Page 61 of Love the Way You Lion
“Should I not mention that I feel your pain as well? If it’s going to make you frown more, then I won’t.”
“Feel?” Her eyes widen. “Feel? What do you mean, feel? That’s not intuition. That’s… feeling.”
“Very astute, love. Feel is what I meant. I could feel it hurting—like ‘ow’ for me—and I could feel the intensity; that’s why I’m trying to get you to stop pretending it’s fine. I was humoring you for a bit, but I think you need to get it taken care of. I can’t make you, though.”
“Right. You can’t. That’s right,” she frowns again and mutters under her breath.
“I could try, but it would end with you more torn up, which is kind of counterproductive, don’t you think?”
She looks at the closet again as if thinking about something. She walks inside, out of my line of vision, and I wonder what in the bloody hell she’s doing in there. Suddenly, a lance of fiery pain stabs into me and I roar.
“Holy hell, woman, if you want to walk around in pain, warn me next time, for Christ’s sake! That’s not funny!” I hear a thump in the closet and look in, finding her on the ground looking stunned. “If you were trying to prove me right, that’s a damned good way of doing it. Blade, what in the hell are you doing on the floor? Are you okay?”
She shakes her head, then whispers, “You shouldn’t have felt that. You shouldn’t have. Even with a blood connection, even mated. No one should have, not even Taurus. I’m fine.”
“You don’t feel fine. You feel like you’re still hurting and scared or worried. Definitely stunned.”
Blade jumps to her feet, wincing at the jarring of the appendage. “Sorry. I don’t understand. If you’re feeling me through everything that I just threw up between us, then I don’t think there’s anything that could block you. As far as I know, that’s not somethingnormal. I have stronger shields than non-empaths, for obvious reasons. I’ve just never heard of anyone, not to mention a non-empathic clone, that could read—no, more than reading, feel—pain simultaneously with a shielded empath. It doesn’t happen. It doesn’t. There must be some rational explanation. It’s that or our bond is a lot deeper than we intended.”
I shrug. “I’ve always been receptive to powers and such. It didn’t occur to me to say it to you because I can access a bit of my woman’s stuff. If I think about it hard enough and focus, I can. I rarely feel that deeply unless someone’s sending it on purpose, like if the woman’s siphoning into me. It doesn’t surprise me that our bond would be deep, though. Your blood’s running in my veins, pet. We’re connected bloody deep, I’d say. We both chose that—as much as we could choose, I guess you could say.”
Her expression is a bit gobsmacked and I wait for her to process whatever it is she’s thinking, trying not to panic. Is she upset? I didn’t think it was a big deal; I can access my mates’ gifts. The kitty calls me a natural power sponge. She says I have some gift for picking things up. I always have. I went on a mission once when I was young and green at the Company, liked the art in the git’s house, came back and drew it all. That’s how I figured out that I excel at art. Somehow, my brain does it.
It seems like it’s making Blade awfully upset, though, so maybe I shouldn’t have told her? I never know what I’ll pick up. I feel her resistance to the thought I’d picked this up without intending to, or without knowing what kind of burden it could be to have that power for life. I know she’s wondering how to address it and whether to make a big deal of it.
“Are we pretending I can’t feel that?”
“Argh!!” She stomps into the bathroom, looking irritated.
I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. A familiar scene, that, and one I know is fraught with options—none of them good. The cat did a similar dance when she figured out how hard it was to keep me out and that I could see right through some of her veils. She’s gottenmuchbetter, mind, and sometimes, she’s successful, but again, her powers are much more than anyone knows and I’ve always known at least that. “Bloody hell.”
Scratching my chin, I weigh out the possibilities. I could give her space; I could not give her space. It seems irrelevant to me since I feel the frustration and indecision from here. That’s not even including that damn shoulder injury that she’s going to get fixed tonight, come hell or high water. I roll to my feet and approach, tapping on the doorframe.
She looks over her shoulder, feeling me as much as I do her. “Okay. So, we have a situation.”
“It’s weird, feeling you as you feel me—very stereo trippy.” I tilt my head, sitting on the counter. “Situation?”
“Well, less a situation, more a confusion. I don’t know how it got so deep, but does it bother you? Because thinking about it for the few moments before you came in here—it doesn’t bother me. I kind of like it. It makes me feel more connected to you because I’m more connected to you. Brilliant dot work, isn’t it?” She shakes her head as if trying to figure out if her words made any sense.
“You’re making perfect sense, pet. Maybe on the redundant side, but it doesn’t bother me at all. However, pretending that arm’s okay won’t work. It’s going to make me cranky as a bear because I’ll feel it, too.”
Giving me a wry look, she looks at her shoulder, warring with pride. “Fine, you win, but only because you pulled the ‘it hurts me, too’ card. I’ll let you know that was cheap.”
I chuckle, lips curving up. “You don’t have to look so overjoyed about it.”
Her head tilts. “Do you even get cranky as a bear? I didn’t know your cranky meter went up that high.”
“I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that I have my moments. Rarely, and it has to be something that sets me off, but I do. Getting up early in the morning makes me snippy.”
“God, sometimes I wonder about you. You are just about as opposite of me as a person can be. I do not understand why you want to put up with someone who jogs several miles before 8 am, gets volcanically pissed at the drop of a hat, and is as strong-willed as a communist dictator.”
“Variety, my love, is the spice of life,” I say, holding my hand out to her, hoping to lead her back into the bedroom. “I also have a weakness for strong, stubborn women who shag like they only have a few hours to live. It’s a nice yin to my yang. I'd be bored living with another me for sure.”
“Hmm. We can’t have that now, can we? A bored Rafe scares and boggles the mind.” She gives in and takes my arm, walking into the bedroom.
“Too true. That’s when I wonder things like how many people you can hang from hooks in the ceiling before they bust the drywall or how to reprogram the droids to hate each other or what the tensile strength of bungee cords are in relation to balcony velocity. It gets me in trouble every time.” I sit her on the bed and grin, chucking her chin. “Besides, you’ve got a lot of right endearing qualities that I enjoy despite your fetish for exercise and early mornings. Layers like an onion, the ogre said.”
She looks up and grins. “I’ve got layers?”
