I let that implication sink in. The brutality of those Protectors killing my kind for a quick injection of sensation terrified me.
“I shouldn’t be able to sit near you, Remy. Not this long and not with my defenses down. But it gets easier every day. I told you, you’re unique.” His voice held a fierce promise. “I’ll take whatever danger comes with this. You’re worth the risk.”
His words cut me with a new pain. What if he didn’t feel the way I did? Maybe this was really about my power. I rose to my feet. “So, what now?”
He stood, too, and we faced each other. “We spend time together. Get to know each other.”
I nodded, knowing there wasn’t another option, as we walked toward the car. Too much was left for us to discover about each other, too many questions we had yet to answer. By a strange accident of fate, we’d bonded as Protector and Healer. Asher vowed to protect me with his life. Part of me felt glad to have someone watching over me, but I refused to play the weak damsel in distress.
He cared about me to some extent: His actions made that clear. Still, I wondered if his craving to be human lay at the heart of his desire to be near me. The possibility terrified me because the real reason I didn’t want him in my head and in my heart had come to me when I considered losing him: I was falling in love with my enemy.
“Asher?”
“Hmm?”
He sounded distracted as he steered the car toward my home. The sun had set and left the car’s interior dark, or I never would have found the nerve to ask my question.
“Can you feel me?”
“Of course. I can always feel when your walls are up. You know, you’re the first Healer I’ve ever met who had defenses. Apparently, you even impressed Gabe with your ability. I know you don’t care for him, but I wondered if you’d come to my house for dinner anyway?”
Caught up in my embarrassment at his misunderstanding my question, I nearly missed the anxiety in his question. “I’d love to.” I would love to question his family. Anna had said I could cure Protectors of their immortality, but she hadn’t given any details on how it worked. Maybe I could learn more if I spent time with the Blackwells.
Then, Asher’s other words registered. He’d never met a Healer with defenses, which only reinforced what Anna had said. “Asher, you’ve said before that I’m unique. What did you mean? Is it because I have the ability to block you?”
A passing streetlight revealed his thoughtful frown. “No, though you having that ability is amazing in itself. All Protectors have mental shields and are taught to strengthen them as children to better help Healers—to keep our energy separate from theirs during the healing process.”
“The mental prods.” At his confused look, I added, “The way you send your energy at me sometimes. It feels like someone is poking me in the head.”
He grinned at my description. “Yeah. That’s how our parents train us to strengthen our shields. When it became clear you didn’t know what a Protector was, I thought it would be a good idea to help you strengthen yours.”
I smirked as I shifted in my seat to face him. “Plus, you wanted to annoy me.”
“That was just a bonus.” He didn’t bother to hide his smug satisfaction.
Leaning over, I smacked him in the arm. My casual, affectionate gesture surprised us both, and it brought me back to the question I’d asked earlier. I didn’t have the nerve to ask again if he could feel my skin the way I felt his when we touched. What if the same touch that gave me pleasure only brought him pain?
“The way you heal people is different, too,” he continued. “I’ve never heard of a Healer who absorbed the injuries of the people they healed or had mild hypothermia afterward. Not to mention how you can push your own injuries off on others. Somehow, you’re able to manipulate energy in ways I’ve never seen.”
“Hypothermia?” Skepticism filled my voice.
He chided me. “Remy, your lips turned blue, you shivered like crazy, and you were so distracted you didn’t notice I read your mind.”
I grimaced at him. “Don’t remind me. I’ll get mad again.”
“Do you always lose body heat like that after a healing?”
“Only with serious injuries, especially head wounds. It never happens when I heal myself.”
He absorbed this in silence. We’d almost arrived at my house and disappointment set in again.
“You were cold after you healed my hand. Why weren’t you able to heal yourself right away?”
I hesitated to tell the truth knowing how upset it would make him, and he smiled to encourage me. “I promise I can take it. I already know what kind of pain you were in.”
“Okay. After I healed you, the pain was so intense I couldn’t think. I couldn’t heal myself.”
“But you did something. I know you did because your body relaxed after I started talking to you.” He pulled the car onto my street and parked in front of our driveway, switching on the interior light so he could see my face.
“Well, I couldn’t concentrate enough to heal myself, but I couldn’t let the pain continue. It’s hard to explain, but basically, I killed the nerves in my hand so my brain couldn’t register the pain.”
The anguish on his face said he hadn’t been prepared for my answer.
“Don’t look like that, Asher.” I ran a hand across his cheek to comfort him. “There was no risk. I’ve done it before.”
