Page 8 of Awakened Gifts

I push him back just enough to give us some separation so I can think rationally. “Or we can go have the breakfast everyone is expecting you to be at. These people survived a three month stint in an underground prison. I think it’d be good for them to feel as though the commander cares enough to sit down and eat a meal with them. Especially since we skipped the dinner.”

His lips tighten as he looks down, not meeting my eyes. He hasn’t given me his mismatched hybrid blues since he got back yesterday either, so it’s apparent he doesn’t want to discuss anything. At all. But I know something happened.

“You’re shutting me out of your mind,” he says with a frown, bringing his eyes back to meet mine. “I can’t hear your thoughts, but I can tell you’re thinking.”

At least I’m getting a little better when I focus on it. “Then I guess that makes two of us. You’ve been shutting me off from reading your emotions since yesterday. And you won’t tell me what’s going on. Is this about Kellan coming here? Are you worried? Because you shouldn’t be. I don’t feel anything at all for him—”

“I know,” he interrupts, stroking my side affectionately. “I hear your thoughts any time he’s around. You really don’t care.”

He almost looks... guilty. It’s confusing the hell out of me.

“You’re right. We should go to breakfast. I’ll get dressed, and you can make everyone envy me for having the most incredible woman in the room.”

He gives me a smile that almost fools me into believing everything is okay, and then he kisses me sweetly before standing up. I watch with great appreciation as his naked body glides across the floor to the bathroom.

“I heard that,” he says, snickering as he disappears from sight.

“I wanted you to,” I say with a grin.

His laughter continues as the water comes on, and I resume getting ready. Maybe he’ll tell me what’s going on after breakfast.

Chapter 4

ARIA

Jase has been stiff all throughout breakfast. In fact, I’m almost positive that he’s never going to walk casually again because of how tense he’s been.

Are you okay?

He turns to me and nods, his eyes glancing down the table for the hundredth time, but I don’t know who or what he’s looking for.

“Erin,” a guy says, and the place on the chair arm that is under Jase’s hand is crumbled into almost nothing as the wood creaks and breaks.

I look up just as a girl with bright red hair sits down across from us, her eyes meeting mine for a brief second, and I almost gasp. She’s displaying her mismatched blues, and that’s not all she’s sharing.

I look between her and Jase, and I notice his eyes have changed. A wave of nausea crashes over me when I feel it—their connection that is almost tangible because it’s so strong and overpowering. Jase looks at me, panic in his eyes, and the tension he was radiating is now filling me.

“Sorry I’m late,” the girl says, making Jase’s heart rate speed up. “It’s still hard adjusting to having a new schedule after repeating the same routine for so long.”

I swallow hard and look to Simone. Her eyes are trained on a small boy beside her, so she doesn’t notice my anxiety that is crawling all over me.

Jase reaches over and squeezes my hand, probably trying to reassure me that it’s... Fuck, I don’t know. But I do know why the hell he was flipping the hell out yesterday. He met her. He knows. He feels this, because I’m feeling it between the two of them.

Right now, I wish my empathic abilities didn’t exist, because it feels more like a curse than a gift in this moment.

“I love you,” Jase stresses, his lips close to my ear as he keeps the whisper below the register of everyone else’s hearing.

Kellan comes to sit down close to Simone, and he gives me a warm smile. Then his eyes change when he sees my expression—one of horror and shock and dread and… pain. He flicks his gaze to the panicked Jase, measuring us both.

“Simone,” I say, keeping my voice as unaffected as possible. “Can I talk to you in the kitchen for a minute?”

She glances up from the child, and nods, her eyes finding Jase momentarily. Is that... recognition? Does she know?

Jase reluctantly releases my hand, and shakily, I stand up. Simone leads the way away from everyone, and I jerk her to the side the second we’re behind the closed doors of the kitchen.

“Do you know? Is she his counter?” I whisper, battling the tears that are begging to come out.

She frowns while looking toward the closed door. “Aria, I think you need to talk to—”

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