by Amira Rain
While the animals meowed, barked, and played, at one point all three of them diving under the table and zipping out the other side, Mark and I ate in silence for a while, making our way through sandwiches, bowls of soup, and fruit.
However, once the animals had seemingly spent their energy, with Rocky and Lily-Rose curling up on a sand-colored rug by the sink, and Butterscotch grooming himself nearby, Mark's and my silence became a little uncomfortable, at least to me.
I picked up my mug of lukewarm coffee and began sipping, becoming desperate to know if Dylan was still alive but not wanting to just blurt out the question. I'd just decided to broach the subject by casually asking Mark if most of the Angels had retreated when he spoke first.
"So...my shirt seems to have worked out okay for you."
It took me a moment to comprehend what he was talking about and realized that I was wearing his shirt, but then I nodded. "Yes. Just like I thought, it's very warm. Seems very durable, too, though I...I guess I haven't tested it out much yet."
Holding his coffee mug between his hands, Mark looked at me with a little twinkle in his eyes. "Well, you can wear it the rest of the day if you'd like...you can see if it holds up all right, no matter what kind of wear and tear you put it through."
A little embarrassed just by recalling how I'd opened the closet door, thinking it was the bathroom, I lowered my gaze to my coffee. "I think I'll do that."
Saving me from mentally reliving my gaffe, Rocky stretched, came over to the table, and had a seat beside my chair, whining, clearly wanting food. My sandwich had been so large that despite my hunger, I hadn't been able to finish the whole thing, and I now tore off a piece of the remaining bit of sandwich left on my plate, studying Mark's reaction.
"Do you mind if I give him just this little bite?"
Mark leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "You're going down a very slippery slope, Paulina. Once you feed a dog at the table, you'll hardly get a moment's peace during meals ever again."
"You sound like you have some experience with this."
Mark cracked a smile, lifting his gaze to a point somewhere just above my head. "I have no comment on that."
I held out the piece of sandwich to Rocky, and he gobbled it down, wiggling and wagging his tail. After another little bite, he apparently decided that I wasn't feeding him fast enough, because he leaped up onto my lap and gobbled up the remaining bite within a blink.
Startling me more than he seemed to startle Rocky, Mark raised his deep voice to a near-yell. "Rocky!"
Rocky just kept on chewing the sizable bite he'd snatched, and Mark grabbed him off my lap, frowning, and then took him by the face. "Naughty! Naughty, Rocky! That was very, very bad! Bad boy, Rocky! You are never going to do that again!"
Rocky finished swallowing the bite and then let his mouth hang open, panting, appearing completely untroubled, as if he saw no problem with what he'd done and certainly planned to do it again in the future. Mark continued holding him by the face, admonishing him further, but Rocky seemed to pay him no mind, soon happily planting kisses all over Mark's face.
Maintaining a stern expression, Mark put him down. "Now go to your crate and spend some time thinking about what you did. Right now, Rocky. Crate. Go."
Surprising me with his obedience, Rocky trotted out of the kitchen and started down a hallway that I assumed led to the living room, and his crate. Seeming to want their turn at some attention now that he was gone, both of the cats sauntered over and leaped up on to my lap at the same time, gently bonking their heads together.
Though definitely not as boisterous as Rocky, they seemed to be just as friendly, and as I started petting them both, they both immediately began purring. Not ten seconds later, Rocky came bounding back into the kitchen carrying a foot-long chew rope knotted at the ends in his mouth.
Mark groaned softly and gave me a sheepish sort of look. "Well, maybe a little playtime is what he needs to help get some of his energy out."
Unable to help myself, I smiled at Mark with some near-indescribable feeling of lightness swelling in my chest. Little did I know that in just a few minutes, I'd be pushing against his own chest, yelling, enraged.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Holding one end of Rocky's rope toy, Mark played tug-of-war with him, and I watched, smiling, thoughts of whether or not Dylan was alive or dead not even on my radar, surprisingly. Just a short while earlier, I'd felt nearly desperate to find out, but Mark had managed to thoroughly distract me.
With him smiling every so often, the effect dazzling, my gaze just seemed drawn to him. I studied the angle of his strong jaw in profile, noticing that in the sunlight, his dark hair and the short stubble on his face glinted with hints of gold and auburn. Rocky's adorable antics were a little part of my distraction, too.
My own smile faded, though, when after a few minutes, Rocky gave the rope an especially hard tug but then suddenly unclenched his jaws, letting the rope go, which made him tumble backward head-over-heels. When his little golden head hit the refrigerator with an audible bonk, I gasped in horror.
"Oh, please go pick him up and kiss the top of his head, Mark."
Butterscotch had fallen asleep on my lap by this point, and Lily-Rose had fallen asleep in my arms, and I didn't want to wake them up.
