Chapter Seven
Dana stood several yards away, face pale, features pinched with shock and he wasn’t sure what else.
Aidan wanted so badly to read her mind just then, to see how much damage had been done, if there was any way he could salvage their relationship. But he had promised he would only do so in an emergency.
Inwardly, he kicked himself. He should have told her. He should have told her everything. Before this. Before most of his secrets had been flung in her face in a few minutes’ time span. Because this was a hell of a lot to take in all at once.
He took a hesitant step toward her.
She didn’t back away. That was a good sign, wasn’t it?
“Dana—”
“Your eyes are glowing,” she interrupted. Though she said it matter-of-factly, he could hear her heart pummeling her rib cage.
Aidan reached up and rubbed his eyes. Of course they were. He was furious at Roland. Furious at himself. And terrified that Dana would not be able to accept this part of him. Or that she would not forgive him for keeping it from her.
Their relationship was new. Too new, perhaps, for them to work through this.
And the notion tore him up inside.
“I know,” he responded softly. “I’m sorry. The stronger the emotion that grips me, the harder it is for me to control it.”
He might have only known Dana for a couple of weeks, but he had never been this drawn to a woman before, had never been so captivated or craved a woman’s company as much as he had Dana’s. And it wasn’t because of loneliness. It was because she made him happy. Made him feel normal… human… and had brought light back into his life.
Lowering his hand, he met her wide-eyed gaze.
“Their eyes were glowing, too,” she said.
“Yes.”
Her throat moved in a swallow. “And when you were fighting that guy…”
“Roland,” he offered, providing the name of his opponent.
“You both moved as fast as the Flash,” she continued.
Roland had given him little choice, damn him. “Yes.”
Time ticked by, stretching his nerves taut.
She nodded slowly. And even from this distance, he could see her hands shaking. “You said you were different.”
He had.
“On our first date, you told me you were different,” she repeated.
“Yes, I did.”
Glancing down, she considered the Taser in her hand, the probes Roland had removed with ease, the abandoned swords Seth had cast aside, then met his gaze once more. “You kind of downplayed it, huh?”
Under other circumstances, he might have laughed. But now the best he could do was muster a weak smile. “Yes, I did.”
Insects hummed.
Frogs croaked.
And every second Dana didn’t tell him to go to hell, Aidan felt a tiny spark of hope.
He motioned to the Taser. “Are you going to use that on me?”
She glanced at the weapon she held. “Would it do any good?”
He shrugged. “It might make you feel better.”
Another nod. “Then I reserve the right to use it on you later. Right now…” Tears welled in her eyes as she swallowed hard once more. “Could you maybe just hold me for a minute?”
Heart aching, he closed the distance between them and pulled her into a tight embrace.
The Taser clattered to the ground as she dropped it and fisted her small hands in the back of his coat.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He pressed a kiss to her hair, then rested his cheek on top of her head. “I’m so sorry.”
Dana nearly burst into tears.
Those hoarsely uttered words carried such remorse.
“I thought he was going to kill you,” she whispered, voice breaking. When she had seen Aidan and that other man hacking at each other with swords as they had in her vision…
“Roland?” he murmured.
She nodded against his chest, doing her damnedest to fight back the sobs that threatened to tumble forth. She had never been so afraid in her life. Her body still shook from it.
“I’m stronger than he is,” Aidan said, his voice both gentle and full of regret. For the scare he had given her? Or for her finding out he’d been keeping such enormous secrets from her? “He wouldn’t have bested me.”
Aidan had fought fiercely, but…
“When that other guy appeared out of nowhere,” she said, “the one I saw trying to kill you in the other vision…” The one who’d looked like he was damned near seven feet tall and had black hair down to his ass and eyes that glowed golden. “I thought…”
“It’s okay,” he murmured, stroking her back.
She had thought the taller man and Roland would join forces, that they would work together to kill Aidan. And utter terror had gripped her because she had known she couldn’t do jack about it.
“I’m okay,” he whispered. “We both are. I’ll never let anyone harm you, Dana. I vow it. I’d give my life to protect you.”
And despite everything, she believed him.
But hadn’t he hurt her by not trusting her with whatever the hell all this meant?
“I’m so sorry,” he said again.
Dana burrowed closer. “This doesn’t mean I’m not pissed at you,” she said in a broken whisper. She was. She just couldn’t seem to let go.
“I know,” he said with so much sorrow that she wanted to cry even more. “Let’s go inside, shall we?” he suggested. “I can feel you trembling.”
Her heart continued to pound erratically, too.
“Let’s go inside,” he urged again. “So you can be warm and comfortable while I try to explain all this and engage in what I imagine will be a fair amount of groveling and begging your forgiveness.”
Dana couldn’t imagine Aidan begging for anything, not after she’d seen him swing his swords with such precision. But she really did need to sit down. “Okay.”
“Do you want me to carry you?”
“No,” she told him. “I’m okay.”
