Page 56 of The Lunatics

“Like I helped murder someone last night.”

Hurt ghosted through the bond before he could snuff it out. Great. Now I was making my mate feel like shit.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “This has all been a little too much for me, and I’m not handling it well. I didn’t mean to call you a murderer. I understand why you killed him. And while I still feel terrible for the part I played, knowing what he’d done and what he might have gone on to do has… lessened that.”

“Understood. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“I will.”

We sat in silence and sipped our coffee.

“Thank you for staying with me last night, after I woke up,” I said.

“You’re welcome. I’m sorry you were so distressed.”

“I’m sorry my distress was so distressing for you. I’ll try to get better at muting the bond.”

Michael shook his head. “Don’t. I…”

I looked over at him. His hair was rumpled from sleep. The band of his sweatpants rode low on his hips. Even sitting, his stomach was stacked with abs. The man didn’t have an ounce of fat on him, and there was something strangely soothing about all that compact muscle. Like he could hold the whole world at bay if he wrapped those big arms around me.

I shook my head against the thought. “You what, Michael?”

“I like the feel of you in my mind,” he said, his voice soft.

I stared at him. What the hell did I say to that? It felt like such an intimate thing for him to confess. Outside of this apartment, he was so buttoned up. He hid his feelings from everyone around him, including his family. Acted as though he didn’t have any. Even last night, in the middle of a fight, he was cool and calculating and untouchable. Now he sat here half dressed, hair mussed, exposing himself to me both physically and emotionally. I didn’t feel worthy of it. I doubted more than a handful of people had ever seen him so open and honest.

If he was willing to be this vulnerable with me, the least I could do was drop my own guard. Watching Michael act one way toward people while only I knew his true feelings was a fascinating experience. Having an inside look into someone else’s emotions, especially someone as complex as him, was borderline addictive. It wasa struggle not to constantly pepper him with questions: “Why were you slightly annoyed by this?” “Why did that make you wary?” I wanted to know what made him tick. And if I was being honest, I just plain liked the feel of him in my mind. I might not have mastered the trick of borrowing his emotions, but already there was a steadfastness to his presence that grounded me. Centered me. Gave me something to hold on to in this strange and brutal city.

I took a deep breath and decided to be brave. “I like the feel of you in my head, too. I wish you wouldn’t work so hard to mask your emotions from me.”

“It’s not intentional. It’s second nature.” He shrugged, shoulder muscles bunching in a way that drew my gaze. “Your people are able to control the shift; mine can suppress the wolf.”

I frowned. Suppressthewolf? What was this bullshit? In my head, Iwasa wolf. What he was saying sounded like the equivalent of giving myself a lobotomy. “What do you mean?”

“My family can cloak themselves to the point that we don’t even register as shifters.”

“How the hell do you do that?”

He shook his head. “It’s… difficult to explain.”

“Can you give me a demonstration, then?”

He turned to regard me. “I’ll need your word that you’ll keep what I’m about to show you to yourself. Our family guards the secret with extreme prejudice, even from the rest of our pack, and if my mother ever discovered that I let you in on it without her approval…”

She’d probably graduate from threats on my life to attempts to take it. “You have my word that I’ll keep your secret.”

He nodded and turned to face forward in his seat. His expression flattened, eyes unfocused as he stared through the wall. The feeling of him in the back of my mind… shrank. The smell of fur and wilderness dissipated from his scent and then disappearedaltogether. Shifters exuded preternatural power without thought, and I was so used to sensing it 24/7 around my kind that it was like breathing. I never realized how expected it was. Not until Michael’s power started to dwindle.

The hair on the back of my neck rose. Anxiety punched through me, sending my pulse pounding. I sat there, staring at him, watching him breathe, blink, and be alive, while in my head, it felt like he was dying.

I grabbed his arm to reassure myself that he was still there. “Michael?”

He didn’t respond, only retreated further. My anxiety turned into fear. It was worse than when he drove away from my parents’ house that first night. Worse than watching him fight a vampire. This was full-blown, uncontrollable panic. I sucked in shallow, rasping breaths, unable to fill my lungs. My head swam. Black dots danced in front of my eyes. It felt like someone had ripped into my chest and was reaching toward my heart.

And then Michael was… gone. A human sat in front of me wearing his skin. He looked like a human; he smelled like a human; he felt like a human.

I let go of him and leapt back, knocking my barstool over in my haste to get away. Tears streamed down my face. Inside, I was howling. It felt like he was dead. Like he’d been torn from my mind. And yet here he sat, the sight of him conflicting with everything I felt andknew.