“Not everyone,” she forced out, her voice rusty.
“Just broken men who may not make it through the night?” A breath whistled out of him, and she sensed the pain shudder through his body.
Vesta’s attempt to break through his psychic shield had hurt him more than he was letting on.
A pulse of fear twisted through her insides. She couldn’t let him die.
“I don’t know who I am or where I come from. If they break me, they are only going to turn me into something they can control. Something that will harm those around me. I can’t let that happen. Besides,” his voice turned rough again, “I have nothing to live for.” He raised the heels of his palms to his eyes and pressed against them.
The gesture was one of such vulnerability that it tugged at her heart. The band around her chest tightened. “You do now.” The words were out before she could stop herself.
She wasn’t a spontaneous person. Her brother had always called her Slowly Dory, someone who thought things through. She never made a decision until she’d examined a situation from all sides. But hearing the hopelessness in his voice had her reacting. That along with the hint of dry humor that he’d still retained. There was something in him that was strong and intense, which drew her on the psychic plane.
He dropped his hands to rest on his raised knees. “You lie as easily as you sense people’s emotions?” The slow humor was back in his voice.
The breath caught in her chest. He was teasing her, yet it hurt when he’d said that. But if she corrected him, she’d give away what she was feeling.
She couldn’t let him surrender to the despair she sensed inside him.
“As an empath, I can’t lie. The emotions would show on my face if I did.” As soon as the words were out, she swore inwardly.
She didn’t know this man, had never seen him before today, and she was already revealing traits that were a secret kept to within the empath community.
Or perhaps it was just that when she’d brushed up against his mind, his psychic essence had seduced her, had made her want to lean into him, drown herself in his scent.
She should stop talking to him. Should retreat and leave him to the Elysians. If she maintained further contact with him, it would only result in things getting complicated. Something she could do without.
She pulled her hair back, weaving it into a braid. Her shoulders relaxed. She felt a little more in control.
She sensed him watching her but didn’t meet his gaze. Completing her task, she sat cross-legged, clasping her fingers in front of her.
“Why should I believe you?” The humor was gone, his tone serious.
A pulse of fear twisted her insides. She had to show him she was genuine in what she’d said. Share with him that she was attracted.
“Because I can see what you are, better than you can see yourself.” She bit the inside of her cheek, wondering if she had said too much.
He locked his gaze on her. “What am I?”
The full brunt of that piercing gaze slammed into her.
Blue eyes, so calm on the surface, yet burning with an intensity that she knew would sear her. Eyes that looked right into her soul. He would strip aside all the barriers she’d built and read her deepest secrets. There was no hiding from this man.
Her throat went dry. She forced herself to speak. “A shifter of such power that when you finally reveal the force inside you, no one will be able to stop you.”
She sensed a hurt inside him, a confusion and pain and longing, all of which tore through her defenses. The empath in her pushed against her skin, wanting to reach out to him. To help him.
This man was different, potent. He had to live.
Rage
He didn’t know her. Yet he owed his life to her.
If she hadn’t slipped into his mind and told him to fight, he had no doubt he would be dead by now.
When she’d said that she didn’t lie, something in her voice, that seriousness that came from being on edge, from being in a situation from which there was no redemption, told him she was being truthful. That was crazy, because why should she?
She rolled to her feet, hands on her hips, and tossed her braid over her shoulder.
He followed the thick rope of hair as it snaked down her back.
Her eyes were silver and fringed with dark lashes. She had cheekbones that slashed high, the hollows underneath them lending a fragile look to her, ending in a chin that was thrust out. It hinted at a hidden strength inside her. One that was seductive and mysterious.
The force of her gaze pinned him to the ground.
She took a step forward.
His attention was drawn to a slim chain that hugged one ankle, her calves rippling with muscles underneath. The pale cloth she’d wound around herself parted to show a glimpse of her smooth thighs.
