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“Gentle,” she says again. “After I was told your kind are savage. Dangerous.”
“We can be that,” I admit. “But it was not always so. We were a peaceful people before the sickness changed everything.”
“Sickness?” my Brooks says.
I forget how much she does not yet know. What I have neglected to tell her, and there has been no one else to fill in the gaps.
“I will explain fully,” I say. “I promise you this. But we do not know how long we have for sleeping, and you wished to explore your memories. Which would you prefer to do first?”
“I don’t understand,” she says, instead of answering.
“What do you not understand, linasha?”
“You.”
Her voice is small, wobbling.
I arch a brow at her, words surprised off my usually overfull tongue.
“You don’t ever do or say what I expect you to.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“I don’t know.”
She sounds so lost, so unlike herself. Our time is still limited and her memories still wait to be uncovered, but I feel it is more important right now to speak with her about these feelings. I feel the hand of my goddess guiding my heartspace in this.
“Perhaps you could show me what you mean?” I suggest.
My Brooks’ cheeks flush red, but she tips her head back, a little strength coming back into her.
“You call me your mate,” she says, her words sharp edged. “But you don’t… You don’t do anything I expect you to. You don’t behave like a guy interested in a woman does. But you say things and do things that are so… nice.” She throws her hands up in frustration, and I am unsure if she is frustrated with me, or if she wishes she could communicate her thoughts better. What she is saying makes little sense to me.
“You do not wish for me to be nice?” I say, adding as much of a teasing tone to my words as I can manage.
She scowls, but her lips twitch, a smile threatening to break out, and I am heartened to see it.
“Linasha, many of my mated brothers have said to me that human and raskarran headspaces do not always align. We must be plain with each other so we can find understanding between us. You say I do not act like I am interested in you? Do you mean that you think I find you dull?”
My heartspace revolts at the thought. I have never known a more fascinating female. I could speak with her all day and night. But I push my own feelings aside. This is about how she is seeing things, and how I might have unwittingly given her cause to believe wrong things.
I think of the little voice in my head, the one that has been silent so many blissful days now, and wonder if she has one of her own, directing her to interpret even the most innocent of things in bad ways. Harmful ways.
“No,” she says, and I am relieved until she speaks further. “I mean, you don’t act like you want me. You talk about being mates, joining bodies, and sometimes you look at me in a way that makes me think… but then you’ve never tried to do anything. Before today, you’ve barely touched me.”
My linasha speaks vaguely, her cheeks burning red as she struggled through her words. But I do not think I have misunderstood her meaning, and I am astonished by what she is saying.
“You think I do not wish to mate with you?”
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
Brooks
What the fuck am I doing discussing this now? There are so many other more important things to talk about. But my treacherous heart has snagged on this topic, and I need to know. That need overrides sense, and I have to see it through, no matter how excruciating this conversation gets.
“When you say ‘mate’, are you talking about having a relationship with someone, or are you talking about sex?”
My cheeks are so hot I’m afraid I might spontaneously combust, and part of me is absolutely dying on the inside. But we’ve started down this road now, I’m going to see it through to the end.
