Captivate Me (Book One: The Captivated Series) (14 page)

Thank
God
he’d spoken first. I had no idea
where to even start with our first conversation, assuming there
would be more,
praying
there would be more. I stared at my feet as we walked, not
daring to glance up at him for fear that I would get lost in him
and trip, utterly embarrassing myself. Not to mention it would be
easier for me to carry on a coherent conversation with him if I
didn’t look at him directly. “Kathrin,” I replied, my voice thin
and shaky from the onslaught of emotions over the last hour or
so.

“You can call me Gabe,” he continued.
“Iris is really the only one who calls me by my full
name.”

“Oh,” I replied, the only
word that would form. “
Oh?”… really,
Kat?
That was the best reply you could
come up with?

A few more silent moments passed, the
sound of every crunching footstep pounding against me, reminding me
how quickly we would be back and how badly I was already screwing
this up. Why couldn’t I just talk to the boy? Why did his presence
affect me this profoundly?

Because he’s
gorgeous
, my subconscious retorted.
And because you know he feels the
same.

Finally, I felt bold enough to glance
at him. He walked with his hands stuffed in his pockets, also
staring at the ground, but it was too dark to get a read on his
expression. I would have given anything to crawl inside that head
of his, to know what he thought about me being invited to live with
them. Or what he thought about me in general.

My subconscious butted in
again.
As if the flowers he brings you
isn’t any indication.

It was now my turn to say
something. I couldn’t let this moment pass me by. I might not have
been able to squat inside his head to read his thoughts, but I
could ask questions in hopes he would give me a glimpse. Speaking
of flowers, I decided to start with the most obvious one, but most
definitely
not
the easiest. I had a feeling that our alone time might be
limited if he lived with so many others, and I would have to ask
these questions while it was the two of us.

I cleared my throat to even out my
voice. “So there’s something I’m curious about,” I
began.

His pace slowed, his eyes drawing over
to me. “Yes?” he replied, and if I wasn’t mistaken, his voice held
a tinge of relief. Maybe the silence was killing him just as
badly.

I slowed to match his
stride, and then we stopped altogether, our eyes meeting. The
silvery moonlight danced on his porcelain skin, his piercing blue
eyes sending my heart into spasms. The way his hair fell across his
forehead made me want to reach out and sweep my fingers through
it.
Keep it together. Focus on the
question.
I lowered my voice to a whisper
so it wouldn’t carry back to the others. “So the flowers I get in
the morning, those are from you?”

He took a step closer and anxiously
scrutinized my face, attempting to read my expression. “How’d you
know?”

“I put two and two
together,” I admitted shyly.
And had
prophetic dreams of you.
“You were the one
who gave me the flower in the woods the other night,
right?”

“Yes… that was me,” he said, a smile
toying with his lips, “so you liked the flowers I brought you? You
didn’t think it was-”

“I loved them,” I replied eagerly,
cutting him off.

He smiled with a mixture of relief and
pride, and we lapsed into silence as I thought about where to go
from there, my eyes raking through the woods. I noticed the lights
weren’t flickering in the distance anymore. Iris must have cloaked
the space with her invisibility spell again. “So where were the
others that night? I’m guessing they don’t know about
it?”

“Sometimes the others go off on their
own – the couples to spend time alone, and some of us go
hunting.”

Hunting?
I guess they wouldn’t rely on grocery stores if
they lived in the woods.

“So I was alone that
night.”

“Why wouldn’t you answer me?” I asked.
“I wanted to talk to you that night.”

His smile fell. “I’m sorry. When we’re
invisible you can’t hear us anyway, and I already felt like I was
breaking one of Iris’ rules by interacting with you. I didn’t want
to break too many at one time.”

“Rules?”

“Yeah, we’re not really allowed to
speak with anyone outside our group unless Iris
approves.”

For some reason that didn’t sit well
with me. Iris has to approve of everyone they talk to?
“Oh.”

He held out his hands defensively.
“It’s not because she’s controlling or anything. She just always
stresses the importance of keeping our lives private. It’s better
to keep our existence a secret.”

Fair enough. “Gotcha. So you can use
the spells too? You know how to make yourself
invisible?”

“All of us do.”

My thoughts reeled at the possibility.
That would be mighty useful when sneaking out of the school… or
back in. “Think you could show me how?”

His eyebrows knitted together,
conflicted. He glanced nervously back in the direction of their
camp.

“If you can’t, that’s
fine. I understand.”
Probably another one
of her ‘rules.’

My eyes involuntarily drew to a bush
beside us with the same white flowers, the imagery of when he had
plucked one the other night and given it to me seared into my
memory. Warmth flooded my body. “So all of this is real…” I
mused.

He let out a low chuckle.
“Real?”

“I feel like I’m dreaming.”

“Oh, it’s real, Kat.”

God, I loved the sound of
my name on his lips. “I’m beginning to accept that.”
I think.

With a playful glint in
his eyes, he collected a bud from the bush. “Well in case you keep
having doubts,” he said, laying it flat in his palm, and his other
hand hovered over the closed petals. His fingers moved in a
deliberate pattern, as though he were weaving some magical
tapestry. And then, like the other night, the petals shivered and
opened. This must have been
his
gift. He leaned closer, his well-kept, lean form
a breath away, his voice sweet and heavy. “Remember
this.”

My jaw fell.

