16. Cheribelle
Cheribelle
Is a Mistake Twice a Habit?
“Ouch!”
I shied away from the small cotton bud Paul had gently swiped over my chin. Funny how I’d fought with a bruised rib but now a bit of alcohol felt like someone was shoving my face into a bonfire.
“I know it doesn’t feel the best, but we really need to get these cleaned.”
“I didn’t see anyone polishing your face earlier,” I said accusatorily even though I already knew the answer.
The rest of the afternoon and evening went by in a hazy blur. Somewhere in the middle of it, the VanMarche siblings, save for Paul, had disappeared with the arm. Paul had explained they’d all gone to whatever secret place Jackson had been hiding out in.
As for Paul himself, he was either by my side or helping people, forcing the investigators who rolled up to follow him and ask questions around his aiding the hurt rather than the other way around.
I wanted to help, especially with those lingering outside with questions, but I was so thoroughly exhausted and banged up, so I mostly ended up sitting around until the medics could get to me.
Thankfully, I wasn’t grievously wounded in any way. Yes, my ribs were bruised. Yes, I had scrapes everywhere and some contusions around my throat. And yes, I had yet another skateboard I needed to return.
Provided someone actually found it in that mess of a cathedral.
At least it wasn’t from the same kid.
Yeah, otherwise it might seem like you had it out for him.
“Cherry, I have enhanced healing. I can’t get infected unless there’s magic or wolfsbane involved. So, unless oracles have a handy skill you haven’t told me about, we need to clean the hundreds-of-years-old dirt out of your scrapes.”
I hated when he was clearly right. “Ew. It’s gross when you put it that way.”
“It is, so let’s get through making sure you don’t get a hundred-year-old infection, yeah?”
I nodded, but I still gave him a dirty look as he gently dabbed at my chin, then just above my temple. “You look like you’re enjoying this too much.”
“I can assure you, the thought of you being hurt because of me and my family brings me not a single ounce of anything remotely akin to joy.”
Even if I wasn’t an empath, I liked to think that I would be able to sense the guilt radiating off him. My stomach sank, and I put my hand over his where it was still cupping my face.
“Hey, I wasn’t hurt because of you and your family. There was a legit assassin, and I decided to get involved of my own volition. And I’m glad I did.”
“The only reason you were in proximity of that assassin was because of my family.”
“Right, and me choosing to lie about being a psychic so I could get involved in your family’s tragedy certainly had nothing to do with it,” I snapped.
Normally, I wouldn’t throw myself under the bus repeatedly, but I was caught between being frustrated with Paul’s stubbornness to always take the blame for everything, and wanting to comfort him but having no idea how in this crazy situation.
“Cherry...”
“Look, we all did what we thought was best. What else was I supposed to do? Let your zombie brother kill you? Besides, if I hadn’t interfered, then I never would have been able to sense all those emotions trapped inside him, and the most likely theory would be that he betrayed you all.”
The muscles in Paul’s palm flexed, as if they were just as conflicted as the rest of him. “You really think it’s him? And that someone is making him do this?”
“That’s the impression I got, yeah.” I closed my eyes, recalling how I was plunged into an ocean of nothing only to be surrounded by a truly astronomical tumult of feelings and flashes of emotional memories.
“It was like everything that made him human—er, shifter —was bound up deep inside him. So deep that none of it could come to the surface.”
“Do you think it’s hypnotism?”
I shook my head. “Hypnotism, at least the non-magical kind, is all suggestion. The person still feels what they feel and has genuine emotional reactions. Glamouring and any sort of enchantment mind control is similar, where it makes the person under the thrall want to obey—often gleefully so. They would still have their emotions, which would be entirely wrapped around pleasing whoever had them dispelled.”
I’d met a couple of people who had been enthralled in my life, most of them very willing participants, but none of them had been a completely empty slate like Luther had.
“Do...” There was a particularly long pause as Paul stared at me, and I truly didn’t have any idea which direction his question would go.
Eventually, he swallowed and managed to get his words out, although I could tell his voice was close to cracking when he did.
“Do you think there is any chance that it can be undone? That we could get him back?”
