Captivate Me (Book One: The Captivated Series) (28 page)

Not long into our short journey, my
right leg folded, and Levi caught me before I crumpled to the
ground. He effortlessly hoisted me into his arms, and I didn’t
fight him – I could barely hold my eyes open now.

Before long, before we’d even gotten
back to the clearing, I surrendered to the healing serenity of
sleep as he held me. The worst of it was over, and I’d always felt
safe in his arms. Especially tonight.

* * *

The pad of a finger trailed down the
side of my face.

“Kat?” A whispering voice
cajoled.
Levi.

I groaned.
Ugh.
More sleep… I
needed more sleep.

The bed bounced as he chuckled. “Kat,
you need to wake up. The detective wants to see you
soon.”

“More sleep,” I mumbled, and I
swallowed over the bruise in my throat. It felt better.

“You’ve slept ten hours.”

I sighed, wanting desperately to drift
off again. I could have slept ten more. Maybe he would get the
hint.

His tender touch brushed the hair from
my face. “Kat… Principal Hughes made me promise to have you in his
office by eleven o’clock sharp. The detective needs to speak with
you. He’s with Anna now.”

I peered at him through my lashes. He
lay facing me on the bed. He’d probably lain with me the entire
night. “What time is it?”

“Ten o’clock. Figured you would want a
shower.”

My eyes opened fully, searching his,
contemplating how to bargain for a few more minutes, but he was
right – I needed to get up, get a shower and go through the basic
hygiene routine. “You saying I stink?” I teased.

His lips quirked with a dimpled
half-grin. “I see you feel good enough to make jokes. That’s a good
sign.”

I smiled back. “I guess.”

Silence lengthened between us, but not
a comfortable silence. At least not for me. There was still so much
to say.

His smile wavered, a question churning
beneath his turquoise eyes. “Why didn’t you just tell me,
Kat?”

“Tell you what?” I asked, confused.
“That I needed a shower?”

“No,” he replied, nudging me playfully
and forcing another smile that didn’t touch his eyes this time.
“That you were immortal. It would have made everything else so much
clearer.”

My heart sank. Of course it would
have, but I didn’t think I’d had a choice. At the time, I thought
it was as much for his protection as it was mine. Little did I know
I was taking my orders from the enemy. “I know. But would it have
broken your heart any less?”

His eyes dropped to the bed between
us. “Probably not,” he conceded, and he wrestled with his thoughts
for a moment. “But is it really such a bad thing? For us to be
together with one of us being mortal?”

“Not bad…” I replied.
“Just harder.”
I’m also in love with
someone else
, I thought.
I think.
I still had to
work out my issues with Gabriel. God, I hoped Iris had been
lying.

He nodded, accepting my answer more
easily than I’d expected. Maybe he was already moving on in his
heart, and everything that had happened last night helped confirm
why our break-up was for the better. We were too different. And
besides that, even if Gabriel and I didn’t work out, I still
couldn’t give him the all-consuming love he deserved. He wasn’t my
match.

“But I do want you to know
something,” I continued and reached for his hand, squeezing it to
emphasize what I was about to say. “I do care for you. I’ll
always
care for you. You
have a permanent place in my heart.”

“Just not your whole
heart.”

I offered a sympathetic
smile.

He sighed. “I guess I’ll take
it.”

With some secret thought, humor
flickered across his face, and damn if he still wasn’t one of the
hottest guys I knew. He would make some girl extremely happy one
day.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing…”

I poked his dimple with my finger.
“Tell me!”

He laughed. “You realize this would
have been a guys’ dream?”

“A guys’ dream?”

He paused, giving me an expectant
look, but I had no idea what he was getting at. “A guy growing into
an old wrinkly bat,” he finally said, “but his wife always young
and hot?”

I swatted his shoulder. “Ew! Don’t be
creepy!”

He howled with laughter, and I
couldn’t help but laugh along with him. He looked at me with mock
hurt. “What? You wouldn’t love me when I’m old and
wrinkly?”

“Oh, don’t turn this around on
me!”

He pulled me into a hug. “It’s okay… I
won’t tell anyone you secretly have a fetish for
grandpas.”

I shook my head against his shoulder.
“If I didn’t like you so much, you’d already have a black
eye.”

He kissed my cheek before pulling
away. “Let’s get going before the principal comes by.”

I caught his hand as he started to
roll out of bed. “Wait,” I said urgently.

He paused, searching my
eyes.

“There’s more I wanted to
say.”

“About what?”

I swallowed, hesitating about this
next part, but I decided to do it anyway. I needed to get it out
while it was the two of us. “I’m sorry you found out the way you
did about Gabe. You deserved better than that.”

“Stop,” he said, clasping my shoulder,
“I’m over it.”

I gave him a ‘yeah, right’ look. I saw
how he’d looked at us last night.

“Okay,” he conceded.
“Not
over it
, but
I’m trying to accept it.”

“I still think you’re being too nice
about it. I basically cheated on you. You need to get mad… punch
something. Yell at me.”

He smiled ruefully. “Oh, I’ve been
mad. You should see the wall in my closet. Looks like swiss
cheese.”

I gaped.

“Kat,” he said, giving my shoulder a
gentle shake, “I understand now – he’s a better match for…” He
couldn’t complete the sentence. Yep, he definitely wasn’t over it
yet. Not that I expected him to be. At all.

Better match for
you
, I finished in my head.

“Besides,” he continued. “I almost
lost you last night. For good. I’m just glad you’re alive. I’d
rather have you in my life as a friend than not at all.”

