Pure (14 page)

“And we’re not?”

Aiden appeared to consider that. “No. They—I mean, we’re taught to control our emotions. To not let them be what guides our decisions. Everything in our world—both of our worlds—is about logic and continuing our races. You know that.”

I glanced over at him, noticing the way the proud lines of his face were relaxed. In these moments, he did look younger and carefree. I liked him this way—with his eyes full of light and laughter, his expressive mouth curved upward. Seeing him now, it was almost hard to believe he was far more deadly than any animal in the park.

“But you seem to be at ease around all of them.” He nodded at a group at the other end of the pen. A mother and a father stood with two young kids. The little girl handed her brother a half-eaten ice cream cone. “You have more experience dealing with them than I do.”

I nodded, turning back to the cage. Another hairy beast made its way to the one on the rock. Maybe something interesting would happen. “I blended in, but I never fit in. They can sense something off about us. That’s why no one will get too close to us.”

“I cannot possibly imagine you blending in.”

“Why? I think I did a damn good job of going unnoticed for three years.”

“I just can’t. No one is like you, Alex.”

I grinned. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It is.” He nudged me again, and my grin grew into another ludicrous smile—the kind Caleb gave Olivia when they weren’t tearing each other’s heads off. “You’re incredibly intelligent, Alex. Funny and…”

“Pretty?” I supplied, only half-serious.

“No, not pretty.”

“Cute?”

“No.”

I frowned. “Well, then.”

Aiden’s laugh sent shivers through me. “I was going to say ‘stunning.’ You’re stunningly beautiful.”

I sucked in air sharply, cheeks flushing. I tipped my head back and our gazes locked. Somehow I hadn’t known we stood so close. And Aiden was close. Close enough that I could feel his warm breath against my cheek, speeding up my pulse.

“Oh,” I whispered. Not the most eloquent of responses, but it was the best I had.

“Anyway, what is it with you and zoos?” Aiden stretched his arms above his head.

A shaky sigh escaped me, my gaze drifting over the family, settling on the little girl. She had the cutest pigtails ever, and she was smiling at me. I smiled back.

“I like animals,” I said finally.

Aiden glanced down at me, eyes full of… well, full of yearning. “That’s why you practically choked yourself in the car?”

I cringed. “You noticed that, huh? My mom loved animals, too. She said once that we were a lot like the ones in the cages. Well fed and taken care of, but caged nonetheless. I never agreed with that.”

“You don’t?”

“Nope. Here the animals are safe. Out in the wild, they’d be killing one another or being poached. I know they’ve lost their freedom, but sometimes things have to be sacrificed.”

“That’s a strange perspective for you to have.”

“You mean it’s a strange perspective for a
half-blood
to have. I know. But we all have to sacrifice something to gain something else.”

Aiden reached out and grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the path of a woman on a mission of pushing a stroller. I’d been so caught up in watching him I hadn’t seen the woman—or heard her screaming baby. I glanced down between us. His hand was still wrapped around mine. The simple, unexpected gesture sent a crazy amount of heat through me.

Aiden guided me through the ever-increasing throng of visitors. He parted the crowd like the Red Sea. People just got out of the way for him as we left the Kitera Forest and entered the Forest Edge.

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“If you weren’t a pure, what would you be doing right now? Like, what would you want to do with your life?”

Aiden glanced down at our hands and then his gaze flicked to mine. “Right this instant? I’d be doing a hell of a lot more than what I’m allowed to do.”

Heat infused my entire body, swirling my thoughts into a heady mess. I almost convinced myself I totally made up that response and that lack of sleep had finally driven me crazy. Auditory hallucinations were a bitch.

His fingers tightened around mine. “But I’m sure you were wondering more than that. What would I be doing if I was just a mortal? I don’t really know. It’s not something I’ve really thought about.”

I had to mentally kick myself to find my voice again. “You’ve never thought about it? For real?”

Aiden sidestepped a couple taking pictures, shrugging. “I never had to. When I was younger, I knew I would follow in my parents’ footsteps. The Covenant groomed me to do so. I took all the right classes: politics, customs, and negotiations. Basically, the most boring classes you could imagine. Then after the daimon attack, everything changed. I went from wanting to follow my parents to wanting to do something to ensure another family didn’t go through what Deacon had to.”

“And what you had to,” I added quietly.

He nodded. “I don’t know what I would do if I woke up tomorrow and had a choice. Well, I can think of a few things, but a career?”

“You do have a choice. Pures have all the choices.”

He glanced down at me, frowning. “No, we don’t. That’s the biggest misconception between our races. Halfs think we have all the choices, but we are just as limited as your kind is, but in different ways.”

I really didn’t believe that, but I didn’t want to argue and ruin the moment. “So… you really don’t know what you’d do?” He shook his head, so I offered my suggestion. “A police officer.”

Aiden brows rose up. “You think I’d be a police officer?”

I nodded. “You want to help people. I don’t think you’re corruptible. Being a Sentinel and a police officer are kind of the same thing. Fighting the bad guys, keeping the peace, and all that good stuff.”

“I guess you’re right.” He smiled then. A mortal girl about my age stumbled as she passed us on the trail. Aiden seemed oblivious to her. “Hey, I’d get a badge. I don’t have one of those now.”

“I want a badge, too.”

Aiden cocked his to the side, laughing. “Of course, you’d want a badge. Hey—look what I see.” He pointed around the bend.

“Cats!”

His hand curved around mine more fully, almost like some unconscious part of him was responding to me.

Several yards of empty space and fencing separated the lion pen from the visitors. At first, I didn’t see him, and then he prowled up from behind a rock, tossing his mane from side to side. His orange-yellow coat reminded me of Seth’s eyes. Actually, the way the lion stopped in front of the gathering crowd and yawned—flashing a row of razor sharp teeth—also reminded me of Seth.