Shit.
I had no way of answering that even though I wanted to from the deepest parts of my soul.
I couldn’t imagine what Paul was going through.
From losing two of his family members, to having attempts on the rest of his family, only to find out that not only was his eldest brother actually alive, but he had been the one to murder their father.
And now said brother was a mindless minion for the actual murderers who had managed to keep their identity a mystery. That’s almost an alliteration!
Oh my god, shut up, it is SO not the time!
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, because I had sworn I would always be truthful with Paul even though lies were so easy to whip up. “But if there is, I swear I’ll find it.”
Our eyes locked at that, and his hand finally fell from my face, mine going with it. In the frenzy of getting our plan ready to trap the assassin, that simmering tension
yeah, how did that end up going again?
between us had fallen far to the wayside.
But now that we were alone, our faces only an inch apart, I could feel it rushing up in me again.
Not just because I wanted to comfort the man, but because I felt closer to him than anyone else.
We’d fought together, fumbled together, plotted and planned together.
Really, it felt like the only person who knew me better was Hudson, who was happily asleep in her cat tree downstairs, fed and watered.
It’s just the adrenaline, I thought to myself, trying to resist the urge to close the distance between us. Just like after the market, it’s just a response to the hormonal rush of a life-and-death situation.
I actually don’t think that’s true.
Get it together, Cherry, get it together!
Wow, his eyes are beautiful.
He is the client , and you are the consultant !
Stop taking advantage of a man in an emotionally vulnerable position and be professional!
He’s in so much pain, I wish I could just ? —
My groaning rush of panicked thoughts all disintegrated in a split second, not because I had a sudden herculean surge of conscience, but because it was Paul who wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close so that he could crash his lips to mine.
If I was a particularly moral person, I would have stopped him. Would have told him that we couldn’t do this and that he was making a decision in an emotional state. But I didn’t stop him. No, I fell headlong into the kiss, wrapping my arms around him and clinging with all that I had.
This is the wrong decision. Our hookup was supposed to be a one-time thing...
Oh my god, give it a rest!
I banished those thoughts from my head in a way that only a dopamine rush could, moving my mouth against Paul’s and giving as good as I got.
It didn’t make sense how so many troubling things could vanish from a kiss, but that’s exactly what it was like making out with the often-reserved shifter in front of me.
I was fully ready for the fire from our first coupling, for the bite with the pleasure, the dominance play, the push and pull of shifting dynamics between us. But this time, even as his tongue begged entrance into my mouth, I could sense something was different.
His movements were still a bit harried, but less like they were fueled by lust. And when we broke apart, I glanced behind him to see a giant bloom of soft and sweet spectacle.
Sunset gold and pink of admiration, the heather-soft kiss of lilac worship.
Baby blue affection making an ombre display with the fading cobalt of worry and concern.
It was brilliant, as gorgeous as any landscape committed to art, and he was feeling that way about me.
It was impossible to believe, and yet that glorious sky of emotions burst into a shower of resplendent sparks, raining down over our heads and leaving little flutters of its shimmer wherever it landed.
It kissed at my eyelids, my cheeks, sliding down my spine in happy little rivulets of relief and comfort.
Never in all my twenty-six years had I ever experienced something like that, and I knew I was about to cross a boundary within myself that I could never uncross.
“Cheribelle,” Paul whispered, breaking our kiss to rest his forehead against mine. And that was all he said. No filthy promises, no growls. Just my name.
So even though I knew it was a bad decision, I let myself fall.
“Paul,” I whispered back, hoping his enhanced senses would pick up on the chemicals flooding through me. Despite how often I used humor and snappy dialogue to mask myself, I wanted Paul to see me.
Wait, no. Not just see me, but also know that I wanted him to see me. A small distinction, but it seemed so significant in my head.
And those were the only words exchanged between us before the medical supplies were forgotten, and he was picking me up off the side of the tub where I had been sitting so he could doctor me up.
I clung to him, knowing my heart was thundering against his chest and not caring at all.
I wanted to kiss him—God, how I wanted to kiss him—but I figured it was best to let him navigate us to our destination before I blocked his face with mine.