“You look terrible.”
“Thanks.” I groaned and held up my arms. The purplish-red splotches covered every portion of my arms, but I knew my neck… wel , it was bad. For a few minutes I’d forgotten about it. “I real y appreciate you pointing it out.”
Seth tipped his head at me and shrugged. “I’ve seen worse. There was a Sentinel who got cornered once in New York City. Real y was a pretty girl—a little older than you—
and just had to be a Sentinel instead of a Guard. A daimon took a bite out of her face just to prove a—”
“Ugh. Okay. I get what you’re saying: it could be worse.
Try tel ing me when I don’t look like I went to third base with a vampire. So why are you here?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“About?” I stared at my feet and wiggled my toes.
“Us.”
Wearily, I lifted my head and looked at him. “There’s no
—”
He reached out and placed one finger over my lips. “I have something real y important to say about that matter, and after you give me a chance to say it, I’m not going to push or ever bring it up again. Okay?”
I should’ve knocked his hand down, demanded he leave, or at least, leaned back. Instead, I gently brushed his fingers away. “Before you go any further, I want to say something.”
Seth’s brows rose curiously. “Okay.”
I took a deep breath and stared down at my toes again.
“Thank you for doing whatever… it was you did to find us. If it wasn’t for you then I’d probably be dead—or slicing and dicing someone right now. So… thank you.”
He was silent for so long I checked out what he was doing. Seth just stared at me with this dumb look on his face. To keep from smiling, I looked away. “What?”
“I think that’s possibly the nicest thing you have said to me. Ever.”
I laughed. “No it’s not. I’ve said nice things to you before.”
“Like what?”
There had to be another situation when I’d said something nice. “Like… when… ” I couldn’t think of anything. Jeez, I was a bitch. “Okay. That is the first nice thing I’ve said to you.”
“I think I need a moment to recognize and cherish this.”
I rol ed my eyes. “Moving on, what did you want to talk about?”
Seth turned serious. “I wanted to be up front on a few things with you.”
“Like what?” I scooted back against the pil ows lining the top of the bed, moving my legs so they weren’t touching him.
His brows furrowed. “Like what the future has in store for us.”
I sighed. “Seth, nothing is going to happen between—”
“Aren’t you even a little bit curious as to how I found you?
Don’t you want to know how I did that?”
“Yeah, come to think of it, I would like to know.”
Seth leaned back on one arm, twisting onto his side. The movement sent locks of golden hair forward, sliding over his jaw. His hip was far too close to my curled toes. Not that he seemed to care. “I was having a real y good dream about this chick I met in Houston and we were—”
I groaned. “Seth.”
“Al of a sudden, I was hurled out of the dream. I woke up, and my heart was racing, sweat pouring. I had no idea why.
I felt sick—sick to my soul.”
I pul ed my knees to my chest. “Why?”
“Getting there, Alex. It took me a while to realize nothing was wrong with me, but the feeling wouldn’t go away. Then I felt it—the first tag. It was like I was on fire and the pain—it was something real. For a second, I actual y thought I had been tagged. It struck me then. It was you I was feeling. I went to Aiden—”
“Why did you go to him?”
“Because I figured if anyone knew where you were, it would be him. Lot of help he proved to be, though. He had no clue.”
How did he come to that conclusion? That was something better left untouched for now. “So you felt what I was feeling?”
Seth nodded. “Every. Single. Tag. Like it was my skin being ripped into and my aether being drained. I never felt anything like it.” He looked away. A few moments passed before he spoke again. “I don’t know how you… dealt with it. It felt like my soul was being torn apart, but it was your soul.”
Sort of struck dumb by what he was explaining, I listened quietly.
“Once we realized you weren’t in your room, Aiden figured out what you had done. We left immediately, and I can barely explain how I knew where to go. It was like something was leading me. Instinct maybe?” He shrugged, staring down at his hand. “I don’t know. I just knew to head west, and when we got close to the Tennessee line, Aiden said you once mentioned Gatlinburg. As soon as he said that, I knew where you were.”
“But how? Did any of this happen before? When I was fighting Kain?”
He looked up and shook his head. “I don’t think so.
Whatever changed did so after then. The only thing I can come up with is that the longer I’m around you, the more…
connected we are, and since I’ve already gone through the change, I can tune into those kind of things better.”
I frowned. “It makes no sense.”
“It wil .” He sighed. “When Lucian said we were two halfs made to be a whole, he wasn’t kidding. If you had hung around that night at his house, you would’ve learned some interesting things. It would make things… so much easier.”
Ah, damn. That night only made me think of one thing: Aiden. It was a struggle, but I managed to push him into the furthest corner of my mind. “What kind of things?”
Seth sat up and faced me in one fluid motion. “The gods know you are going to hate this, but oh, what the hel . The longer we are around each other, the more connected we wil become—to the point neither of us wil real y know where one begins and the other ends.”
I sat up a bit straighter. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Yeah… wel , me neither. But this is what’s going to go down. I know how you are with control. You’re kind of like me in that sense. I don’t like not being able to control what I’m feeling. Just like you, but it’s not going to matter. Even now, it’s already affecting me.”
“What’s affecting you?”
He seemed to struggle for the right words. “Being around you is already affecting me. I can tap into akasha easily, sensing you when you’re hurt, and even now, I can feel it.”
He paused, taking a deep breath. “It’s the power in you—
the aether. It cal s to me, and you haven’t even changed yet.
What do you think it’s going to be like when you do? When you turn eighteen?”
I didn’t know and I real y didn’t like where any of this was heading. “You know what wil happen, don’t you?”
Seth nodded again and looked away. “Once it happens, it wil be a thousand times—no, a mil ion times stronger.
What I want, you wil want. We wil share the same thoughts, needs, and desires. Supposedly, it works both ways, but I’l be stronger than you. Whatever you want may end up being skewed by what I want. I am the First, Alex. Al it takes is one touch and that power shifts to me.”
Panic reared and I failed at pushing it down. I started to rise, but Seth placed his hands on my knees. Thank the gods I was wearing jeans because if his skin touched mine and that goofy swirly crap started happening right now, I’d probably lose it.
“Alex, hear me out.”
“Hear you out? You’re saying I’l have no control over anything.” I shook my head frantical y. The wild movement stretched the tender skin on my throat, but I ignored the sting. “That can’t happen. I can’t deal with that. I don’t believe in being fated to someone—or even fate.”