“When Dean burned you with his cigarettes?” he said, in a hard tone.
I looked at him in surprise. The morning I’d met Asher in Townsend Park he’d been listening in when I remembered Dean’s attack and my visit to the hospital. His anger that morning made more sense. At my nod, Asher reached for my arm, brushing away his jacket. “Show me,” he asked.
I tried to pull away from his grasp. “Asher, don’t. It won’t do any good.”
His expression didn’t soften, but his voice held a plea. “It matters to me, Remy. I saw what he did in your thoughts. Please show me.”
A beseeching Asher proved impossible to resist. Under his watchful gaze, I pulled off my jacket and the cardigan I wore underneath. I twisted my arm around so he could see the ugly scar peeking from under my short-sleeve shirt. Asher’s jaw tightened, and I looked away in shame.
“He’s a monster. What kind of man does this to a child?”
His fingers brushed the mark in a delicate whisper of a touch. My voice sounded flat when I answered his question. “Dean didn’t know what I could do, but he suspected. No matter how quickly I could heal myself, he wanted me to know that he had the capacity to give more pain because I was his to do with as he pleased. Now, it’s a reminder that I can survive anything, and I belong to no one except myself.”
I knew I sounded defiant, but I couldn’t take pity from Asher.
He met my rebellious look with a direct stare, while his hands gripped my arms. “I don’t pity you, Remy. What Dean did to you . . . It would’ve broken a lot of people, made them hard like he is, but you’re strong. You’re good inside, and he could never touch that. Don’t ever be ashamed of surviving a bastard like that.”
Dampness clouded my vision, and I blinked to force it away. My jaw hurt from clenching it against the tears I refused to let fall. Asher seemed to understand I needed distance to pull myself together and let me go. I used the time to pull my sweater and coat back on.
My eyes didn’t quite meet Asher’s when I said, “See you tomorrow?”
He nodded and I climbed out of the car. Before I could slam the door closed, he called my name and I ducked my head back in. I wasn’t prepared for the heat blazing from his eyes.
“There’s another way you’re unique that I haven’t told you about.”
“What’s that?”
“I haven’t known the touch of another human being in over a century. I feel you, Remy. Every touch, every look. I feel you. Go inside. I’ll see you at school.”
Stupefied, I stepped back and closed the car door. The car didn’t pull away until I stumbled into the house on unsteady legs and closed the front door behind me with a tiny smile.
C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN
A
sher waited in the school parking lot the next morning, and I moved towards him like a pigeon to a homing beacon. He straightened with a sweet smile that warmed me from the inside out. As he took my book bag, his hand reached for mine, giving me ample time to reinforce my defenses before he folded my small, mitten-covered hand into his larger one. A million reasons existed why we shouldn’t do this, but not one of them mattered as we stood there smiling at each other.
He nodded toward my friends. “Would your friends mind if I walked you to class?”
“Probably.” Absolutely, if Lucy had anything to say about it. She’d given me an earful the night before when I told her I intended to see Asher. She’d warned me he would break my heart and assured me she’d be there to pick up the pieces because that’s what “loving sisters did when their idiot siblings made a huge, frickin’ mistake.” The short ride to school this morning had been a silent, awkward one.
Sure the hole I felt being bored into my back was accomplished by Lucy’s angry glare, I shrugged. “Let’s do it anyway.”
Asher’s forehead wrinkled in concern, but I distracted him by tugging his hand. Of course, he wasn’t pulled off balance. He merely tugged back, and I was thrown against his chest. He grinned down at me and teased, “I’m stronger, remember? Me, Protector. You, Healer.”
I gave him an innocent smile. “You’re lucky I’m wearing mittens right now, or I’d make you pay for that.”
His lips curved in a smirk as if he doubted my ability to do so.
Still smiling, I eased my walls down and created a very vivid mental picture of a video game version of me flexing bulging arm muscles in a threatening manner.
Laughter bubbled out of Asher, loud enough to draw stares, and I imagined what the others saw. Like me, they had to have noticed that popular Asher Blackwell kept himself from them. Always in control, always in check. The Asher before me was a different one from the boy I’d met on the beach—still beautiful, but somehow more relaxed. More touchable. In fact, my fingers itched to trace the scar that slashed through his eyebrow.
He stripped off my mitten, lifted our joined hands to his face, and folded my palm along the curve of his cheek with the tip of my finger near his brow. The remnants of a smile lingered at the corners of his mouth. “You have an odd fascination with my scar.”