Shifting her to his side, he kept one arm around her shoulders as he escorted her into her shop and halted just inside the door. “I need to collect the weapons. It will only take a moment.”
When she nodded, he stepped out into the night.
Moving over to the waiting area, she looked through the bay window.
Outside, Aidan bent down to retrieve her discarded Taser, then headed for the swords that had flown across the parking lot as though guided by an unseen hand.
He didn’t zip around like the Flash this time. He moved at normal speeds, his lips clamped together in a grim line.
She supposed he did that for her benefit.
As she watched him, she became conscious of her reflection in the windowpanes.
The heartbeat that had begun to slow picked up speed once more as she stared.
Something red was smeared all over one side of her face and neck. The side she had pressed to Aidan’s chest.
Holding out her arms, she looked down.
Blood—a lot of it—painted a sickening amount of skin on her arms and stained most of the front of her shirt. But she hadn’t been wounded.
Dana recalled the vision that had struck her when Aidan had kissed her hand the first time they’d met. The one of him standing before her with blood streaking across his face and neck. Of a deep slash opening on his chest. Another opening on his left arm, then his right. Of his hand, curled around hers, growing wet with blood.
She gasped, realizing that—like the vision with Roland—the vision of Aidan wounded had shown her what would happen tonight. She had thought the vision a glimpse of Aidan’s past. He had even implied it was by describing exactly where the wounds had been on his body. How could he have known that if it hadn’t happened yet?
Oh. Right. He had read her mind.
A bell tinkled as the door opened and Aidan entered.
As Dana stared up at him, she registered all the things s
he had been too overcome with shock to notice a few minutes ago.
Blood splattered his face and neck. His shirt bore a long tear across his chest, the fabric parting enough for her to see jagged flesh covered with blood. Both his coat sleeves bore similar tears.
Aidan wiped the swords clean with his shirt, then tucked them into hidden sheaths sewn into his coat’s inner lining.
Holy crap, there were a lot of weapons in there. Swords. Daggers. Throwing stars.
Did he always carry around that many weapons?
When he let the coat fall back into place, her scattered thoughts refocused on the tears that marred it.
Raising his head, he caught her look and froze. Dread crept into his somber expression. “Have you changed your mind? Am I not welcome?”
“You’re hurt,” she blurted. Badly. How was he even still standing?
Brow furrowing, he glanced down like someone who had stepped in dog doo and only just realized it. His gaze shifted to her, skimming her face and bloody arms. “Oh.” He winced. “Sorry about that.” Crossing to stand in front of her, he reached into a back pocket and drew out a startlingly white handkerchief.
Cupping her chin in one warm, wet hand, he began to wipe the blood from her face.
“Are you serious?” she exclaimed. He thought she was upset about his getting blood on her? What the hell?
Swatting his hands away, she gripped one of his wrists, turned, and headed resolutely past the reading room.
“Dana?”
Upon reaching the door to the stairwell, she hurried up the steps to her apartment and drew him after her through the first doorway on the left.
What she had always considered a roomy bathroom felt almost cramped with Aidan in it. Releasing him, she opened the largest cabinet and took down the basket that held her first aid supplies.
“Dana?” he asked again, his voice both hesitant and concerned.
Slamming the door shut, she snagged Aidan’s wrist again and pulled him across the hallway to her bedroom.
“Dana—”
“Sit down,” she ordered, nodding toward her bed.
He cast it an uncertain look. “I can’t. I’ll stain the covers.”
She stared at him. “You’re kidding, right?” He sported deep wounds that bled profusely and he was concerned about staining her bedding?
“Perhaps if I cleaned up a wee bit—”
“Sit your ass down,” she ordered, pointing at the queen-sized bed.
Eyebrows flying up, he sat so swiftly she almost laughed.
The firm mattress bounced as the old wooden bed frame creaked beneath his weight.
Setting the basket on the bed beside him, Dana moved to stand before him and began to help him out of his coat.
Every movement must be incredibly painful for him. His shoulders moved back, stretching the skin of his chest and parting the edges of that ghastly wound. The heavy fabric abraded the cuts on his arms as she carefully drew the coat down and, once it was free of his hands, let it fall to the covers behind him.
“Dana,” he murmured.
“Please don’t say anything,” she implored softly. She needed quiet. Needed to focus on just tending his wounds so her mind could have a chance to catch up and process everything.
He nodded, watching her warily.
“Now your shirt,” she said and bent to grab the hem of his T-shirt.
Without a word, he raised his arms so she could tug the sodden black material over his head and drop it atop his coat.
The hard, muscled chest she had snuggled against and run her hands over and fantasized about so much bore a deeper gash than she had anticipated. The cuts on his arms were pretty scary, too. Surely such wounds required more than butterfly closures and bandages. He needed stitches.
She raised her eyes and met his. “Any chance I can talk you into letting me take you to the emergency room?”
He shook his head.
She had thought as much.
