Burdened (A Burdened Novel) (36 page)

I tense
, feeling a slight discomfort. That’s what the Nathan-look-alike said to me the other night, and in that same tone. “That sounds familiar.”

“How so?”

“You said that to me the day you tricked me.”

“That wasn’t me
,
again,
and what do you mean?”

“That exact same tone
, those words. When the guy—” I can’t recall his name. “—cut me, that’s what he said.” My hands start getting cold.

Nathan thinks for a moment
, or maybe looks in my head. I sit quiet until he says something. “We have today. I’ll worry about it tomorrow,” he responds, ten minutes later.

I smile at him
. Although, that really doesn’t give me much for whatever conclusion he came up with, or
if
he came up with a conclusion. We sit in silence. I try to wrap my head around Nathan’s father and his mixed personalities.

“What is he going to try to talk to us about?”
I ask.

“He has no plans of talking with us. Rather
, I have no intentions of speaking with him—not with you in the room anyway.”

“Why not with me in the room?”
The distant Nathan is back.

“I would say things to him
, and perform in a way, that I don’t want you to see.”

“And what, by you doing so
, will make me think differently of you?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“So what
are
you saying?”

“I have
no
respect for my father. I don’t care about hurting his feelings—if he had any. I also don’t use control when I deal with him.” He looks towards the yard.

“What are you saying?” I probe.

“Tracey, this is not a conversation I’m ready to have right now.”

“Why do you hold things back from me?”

“My life is difficult. My relationship with my father is not like others. How would it sound to you if I said I
want
to kill my father, and every time I try, the only thing that saves him is my mother? That I don’t mind losing control around him, in hopes that I would murder him—with no doubts or regrets.” He looks at me with no hurt in his eyes about his feelings.

“But if you murder your
father, wouldn’t you kill your mother as well?”

“No, she will remain alive
, but she will be miserable and out of character.”

“Wait, I’m confused
. I thought one could not live without the other?”

“The female can live without the male
, but not the other way around. Remember, your heart beats in replacement of mine. So if I die, your heart will still beat, but if you die, that’s it for the both of us.” That’s some crazy shit. “But if I’m hurt, you can always heal me, and I you. You may also be able to feel my hurt now.”

I don’t respond, not comfortable with the feeling of him leaving me and me having to live without him. “Don’t leave me.”

“Why would I?”

“Just don’t.”

“You love me, Tracey?”

“Yes
,” I answer softly.

“If it wasn’t for us being mated
, do you think you would feel the same?”

I quickly want to say yes, but
I take time thinking about his question. If we weren’t, I definitely would still give him a chance. He has an awesome personality; although, he tries to beat his away around things and information sometimes. But it’s cute. I can tell he cares about me, and if I was going to be with someone forever, I would want them to care more about me than they do themselves, because that’s how I would be. I would want them to cherish me, appreciate me, want me, and equally need me.

My happiness makes
Nathan happy. And beyond anything, no matter what is thrown our way, our love for each other will never change.

“If
it wasn’t for the mating and the bond, the reassurance wouldn’t be there, and the
know
wouldn’t be there. I may not have fallen in love with you so fast, but, then again, I may have. When I first saw you, I felt a connection to you. I know that I would have grown to love you, and nothing would be different. I’d still take you, no matter how you were sent to me.” I look at him.

“I love you
, Tracey. We will never change.” He takes a breath. “Yesterday, I left you after the fair, because you showed me that some of you is like me. I wasn’t sure if it was one of my traits that instilled itself in you due to the bond. But then I realized, like me, you have an anger problem, which was there before we bonded.

“
Like how you have to keep me leveled, I have to do the same for you. And like how you want me to understand and respect why you calm me down or keep me from some things, I need you to do the same for me. You didn’t listen to me, and that could have gone wrong—in all types of ways.”

He brings my hand to his face. “You are going to start showing signs of strength and endurance. You may get some abilities
, which is likely because of who and what I am.” That sounds cocky. “And you may be able to block me from your mind. I’m hoping that won’t happen.” He looks at me, and then looks away.

“When you
do
decide to join my family, you will be able to be included in our internal conversations. But I wouldn’t look forward to that—if I were you.” His eyes swirl to full-brown. “Don’t let my father change your mind about me and my family.”

“I like your family
. They are all nice and welcoming, and I wouldn’t mind being with them. Your dad won’t change my mind about anything. I’ll treat him like Glen treats her step-dad. Simply ignore him.” Glen? “Have you talked to Scott lately?”

“No
, but I’m sure that probably means they are getting along. If not, they would be with us. You want to go inside and close my bedroom door?”

I smile
. “If we can avoid your little brother.”

He shakes his head
. “And what makes it so bad is, he has more girls in his room than I had when I was his age.”

“And exactly how old is he, really?”

“Sixty-five.”

“O-Kay. Doesn’t it feel weird
—you being old, talking to me, and me being decades younger than you?”

“Umm, I’ve never thought about it.”
We stand. “I hadn’t paid any attention to it. Probably because I’ve spent so much of my life adjusting to the age I portray and growing with it.”

“When are you going to take me home?”

“You ready to go?”

“No
. What are you going to do tomorrow—while you’re not spending your time with me?” We walk back towards the house.

