Captivate Me (Book One: The Captivated Series) (31 page)

A grin played on her lips. “Just talk
to him.” And with that, she kissed my forehead and took back off
down the hallway. Her voice echoed back to me. “Do it!”

* * *

Five good minutes of pacing and
talking to myself outside the door and I’d officially managed to
freak myself out. I couldn’t quit shaking, my heart jack-hammering
in my chest. I wanted to throw up and make a run for it and leap
into his arms and smack him all at the same time. Where could I get
a drink? I needed a drink!

A rustling inside the room made me
freeze. Would he try and leave through the window? No… we were
three stories up.

“Just do this,” I said. “You can do
this.”

I counted to ten, smoothed my uniform
and burst through, the door bouncing off the wall as it hit. Gabe
shot up from the bed, the flower he’d brought clenched in his
hand.

We stared at each other. Watchful,
waiting for the other to say something. As I drank him in – rumpled
hair, three-week-old scruff, circles rimming eyes glazed over with
a deep, overwhelming sadness – my gut wrenched. He looked older
somehow, worse off than I ever thought of being, and it caused me
physical pain.

“I didn’t mean for you to see me,” he
said. His voice didn’t even sound his own.

My eyes welled, and I
involuntarily took a step toward him but forced myself to stop, my
mind flashing warning signs of caution. My heart wanted to run to
him and forget my feelings of betrayal, but love was nothing
without trust, so I stayed put. I would at least give him a chance
to speak as Sarah had insisted I do. I
did
trust her. She was the only one
I’d ever confided in about this whole mess, and she’d ruthlessly
hated him ever since. So if she had resisted the urge to tear him
limb from limb and insist I do this, there had to be a reason. A
damn good reason.

I stared at him expectantly,
blinking.

He swallowed. “I came to leave you
this last flower, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave your room.
We pack up in the morning. They want to leave for
Montana.”

“Oh.” The idea of them moving far away
strangled my heart. Silly considering all I’d wanted was for them
to move on.

“But I… I can’t leave. The others
wanted to move weeks ago, but I can’t bring myself to leave. I
don’t want to go.”

A tear spilled over as my heart warred
with my head. My head was still screaming for me to tell him off
and run, but my heart… oh, my heart so desperately wanted him to
say why he couldn’t leave – because of me. He couldn’t leave
because of me.

He consulted my alarm clock. “Do you
have to get to class? Will I get you in trouble?”

“No,” I blurted out. “I have a
minute.”

He looked at the flower, trying to
figure out where to go from here, and then his eyes cut back up to
me. Even rimmed with circles, they tugged on my heartstrings. So
not fair. “How are you?”

“I’m… okay.”
Liar.

“I’m sorry, Kat. About
everything.”

I shrugged, swiped away
the trail of a tear, and moved my attention to picking my cuticles.
The polite thing to say would have been “it’s okay.” But it was
most certainly
not
okay.

He laid the flower on my pillow and
took a step toward me, the shortened distance making my heart flip
over itself. Damn that perpetual electric current running between
us.

I heard him sigh with frustration. “I
know I’m the last person you want to talk to. But can I at least
ask for you to listen to me? You don’t have to say a
word.”

I nodded.

“Since our last talk, I began
second-guessing everything. I replayed it all in my mind – my talks
with Iris about you, her encouragement to walk you back to the
school and win your heart. I even wondered if what I felt for you
might have been a spell of hers.”

Ouch…
Stab in the gut. My lips parted to tell him to get out again,
but something stopped me.
Just talk to
him
, Sarah’s voice echoed through my
mind.

“But then I remembered the day a taxi
brought you to the front door,” he continued. “Your first day –
your hair was pulled up high and you had on a dark grey tank top
and jeans with a hole in the knee. That was the first day I ever
laid eyes on you.”

You remember what I
wore?
I fought to keep my eyes downcast.
Another tear spilled over.

“Kai hadn’t told me about
you then, that you were a hybrid like us. But when I saw you, the
atmosphere,
my
atmosphere shifted, and I knew I would never be the same. You
enchanted me, Kathrin.” His voice cracked on my name.

Trembling, I met his
eyes.
Enchanted?
I wanted to believe him so bad I could taste it. I felt it
pulsing through my veins.

“You enchanted me,” he
repeated. “And I realized… it didn’t matter what Iris did or didn’t
ask me to do. My heart wanted to do all of those things
anyway.
None
of
it was a lie. Every second we’d spent together meant something. I
was under
your
spell.”

I reeled at the thought –
none of it was a lie. And such beautiful words… he was under my
spell. Nobody had ever said anything remotely close to that to me
before. My soul wanted to reach out and pull him close, but a small
part of me told me to be cautious, to not give myself over again so
easily. I needed to sit. I felt lightheaded, nauseous.
Vulnerable.
Hopeful.
Tentatively, I moved to the bed. He reached out to help me
sit but pulled back as though I might swat him away. Kneeling, he
watched me until I said something.

When I’d found my voice, it sounded
small and unsteady. “How do I know you aren’t just telling me what
I want to hear?”

He paused for a beat, then said, “I
guess you don’t.”

Then how will this ever
work?
I asked myself. I’d always wonder if
he was lying to me, and he’d always wonder if I trusted him. It
would never work.

Slowly, he moved his hand to mine. The
touch sent a wave of chills through me, the electricity in it
revving my heart up again. “Can you honestly say that what you felt
wasn’t-” He had to pause, muscles flickering along his jawline as
he fought back the tears. “That what you feel isn’t real? Our
kisses, our few private moments together. The way we look at each
other?”

