“Brothers? Maddie, Lilly. Please excuse me as I give Aisha the remaining tour.”
No one protested or seemed to notice her gasping.
She couldn’t get a deep breath. What was wrong with her? As they walked she finally got relief, only for her lungs to protest again.
Holding her hand to her heart she felt the darn thing beating like a determined little drummer. Only hers was trying to beat its way out of her chest.
“Aisha. Calm yourself. Are you okay?”
She started to nod, only to turn the motion into a shake.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her words winded.
“Come, let me help you.”
He lifted her and quickened his pace down a long hallway.
She didn’t care where they went. She couldn’t protest, anyway. This was a panic attack. It finally dawned on her. She had them under control. Aisha had been fine for like a month or two. No, she hadn’t. She’d simply learned to turn off the part of her that felt just like she did growing up when she scared human kids or was rejected by magical kids.
No.
Right now she didn’t recognize this world, her world, and it scared her. She wasn’t a robot. She couldn’t pretend anymore. But that also meant she had to realize something else. Could she? Could she risk having someone else to lose? Someone she could love?
A swoosh sound brought her down from the spiral of panic. Deo walked into a darkened space. As he put her down on a soft surface, Aisha realized it was a bed.
“Is this your room?”
Aisha held her hand to her chest as she tried to focus on breathing.
A light turned on, revealing Deo by a side table.
“Aisha, would you tell me what’s wrong?”
Breathing. That’s what was wrong. She couldn’t get in enough air. Her chest burned and her heart raced. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
“I’m just panicking. That’s all.”
He took a seat next to her.
“Panicking over what?” he asked.
Aisha didn’t know where to start.
“Everything. Your brothers and their mates. They looked so happy,” she said.
Happy was an understatement. The moment Eadric had entered the room, Lilly changed. She looked as if the world was right, finally. She was changed from even the last time Aisha had seen her, terrified in a chair. Even then, Eadric had been the one to calm her.
None of that was really the issue, though.
The issue was that she was falling for Deo. She wanted what those two women had. No, she wanted what Deo and she were only just starting to have. But how did she tell him she was falling for him? She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready to be claimed, or mated, or whatever. She wasn’t ready to abandon her life goal. She wasn’t ready to let go of the feeling she was finally onto something.
But everything she thought she might be onto was a dead end. Always. Deo though, he was something else. She’d never felt this way before. She tried to slow her breathing and thought about the way her body seemed to find a new calm whenever he touched her. The way everything seemed to melt away into the background when he looked at her. She focused on the way her body woke up, feeling something and everything whenever he kissed her.
He shifted on the bed. Taking her face in-between his hand, he held her attention.
“I cannot fix what I don’t know, Aisha. Tell me and I will fix it.”
10
A rock sat in the pit of Deo’s stomach. If his mate was not happy, he couldn’t be. He didn’t need to be connected to her to know that there was some kind of war within her and he wasn’t allowed to fix it.
He growled.
Why wouldn’t she let him? This is what mates did. This is what he did. He fixed.
“Aisha. Let me help you.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. He could feel the tick of every passing second.
“I feel this pull toward you. You’re right. I don’t know how to say no to it. I want to be near you. But there is the other part of me. The side of me that can’t let go of my pain. The fact so many others have to lose someone. But as a shifter, I’m sure you don’t get that. I’ve studied some of their blood and I can’t figure out why you are immune to so much.”
Deo heard her words. If he could stop the world from suffering, he would. Wouldn’t anyone with a heart? He wished he could find the secret. All the innocent lives lost in senseless wars, all playing on the frailty of this species. It was all too much to understand the why. Aisha needed to understand that maybe, at some point, it wasn’t her destiny to find all the answers.
“Aisha. It’s not all on you to save everyone from pain. You can’t. If Earth is anything like the many other planets in the universe, hundreds and sometimes thousands are trying to find the answer and cures to things that plague their populations. Sometimes you can’t and sometimes all you can do is contribute. Offer. Maybe you’ve stumbled onto something that someone else could use?”
Deo released her face as her eyes watered.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He ran his tongue over his teeth. This felt a lot like walking a very thin line over a pit of death. If he’d said something wrong, he didn’t mean to, but the way she glared at him said he’d done something far worse.
“I just meant that maybe it’s time for you to move on. Find a fresh perspective? I can offer-“
She cut him off. “You’re suggesting giving up years of research for what? To screw you? To sit and watch movies all day while you go out and do what? What do those women do all day? Anything?”
Yup. He’d fucked this up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I was merely offering to help you, perhaps offer some new
