“Er…thank you? Because you think I couldn’t, or I wouldn’t?”
“Take your pick.” He closed his eyes. “Now what?”
She fought the overwhelming urge to kiss his sensual lips.
“You can if you want to,” he said.
“I can what?”
“Kiss me.”
“Are you reading my mind somehow?” she said, scandalized.
“If I did, what would I see there?”
Treffon passionately kissing her neck… Plunging into her body…
“You would see me still being really annoyed that you assigned one of your own men to stalk me. Okay. We’re going to just sit here for a minute, and just…be in the moment. Feel the sunshine and the breeze. Listen to the whisper of the wind rushing through the grass.”
They sat there in silence for what felt like a long, long time.
Finally, Treffon said, “Interesting.” And he opened his eyes and looked at her. “Not entirely unpleasant. But I suspect that is due to your presence. When I am with you, I feel as if I am seeing and experiencing things through new eyes.”
Longing washed through her, and sorrow at the fear of impending loss.
“I need to talk to you about something,” she said. “My feelings for you. I’m trying not to like you. I’m trying not to want you. But I think I’m failing. I think about you all the time. And that worries me.”
“I see,” he said, staring into the forest.
“Maybe I should stay somewhere else and avoid you altogether?”
His thick brows drew together in a frown. “I would not like that. I want you to be close to me. I…I must keep you safe. Our investigation so far is running into what you humans call a deceased finish.”
She thought for a second. “A dead end?”
“Yes. We have attempted to trace the source of the computer threat on Earth, and have come up with nothing. As for the exploding cab, there had been death threats against XiXiXi, the person who jumped in ahead of you, because he was in the practice of selling counterfeit merchandise, so it is possible that he was indeed the target. And we have not been able to trace the origin of the explosive device.”
“I see. I still kind of feel like the cab attack was meant for me, though. It seems awfully coincidental.”
“I agree.” He reached out and took her hand in his. “That is why I wish to keep you close to me.”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “Do your feelings for me worry you?”
He shrugged, with a sad twist of a smile. “No.” At her hurt look, he said, “Because I have trained myself for my entire life, more than a hundred of your Earth years, to crush my feelings into the dirt. You humans call it ‘compartmentalizing’. I cannot explain it except to say that I do not allow myself to feel my feelings.”
“That sounds…lonely,” Violet said, a surge of compassion rushing through her. He had so much weight on his shoulders, always having to put his pack’s needs ahead of his own.
“It is how I have survived, how I continue to do my duty.” He sighed. “Let us speak of other things. Tell me about yourself, and your life on Earth.”
“Well, I grew up in New Jersey. My parents were schoolteachers who died in a car crash when I was in my teens.”
She blinked hard as she said it, but she’d finally gotten to the point where she could talk about it without crying.
“I am very sorry. My parents passed away also. I was not very close with them when they were alive.”
“I have heard that your father was…” She tried to come up with a diplomatic way to say it. “A very stern leader.”
Treffon barked out a harsh laugh, with a world of bitterness and pain in it. He picked up a stone from the ground and squeezed it in his fist. “He was an evil savage who brought our pack to the brink of death with his constant warmongering. My brothers died because of his brutal training regime. And my mother did nothing to protect them. He started an unnecessary war with the Wor-Lans at the worst possible time, after our numbers had been so greatly depleted by the cyborgs. My mother died in battle as a result. Madok’s true mate was also killed, which is why he and his family hate the Wor-Lans so much.”
