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“Well, you’re not even human,” Michael pointed out instead. “What would you know about regrets?”
“I was not referring to the Kind,” Tal said, though they both knew what he’d meant.
“I was referring to a state of being. I might be blind, but even I canseethe depths of your regrets.”
Michael shrugged, finally turning away from the view, shutting himself off from the source of his confounded fantasies.
From irresistible temptation.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he staunchly denied.
But Tal wasn’t fooled. Nor did he let the subject drop.
“Ben is special,” he said his low, husky voice.
“I think you know that very well. Perhaps better than anyone. He is…the light in the darkness. The purest of all Pure souls.”
“Huh,” Michael grunted, conveying without words that this revelation had nothing to do with him, and he could care less.
Tal went on as if he hadn’t made a sound.
“His parents and Ishtar and I… and all of his friends would do anything to protect him from hurt. But he is his own man now. Has been for some time. His Destiny is his own to choose.”
“Well, as enlightening as this is—” Michael tried to end the conversation before Tal made him even more uncomfortable than he already was.
He shifted to leave.
“As is your Destiny,” the blind Immortal said, not moving one iota from where he stood, blocking Michael’s retreat.
“It is up to you to repeat the mistakes of the past or to forge a new path. Do not squander this second chance. It will not come again.”
“Nice chat,” Michael said flippantly, infusing his words and expression, though Tal could not see it, with nonchalance.
“But I just realized I forgot to take my clothes out of the washer in the laundry mat. Gotta run, I’m afraid.”
When he tried to leave again, Tal stopped him with a hand on his arm.
The man never touched others unless absolutely necessary. He did not like to be touched; only Ishtar was the exception. And Ben.
So the fact that Tal voluntarily reached out to Michael made him freeze and pay attention.
“It is not weak to care,” he said quietly.
“It is not a sin to be vulnerable. What you have always believed to be your greatest liability could one day become your surest strength. But you must have courage to own it. You mustgive to receive. Remember that when the time comes. And, Michael…”
“Yeah?” he muttered, entranced by Tal’s words despite himself.
The Immortal’s unique aquamarine eyes flashed with a blinding brilliance.
“If you hurt him again, I will see to it myself that you are removed—permanently—from the face of the earth, from all the realms in the Universe. Do we understand each other?”
Michael gulped down the sudden knot in his throat as he stared unblinkingly into Tal’s unnerving blind gaze.
“Perfectly,” he rasped.
He left the workshop with alacrity the moment Tal released him.
It wasn’t that he feared Tal or anyone else. It was his own…feelings…that confused him.
Those memories that haunted him whenever he looked upon Ben. Whenever he dreamed. Like a nightmare on repeat. He felt the Beast’s pain toward the end like a plague eating away at his soul.
If he had a soul, that is.
Did he?
Somehow, Michael knew that he’d find out soon.
One way or the other.