Instead of going to pick up and kiss Rocky how I'd asked, Mark frowned, remaining in his chair. "No. I don't want him to reach canine adulthood acting like a delicate little cream puff who needs to be kissed every time he stumbles. I want him to act like a dog."
"Well, I'm not saying you have to wrap him in a blanket and cry over him, but please just pick him up and kiss the top of his head. At the very least, hold him out to me so that I can kiss him."
Mark heaved a sigh. "I think he's already recovered. Look at him."
I did look and saw Rocky already five feet away from the fridge, wide-eyed, tracking a large ant that was crawling across the floor. Just then, he pounced on it, barking.
I could see that he was indeed fine, but still, I was a bit miffed that Mark hadn't given him a little loving care, or had at least allowed me to.
"Well, fine. If you want a tough-as-nails dog who expects no sympathy when he gets hurt, then I guess that's fine. He's your dog."
Heaving another sigh, Mark gave me an exasperated sort of look, got up, grabbed Rocky, and brought him over to me before wordlessly holding him out for me to kiss.
Happy, I planted one right on top of the wiggle-worm's knotty little head, then looked up at Mark, smiling. "Thank you."
He gave me a half-grin that was devastating in its sexiness. "You're welcome."
With butterflies rioting in my stomach, I smiled even harder. He grinned even harder. Barking, Rocky kicked his legs in the air.
It had been far too long since I'd been in the presence of a strong man who could also display warmth. I could have happily stared into Mark's eyes for solid minutes, but after just a couple of seconds, his grin suddenly faded, becoming replaced by a frown. It remained even after he'd set Rocky down, and he spoke in a voice that definitely didn't hold the same warmth that his "You're welcome" had.
"I need to go deal with some things, and before I do, I think we need to talk."
Feeling as if some spell had been broken, I suddenly remembered Dylan. "Yes...I agree. We definitely need to talk."
Rocky's barking had woken the cats, and they now hopped off my lap, one right after the other, and sauntered out of the kitchen and down the hallway. Tongue hanging out the side of his mouth, Rocky trotted after them.
Mark took his seat at the circular table, sitting maybe only three feet away from me, facing me, because his chair was turned toward where I sat. As we'd been while we'd eaten our meal, we were so close that I could see each individual dark lash that ringed his beautiful eyes.
Expression serious, he got right to it. "First off, I want to tell you that Dylan Darringer, your leader, is alive."
To my astonishment, I suddenly realized that the distra
ction of the animals hadn't been the only reason I hadn't myself brought up the subject of Dylan. I'd been telling myself that I wanted to know whether he was dead or alive, needed to know, and a few different times, I'd thought I was desperate to know. But now I realized that while I had been desperate, at least in a way, some part of me actually hadn't wanted to learn the truth. Because now, I had to leave Mark's house and his animals.
Now I had to leave behind the only kindness and warmth I'd experienced in nearly three years. I had to leave behind a man so gorgeous I experienced a little wave of butterflies nearly every time I looked at him. Maybe a tiny part of me had been actually hoping that Dylan was dead, even though my conscious mind had been railing against the mere possibility of this being the case.
At any rate, none of that mattered anymore. Now that I knew that Dylan was alive, I knew I had to leave North Haven and return to him, not that I thought Mark was actually going to let me just waltz out the front door. I was pretty sure I was going to have to make an escape against his will, maybe once my supernatural powers were fully restored after a bit more rest. All I knew was that I was going to have to try to make a break for it at some point, now that I knew it was still possible to have my family resurrected.
After pausing for a brief moment, seemingly to study my face for a reaction to what he'd said, Mark continued. "Don't worry, though...my people and I will keep you safe from Dylan and all his Angels and shifters. We were able to kill fourteen of them during the battle, but the majority were able to escape, following Dylan when he retreated, which he did, fortunately, before any of my people were killed or seriously injured.
“Now, my scouts have told me that they've made it all the way back up to New Bad Axe, which they've apparently claimed for their own after slaughtering our guards, very sadly and unfortunately. I don't think, however, that they're going to be content to just remain there. Something tells me that Dylan and his fighters will be back to attack again. Like I said, though...don't worry. My people and I will keep you completely safe."
Again, Mark paused, seeming to be studying my reaction to what he said. However, at the same time, I was studying his, wondering just how he'd come to think that Dylan was someone I feared.
Trying to keep my expression neutral, I chose my next words carefully. "I appreciate your assurance of my safety, but why, exactly, do you think I need to be kept safe? Why do you think my own people would try to hurt me?"
In the quiet of the kitchen, with birds chirping just outside the screened windows, I was able to hear Mark make the faintest of scoffing noises.
"I'm not a fool, Paulina. I can tell that you haven't been fighting for the Angels of your own free will."
Something about that comment made me bristle, though I wasn't even sure exactly why, and I struggled to keep my expression neutral.
"What makes you think I've been forced to fight? Did you see anyone with a gun to my head during the battle?"