He pulls me in front of him. “I’m going to go
to the office, check on things, put in some work. Then I’ll search for Eddlen, find out what his connection is to my father, then I’ll kill him. Then I’ll come back home, talk to my father about his performance tonight, tell him whatever Eddlen is going to tell me before he dies, and then probably fight with him and tell him I killed Eddlen. Then I’ll wrap up my night at your house after you come home from being out with your parents.”

I’m shocked he didn’t hesitate to tell me
. Although, my heart did skip a beat when he said ‘kill him.’ “I’m going to ask you the same question.” We walk back into the house, making no pit-stops, and go to his room.

“And what’s that?”
He closes the door behind him.

“
Do you love me only because we’re mated?”

He walks over to his desk, and I follow
, sitting on his bed. “No, and if it was up to me, we wouldn’t have moved as fast as we did—or as we are.” I look at him, shocked. “I’m not saying that I regret it, because I don’t. The way you make me feel, even before we met—when I tapped on your car window—makes me think I was meant to hit you.”

He looks away
, like he’s remembering our first meeting, and his eyes swirl green and brown. “I’m going to miss you, Tracey, and it’s killing me to know that I have to leave you alone tomorrow, especially considering that someone has already tried to hurt you—to get to me.” His voice is soft and sincere.

“You are killing me right now.” I already don’t want to go. “Come lay down with me
, and maybe we can try watching that movie again, and I’ll stay over Saturday. School starts again on Monday.”

He walks over to the bed and says
, “Which is why us being apart is a good idea. I want you to be able to have time away from me. Just now is not a good time. But I’ll do what I can to change that. Don’t you miss spending time with your friends? Going out, doing things that you were doing before I stole you away?”

“I replaced it with something better, so I don’t recognize missing it.” I start taking off my shoes.

He stops me, doing it for me. “And what would that be?”

“It’s not a
‘what.’ It’s a ‘who.’” I climb up on the bed once my shoes are off. He takes off his, then walks over to the TV, grabbing the universal remote. “It’s a good thing to know I can reach out to you from wherever I am, when I’m missing you.”

“Tracey, you went through our
bonding that night without me, just fine. I think you can make it a couple of days. Just be safe.” He climbs onto the bed, next to me, and a worry lies upon his eyebrows. Something is bothering him.

He turns on the TV and
starts the movie. I snuggle up next to him, and he rubs my back under my shirt. It soothes me as I listen to my heartbeat, my head lying upon his chest. It’s peaceful, and my eyes grow heavy.

“Tracey, wake up. It’s getting late. We need to get you home.”

I’m not fully asleep
—I just don’t feel like getting up. “No, Nathan. Let me stay.”

“I would, but I think your mother would worry about you
—or assume you’re out with me doing un-lady-like activities.” His voice is light and joking.

“Maybe,” I say
, sitting up and stretching. It’s amazing how comfortable I am around him. “What time is it?”

“A little after nine
.”

“Well
, let’s wait another hour.” I turn to look at him and move back against his chest. “You’re going to stay the night with me, right?”

“Of course,” he
says calmly, looking down at me, and kisses my forehead. I lift my head so he can kiss me. He does, placing his lips softly against mine, holding a lot of emotions behind them. It’s awakening, breathtaking.

He pulls back and I pull him back to me. He kisses me the same
way, holding it longer than the first. He pulls back. “Come on, let’s go—before we do what everyone thinks we are in here doing.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

I shake my head
. “So when I move in here, this is what we’re going to deal with?”

“No, they just can’t wait until we are bound. Once we are
, the curiosity and suspicion will go away, and they will get over the giddy part of
our
relationship.”

“But
—” Nathan puts a finger to his lips, then points at the door.

“Come in
, Taylor.”

The door opens and in walks Taylor
—in all her beautiful glory. “Hey guys.” She closes the door behind her.

I sit up against the headboard. “Hi Taylor.”

She walks over and sits on the desk chair. “I’m sorry about earlier, Tracey. I hope our father didn’t get to you—he’s an ass—or what I said to you the other day when I woke you up from your dream.” She pulls her hair back into a knot at the top of her head.

“Nathan is a really strong person
, Tracey. Whatever is put in front of him, he undertakes, and it was wrong of me to say that if he ever loses control around you, you should leave him alone. Rather, if Nathan ever loses control, you should stand by his side and do whatever you can do to keep him anchored. I love my brother, Tracey, and I can see that you are good for him. He’s different around you—happy and fulfilled.” She smiles at me.

“Thank you
, Taylor.” She is genuine and I like her.

“And Nathan
,” she looks at him, “I know why your father was acting facetious. He doesn’t want you to bound, because of the change it will make in you, the acceleration, the more you will be capable of, the stronger you will become.
We
bound.” Nathan’s eyes widen. She’s talking about her and Justin. “I talked to father and I told him—because I felt different—about a week after. As soon as I let the word ‘more’ fall from my lips, he charged at me.” Nathan leans forward. “It was nothing. I felt nothing until he shot me.”

Nathan moves, sitting on the edge of the bed. “He did
what
?” He says in disgust.

“That’s not the
worst part—it’s what he shot me with.” I start moving behind Nathan, sitting up on my knees so that I can wrap my arms around his neck to bring him to sit back. I didn’t realize what I was doing until I did it.