Refuge (35 page)

“Nikolas and Celine were together for a
period a long time ago, but I can assure you there is nothing
between them now. As for the kiss, Nikolas is an honorable man and
he knew I didn’t want him to pursue a deeper relationship with you
until you understood what was happening between you.”

“I . . . I’m having trouble believing this.
It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that you haven’t really
seen us together. We argue all the time, and he’s always trying to
tell me what to do. He gets so uptight every time I – ”

“Every time you are hurt or in danger?”
Tristan supplied and the bottom dropped out of my stomach. “As I
said, males can be very protective, and the relationship between
the male and female is usually stormy at first. When a male senses
his female is in real danger or distress, his Mori can go into what
we call a rage.”

“A rage?” Something Chris had said to me once
came back to me.
He’s worked himself into a bit of a rage . . . It’s a Mori
thing . . . You’ll learn about that stuff soon.

“It happens when a male warrior and his Mori
become too agitated to control their emotions,” Tristan explained.
“It’s easily restrained if the bond is new or weak, but the
stronger the connection, the deeper his instincts are to protect
you. Tonight, when Nikolas saw you covered in blood, he went into a
full rage, and one wrong move from any of us would have set him
off. I’ve seen it before. The only way to calm him was to assure
him you were safe. That was why I told you to talk to him and touch
him. You were the only one who could get through to him. The bond
between you is much stronger than I had suspected, which is why I
asked if you and he had been intimate.”

I laid my forehead on my knees and squeezed
my eyes shut. It was all too much. I cared for Nikolas. He
infuriated me half the time, but I’d be lying if I said there was
nothing between us, at least on my part. I’d had plenty of time
since our kiss to analyze my emotions and realize that my feelings
for him had begun to change before I even left New Hastings. The
kiss had just made me admit what I had been trying to deny all this
time.

But love? Not just love but the deep soul
mate kind of love that Tristan spoke of? I wasn’t ready for that.
The thought of committing to a lifelong relationship with anyone at
this point, even if I did have strong feelings for him, was too
much to think about right now.

How did Nikolas really feel about all of
this? Had he been driven to kiss me only because his demon felt a
connection to mine? What if he felt trapped by this bond and that
was why he had looked unhappy after he kissed me. How would I ever
know if it was he and not his demon who wanted to be with me?

“You are very quiet.”

I rubbed my eyes. “Sorry. I’m really trying
to understand all this. What exactly does it mean to be
bonded?”

Tristan hesitated as if he was thinking of
the best way to explain it. “A bonded couple share what I can only
describe as a spiritual connection. They can always sense one
another when they are near, and after they complete the bond, they
can communicate through the bond and feel each other’s emotions
when they are together. Bonded mates can also share their Mori
power to comfort each other and aid in healing if one is sick or
hurt. It is a very intimate connection and something an unmated
Mohiri cannot do.”

The first time Nikolas came to see me in New
Hastings, he had tried to push into my mind to prove to me I was
Mohiri. He’d known even then about the connection between us. What
had it been like for him all this time, knowing about it when I had
no idea?

“You said people meet their potential mates.
Does that mean a person can have more than one life mate? Can a
bond be broken?”

My question seemed to trouble him, and it
took him a moment to answer. “Finding a mate can take a long time,
but I have known several people who rejected the bond and found
other mates. Your Mori may be compatible with several others, and
if you choose not to pursue a relationship with one, that bond will
not grow. Once a bond has formed – like the one between you and
Nikolas – it can be broken, but the separation can be painful. Not
physically” – he rushed to say when I sucked in a sharp breath –
“but emotionally. It depends on how deep the bond is. Once a couple
completes their bond, it is for life and cannot be broken.”

I swallowed hard. “How do you break it before
it’s complete?”

Tristan looked even unhappier by that
question than my last one. “First, you tell the other person you
want to break it. Then you sever all contact with them. No
communication and absolutely no physical contact. Over time, the
bond will grow weaker until it eventually dissolves. Only then, can
you see each other again.”