Spinning around, she left the room and ducked into the bathroom again. It only took her a moment to grab a couple of towels and wet them. Then she returned to the bedroom. Tossing one towel onto the bed, she knelt in front of Aidan. “I could lie and say we were in a car accident.” If he was worried about the hospital calling the police…
“I can’t go to the hospital,” he told her softly.
As gently as possible, she drew one of the wet towels across his chest, removing the blood so she could better view the damage. The wound she revealed was nauseatingly deep, but—much to her surprise—seemed to have stopped bleeding.
Dana frowned as she dabbed the edges with the towel. “Because you’re wanted by the police?” He had been adamant earlier that she not call 911.
He covered her hand with his to halt her ministrations. “Because I heal quickly.”
She steadfastly kept her eyes focused on his chest. “Aidan, these wounds are serious. I’m not going to just sit here and watch you die.”
“I’m not going to die,” he promised. Taking the towel from her, he grasped her hand and drew her up. “Sit with me for a moment and you’ll see.”
Dana stared at him. Inconceivable though it might be, he seemed okay. Except… “Your eyes are glowing,” she whispered, mesmerized by the amber light.
The corners of his lips turned up in a sad smile. “I won’t die. But the wounds do hurt.” Still holding her hand, he urged her to sit beside him on the bed. “And right now my emotions are too tumultuous for me to make my eyes stop glowing.”
She frowned as she perched on the edge of the bed. “Strong emotion makes them glow?” He had already told her that, hadn’t he, when they were outside?
“Yes. That and pain.”
Reclaiming the towel, she gently drew it down his arm, starting at his shoulder.
“Dana—”
“Just let me do this, okay?”
He clamped his lips shut.
“I have a lot of restless energy right now,” she explained, “so it’s either this or pacing, because I need to do something while my mind tries to catch up with things.”
A moment passed.
“As you will,” he acceded.
The silence that descended then was painful.
One of the things she had liked about Aidan from the beginning was that there had never been any awkward or uncomfortable silences when they were together. She didn’t think she had ever experienced that with a man before. Especially when she was initially getting to know one. With other men, there had always been those instances in which she wasn’t sure what to say or if she should say anything at all. Moments when the silence seemed to stretch a little too long.
But with Aidan, she had felt so comfortable around him from the beginning that their time together had always felt refreshingly natural, as though they had known each other since childhood and were merely reacquainting themselves with one another after several years of being apart.
This silence, however, was heavy with words unspoken, thick with concern and other emotions she didn’t want to examine too closely.
Fear, perhaps, that everything would be different now.
Fear that they had lost what they had only just found.
She cleaned both of his arms, the white towels turning pink and red from the blood. Setting them aside, she glanced at her first aid basket, then finally met his eyes.
They still bore the faint remnants of that surreal glow.
She supposed it should scare the hell out of her because it clearly indicated he was something more than human. Yet the amber light peeking out from his dark brown irises fascinated her.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
“I know they aren’t bleeding anymore, but I feel like I should at least put a Band-Aid on them. Or maybe fifty.”
He shook his head. “They’re already healing.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?” Dana lowered her gaze to his chest. Her heart jumped as shock rippled through her.
The edges of t
he wide-open gash that had spanned his chest, cutting deeply into his pectoral muscles, had drawn together while she’d tended his arms.
Her pulse picked up. “That’s not possible,” she whispered, barely able to produce a sound.
“Keep watching,” he instructed softly.
Was that sadness she heard in his voice? Resignation? Something else?
Dana didn’t ask, her eyes glued to that angry red slash.
She didn’t know how much time passed. How many minutes. A few or a lot. But beneath her astonished gaze, the deep laceration sealed, healed, formed scar tissue, then faded away until his chest was once more unmarred.
Dana reached out and touched his warm skin, smoothed her hand across his muscles where the wound had been, and found no evidence that it had ever existed. When she ran her fingers up and down his biceps, she discovered that they, too, had healed completely.
She looked up.
Aidan’s eyes were closed, his brow furrowed.
When she withdrew her hands and clasped them in her lap, his lids lifted.
“Your eyes are really bright,” she murmured. He had said such resulted from pain and strong emotion. Since his wounds had healed, she didn’t think pain still plagued him. So that left emotion. “What are you thinking?”
Shaking his head, he forced a smile. “Just hoping and praying that won’t be the last time I ever feel your touch.”
She didn’t doubt his sincerity. His beautiful eyes were full of dread and sorrow.
“You’re different,” she whispered.
He nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“You should have told me how different.”
A mirthless laugh escaped him. “When?” he asked helplessly. “On our first date, when you expressed such unease upon discovering I’m telepathic?”
She bit her lip, feeling a tad guilty over that. She knew firsthand how hard it was to tell people you were different, the negative reactions that usually resulted, and how crappy it could make you feel.
“Or during that first reading you gave me?” he continued before she could respond. “When you told me my lifeline was the longest you’d ever seen, should I have told you it’s because I’ve lived far longer than anyone else you’ve met?”
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