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When Arman didn’t finish his telepathic message, Levka asked, “Arman?”
“I’ll join you in a few minutes.”
Levka attempted to seat Caitlin with her back to the ocean in the blue cushiony lounge chairs. Instead, she shifted around so she could see the water.
“Are you going to be all right, Caitlin?” Levka touched her arm above the bruises.
“I used to try and communicate with people telepathically all the time,” she said, ignoring his concern and focusing on the waves. “It was just this strange overwhelming desire. I mean, at first, I didn’t know that’s what it was. Just this compulsion to speak to someone without saying the words. Sometimes, I thought I was a little crazy. I told a girlfriend once. She thought I was nuts. She told her parents, and they wouldn’t let her play with me anymore.”
Arman walked into the lounge. “I found Alicia with Dylan and a bunch of his friends, Levka. I couldn’t talk to her.”
“Thanks, Arman. Get us some drinks, will you?” Levka asked.
With her back to Arman, Caitlin didn’t see him and continued with her story. “After my girlfriend didn’t have anything more to do with me, I tried not to reach people telepathically.”
Arman brought a tray of sodas to the coffee table, interrupting her.
“I promised I’d get your drink the next time,” Caitlin said.
He smiled. “A gentleman buys the lady her drinks, not the other way around.”
“That’s the past,” Ruric said. “In the future…”
Levka and Stasio gave him a sharp look.
Ruric smiled. “I’m outvoted. A gentleman always buys the lady’s drinks.”
Caitlin laughed.
Glad to hear her cheerfulness, some of the tension eased out of Levka’s taut muscles. “You were saying about how you knew no one could speak to your mind.” He had to know everything he could about Vlad, but he didn’t want to come out and say so. What if she thought he was jealous? He wasn’t. Well, he was, but he was more concerned the vampire might feel he had an earlier claim to her.
“Yes, well, I couldn’t control the urge. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like I was a Martian on Earth seeking one of my kind who understood what I was feeling. Anyway, I was at an ice cream shop with some girlfriends, and this guy said, ‘Your eyes are like emeralds sparkling in the fluorescent lights. And your full glossy lips look kissable.’ But he didn’t say this out loud. It was if his thoughts were projected into my brain.” Caitlin took a sip of her drink.
Though Levka normally thought himself patient, he tapped his fingers on the arm of the lounge chair. Ruric cocked a red brow at him.
“Well, you might imagine, it came as quite a shock. When I looked around the ice cream shop to see who had said that, I caught his black eyes watching me. At first, he just stared at me, like he couldn’t believe I might have heard him. Then he gave me an odd kind of smile.”
Levka fisted his hands. Apparently, Caitlin had drawn this Vlad under her spell just like she’d done with Levka. “And?”
“He became my first boyfriend.”
Levka glanced at his friends, knowing what they all suspected, that Vlad would have wanted her, too. Had he tried to get permission with the Orlando league and failed?
“But after the accident,” she continued, “I figured he was like my other friends. He didn’t want to have anything to do with me as messed up as I was. So, when I got better, and he never tried to get in touch with me, I killed him off.” She gave kind of a sad smile. “You know, a friend isn’t a friend who won’t stick by someone even through their darkest hour. He’s dead to me.”
“You have us now,” Levka said, knowing he was headed down the path of no return.
She gazed at him for several seconds. “I think you would be a friend always, no matter the circumstances.”
He would not be her friend, if he took her where his dark heart urged him to take her. He reached out and squeezed her hand.
“You’re different from Vlad. Kind of the same, mysterious, totally intriguing, but there’s something different about you. I can’t put my finger on it.” She looked out at the ocean, but he sensed she really wasn’t seeing it.
Memories of Vlad? “How long did you know him?” He had to ask, had to know. If they’d been together long…
Levka couldn’t imagine anyone wanting her for very long and having the restraint not to make her his.
“A couple of months, but he wasn’t around all of the time. He kept saying he had to take care of business. When he returned, he’d seem distant at first, then he’d become his cheerful self. A couple of times guys joined us who called themselves friends of his, but he didn’t seem pleased at all. I thought he even acted jealous. But I sensed there was something darker going on. Anyway,” she shrugged, “it’s all in the past.”