Tears welled –being his friend was
more than I’d hoped for, a divine privilege. Teenage boys weren’t
supposed to be this sweet, this mature. I was almost jealous of the
girl that would have him one day. And that was another thing – I
was alive and breathing because of him. “Thank you,” I managed.
“For helping save my life.”

He pulled me in for a long hug. “You’d
have done the same for me.”

A million times
over
, I thought, my tears wetting his
shirt.

“Now come on,” he said and grasped my
hand as he stood. “We need to go.”

* * *

While I showered and dressed, Levi
waited in the bedroom. Every now and then I felt like I would
shatter into a million pieces. My bones felt so tired and brittle,
as though each of them were webbed with hairline cracks – an
after-effect of the exhaustion, emotions and elixir, I’m sure. When
I got back, I’d rest some more.

I scrunched my hair into a towel to
get rid of the drips and threw it into a ponytail. Eyeing myself in
the hole I’d wiped in the steamy mirror, I sighed. For someone who
was part angel, I sure looked a hot mess most of the time. At least
this week, anyway. The purple and yellow bruises ringing my neck
weren’t helping.

As we made our way toward Principal
Hughes’ office, Levi clasped my hand supportively.

“What do you think he wants?” I
asked.

“Who?”

“The detective.”

“It’s normal to give statements when
things like this happen.”

I took his word for it.

“Just tell them everything you
know.”

We came to his
door,
Principal Hughes
etched in bold, black letters across a gold plate. I knocked.
“One moment, please,” a voice answered.
The detective.

Minutes later, the door swung open
with the detective’s back facing us. He wore a navy suit today.
“And if there’s anything else, Ms. Darcy,” he said, handing Anna a
very professional-looking card, “here’s where you can reach
me.”

On her way out, she caught sight of
me, and we embraced. ”Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I whispered
– a litany of gratitude to a friend who’d saved my life.

Her voice broke. “Us girls have to
stick together, huh?”

“
How can I ever repay
you?”

She pulled back, bracing her hands on
my shoulders with a tearful smile. “Don’t go wandering around the
woods anymore alone, ya big dummy.”

I swiped a tear that traveled along
her cheek. “Done.”

“Ms. Walsh?” the detective said. “I
hate to interrupt, but we need to get started.”

I gave Anna one last hug. “See you in
the room.”

“I’ll wait here,” Levi
said.

CHAPTER TWENTY

___________________

Stupid

Waiting to begin, I shifted in the
wingback chair facing Principal Hughes’ mahogany desk; I shouldn’t
have felt uncomfortable talking about any of it. They’d seen the
aftermath of what had happened, and they’d already spoken to others
about what went down and why. I chalked it up to sitting in the
Principal’s office opposite an officer. I’d never been questioned
by an officer… or been in a Principal’s office.

While the suit-clad detective
scribbled lavishly in his notepad, my eyes moved to Principal
Hughes, who sat on a leather couch in the far end of the room. A
wall of leather-bound books towered over him. He gave me his
typical wrinkly smile. He looked relieved, but still weary with
exhaustion. I wondered how many years of his life he’d lost over
all this.

“So, Ms. Walsh,” the detective began,
drawing my attention back to him.

“Yes, detective?”

“Please, call me Paul.”

“Yes, Paul?”

“Let’s start with you going into the
woods last night.”

I told them everything, sparing no
details, minus my kiss with Gabriel and him bringing me flowers
during the night; they didn’t need to know any of that. I told him
about wandering into the woods, them revealing themselves to me. I
told him about how they’d explained to me I was an immortal hybrid
and how, ironically enough, I was in danger from witches and I
should come live with them. The hardest part to get through was
reliving the last twenty-four hours – asking Iris to help find the
missing students, only to be drugged and tied to a tree. But the
officer was patient, never prodding or pushing me to continue when
I needed to take a moment so I wouldn’t fall apart.

After telling them everything I could
possibly remember, I expected to get my ass reamed from both of
them about sneaking into the woods when I should have been in my
room, but they only focused their attention on their notes. They
didn’t even seem surprised I was immortal. I guess by now, nothing
sounded too crazy.

“Is that all you needed?” I
asked.

Paul circled something on his note pad
with emphasis. “Not quite.” He produced a manila folder from his
briefcase and opened it, slid pictures across the desk of three
blonde women taken from a distance, one of whom was Iris. My
stomach twisted with venomous hate at the sight of her. Paul tapped
his pen on the youngest looking one. “This is Lilliana, Iris’
younger sister. Did you happen to come into contact with her during
your visits in the woods?”

“No sir,” I replied,
soaking in her portrait. She and Iris favored, but Lilliana had
higher cheekbones, electric green eyes the color of grass after a
spring rain, and her white blonde hair had a subtle wave. Prettier
than Iris, but she didn’t hide her evil as well. Her eyes had a
‘don’t cross me’ look behind them, almost murderous.
Beautiful but terrible
,
I mused.
Like her sister.

I moved my attention to the picture of
Rose. Her bald head gleamed in the sunlight, her eyes sunken, body
wiry and pale. Years of cancer treatment had done a number on
her.

“These are the LaRoux sisters,” Paul
explained. “I’ve been after the two youngest – Lilliana and Iris –
for some time. I suspected their involvement in another ritual
almost twenty years ago. A lot like the one Iris tried to perform
last night with Kai.”

I shuddered at the memory. “Yeah,
she’d confessed to me that she and her sister had been involved in
one years ago so they could become immortal.”

He sighed as though I’d given him
long-awaited news. “I knew it.”