“I know,” I managed, at the cusp of
bursting into a full-blown sob. How I wanted this to work, but I
just didn’t see how. “I just can’t think of those things and not
think you might have faked some of it.”

He squeezed my hand gently. “Nobody
could fake that. I’m not that good an actor.”

We sat in silence, contemplating.
Aching.

“Every kiss,” he pled. “Every touch,
every flower I brought you was because I loved you. I’ve loved you
from that first day, and I‘ll love you forever.”

Love?
My breath hitched.

“Even if you won’t have
me.”

I sat frozen, but I could feel my
doubt and uncertainty melting away. Maybe that was why I could
never bring myself to hate him – deep down I knew our connection
was real. As real as my pull to him.

It was love.

“You love me?”

His mouth twitched with a hopeful
smile. A single tear rolled along his cheek. “With everything I
am.”

I searched his eyes –
he
loved
me – and
my heart began to open, uncurl from its protective stance to allow
him back in. That’s when it hit me like a brick wall, knocking the
air from my lungs – if he didn’t care, if he’d been faking his
feelings for me all this time, he would have moved on weeks ago.
But he couldn’t make himself leave; he was here … after everything,
this broken man was
here
and saying he loved me. I didn’t need to read
minds to know he truly meant it.

“I love you too,” I sobbed.

My words seemed to lift a thousand
pound boulder from his shoulders, and we collided into each other,
lips fusing and arms wrapping around each other. And it felt right,
like this was where I was supposed to be this entire
time.

I was home again.

* * *

Gabriel and I lay on my bed – my head
on his shoulder, my fingers sweeping over the soft fabric of his
shirt as I reveled in the moment. We were together again, and I
suddenly didn’t feel so lost anymore. So inadequate. Whatever
decisions lay ahead didn’t seem as daunting. If I was with him, I
could face anything.

I brushed a kiss on his cheek. “You
should have brought me the flower sooner,” I said,
half-joking.

“I wanted to,” he replied, squeezing
me into him, “but I wanted to give you your space. It wasn’t easy,
though. Believe me.”

Easy
, I thought. None of this had been easy. I then wondered if I
could have spared us the additional pain if I’d been willing to
hear him out weeks ago. “I should have let you explain back then,”
I said, burrowing further into him and breathing in his scent. I
couldn’t get close enough.

He tilted my chin to meet his eyes,
appraising my expression. “Don’t you dare feel bad. Neither one of
us could think straight then.”

I nodded. “How are the
others?”

“Trying to pick up the
pieces.”

I know the feeling,
I thought, and felt even worse. “I should have
been there for you guys. I’m so sorry.”

He brushed kisses across my forehead.
“You’re here now. That’s all I care about.”

“I know, but...”

“Shhh,” he soothed, running his thumb
along my lower lip. He kissed me sweetly. “What’s past is
past.”

I smiled and combed my fingers through
his hair. “Deal.”

We then talked about what had happened
the past month, how they’d scattered Raymond’s ashes after they’d
had him cremated. How the principal had offered to let them stay at
the school tuition-free until graduation, but they’d declined.
They’d already done the high school thing. I couldn’t blame
them.

We discussed life after high school –
I still wanted to stay until graduation. The detective had also
extended the same invitation to them about living in the compound,
but the idea of never leaving once they’d committed also made them
uneasy, though they hadn’t completely discounted it.

“We have time to decide,” he said,
hugging me and glancing at the clock.

“Don’t go,” I pled, almost
whined.

He chuckled, his eyes dancing with
pure love. “I’d love nothing more than to stay,” he said, kissing
the tip of my nose, “but I’m fairly certain I just made you miss
one class; I don’t want you missing the next and getting in
trouble.”

My bottom lip protruded. I didn’t give
a shit if I got in trouble.

He threw his head back in laughter.
“Pouting, Ms. Walsh? You think that will get you what you
want?”

I stuck it out further, giving him my
best puppy dog eyes.

He rolled me on top of him, his eyes
igniting with that fire I loved so much. My entire body hummed.
“Okay, it worked,” he replied, and we kissed.

I played hookie the rest of the
day.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

___________________

Worlds Collide

Anna had once asked me how I knew
something was love, and at the time, I didn’t have a definitive
answer. It’s hard to define something when you haven’t experienced
it. And just because I’d found it in Gabriel doesn’t mean it’s any
easier to explain, to nail down a description of something so fluid
and multi-faceted. But I suppose that’s exactly my answer – it’s
many things to many people. There’s love for a parent or a sibling
– unconditional and familiar; love for a friend – warm and
comforting; and there’s love for a soul mate that burns white-hot
with passion, awakening places in your heart you never knew
existed. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t answer her question before;
until I’d walked down love’s winding, painful, beautiful path, the
concept was as foreign as to me as explaining how to fly – I hadn’t
found my wings yet.

Piper put one last finishing touch on
my up-do before shellacking it with a cloud of hairspray. She’d
arrived an hour ago with her mobile hair salon to help me wrestle
with my hair. I only knew two ways to style it – down and ponytail.
In her former life, she’d been a hairdresser and was more than
thrilled to help when I asked. As a matter of fact, I think she
squealed at a decibel only dogs could hear. I was in desperate need
of help with my hair; the school had rescheduled the dance for this
weekend – the weekend before Thanksgiving break.

“That should do it!” she trilled and
spun me around to inspect her creation. After one last tweak, she
ripped the cape from my shoulders. “My best one yet.”