Blind Destiny: Grimm's Circle, Book 7 [retail mobi] (19 page)

“I keep telling you, that’s the wrong fairy tale.”

“Hmmm. Well, you are sleepy. And you are rather beautiful. It seems to fit to me,” I pointed out. I slid my hand across his belly, gingerly testing the healing flesh at his side. “It’s better.”

“Yes.”

“You should eat.”

“Wait.” He caught my wrist. “We need to talk, Sina.”

“There’s no reason to talk, Luc.”

Something clouded his lovely blue eyes. It chilled me. To the core.

“There is,” he said quietly. “I told you I was falling in love with you. You didn’t tell me how you felt. I think I’d like to know.”

So bluntly stated—

Clenching my jaw, I buried my face against his chest.
Time,
damn it. I wanted to shriek at him that we needed to take time, even as I wanted to clutch him close and never let him go. “We really don’t know each other terribly well, Luc. Not for declarations such as that. I…what I think is that we should take our time. See what happens.”

“Are you saying you don’t love me?”

“That’s not what I said,” I pointed out.

“You either have feelings for me or you don’t.” He shook his head and pulled away. “Maybe it’s too soon, and I get that. But then you think you could have them, and you let me know that. I don’t need platitudes or shit, Sina. Neither of us are children, and neither of us are fools. I’ve spent enough time alone.”

Something hollow settled in my throat. Is that where this was coming from? He’d found a woman he liked fucking and he was done being alone?

“I’m not about to be rushed into something just because
you
have spent enough time alone,” I snapped.

He sat there on the edge of the bed, his back to me. Hearing a familiar clicking sound, I looked up as Krell came into the room. Was it my imagination or did that damned dog give me a censuring look?

“Very well then,” Luc said quietly. Krell went to him and rested his head on Luc’s leg. “I’m going to shower. I need some time to myself, if you would. I’m healing up and there’s no reason for you to linger here. You can leave whenever you wish.”

The dismissal in his voice was clear.

Politely voiced. But very clear.

Chapter Thirteen

“Who is he working with, damn it?”

Will rubbed the back of his neck as he watched Mandy try to talk with the new girl, Natasha.

So far, she hadn’t spoken a word.

Not in the three days she’d been with them.

Tucking a hand in the back pocket of his jeans, he turned to Perci.

“Look, Percinette, my hands are rather full right now. You needed to talk, so I brought you here, but if it’s about Luc, you’ll just have to leave. He isn’t your concern,” Will said.

She glared at him and spun away, pacing the room. Then she stormed back over to him and tried to drill a hole in his chest with her finger. “That’s one of my best friends—hell, he
is
my best friend and I’m hoping the two of us can find a way to keep that friendship whole. He’s hurting and he’s miserable and lately, you seem to be just as interested in playing matchmaker as you do our boss. Everybody ends up mated lately.”

“Not everybody.” He smiled. “I had Jacob and Rob working together briefly and I assure you, those two will never mate.”

She curled her lip. “You didn’t have them working together. Jacob’s girl got stuck in a mess, that’s all.”

Will shrugged. There were more than a few pairs he’d teamed up together who weren’t involved, but nobody ever paid any attention to them. Their stories just weren’t interesting enough to tell around a campfire, to email or whatever sufficed for the gossip grapevine these days. “Only some of you are being paired up. And it’s not
my
intention that’s doing it. I just do what I’m told,” he said.

“Fine. Who were you told to put him with?”

Will debated. Finally, he sighed and pushed a hand through his hair. “Sina.”

Perci blanched.

The look on her face both amused and aggravated him.

“Are you
nuts
? She’d practically eat her own young!”

Now
that
pissed him off. “She wouldn’t.” Striding to the young Grimm, he fisted a hand in her shirt and jerked her close. “You know little of her, so be silent. And be advised…she’s adored him for almost as long as she’s known him. He deserves to be loved, Perci. Just as you did. Let him be happy.”

“Will she make him happy?” Perci demanded, shoving her face into his.

“She can.”

“Will she
let
herself?” The woman shook her head. “I knew she had feelings for him, but will she let herself? He’s not going to wait around, and I know that for a fact. He’ll ask her once, but if she pushes him away, he’s giving up his wings.”

Will scowled. “Don’t be fool…”

He felt the call. And when he recognized who it was, he found himself staring at Perci, dazed.

He barked an order to Mandy, sending it along a mental path and then he turned, casting his portal. “Stay here,” he ordered Perci.

“No.”

“You can’t make this decision for him,” Will said. As much as he wished otherwise, this call was Luc’s.

And Luc’s alone.

“I know that. But you can take me to Sina. She’s the reason he’s done. She should damn well know what she’s doing.”

The woman striding toward me was the last woman I wanted to see.

Red-gold hair, heart-shaped face, milky-pale skin. The perfect contrast to her handsome prince. Although he wasn’t hers, anymore.
He’s mine…

Was he, though?

Or was he just tired of being alone?

I understood loneliness. Better than most people could understand.

But I wouldn’t be his teddy bear in the night, only there because he longed for a warm body.

“All the stories I’ve heard about you.”

Those were the first words out of her mouth. Perci threw them out like a challenge and then she just stood there, shaking her head.

“Perci, dear…go fuck yourself.” I caught my hair in my hand and started to braid it. Luc had a lovely place here. Trying to brace myself, steel myself, I looked over at her. “Did you help him pick the place out?”

She curled her lip at me. “He bought it a few months ago. I’ve never even seen it.”

“Hmm.” I stood at the cliff, although I wanted to be at the lake a mile away. That was where he was. I could feel it in my heart. “Why ever did Will send you here?”