I knew that the smart thing to do would be to go along with Mark's line of thinking, falsely telling him that I did fear that Dylan would try to harm me and that I had been forced to fight against my will. I knew this would have been the wisest way to act, begging him to protect me in an attempt to lull him into thinking that I'd never try to escape North Haven and return to Dylan.
In this way, I might be able to make it so that I could slip right out of North Haven with minimal effort, just as easy as you please, since presumably, no one would be guarding a woman who professed to fear the Angels, never wanting to come in contact with them ever again.
However, for whatever reason, I just couldn't force myself to put on the acting show that I needed to, despite the fact that I knew it would be wise that I did. For some reason, claiming that I'd been forced to fight entirely against my will felt like it would be a betrayal of someone or something, though I had no clue exactly what.
Maybe just a betrayal of my own self and my pride. After all, although I'd been fighting for Dylan the past few years, I hadn't been fighting for Dylan; I'd been fighting for my family. And though I couldn't deny that Dylan had put me in a position where I'd needed to do that, probably sure to lose my own life if I didn't, something inside me just wasn't willing to say I'd been forced to do what I'd done.
I liked to think that I'd done what I'd done out of my own free will, because I loved my family and was willing to do whatever I had to to get them back.
In response to what I'd asked him about what made him think I'd been forced to fight, and if he'd seen anyone with a gun to my head during the battle, Mark said no. "Not all guns are literal guns, though." Looking into my eyes, he let that comment hang in the air for a moment before continuing, leaning forward over the table with his large, long-fingered hands loosely clasped.
"And as far as what makes me think you've been forced to fight, I could give you a dozen reasons why I think that's the case, but the number one reason is that I witnessed you on the battlefield firsthand. I saw how you fought hard while seemingly being careful not to actually directly help in killing anyone, even though it was clear that you probably could have.
I saw how you zapped just to disable and then moved on to the next target without zapping your target over and over and over, putting them in a position where they were weak enough to be easily killed. I saw you zap and then quickly move on numerous times, a few times when you could have killed a few Gifteds outright...indicating that you have a conscience, unlike most other Angel fighters. I saw this myself, and many of my people saw this."
From somewhere out in the living room, Rocky barked several times, a happy sort of rapid yipping that sounded like he was excitedly playing.
Mark waited until the yips had died down before continuing. "I don't know where you come from or what your story is, Paulina, but I can sense that you do have quite a story to tell. I can also sense that you've somehow been a victim. You're not like the other Angels.
“My people and I have actually been hearing tales for a while now...tales about the Gifted who fights for the Angels, but who seems only intent on defending their leader, instead of zapping to enable other Angels to easily kill. I've heard about the Gifted who fights with empty eyes, as if she's just doing a job but doesn't really believe in the cause."
Looking deeply into my eyes right then, seeming to be trying to read something in them, Mark paused briefly before straightening up from his slight lean over the table.
"However, none of this is to say that I completely trust you. I don't. As you've implied, it's entirely possible that you weren't forced to fight. I don't know about Gifteds, but a lot of shifters have signed up to fight for the Angels simply because they have the same sort of dark hearts."
"You know nothing about my heart and why I fight."
I'd practically spat the words at him. And, at the same time, my eyes had suddenly, inexplicably filled with tears.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mortified for some reason, I blinked my tears back, hoping that Mark hadn't noticed. "You know nothing."
Studying my face, he didn't answer right away. "Then, tell me. Why do you fight?"
I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him everything, everything that had happened from the day my whole family had been murdered right up until the present.
However, I knew that if I did, if I told him about my contract with Dylan and what had been promised me, he'd then know just how desperate I was to get back to Dylan. Which would then make him increase his efforts to make sure that I couldn't escape North Haven and do just that, I was sure. So, I couldn't tell him. I couldn't risk that.
In response to his question asking why I fought, I shrugged, blinking back the last of the moisture in my eyes. "I don't feel like I owe you any explanation for my motivations."
Making a soft sound something between a sigh and a snort, Dylan gave his head a quick shake, then opened his mouth to say something, but the sound of his phone going off interrupted him.
Frowning, he didn't pull it from his pocket t
o answer it or even look at it, just rose from his chair then pushed it in, his gaze on me. "I have to go now...I have to check in with my men. There are some...things going on, and I don't know when I'll be back.
“Just make yourself at home in the meantime...there are movies you can watch out in the living room, and lots of books on the shelves...also, I'd be grateful if you could feed Rocky a can of dog food this evening, and fill his water dish, then let him out in the backyard. But just know that if you try to leave the property, Paulina, you won't get far."
"Fine. Noted."
I was already thinking ahead, to when I'd let Rocky out. I was going to try to determine exactly how many guards were surrounding the house, and what their positions were. By evening, my zapping powers would likely be back up to full strength.