I’d forgotten to raise my guard again, distracted by his easy laugh, and he’d read my mind. Worried my touch hurt him, I tried to pull away, but he held tightly. He pleaded, “Don’t go,” and I knew he wasn’t referring to my hand in his. “Trust me, Remy,” he whispered. “I won’t hurt you.”
For a long moment, I stared into his eyes, wavering. It wasn’t him I didn’t trust, and I raised my shield, hoping no one noticed the green sparks shooting from my skin to his. “I can’t.”
Asher turned his head and pressed soft lips into the palm of my hand in a movement so quick I would have thought I imagined it, except for the heat radiating from the spot he’d kissed. He started walking toward the main building, and I stumbled along at his side. Everywhere, eyes followed us, gawking at Asher Blackwell holding the new girl’s hand. He didn’t seem to notice and said in a conversational tone, “Did you know you have a freckle right there at the corner of your mouth?” He gestured to the right corner of his own mouth.
I stopped walking to gape at him, but he tugged me along in his wake. Yes, I knew I had a freckle. It taunted me every time I looked at myself in the mirror.
In the same tone, he continued, “
Peter Pan
is a favorite story in my family. Not the cartoon version, but the real J. M. Barrie version. He’s the boy that never grew up. We went to the play when it opened in the early 1900s. Have you read it?”
We had neared my class, and he pulled me out of the crowded hallway to a spot near the wall where he shielded me with his body. He didn’t wait for me to answer his question.
“In the story, Mrs. Darling—Wendy’s mother—has a kiss hidden in the right-hand corner of her mouth. No matter how hard her children or her husband try, they can never capture that kiss. It mocks them and puzzles them. Your freckle is like that kiss. It’s hidden just there in plain view and teases me.
“I tell you so you’ll know I understand about your interest in this.” As he said “this,” he traced the scar on his face. “You can trust me. I won’t hurt you.”
Warm fingers brushed that freckle as he watched me with gentle eyes. My defenses crumbled under that tender look, and I watched helplessly when he handed me my bag and walked away.
When the lunch bell rang, I rushed out of calculus to find Asher waiting in the hall. He’d managed to get from his class to mine quicker than it should have taken him, and I bet he’d used his Protector abilities to do it.
He reached for my hand with a comfortable familiarity, and we walked to the cafeteria. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye and found him doing the same thing. We both looked away sheepishly. I’d never had a boyfriend—my secrets hadn’t been conducive to a relationship—and I wasn’t sure how I should act. Would we eat with his friends or mine?
He seemed stumped by that problem, too, when we stepped into the cafeteria and the occupants of both tables eyed us with an air of expectation. Asher turned to me. “How about we find a new table to sit at today? Maybe one where there aren’t so many ears eavesdropping on us?”
“You read my mind.”
I winced when I heard my words. He laughed at my expression and the awkward moment passed. Carrying two trays through the line, he piled food on both, and I followed him to an empty table, eying the food he’d collected as we sat down.
“Pizza? A Twinkie? Are you kidding me? I can’t subsist on junk food alone.”
He looked sheepish again, and I had a sneaking suspicion I knew why. “You’ve never had any of these things, have you? You want to know what they taste like.”
Suddenly, he sounded very polite. “I have to admit, I’m a bit curious.”
I snorted and pulled the tray closer. “You want to satisfy your curiosity at the expense of my waistline.”
An edge of excitement entered his voice. “American pizza and Twinkies were inventions that came after the War. I’ve eaten them since, of course, but they have no flavor. Are they as good as they look?”
His boyish anticipation had me grinning. It was comforting to discover he was like any other male, at least where his stomach was concerned. “Time to find out. Are you sure you want to do this? Your illusions may be forever shattered.”
For a moment his eyes turned serious. “Do you mind, Remy? I’m being entirely selfish here. Please don’t feel like you have to appease me.”
I rolled my eyes and let my guard down. “Give me a break, Asher. There’s no harm, as long as you’re okay to touch me?”
He nodded and watched in anticipation as I picked up the Twinkie and took a huge bite. I tapped my finger against his hand under the table—in case those damn sparks made an appearance—as I chewed on the yellow sponge cake and its sugary white filling. He closed his eyes, while I chewed. After a moment, his eyes popped open and he sent me a disappointed frown.
“You don’t like them, do you?”
I laughed and tossed the leftover cake back on the tray. “No. I got sick from eating too many of them when I was a kid. How did you know?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I could just tell. It felt different from your memory of ice cream.”
Picking up the slice of pizza, I took a bite. Again, I touched his hand as mozzarella, tomato sauce, and sourdough crust mingled with the spice of pepperoni. This time, a smile curved his lips as he watched me. He said, “You definitely like pizza.”
