Luke's Dream (14 page)

When the woman walked away, I turned toward
Bethi, draping my arm over the back of the seat. My girl glanced at
me warily, and I knew I’d distracted her from whatever thoughts
were plaguing her.

“Maybe I should have bought you a gun,” I
said.

She laughed. “I don’t think it would have
made a difference. Well, maybe it would have.”

I loved her smile and the bright spark it
brought to her eyes. I wanted to see it every time I looked at
her.

“I’d buy you an arsenal if it would help you
feel safe,” I said seriously.

Her heart skipped a beat, and I moved my hand
to gently touch her face. However, the waitress returned with our
drinks before I could.

I straightened away from Bethi and listened
to the woman as she asked if we were ready to order. She was
terrible at her job. The disinterest in her voice and the way she
stared glumly at her pad of paper said just how much she didn’t
want to be there.

Bethi seemed to notice too, and spoke to the
woman briskly.

“A burger and fries. Should be easy for
you.”

The woman looked up and caught me studying
her. She smiled widely.

“What about you, hun?” she asked.

“He’ll have two burgers and an order of
fries,” Bethi said, passing the woman both menus.

The waitress glanced at Bethi, took the
menus, then walked away with our orders.

“Twat,” Bethi said under her breath in an
unreasonably rude mood. Yes, the service hadn’t been the best, but
the name calling seemed a bit much.

She arched a brow when she saw me studying
her.

“What? There aren’t any kids around, and I
was quiet.”

I turned toward her once again, and she did
the same.

“You know they will be waiting for us,
right?” she said, getting serious.

“Let’s talk about something else,” I said. “I
like it better when you have fire or laughter in your eyes instead
of what I see now.”

“What do you see?”

“Fear.”

She narrowed her eyes, and I remembered her
correction from the hotel.

“Pardon. Despair.”

She slowly blushed. The urge to touch her
returned, and I found myself lifting my hand again. Lightly, I ran
the back of my forefinger along her soft, smooth cheek.

Her heart stuttered again, and I closed my
eyes and tried to focus on our discussion.

“I see your despair and it makes me—” I
exhaled and opened my eyes. “I want to hurt whoever put that
emotion in your eyes.”

She shook her head slightly and frowned. “I
don’t get you. If you feel that strongly about me, why can’t I
Claim you?”

“Let’s talk about something—”

“Else,” she said, finishing for me. “You’re a
twat, too.”

I laughed hard. She was angry and often rude,
but her sharp tongue was entertaining. She, however, didn’t look
entertained by my laughter. Her gaze shifted to something behind
me. I didn’t turn to look. I already knew it was our waitress from
her scent.

“Can I get you a refill?”

“He’s fine,” Bethi said, staring the woman
down.

Bethi’s jealously was palpable, and I
couldn’t be happier. She might want to Claim me to stop her dreams,
but she was starting to feel more for me. I was sure of it.

When the waitress walked away, Bethi focused
on me again.

“If we can’t talk about
them
or
us
, what should we talk about?”

“You. What do you like doing? What are your
interests?”

Her mouth popped open. “Are you serious?” I
nodded, and she rolled her eyes. “I like breathing and am
interested in staying alive.”

“Bethi,” I said in light warning. She wasn’t
even trying.

“Okay, okay. So, interests. Well, before I
started losing my mind I—” She paused and frowned. “I was
self-centered and immature. My interests don’t really matter beyond
that, do they? Not after everything I’ve seen.”

“I think you’re being a little hard on
yourself.”

“That’s just it. I don’t think I am. I think
the human society lets me be too easy on myself. I have more
responsibility to be a better person than what I’ve been in the
past. Sure, I wasn’t horrible, but I wasn’t great either. Shouldn’t
we all strive for great? Shouldn’t we all strive to make a
difference? To impact the lives around us in a positive way? To
make our experiences count?”

The depth of my runaway astounded me.

“That is a lot of responsibility for someone
so young.”