He then took my hand and
placed the newly blossomed flower in my palm. The warmth of his
hand against mine sent a wave of pleasing chills over my body. I
curled my fingers around the flower so I wouldn’t drop it. Gently,
he pulled my hand to his mouth and kissed the top of my hand, his
eyes never leaving mine. My breath hitched; there was no doubt in
my mind now that we felt
exactly
the same way about each other.

After he released my hand, I just
stood there. Stupefied and completely and utterly enthralled with
this boy. This heart-achingly beautiful boy – a literal descendant
of an angel. His mother or father must have been an
arch.

“You aren’t going to pass out on me
again are you?” he teased.

I managed a small laugh.
“Maybe.”

He laughed in return, his blue eyes
dancing. “Good, because you scared me earlier. So I’ll see you
tomorrow night, then?”

Oh, yes. Come Heaven or hell, I would
be back. “I promise.”

His smile widened to reveal his
perfect pearly whites, sending my heart back into spasms.
“Good.”

We started on our way again, this time
in comfortable silence. My brain was mush anyway from him kissing
my hand. I would never wash it again.

Once we had made it to the tree line,
I whirled to face him again. He took my hand once more, brushing a
parting kiss on my knuckles. “Until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

We exchanged parting grins and tore
away from each other to head where we needed to go. There was so
much more to ask, to say. But we would have more time tomorrow
night.

As I pulled my hoodie over
my head in preparation for my covert entrance back into the school,
I indulged myself with one last look as he walked away. Everything
inside me was bursting to run back over to touch him again, throw
him against a tree and kiss him,
be
with him, so much that my skin could hardly
contain it. It wasn’t about lust, or even his looks, it was that
ever-present calling to him from deep inside – my soul’s
recognition of its counterpart. I smiled a face-splitting smile.
This was most definitely, without question, the captivation my
mother spoke of.

Gabriel had captivated my
heart.

CHAPTER NINE

___________________

Chemistry

By the time I’d made it into the
school and around the corner from the nurse’s station to find Nurse
Plunkett, I heard voices echoing down the empty hallways. One of
them sounded like Principal Hughes. I flattened against the wall
and listened, searching for a crevice I could dart into if need be.
The voices didn’t seem to be getting closer, so I
relaxed.

“I’m so glad we found
him,” a husky female voice said.
Wanda…
his assistant.

I held my breath to listen
closer.

“Me too,” Principal Hughes
answered.

“Any idea why he would
have been asleep inside a closet?” an unfamiliar voice asked. An
officer? “For an
entire
day?”

“No idea,” Principal Hughes replied.
He sounded completely defeated. But of course he would be; even
though they’d found Nurse Plunkett, a child was still
missing.

“You can’t think of a single reason?”
the officer pried.

Because a half-breed,
aura-reading dipstick gave him too much elixir.
My fingertips grazed the glass cylinder in my pocket – the
vial of medicine Iris had given me to wake him. Did he still need
it?

“No, I’m sorry.”

“I suppose I’ll question Nurse
Plunkett again in the morning when he’s less groggy.”

I released my breath. He
must be awake.
Thank God.

“That’s what I would do, detective,”
Principal Hughes said.

I heard a click of a pen and a notepad
slam shut. “Okay, then. See you both in the morning.”

Shit, that was my
cue.
I better make it back to my
room.

* * *

With mere hours before I
needed to be up and getting ready, my mind raced with thoughts of
tomorrow. If they let us out of our jail cells, I’d have to pretend
to be just as shocked and relieved as everyone else when they
announced the news of Nurse Plunkett, and even if they didn’t let
us out, I’d be sneaking back into the woods tomorrow night to join
the other half-breeds for dinner. And
he
would be there.
Gabriel.
His name
breezed through my mind and injected a fresh rush of excitement
into my blood. Sleep wouldn’t come easy tonight.

As I lay on my bed with the flower
resting on my stomach, my fingertips running over my knuckles where
Gabriel had kissed me, I conjured up my own definition of what
being captivated meant. Just from my brief but potent encounter
with Gabriel in the flesh, I could honestly say that captivation
was something born, not bred. It wasn’t something created or
forced, but rather a natural, organic bond when a heart recognizes
its match in another. He was my match, and I was his.

Now I finally understood
what all the fuss was about, what it meant to be truly enamored
with someone beyond belief.
I
wanted to do pirouettes around our room and had a
rich, deep-seated hunger to be near him again. But what now? Where
would this new chapter take me? And as importantly, where would it
take Levi?

My heart plummeted into my
stomach.
Levi
.

It was now all the more apparent how I
had been trying to force something that wasn’t meant to be. All
this time I had been shoving a square peg into a round
hole.

Tears stung my eyes at the thought of
hurting him, because that was what would eventually happen and I
didn’t want to be the one to break his heart. He had given it to me
openly, and I had gambled with it like a careless jerk.

Wetting my pillow, tears
flowed freely down my face. It was emotionally exhausting to be
filled with so much joy and guilt at the same time. Joy at what I
had found in Gabriel, joy that he was real, but guilty… oh,
so
guilty
about
what this meant for Levi. My sweet, sweet Levi who would do
anything and everything to have my love.

With that thought, I gave in; I buried
my face in the pillow and sobbed.

* * *

The shrill ring of our phone jerked me
from a dreamless sleep. My first thought was my parents, that
they’d received their call from the school and were freaking out.
And if they hadn’t, it was my dad’s sixth sense kicking in
again.