Pulling my hand from his, I grinned. “Wait until you try a café mocha.”
His eyebrow rose. “Your favorite, I take it?”
“Chocolate and espresso blended into caffeinated perfection. What’s not to like?”
He leaned forward, placing both elbows on the table as he studied me intently. “What else do you like?”
“The list is too long to go over at lunch.” I patted my flat stomach. I’d put on some weight since moving to Blackwell Falls and my hip bones no longer jutted out the way they had before. Laura put huge helpings on my plate at mealtimes in her attempt to fatten me, as Lucy had warned me she intended to do. “Contrary to popular opinion in my home, I am a girl who likes to eat. I think healing burns off a lot of calories.”
“Let’s start with your favorites, then.”
The serious look on his face said he wasn’t kidding. I took a moment to think about my answer. “Okay, let’s see.” I ticked my answers off on my fingers. “Café mochas. Macaroni and cheese. French fries with tons of ketchup. A juicy hamburger smothered in bleu cheese. Coffee ice cream swirled with fudge.”
Asher’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he listened. “I see a theme of coffee and chocolate in your list.”
I grinned without apology. “What about you? What were your favorites?”
He didn’t even have to think about his answer and rattled them off in rapid fire. “Roast turkey with dressing. Bread pudding. Beefsteak pie. Scones with thick clotted cream and loads of gooseberry jam. And tea, of course.”
For some reason, the last answers made me giggle. I could imagine him as a teenage boy in a very proper tuxedo sipping tea from fancy china and eating scones in a formal Victorian drawing room, while the ladies around him embroidered his handkerchiefs. When he raised his eyebrows at my laughter, I touched his hand to let him in on the scene I pictured.
He grinned when he saw my mental image of him. “The clothing is off by a decade, but you’ve got the rest of it about right.”
Curious, I leaned forward. “How old are you, Asher?”
Before answering, he gave me a long, considering look. “I was born in 1868.”
I quickly did the math. I’d known approximately how old he was based on what he’d told me, but knowing the exact number stunned me. I tried to process the information, but the hilarity of the entire situation struck me. My head dropped to the table as I collapsed in gales of laughter.
“Remy?” Asher sounded worried.
When I looked his way, he glanced around awkwardly at all the stares my outburst had drawn. That only made me laugh harder, and I couldn’t answer him. When he appeared offended, I held up a hand as I tried to sober.
“What is so funny?”
Able to speak at last, I whispered, “You and me. Lucy warned me not to date you because you’re a player. What would she say if she found out I was dating an older man?”
His eyes gleamed with some emotion I couldn’t name. “And you? What do you think?”
I sobered entirely at his serious tone. “I won’t say it’s normal, but nothing about us is. I think I understand why I feel so comfortable with you when I’ve never fit in with people my own age.”
My answer pleased him, and he slid his hand across the table to clasp mine. He spent the rest of lunch grilling me on my “favorites” while we pretended no one watched.
English continued in the same vein.
He quizzed me on any question that popped into his head, only now his questions were written on a piece of paper, while my answers appeared in my head. It grew easier for Asher to see inside my mind when my defenses were down, even without touching me. As long as I knew he listened, I could censor myself somewhat on the things I’d think about, though it wasn’t foolproof by any means.
I found this out when he scrawled in his bold print,
Where do you see yourself in five years?
It was a standard question on the college applications I’d filled out months ago when I could only dream of escaping Brooklyn. Instead of my standard response of graduating from a top university with degree in hand, an unbidden image of the two of us popped into my mind. In the mental vision, Asher had his arms wrapped around my waist, and we were obviously a couple. Horrified, I shut down the link between us and couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
When I ignored his mental prods, he tapped his pen against his desk so insistently Mrs. Welles frowned at us. I lowered my guard and thought,
Cut it out! You’re going to get us both in trouble.
He tapped his paper again, and I read
Why you are embarrassed?
Duh! You have to ask? I didn’t plan on thinking that. It popped into my head.
He wrote again.
Ask me where I see myself in five years.
There was a definite edge to my mental voice when I complied.
Fine. Where do you see yourself in five years?
When he lifted his pen a long moment later, I stared at what he’d drawn. I thought it was supposed to be the two of us, holding hands. It could also have been an elephant grazing in the grasslands. I couldn’t be sure because he was one of the worst artists I’d ever seen in my life. Looking up into his amused gaze, I realized he’d exposed this weakness on purpose.