moment or two, Mark sighed, looking contrite. "I'm so sorry that I pressed you about that. I shouldn't have made you again say that your family members are gone, and I'm sorry if that caused you pain. It just took me aback for a moment how you made it sound like maybe...."
