“How did you do that?” Summer couldn’t get her head around the fact that Cullen had just spoken to her without using words. He had actually communicated with her in her mind.
You should be able to do it too. You’re pack, so technically everyone in the pack will be eventually able to talk to you this way. But, we’re mates, so it makes it easier for me to do it. You could do it too, if you want to.
Summer shook her head. “I don’t want to.” She pulled the covers up to her neck and leaned against the headboard.
He raised an eyebrow. I thought you were going to start embracing your wolf?
“This telepathy thing is related to my wolf?” Summer’s head whirled. She had told Cullen she would try to work on embracing her wolf in return for his teaching her to kill Claudius. She just hadn’t expected it to start so fast.
Do you know any non-shifters who can speak like this? Anything we do that is magical comes from our wolf-half.
She nodded. Cullen wanted her to try this telepathy. She closed her eyes and tried to send her thoughts to him. When her eyes opened, he stared at her blankly. He’d obviously not received any of the brain waves she’d tried to send his way.
Did you just try?
“Yes.” She threw the cover off of the bed and sat up next to Cullen as she swung her feet down. They dangled like she was a child, not reaching the floor.
I think you’re trying too hard. Your wolf will make sure you can do it. Finish telling me about the dream.
So her wolf had to be involved in the communication. Her four-legged compatriot was surprisingly silent. Why wasn’t her wolf thrilled to be let loose? Summer wondered if she’d ever understand the creature.
It stayed calm, not commenting on what she tried to do. Summer called to it several times and asked her to help her communicate with Cullen. But it didn’t answer.
She clenched her hands into fists. Would nothing ever be easy? She really wanted to show Cullen she could do this. The more she failed the more she was sure he would congratulate himself on having avoided mating her.
Suddenly, the words seemed to flow out of her, smooth and unfiltered. She didn’t feel like she stumbled or had to watch what she said. She could almost sigh with how easy it was.
You were locked in the room, strapped to a table. You smelled me and it seemed to make you angry I was there. Then Claudius entered. They were going to kill you, they’d used you as a trap to lure me. I heard a gun go off. That’s all.
She waited for Cullen’s reaction. He stared into the darkness of the bedroom, his face expressionless. She looked down at her hands. Had she offended him with her dream?
I’m sorry. I’m sure it’s just everything that’s happened. I was bound to dream about death and destruction.
Cullen shook his head. Have you had prophetic dreams before?
Summer jumped to her feet. “Prophetic dreams? That’s not what this was. It was just some stupid thing my imagination concocted.”
“I don’t think so. It runs in your family. Your mother had them when she was young, and your sister gets them regularly. Although she didn’t have one to show her what happened to your parents.”
His eyes stared off into the darkness of the hallway. He was so unreadable to her. She took a deep fortifying breath.
Did she dare reach out and stroke his arm? Little shivers rocked her body.
“Go back to bed,” Cullen urged. “You only slept about two hours. It’s not enough after what you’ve been through.”
She threw off his hand because she was afraid if she didn’t, she’d place it somewhere else on her body. “Let’s get something straight right now. I don’t like to be told what to do.”
Cullen laughed, one long sound but to Summer it was mirthless. “I’ve already gathered that. It doesn’t change what I said. I can’t let you do anything to harm yourself, ever. I just can’t. So, please, Summer, won’t you go back to bed?”
He sounded so reasonable. She felt like stomping her foot.
Listen to him.
Now her wolf decided to speak to her?
He’s our mate. We will take care of him, but right now let him take care of us.
She turned on her heel and walked back to the bed. As she climbed in, she felt a little bit like a disobedient child who finally decided to do what her parents wanted. “So you’re some sort of expert on the subject? Knowing what a person needs to do on the night after their parents die?”
He twisted his t-shirt in his hands. “Not an expert. When my parents were killed it was different. There was no time to rest or grieve.”
Summer’s head swirled. “Your parents are dead?”
“Look, I don’t even know why I brought it up. I’ll leave you alone now.” But Summer noticed that Cullen didn’t budge from where he stood.
She jumped up and let her eyes wander from the top of Cullen’s head to his feet. To her, he was everything a man should be. She swallowed. “Tell me.” She needed to know him as well as he knew her.
Without a word, Cullen closed the space between them and gently pushed her down to sit on the bed. She loved the feel of his body so close to hers. She wanted to reach up, pull his head down, and kiss him. But since Cullen hadn’t deepened the kiss she’d given him earlier, she wasn’t sure he was interested in her that way.
“If I tell you about my parents, will you then at least try to go to sleep?”
She screamed inside. “Stop bartering with me. I’m not a child you have to bribe to go to the dentist.”
He closed his eyes like they pained him. “I haven’t talked about this in two-hundred fifty years.”
“I’m sure once you get started it will just rush over your tongue. It’ll be like learning to walk, you never really forget how to do it.”
Internally, her wolf rolled her eyes. Summer couldn’t see the action but she could feel it. It felt like part of her own eyes moved.
That was dumb. If you can’t think of anything more clever to say than that, shift and I’ll communicate with him.
Even her wolf thought she was pathetic.
“All right.” Cullen sat on the bed next to her and lay down, his head braced on his arm against the headboard. He patted the bed next to him. Summer gladly joined him. Her fingers drummed lightly on her leg, and she tried to keep from shaking.
She deeply inhaled Cullen’s spicy male scent and tried to ignore that her panties got damp. Her wolf prowled around inside, desperate for Cullen’s touch. If she could smell him, he could smell her which meant he knew she’d just gotten wet. Heat rose in her cheeks.
He cleared his throat and reached over to take her hand in his. He gently stroked the top of her hand with his thumb. The simple act sent shivers up and down her spine. Cullen stared straight ahead.
“Things were different when I was a child. We didn’t live as we do now. My father was a fisherman. I didn’t even know we were wolf-shifters. I thought I was human. Had no reason to think otherwise.” He stopped speaking abruptly and pulled his hand away.
“Go on. So you thought you were human.” Summer had thought she was human too. Until Theo Kane arrived at her dorm room with her mother in tow and dragged her up to the island. That’s when she discovered she was really half wolf-shifter and everything she thought she knew about her life was false.
“My father and mother would go off sometimes for a week or two. They would leave us with my crazy grandfather. He would mutter about wolves and spells. It all seemed like make-believe stories.”
Summer felt herself being drawn into Cullen’s story. She could almost see him as a little boy, listening to his grandfather spin tales. “Us?”