Page 14 of The Stone Initiation
“When you get there, if you find out what happened, then what?” he asked.
I hadn’t thought that far, and it annoyed me that he was highlighting that fact. “Then I’ll figure out what to do next, okay. I just…I need to know.” My voice thickened.
He grabbed my shoulders. “Please, think about this, Princess.”
But I couldn’t, because if I stopped to think then reason and logic might get their claws into me and doubt would set in, but I owed it to Romi to find out the truth. If there was a cover-up, I owed it to him to expose it, but most of all, I owed it to myself.
I needed closure.
I tore out of Levi’s grip. “I’m not your princess and I’m not going to give up on the truth to stay here and play happy families with you okay?”
He flinched as if I’d slapped him, but then his jaw tensed. “Do you love me?”
“What?”
“Are you in love with me?”
Yes. Yes, I was falling in love with him, but if I said it—If I allowed those emotions to flood my body—then they’d weaken me. They’d make me want to stay, and I’d forever wonder about the truth. Even if Ididsummon the courage to confess my feelings then still left, the test to get into the academy could prove fatal, ending with Levi even more heartbroken than if he believed I didn’t return his feelings at all.
“Cameron…” He took a step closer. “Answer me.” His tone softened. “Do you love me?”
“No. No I don’t love you. This…” I waved a finger between him and me. “This was just sex. Really good sex.”
He exhaled sharply.
I headed for the door ignoring the hurt on his face, ignoring the ache in my chest. “And now it’s over. We’re over.”
“You’re lying,” he called after me. “I felt it. I fucking felt it—”
I slammed the door cutting off his words and dashed away my tears. I had to do this. I had to go. And I had to make this a clean break.
Loving Levi was not an option right now.
But if we were meant to be, then we’d find each other again someday.
I had to believe that.
CHAPTER7
There were two gargoyles on the bus. A female and a male. They looked young, but looks could be deceiving when it came to the stone-kind. The driver was also a gargoyle shifter in his human form. Easy to tell because even in human form the stone-kind were large and bulky, all around six-foot-five and built to take a punch. He had a mulish look about him too, as if driving the bus was an insult. He practically snatched my ticket from my hand, then raked me over.
His lip curled in disgust. “You want to die?” he asked.
I smiled sweetly. “Nope. Do you?”
He balked, and the male gargoyle on the bus snickered.
“Your funeral,” the driver muttered. “Sit down and hold on.”
He hit the gas before I could park my ass, and I went flying. A strong grip on my arm stopped me face-planting the floor.
“I got you,” a female voice said. She hauled me into the seat in front of hers because there was no room on her seat. Her long frame forced her to sit angled with her back to the window and her legs stretched across a seat that was built to hold two humans.
So, this was what a gargoyle female looked like?
Old Town was policed mainly by human hunters, and gargoyle intervention was rare. Their forces were concentrated east where the graynite issue was strongest, so I couldn’t help but stare a little.
Her dark hair was cut short and tucked behind her ears, but you could tell it had a curl to it even though she’d done her best to slick it down. The style accentuated her angular face. But sparkling hazel eyes, fringed in thick lashes, and a full mouth softened her sharp features.
