She told him that she knew how to take care of herself, and he didn't question it, but it seemed pretty clear to her that he wasn't sure if that was believable or not.
“Just promise me that you'll be careful while you're here? I'm not saying that anybody is going to try anything with you, but there are always those few people who still have problems with humans. They act like we're still fighting them like we did five hundred years ago. Things have changed now, but some of us are harder to get with the program than others.”
He stopped in front of a door and he pushed it open, and he had to duck down because his six-foot-six frame would not support him going under any other way. She wanted to give it all a look, but he was waiting for her and she walked past him, dangerously close, and it made her remember the ride on the dragon. Her face got instantly red just thinking about it. The idea of how it had felt was even harder on her senses. It had felt amazing.
She didn't notice until it was too late that she had stopped right in front of him. Her fantasy had been so strong that she hadn't been able to walk and think at the same time. Now, he was really looking at her like she’d lost her mind.
“Are you sure that you're alright?”
“You just have an effect on me, Nathan, that I don't really understand. It's hard to think straight when I'm around you.”
“Is that so?”
She said that it was and hoped that he wouldn't take it as a compliment. It certainly wasn't meant as one.
“Just because I told you that doesn’t mean that you need to use it against me. There is just something about you, Nathan. I don't really know what it is, but I have felt it since the first time we met. It’s probably why I agreed to come here with you. That, and I know that you will help me find my parents. Vincent always thought of you as the fixer.”
He was still really close because she was still standing in the doorway.
“Is that what you see me as, a fixer?”
She nodded her head, but at the same time he was so close, and he was just towering over her, taking away all thoughts of anything but him from her mind. It was quite a different experience for her. What did he want her to say? Did he want her to admit that she had feelings for him that she shouldn't? What good would it do to make such a confession?
“Yeah, I guess you could say that. Isn't that what you're trying to do now, fix me?”
“You don't need to be fixed, Laurel. I think you know that. You’re perfect just the way that you are.”
She sighed. “I don't know if that's true or not. The whole time I'm here, I wish that I belong to this place. I know that I don’t, though, no matter how much I want it to be true.”
“You already do belong, Laurel. That's why you were brought into this world to begin with. Mallory trusted you and I trust you. That means something. We don’t let just any human in here. You have to know that.”
Laurel thanked him for his kind words, even if she didn't quite believe them herself. She knew that most humans were not even privy to the information of shifters that she had. She did feel special that they trusted her enough to tell her about some of their ways. She knew that a lot of humans found out and never lived to tell the tale to anybody else. When she had first found out about the existence of shifters and dragons, it was from Mallory. It wasn't like Mallory wanted to tell her. She had needed help, and Laurel had been able to give it to her when she was having her son Ethen. With that help, had come knowledge that she shouldn't have known.
What she had known, though, was there was no going back. She had spent the next couple of years with Mallory, moving around to several different countries and learning all that she could about them. It made her fall in love with shifters. Nathan was just concreting the fact that she wanted desperately to be a part of it. A legit part of it, not just an outsider that they tolerated.
He showed her to an extra bedroom when they got to his place. It was a lot bigger than she had imagined and it was done all in white, almost bright in comparison to the dark corridor they were just in. The huge window didn’t show light at the moment, but there were several artificial lights built into the ceiling.
“I see that Vincent pays you well.”
“He better. I'm going to be the one running the Academy most of the time. I took over operations, so it came with a little salary bump and this house.”
“I see he is very generous.”
“Don't you think that I'm worth it?”
She smiled. “I'm pretty sure that your ego doesn't need another boost. You seem to think quite highly of yourself without any input from me.”
It came out a little harsher than she wanted it to, but he just laughed and told her that she was hilarious. She wasn't trying to be hilarious, though. She was being serious, especially on that last part.
Nathan was a bit of a charmer, once she had gotten past his gruff exterior. At first, it had been hard to be around him. She was attracted to Nathan, but he was rude and curt with her at first. As time went on and she had gotten to know him better, there was a lot that she had learned and part of it was that he thought quite highly of himself. Or at least that was the impression she had gotten. He was a bit humbler now, and but his man-pride was still right there on the edge, ready to come out at any moment.
“I will be back in a little bit, and we'll have dinner together if you want.”
Laurel agreed and he showed her where the towels were if she wanted to clean herself up. Then, he left and Laurel was left looking around the room. It was actually pretty nice and everything was different than she was used to. For some reason, everything also felt like Nathan. He had a certain cologne and now it was the only thing that filled her nostrils, throwing her off. Even the stark white of the room was like him, alarming and bright enough that a person had to squint their eyes.
She had to ask herself, what was she doing there? It felt like she was setting herself up for failure, because she was already falling for a man she couldn’t have. He was taken, but she desperately wanted him to be hers.
Chapter 8