“See. That’s what I mean. No, it’s not. If we
held each other to a higher level of accountability, if we raised
our children with those expectations and guided them with our own
examples of higher achievement, it wouldn’t be too much. We would
be a better people because of it. Instead, we took a wrong turn
somewhere and ended up on Excuses-Are-Like-Assholes Boulevard.”

Before I could comment on her passionate
outlook on childrearing, the waitress returned with our food. I
sighed and sat back so she could serve us.

Bethi reached for the ketchup and proceeded
to obliterate any trace of fries on her plate.

“Can I ask why we can’t talk about
us
?”

I held out my hand for the ketchup. “It makes
me uncomfortable,” I said, putting a normal amount of ketchup on my
burger and setting the bottle out of her reach.

“Not getting into details, but what part
makes you uncomfortable?”

“All of it.”

I took a large bite of my burger. The flavor
of the meat wasn’t right. I reached for the salt as Bethi suddenly
reached for something too.

The back of my hand brushed the full curve of
her breast. I jerked back, unable to breathe as I remembered what
had happened on the bike. The remembered feel of her in my palm
increased the temperature in the room by at least fifty degrees. I
quickly looked down as my vision started to change.

Bethi huffed beside me.

“It’s a boob,” she said. “I have two of them.
They don’t do much. They just sit there. They definitely don’t bite
so stop acting like they’re going to come after you. Grow up.”

Talking about them just made it worse. Things
I didn’t want to think about kept creeping into my head. Ideas took
hold and wouldn’t let go. And all of them included her, me, and
another hotel room.

“Please stop talking about them,” I said
desperately.

She leaned forward and spoke softly. “You
know, sometimes it helps to name the things you fear. Let’s call
the right one Everest”—I swallowed hard—“and the left one Fuji. Two
mountainous ranges waiting to be....”

I bolted from my seat and cleared the door
before she finished. My hands shook and sweat coated my brow.

The cool air was welcome relief as I paced
back and forth in front of the restaurant’s windows. I glanced at
her and quickly looked away. She’d started something without
meaning to. I knew it wasn’t right to think the things I was
thinking. She was still too young. Too afraid. Too running away
from anything right now to deal with what would happen if I gave
into her and let her Claim me.

Holding her every time she’d slept had been a
mistake. It had shown me how good we felt together and just made it
harder to keep resisting her. And then kissing her…I groaned as I
remembered the taste of her lips. Using the word “a pull” to
describe what I felt when I looked at her didn’t accurately explain
the sensation. It was like the need one would feel underwater,
starving for air. I needed to inhale her. Resisting hurt. It
starved my body of what it was missing. Claiming would give me the
connection, the assurance she was mine. But, what would it take
from her? Choice. Freedom. Innocence. I couldn’t do that. Yet. I
cared too much not to wait.

When I glanced at her again, she had finished
her food and was watching me. With a smirk, she reached over to my
plate, lifted a fry, and ate it. Some of the tension in me eased in
the face of her antics.

Then, she reached for my burger. I knew she
couldn’t still be hungry. She wanted me back inside. Although I
knew it was safer to stay outside, that I hadn’t fully calmed, I
couldn’t resist her invitation. She bit into my food.

I was through the door before she finished
setting the burger back on my plate.

When I reached the table, I stopped. She
stared up at me, her amusement a siren’s song.

“Well? Did you lose your appetite or not?”
she asked.

Exhaling slowly, I forced myself into the
seat opposite her and pulled my plate toward me. I ate what
remained of the burger. The taste of her flavored the food and
drove me crazy.

“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll let you have
two closed subjects between us. Two topics we’ll keep completely
off limits. Three is ridiculous.”

I closed my eyes and finished swallowing. I
should have known she wouldn’t let up.

“So which one are we going to talk
about...our plan to reach the Compound, the reason you won’t let me
Claim you, or my boobs? You choose.”

There was no choice.

