Chapter 17
Amara could smell her mate approaching long before he reached to stop her progress. He knew it as well as she did, and she was not going to make it easy for him. She’d already been plenty easy. The minute he made contact with her, she pivoted and rounded on him angrily.
“I drive you insane?” she demanded hotly. “You think you’ve been some kind of picnic for me? I never asked for any of this! I was happy just worrying about myself! I was happy having no expectations, no needs!”
“You weren’t happy,” he shot back, “you were existing. Surviving.”
“Well, thank God you came along and gave my life meaning. It sounds like it was wretched without you.”
“Wasn’t it?” he asked, his sea-green gaze troubled rather than arrogant. “I’m thinking, all things considered, mine’s definitely taken a turn for the better these past few days.”
Amara was so genuinely surprised by that remark that she gaped at him a full ten seconds before she snorted in disbelieving laughter.
“That’s a joke, right? You were a cop with a career, friends, family, and a human life.
Now you’ve been through horrible physical changes against your will, have to face a potential threat from your own brother, and your friends are calling you a ghoulish freak! ”
“If Carl was my friend, then he’d never call me that, even if I was one.
Kin isn’t the one I’m worried about. You are.
And this isn’t some damn biological imperative I’m operating under either.
It’s a very human, very emotional one.” He reached for her, taking her face against his hand even when she tried to move away.
His touch always disturbed her so deeply.
Be it physical response or just the way he had of portraying the sense that she was somehow worthy of special treatment, it shook her to the core.
“Don’t,” she said, trying not to feel the hurt her thoughts sent spearing through her even as she voiced them.
“Don’t act like you chose me. Don’t act like you wouldn’t have looked right through me if you’d seen me in the street when we were human.
You made me your mate because you had no choice.
No choice. Not in what you became and not in what you had to do because of it.
I don’t blame you for any of it, but don’t expect me to believe you’d want anything to do with me if you got your humanity returned to you right this very second. ”
“That isn’t fair,” he returned sharply. “There’s no way for me to prove otherwise to you. You and I both know we’re never going to be fully human again. And if staying a Morphate means I get to keep you for the rest of my life, then I don’t want to be fully human again.”
“And there’s no way you can prove that either! You just said you and I both know it isn’t going to be an option. And frankly, I don’t think you’ve considered what ‘the rest of’ your life really means. Your life has just become significantly extended, Nick. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of years!”
“Thank God, because it’s going to take me that long to figure you out!” he shot back furiously.
“There’s nothing to figure out! Don’t you get it? I’m just some girl from the wrong side of the wall. You said it yourself; the only thing I am good at is surviving. Apparently I’m good at fucking, too, or you wouldn’t even be here.”
“Amara!” Nick grabbed hold of her suddenly by both arms and shook her so violently her teeth clacked together.
“Don’t you fucking ever say anything like that to me again!
Do you hear me? Despite what you think, I have feelings, too!
You’re the one who keeps saying I’m still human, damn it.
Well, I can be hurt, too, you know. Part of me died today when I thought Paulson killed you.
I’ve never known such a totality of grief and regret.
You think I didn’t choose you? Paulson shot me while I was kneeling over your body, baby, not while I was immediately sniffing after Mina to replace you!
No choice? Oh, I chose. Mina chose to fuck a half dozen males before she tried for me.
They must have tossed her room to room when they saw she had an appetite for it.
But you heard Paulson. You and I were an exception, not a rule.
We didn’t have to choose to mate for life, Amara, but we did.
Are you saying you had no choice? That you regret giving that to me? ”
“No!”
“Then what the hell makes you think it’s any different for me?” he challenged.
“Because you’re better than I am,” she whispered painfully. “You treat me like I’m special, but I’m not. You are.”
“Baby, baby,” he groaned as he jerked her hard into his embrace and hugged her so tightly she squeaked.
“You and I are going to wish we weren’t special soon enough.
I can promise you that. But there has never been anyone in my life as special to me as you are.
I think I’ve loved you from the moment you told me you wished you’d never met me.
I think that’s why when they put you in with me I couldn’t resist but take you for my own as thoroughly as I could.
” He took her head between his hands and tipped it back so he could see deeply down into her tearing eyes.
He blurred until she couldn’t see him, but she heard him even over the painful sob she could no longer contain.
“Morphates don’t have to mate for life, honey.
We just know immediately when we are supposed to.
If we were human, our human hang-ups and bullshit would have made it take forever to figure out.
Damn it, are you going to make me admit I’m glad Paulson did what he did just because it got me you? ”
“That’s a lie,” she sobbed softly.
“I don’t think so,” he said honestly, his thumbs brushing tears off her lashes.
“I can’t be glad he hurt so many of us, Amara, but I have to give credit where it’s due.
If Paulson hadn’t been so cocksure and megalomaniacal, he wouldn’t have made the mistake of keeping me alive and then compounding it by giving me something as powerful as you are.
Honey, just accept that I love you. When we’re done here, I’ll spend this long lifetime of ours convincing you of it. ”
“Will it take that long for me to convince you I love you, too?”
“I’m going to say yes,” he said with a sudden grin, “just because it will be fun to watch you try.”