Sever all ties with Nikolas? Say good-bye to
him and maybe never see him again? A heavy weight settled in my
chest. After all we’d been through he was more to me than a
protector and a trainer. He was more than a friend even if I didn’t
know exactly what. I didn’t want to be forced into a relationship,
but I couldn’t imagine him not being in my life.

“You don’t have to decide anything now. Give
yourself some time to think about it,” Tristan said as if I’d
spoken my thoughts aloud. “No one will try to make you do anything
you don’t want to do.”

My lungs stopped squeezing like I was under
water, and I took a deep breath. “How does the couple complete the
bond? Is there a ceremony?”

Tristan cleared his throat. “No. When the
couple is ready, they declare their love in private and join
physically.”

“Physically? You mean . . . ?” He nodded, and
my stomach took another tumble at the thought of Nikolas and me . .
. My face heated up again because I could not believe I’d just had
that thought – and in front of my grandfather. “If everyone knows
about this bond stuff, they’ll know about me and Nikolas.”
And after his
reaction tonight they’ll think we do a lot more than train
together.

“Yes. Does that upset you?”

“How am I going to face them?” I hid my face
in my knees again with a groan. “How am I going to face
Nikolas?”

“Nikolas understands how difficult this is
for you. It has not been easy for him either.”

I raised my head at this surprising news. “I
didn’t think anything bothered him.”

“Nikolas has focused on being a warrior his
whole life, and he’s never had anything more than casual
relationships. After almost two centuries of never meeting a
potential match, I doubt he ever expected to find one.” Tristan
smiled warmly. “He certainly never expected you; you turned his
world upside-down, and he had no idea how to deal with it. Imagine
how it was for him. He is on a routine mission when he stumbles
across an orphan in a bar of all places, and suddenly his Mori is
telling him that she is the one. I doubt he took it well.”

“He was a bit rude.”
Rude
was a mild description of
Nikolas’s hostile first reaction to me, but I didn’t want to say
that to Tristan.

Tristan let out a rich laugh. “You forget I
have known Nikolas for a long time. I can well imagine how he
behaved.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “He
only wants the best for you, Sara. You should talk to him and let
him tell you himself how he feels.”

Panic flared in me at the thought of seeing
Nikolas. “Now? I-I can’t . . . ”

“Not tonight and not until you are
ready.”

I sagged against the couch, suddenly mentally
and physically burned out. All I wanted to do was sleep. Maybe I’d
wake up tomorrow and find out that this was all some crazy
dream.

“I’m sorry you had to find out about
everything this way. I know you must be very confused and
overwhelmed.”

Confused couldn’t come close to describing
how I felt in that moment. “One of you should have told me. All the
time I spent with him, I never knew what was happening between us.
If I had, I might have decided to stop it before it went any
further, before we got any closer.”

“Are you saying you want to break the
bond?”

“No . . . I don’t know,” I answered honestly.
I did have feelings for Nikolas. If I walked away without exploring
them, would I regret it for the rest of my life? “I need some time
to process all of this before I do anything.”

Tristan stood and waved at the guest room.
“You’ve had a lot to deal with tonight. Why don’t you try to get
some sleep and we’ll talk again tomorrow?”

“Okay.” I really wanted to crawl into my own
bed, but the possibility of running into anyone – especially
Nikolas – on the way to my room made me accept Tristan’s
invitation. I said good night to him and burrowed beneath the
covers in the guest bed, waiting for exhaustion to overtake me. But
as tired as my body was, my mind refused to shut down. It kept
running through my conversation with Tristan and reliving every
moment I’d ever spent with Nikolas, looking for evidence of the
things Tristan had told me. Since I’d met Nikolas, his
overprotective, overbearing ways had chafed me and led to most of
the arguments between us. But there was no denying that I had
always felt safe with him and I’d trusted him with my life from the
beginning. Why would I place such faith in a total stranger? I
delved deeper and remembered the flash of recognition I’d felt the
first moment I saw him. Had that been my imagination or my Mori
recognizing its mate?