“He’s beautiful,” I whispered, wishing I could somehow get closer. I wasn’t one of those lunatics who climbed into a lion’s den, but I also wanted to touch one—a people-raised, totally tame one not likely to rip off my hand.

“He looks bored out of his mind.”

We stayed there a while, watching the feline stroll around the grassy knoll before climbing atop a large rock and lying down, tail swishing back and forth. Finally, some of the female lions decided to show up. I told Aiden they were the real deal, recalling something I heard on
Animal Planet
about the females actually being more badass than the males. Within a couple of minutes, two of them joined the male on the rock.

I groaned as they lay down beside the male. “Ah, come on. Knock him off the rock.”

Aiden chuckled. “I think he’s got two girlfriends.”

“Dog,” I muttered.

We left the Bushlands, wandering into the North American section. This part seemed virtually empty compared to the other. I guess the mortals were bored by the bears and other familiar critters. Aiden seemed fascinated with them, and I spotted a bobcat. I let go of Aiden’s hand and went up to the outer fence. A slight breeze rolled in. We were much closer than any of the other exhibits. Close enough that the bobcat appeared to catch our scent.

It’d been stalking some unseen prey up until that moment. She stopped, though, inclining her head in our direction. A second or two passed, and I swear our eyes met. Long, thin whiskers twitched as she smelled the air.

“Do you think she knows what we are?” I asked.

Aiden propped himself against the guardrail. “I don’t know.”

We weren’t allowed to have pets on the island. Some pures could use compulsion to control their actions, which meant so could a daimon. It was rare and took an extremely powerful pure to do so, but it was a risk no one ever took. I’d always wanted a pet growing up—a cat.

“Mom believed they did,” I said. “She said animals could sense we were different from the mortals, especially cats.”

He was silent for a few moments, and I was sure his brain was turning. Putting together some sort of puzzle. “Did your mother like cats?”

I shrugged. “I think it had something to do with my father. Whenever we’d come here, we’d always ended up here right before we left.” I glanced over my shoulders, nodding at the weathered benches. “We’d sit over there and watch the cats.”

Aiden shifted closer, but didn’t speak.

I turned back to the pen, smiling. “It was the only time Mom would talk about my father. She never really said much about him. Except that he had the warmest brown eyes. I wonder if he had something to do with animals, you know?” I curled my fingers around the wire mesh of the fence. “Anyway, the last time we were here was when she told me he was dead and told me his name. She named me after him, did you know that? I guess that’s why Lucian hated it when Mom called me Alex. After a while, she started calling me Lexie instead. My father’s name was Alexander.”

Several moments passed where neither of us said anything. Aiden spoke first. “That’s why you like the zoo so much.”

“Yeah, you got me.” I laughed self-consciously.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, to want to be close to something that reminds you of your loved ones.”

“I didn’t even know him, Aiden.”

“Still,” he said. “He was your father.”

I watched the bobcat for a few more seconds. It prowled the edge of its pen, no longer curious about our presence. Its powerful muscles flexed under the spotted coat. There was something amazingly graceful about the way it moved.

“I hate to do this, but we need to head back, Alex.”

“I know.”

We started walking back through the park. Aiden was a lot quieter this time around—lost in thought. It didn’t take nearly long enough to reach the front gates. Thick trees gave it an almost surreal quality as we strolled back to the Hummer.

Before I knew it, I was sitting in the passenger seat, and Aiden had just put the keys into the ignition, but he hadn’t turned the car on. He twisted in his seat, facing me, and the expression on his face caused my heart to falter in my chest.

“I know how brave you are, Alex. But you don’t always have to be. It’s okay every once in a while to let someone else be brave for you. There’s no loss of dignity in that. Not for you. You’ve already proven that you have more dignity than even a pure-blood can muster.”

I kind of wondered where that had come from. “You must be high off sugar or something.”

Aiden laughed. “You just don’t see what we see, Alex. Even the times you’re being utterly ridiculous about something or when you’re just standing around, doing nothing, it’s hard to not notice. As a pure-blood it’s the last thing I should notice.” His eyes flickered shut, long lashes fanned his cheeks before his eyes reopened to reveal intense silver. “I don’t think you have a clue.”

The world outside the car ceased to exist. “What don’t I have a clue about?”

“Ever since I’ve met you, I’ve wanted to break every rule.” Aiden turned away, the muscles in his neck tensing. He sighed. “You’ll become the center of someone’s world one day. And he’ll be the luckiest son of a bitch on this earth.”

His words created a mad rush of strong emotions. I was hot—so incredibly hot. I really did think the world ended right then. Aiden glanced over at me, his lips parting. The intensity in his gaze, the hunger in his eyes left me dizzy. His chest rose sharply.

“Thank you.” My voice sounded thick. “Thanks for doing all of this for me.”

“You don’t need to thank me.”

“When am I ever supposed to thank you?”

“When I do something that is truly worth thanking me for.”

Those words struck a deep chord in me, and I don’t know who moved first. Who leaned over the center console—who was the first to cross the invisible line between us? Who broke the rules first? Aiden? Me? All I did know was that we both moved. Aiden’s hands were around my face, and mine fell to his chest, to where his heart beat just as fast as mine. In an instant, our lips met.

This kiss was nothing like the first one we’d shared. Its rawness left us both breathless. There wasn’t a moment of hesitation or indecision. There was just want and need and a thousand other powerful, crazy things. His lips scorched mine, his hands dropping to my shoulders, sliding down my arms. My skin burned under my sweater, but oh, this was so much more than just a kiss. It was the way he touched the deepest parts of me. My heart and soul would never be the same. It was nearly overwhelming to realize something as powerful as that and it brought a sense of urgency that pushed me into the unknown.