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“And yet I’m here,” Kelly declared. She, unlike Gerard and Lachelle, had kept her seat and continued to eat with dainty elegance. “How do you explain that, Gerard? If you saw me die, how am I sitting right here? And if you would never leave me, why have we been apart and you’ve been telling everyone I died?”
“I…don’t…know.” His voice was a whisper, hardly discernable.
Lachelle grasped his arm. “Tell her, Gerard. She’s wrong. You would never do anything like that. There’s some kind of code in your DNA, right? You live and breathe your mate.”
His gaze bore into hers. She tried to read his thoughts, but all she got was misery and then anger. He pulled his arm from her grasp and turned back to Kelly. “I saw you die. The others can verify.”
“What others? The ones who betrayed me—I mean before you did? I was left alone, dying, hurting, and scared. Everyone I have ever loved was dead. I thought you must be too because there wasn’t any way you would turn your back on me. We pledged our love for each other until death.”
Gerard looked sick.
“Enough,” Declan snapped. “You don’t have to rub it in. And where were you all these years? How did you recover? Why didn’t you look for him?”
She wiped her mouth with a napkin and pushed her shoulders back. “I had to fight my way back to life—in a sense. As I said, I didn’t die, but I was close to it. In my heart, I felt like giving up because Gerard abandoned me.”
Declan glared at her. She rushed to continue.
“An older woman—a human—happened along. She took me in and cared for me. After I was better, I elected to stay with her and her son. They were my new family, and they were loyal to me.”
When Gerard didn’t question her, Declan continued with the interview. “Who is this woman? What’s her name?”
“She’s gone now.”
“Convenient,” Janessa snip
ed.
“What have I got to hide? You’ve seen where I work. I’ve sworn to uphold the law.” She chose that moment to glance at Lachelle as if she didn’t uphold it and that’s why she was fired. “The woman I called Granny for years is Constance Ridgeley, and her son’s name is Zeek. He’s developmentally disabled, and I had to put him in a care facility after she died, but I pay for his upkeep faithfully.”
Lachelle felt a grudging respect for a woman who had gone through so much and come out with a good career and a strong mind. Her own suffering seemed to pale in comparison, but she couldn’t shake the negative feelings she had for Kelly. And why should she? The woman wanted to steal her man.
Or I’ve stolen hers.
Her stomach flip-flopped again. She had to move away from the table, or the scent of the food would make her hurl. There was no sense spoiling everyone else’s enjoyment of their meal.
She wandered to the spot where she had spoken alone with Gerard, dropped onto the couch, and pulled her feet up onto the cushions. Running her hands over her braids, she ducked her head and shut her eyes. Memories flitted through her mind of times spent with Gerard.
After the initial shock of seeing him transformed into a dragon, she let him take her for a ride in the air, just for pleasure. She’d ridden on the beast’s back when he had made himself no larger than a horse. The experience both thrilled and frightened her. To think she’d come to love someone like him, a being she never knew existed.
Questions rolled through her mind as to whether it was weird or wrong to date him. Maybe they should stick to their own kind. But by that time, when she thought of giving him up, it was impossible to consider.
Gerard was sweet and innocent, and downright ignorant of the simplest things in life. She’d taught him a lot, and he listened with interest. On the other hand, he was a bundle of instinct and possessiveness that had him growling and behaving aggressively when a man pushed up on her.
Because she loved him, she concluded it didn’t matter if everyone in the world was against them. She wanted to be his and for him to be hers. But now this situation came up. Kelly’s existence might take the decision out of her hands and destroy her heart.
Janessa sat down beside her to wrap an arm about her shoulders. “Hey, you okay?”
“No.”
Her sister rubbed her back, and little Bannon, who had come over with his mom, patted Lachelle’s knee. She offered the sweetheart a half smile and stroked his cheek.
Janessa turned her son around and gave him a gentle nudge toward the shifters. “Go back to Daddy, baby. Let me and Auntie Lachelle talk.”
Her son scampered off to his dad’s waiting arms.
“Want to go outside?” Janessa asked. “Maybe we can walk a little so no one can hear?”
“How far is that?” Lachelle sighed and stood.