“I made him bring me. Luc summoned him and he had to come for Luc, but I made him bring me…so I could tell you what you are getting ready to lose.”

Frowning, I turned to her. “Summoned Will…”

Odd words.

Will wasn’t summoned. He gave orders, not the other way around. There were very, very few instances when he could actually
be
summoned by one of us. The pendant at my neck heated.

“He won’t live through another five centuries, another thousand years with a broken heart,” Perci said quietly. “I don’t know
why
he fell in love with you. I don’t know how it happened so fucking fast. Hell, for all I know, it started when you took him on to train him. But he’s in love with you. He already told you, I know that. Do you love him?”

As the pendant around my neck pulsed, heated, I stared at her. “That’s none of your concern.”

“No. But it is yours. Fine…if you love him, you need to go to him. And tell him.
Now
. Before you lose him, forever. I broke him, Sina. He was a good man, and I broke him, and I have to live with that. Now you’re getting ready to do the same thing…at least I know that the two of us were grieving, torn apart inside—both of us were a mess. What’s your excuse? Because I
know
how you feel.” She watched me, her eyes glowing. “I feel it. And you won’t tell him.”

Then she turned away. “Will’s with him. And he’s trying to talk him out of giving up his wings. You don’t have more than a few minutes.”

“You’re certain.”

Luc held his pendant in his hand.

Krell leaned against his leg, a solid, reassuring presence. The one constant in his life.

“I’ve already answered that, Will,” he said quietly.

“You know what you lose.” He paused a moment and then, his boots whispering over the grass, he knelt beside Krell. Luc sensed him, saw him with that second sight. “You lose more than most, Luc. Nobody truly understands the other gifts you have. The second sight…it will be gone. And although I don’t think it will affect Krell immediately, in a few years, he’ll start to age normally. And then he’ll die. You’ll have to adjust to the human world as one who is truly blind, and the next companion you take…you’ll lose him in a few short years.”

Luc shook his head. “I’ve lost so much in my life, I should scarcely think it would matter anymore.” Then he passed a hand over his eyes. “Besides, I’ve had more than my fair share of luck. If I have to deal with being truly blind, then that’s what I have to deal with. I’ll adjust. But I’m done, Will. I’m tired. It’s just…”

A knot lodged in his throat and he thought of the few hours he’d had over the past few days. A few scant hours. Out of centuries. The only time he’d finally felt whole.

It just wasn’t enough.

“It’s too hard anymore, Will. I’m tired of it all.”

He reached out a hand and waited until Will offered his own. Putting the pendant in Will’s palm, he curled the other man’s fingers around it. “You’ve got others who are just as capable than I am. More than. You don’t need me.”

I heard him.

As I flew across the grass, time slowed to a crawl, even though I
knew
it had only been mere seconds since I’d left Perci on the cliffside.

“It’s too hard anymore, Will. I’m tired of it all.”

He hadn’t seemed that terribly tired the past week. I could see the silver of his pendant. Watched as he placed it in Will’s palm.

“Don’t
,” I shouted into Will’s mind.

He stiffened, slowly lifting his head.

“I cannot deny him what is his choice
,” Will said quietly. Sadly.

“You can give me five fucking minutes to speak with him
.”

“You’ve got others who are just as capable than I am. More than. You don’t need me.”

Stumbling to a halt thirty yards away, I called out, “And what about me, damn it?”

Will rose.

Luc stiffened.

The pendant still swung from Will’s hand. I glared at him, all but ready to beg. “
Five minutes
.”

He closed his eyes. “
You cannot make this choice for him
.”

I nodded. No. I couldn’t. And if he decided he was done, then damn it, so was I.

But if he was doing this just because of me, I had to fix it.

“Before I do something that can’t be undone, you should speak with her,” Will said quietly.

Luc said nothing.

Will disappeared in a burst of light and I watched Luc, closing the rest of the distance between us. He sat there rigidly, his spine unyielding. When I knelt beside him, he didn’t so much as cast a glance my way.

“Hasty choice there, Luc,” I said quietly.

“It wasn’t hasty.” He came to his feet, a loose, easy motion that belied the fact that he’d been grievously injured only days earlier. “I’ve been thinking about it off and on for months. Longer. For a few days, I thought maybe it was the wrong decision, but…”

He shrugged. “That’s neither here nor there. I’m tired, Sina. I’m just tired of it all. I’m tired of being alone, and I’m tired of feeling empty and I’m not going to spend century after century like this.”

“So you’re sulking…because you told me you loved me and I wouldn’t answer back,” I said. The wind kicked up, tugging at the long skirt I wore, at my hair, tangling with it.

A snarl darkened his face. “Sulking. Fine. If that’s what you want to call it, fuck, call it that.”

“So it is about that?” I stared at him, trying to figure out what to do, what to say. I was losing him, losing our chance…how could I have so much history behind me, so many years…even the ability to weave a thousand tales, but not have the words to make this better? Or even the ability to understand what was
wrong
? “You’re having a tantrum and going to give up a life, a calling, because you’re sulking?”

He moved so fast…so very fast. His hand snaked out, fisted in the front of my shirt and I landed against him with a startled,
Oomph.
His fingers tangled in my hair, jerked my head back. “Yes, darling…I’m sulking. I’m sulking because I finally found a woman who made me feel whole. Centuries of emptiness. Of nothing. Then you come along, and I feel whole. I thought perhaps,
finally
, I’d have a chance at being happy. But the woman I love doesn’t want to be rushed.” He slanted a harsh, brutal kiss against my lips, one that stole my breath away. “That’s all well and good. I won’t rush you. But I’m
tired
, Sina. You won’t be rushed…but I can’t live like this anymore. I’m
done
. Now would you leave me be?”