Groaning, I rolled over and punched my
pillow. Tristan was right. It was no use trying to deny there was
some kind of connection between me and Nikolas, and it had been
there since the first moment we met. I wasn’t romantic enough to
call it love at first sight because I didn’t believe that existed
no matter what people said. But there was something between us
nonetheless, and I had to decide what I was going to do about
it.

Me and Nikolas?
Nikolas!
How was I going to talk to him,
knowing what I did? It wasn’t that I blamed him or anything; he’d
been caught up in this, too. I thought about seeing him at the
barn, the way his eyes had never left me and how he’d trembled as
he held me tight against him. It was the first time I’d ever seen
him not in control, and it had scared me.

The last thing I wanted to do was hurt him,
but I’d never dealt with anything remotely like this. Part of me
was scared to death, while another part of me wanted to go to him
and . . . do what? Tell him it would be okay? Tell him I cared
about him, too?

I curled up miserably under the covers and
prayed for sleep. Pink streaks appeared in the sky outside my
window before my body finally succumbed and let me slip into a
temporary oblivion.

THE SUN WAS high in the sky when I opened my
eyes, letting me know I had slept straight through the morning. But
it wasn’t the bright sunlight spilling into the room that woke me;
it was the soft touch of butterfly wings against my mind followed
by the sound of men’s voices in the other room.

“She is not ready to see you,” Tristan said
in a firm voice. “Last night was a shock to her, and she needs some
time to process it.”

“I frightened her. I need to talk to her, to
explain.” Nikolas’s gruff voice made my stomach do a little flip,
and I couldn’t tell if it was from nervousness or excitement.

Tristan’s tone turned conciliatory. “Sara
knows you would never harm her, and she’s the only one who wasn’t
afraid of you last night. You and I both knew she would be upset
when she learned about the bond, which is why we agreed to wait to
tell her.”

“I did wait,” Nikolas replied, a note of
impatience slipping into his voice. “I left for almost three
weeks.”

“When you returned and asked to train her,
you said you could keep your distance. Kissing her is not what I’d
call
keeping your
distance
.”

Oh God!
My face burned, and I pulled a pillow over
my head to block out the rest of their conversation. As curious as
I was to hear what Nikolas had to say about the kiss, I did not
want to hear him talking to my grandfather about it. Did these
people have no concept of boundaries?

I waited a good five minutes before I lifted
the pillow to hear silence in the other room. I waited another ten
minutes before I dressed in the same clothes I’d worn after my
shower last night. I cracked the door open to make sure Tristan was
alone before I left the bedroom.

He looked up from some papers he was going
over at the table, and I realized he had stayed here with me
instead of going to his office today. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” I replied weakly, remembering what
I’d heard of his conversation with Nikolas. “You didn’t have to
stay with me.”

“I wanted to be here when you woke up. Are
you hungry?”

My stomach growled in response, and we both
laughed.

He got up and took a carton of eggs from the
refrigerator. I tried to argue that I could feed myself, but he
ignored my protest and ordered me to sit. “I like cooking for
someone again, and I’m going to make you the best omelet you’ve
ever had.”

I took a seat at the table and watched him
chop vegetables and crack eggs into a bowl. I waited for him to say
something about Nikolas’s visit or last night, but he seemed
content to focus on cooking. I figured it was as good a time as any
to tell him what I had discovered last night.

“Tristan, when those vampires showed up I
sensed them before I saw them.”

He stopped beating eggs to peer at me. “What
do you mean?”

“I got this cold feeling in my chest just
before the first one arrived, and it happened again when the other
two came.” I saw his look of incredulity, and I didn’t blame him
because I knew how it must sound. “It’s happened a couple of times
before, only I didn’t put it together until last night.”