He wanted to run his fingers over that part where her waist met her flared hips. Bury his face between those thighs and inhale the scent of her from that secret hollow.
Liquid heat tugged his groin. He was shocked to find he was hard.
She made him yearn for things he had never dared to dream of. In all these years of fighting just to stay alive, it was the first time he wanted more. He wanted someone else to believe in him. He wanted her.
She’d brushed up against his psychic senses, helped him find the strength to fight, and now, just by looking at him, she was turning him on.
“Who are you?” he asked.
She rubbed her palm on the cloth over her thighs. “Pandora.” Gliding forward, she then stopped. She was just far enough that if he put out a hand, she would be out of reach. “I am one of the empaths who helps balance out the emotions of the Sian Web.”
Her voice was soft, like water that bubbled up from an underground stream.
Reaching down to where the sarong parted at her thighs, she gripped the cloth and tore out a strip. When she straightened, the fabric stretched tight across her breasts, her nipples outlined through the cloth.
A pulse of desire flicked his nerve endings.
Her chest rose and fell, and he couldn’t take his focus off those mounds.
She walked over, her feet gliding over the floor. Her movements were fluid. There was a delicateness to her presence that made him want to protect her. He could watch her all day.
She dropped to sit cross-legged and took his arm in hers.
He shuddered, a flicker of heat streaking down his spine.
That beast inside him unfurled, rubbed up against his skin. It urged him to reach out and touch her cheek.
That scent of jasmine curled around him, pulled at him.
He sensed the shock ripple through her. He wasn’t the only one affected.
“Why are you here?” He forced the words out through a throat gone dry.
“My fellow empaths have been dying over the past year, leading to an imbalance of emotions in the Sian Web. When Tibor overthrew Zach, he forced many of the empaths to share more than what was healthy for them, leading to many dying. Most dropped out of the Web completely and vanished to save themselves. I am one of the few still alive, I tried to escape but—”
“They caught you and brought you here.” He leaned forward. “Did they hurt you?” The thought of anyone harming her had the monster inside quivering to attention.
He canted his head.
She refused to meet his eyes. She wasn’t telling him everything.
Tying the dressing around his arm, she sat back. “They need my empathic skills. They didn’t hurt me, at least not physically.”
So they had hurt her in other ways—ways she wasn’t willing to share.
She gripped his unhurt arm. “You, on the other hand, they want to break you, Shifter.”
The urgency in her voice had his beast reacting again.
He was being a fool to be taken in by a woman who looked like a fragile, seductive ghost. One whose very presence made him feel something other than this anger which had been his constant companion for as long
as he could remember.
He couldn’t stop himself. There was something about that wide-eyed gaze combined with those curves that begged him to come to her and touch her that was driving him a little out of his head.
He bridged the gap between them. He was close enough that he could see the silver of her eyes deepen to a swirling gray. She was turned on, too.
She swallowed. Letting go of his hand, she locked her fingers in front of her.
Moving close enough for his breath to raise the hair on her head, he raised his arm.
Her muscles tensed.
Taking the strap of the sarong that had slipped off her shoulder, he tugged it back into place. “Rage.” His voice came out husky. He had to swallow to clear the ball of emotions that had swirled and grown large, until it felt like his skin was burning up.
“What?” She shook her head, her eyes glazed.
“That’s my name.” It seemed very important that she know who she was dealing with. He wasn’t a beast or a creature. Not just another shifter. He wanted to be so much more for her.
The tension in the enclosed space shot up, the chemistry between them swirling with unsaid emotions.
“Rage.” From her lips it sounded like water bubbling up from an underwater spring.
Her muscles stiffened, her eyes widening.
He sensed the subtle shift in her scent as desire lightened to fear. “What is it?” He tightened his hand on her shoulder.
“I hear them. They’re coming back."
To find out what happens next get Deception here
Obsession_Paranormal Romance _Dragon Shifters, lion shifters, immortals and wolf shifters Page 16