Taking a drink, I considered the journey that
laid before us. I still held out hope that only a few unmated males
had learned about Bethi’s existence. Yet, I knew better. When it
came to unclaimed women, word spread fast. That was how I’d known
Gabby hadn’t Claimed Clay and that his time was up with her. That
meant, because of the two I didn’t kill, getting to the Compound
would only become more difficult. Word would spread.

“They will be waiting for us on all three
roads. We could try to leave the bike and take to the woods, but I
think they will have scouts ready for that as well. And we’d be
slower on foot. Our best bet is to anticipate them and break
through before they know when to expect us.”

“So the longer we take to get there...”

“The more likely they are to be ready for
us.”

She remained quiet for a moment.

“Any word from that Elder?” she asked.

“He asked for an update, but I kept it vague.
He’s not pushing for anything more. He did offer his assistance if
we needed anything further,” I said, making Joshua sound more
endearing than I now considered him. When we reached the Compound,
I didn’t want to add to her fears by creating doubt about the
Elders.

“Okay then, wolf-man. Let’s get going.” She
waved the waitress over for the bill, and I quickly finished the
burger.

Bethi glared at the waitress while I paid,
then perked up as we walked out the door. Her jealousy was
heartwarming.

“Tired?” I asked before we reached the
bike.

“No,” she lied.

I turned to look at her. “We can’t go far
with you tired.”

“And if we take too long to get there, it
will only be worse.”

“I could call Gabby and let her know.” Her
opposition of the Introductions had been well-known. I felt she’d
do everything in her power to stop the challenging males trying to
intercept us.

“No, we don’t know who is betraying us.”

“You think she would?” I settled on the bike
and turned to study Bethi.

“No, she wouldn’t. At least, not purposely.
But, who does she believe she can trust? She could say something to
the wrong person. If we stay on our own, we might actually make it
to the gates of the Compound.” She sat behind me and held up the
strap. “I’ll do my best to stay awake.”

She
hung in for another three hours. When she started leaning her face
into the wind to stay awake, I pulled into the first hotel I
found.

“I can keep going,” she said when we pulled
into the parking lot.

I killed the engine and turned to look at
her. Her hair was a tangled knot on the top of her head.

“As adorable as the head in the wind thing
is, you’ll get hurt if you keep it up.”

She snorted and got off the back.

“Wind in the face won’t hurt me. Furry things
with claws will.” Her stomach growled as we walked to the hotel.
“And maybe starvation.”

“Hunger is good. You need more food.”

“Are you saying I’m too skinny?”

The defensive tone had me quickly shaking my
head.

“Better not be.”

I held the door for her, and she continued to
give me a disgruntled look as I procured a room for the night. This
time, when we walked the hall to find our room, she touched
everything, passed our door to walk to the end of the hall, and
touched the opposite side as well.

“Doesn’t hurt to be safe,” she said with a
shrug.

I couldn’t disagree. Turning, I unlocked our
door and held it for her.

“So, about food…” she said, entering.

“I’ll go get us something decent. You might
want to stay and shower.”

“Now you’re telling me I stink?”

“No, you have a little bug smear on your
forehead.”

“I do not,” she said, walking into the
bathroom. “Ew!”

I grinned. “I’ll be back with food. Can you
hold out for thirty minutes?”

“Get some really good food, and I’ll hold out
for an hour,” she said as the bathroom door closed.

Still smiling, I left the room and ran my
hands along the walls, too.

* * * *

When I returned, the halls were pleasantly
free of muffled screams. Carrying a bag of food in one hand, I slid
the card into the lock and pushed the door open. The empty bed and
the sound of the shower had me grinning. I hadn’t thought she’d
actually hold out. Inside the bathroom, I could hear her
moving.

I knocked on the door. “Food’s here.”

Moving to the table, I took the containers
out. The food wasn’t fancy, just more burgers and fries. I’d even
asked for a ridiculous number of ketchup packets for Bethi. I ate
my first burger as I waited for her to finish up. When the water
continued to run, I went to knock on the door again, thinking that
she hadn’t heard.

“Bethi?”

No answer. I knocked louder.

“Bethi?”