Amusement filled her eyes as a little laugh left her lips. “Oh, I have mad skills. Haven’t you seen the floating silverware?” She was obviously restraining her laughter.
“Smart-ass,” he retorted. Her sense of humor had always lit up the Underground offices of the Agency when she was there. God, how he’d missed it. “And I’m being serious. The Genetics Council targeted your aunt because of the predominance for psychic gifts on both sides of the family. I believe Orrin once said something about your grandmother having certain gifts.”
Remembrance stole across her expression, and her love for her deceased grandparent clearly showed in her eyes.
“Grandmother could dream-walk,” she remembered fondly. “But only with young children. She used it to soothe their nightmares and bring them sweet dreams instead. Isabelle has some small ability with that as well. I had no idea of my ability to do any kind of projection, though. No one’s complained but you.” Her smile was wickedly teasing.
“What exactly is dream-walking? How does it work?” he asked.
Chelsea shrugged at the question. “You’ll have to ask Isabelle. She doesn’t really talk about it. As for Lauren?” She laid the e-pad aside and gave a small sigh. “She wasn’t close to the rest of the family. If she’d had such an ability we wouldn’t have known about it unless it came to us through family gossip.”
“Did your grandfather tell you Lauren had cancer before we married?” he asked, watching her carefully.
She shrugged in discomfort, dropping her gaze to her fingers. Evidently she had known. Just as she had known he was a Breed. He remembered seeing her the night the Breed Underground had brought him, Honor and Cat to Terran Martinez’s home. She’d peeked at him from the darkness of the other room as he stood in the kitchen, determined to protect the girls. Those eyes had been filled with warmth and curiosity.
“Look at me,” he demanded softly. “Just for a minute.”
Lifting her eyes, she stared back at him silently, terrified of what might be coming, knowing he could shatter her heart. Cullen could feel that knowledge between them, just as he felt her love wrapping around him.
“When I came here I was desperate for roots, for a sense of belonging,” he said sadly. “The phrase ‘young and dumb’ can apply to Breeds as well.”
She nodded, licking her lips nervously. “I can understand that need. Anyone can.”
He moved closer to her, reached out and touched her lips with a whisper of a caress.
“Lauren was beautiful and so desperate to live. I was young and my Breed senses nonexistent. Most Breeds can smell a lie, no matter their age. And I didn’t have that ability. What I had was a hunger to feel normal.” Picking up her hand, he ran a finger over the back of it and sighed heavily before staring back at her once again in regret.
“Cullen, I wasn’t jealous like that,” she whispered. “We were friends, and suddenly you just weren’t a part of my life anymore. It hurt, but I don’t resent you or Lauren in any way.”
“You’re not listening.” His jaw tightened furiously, the need to explain, to find the words to explain, filling him with frustration. “I was desperate to believe lust was love and so eager for those roots that I fell into the whole fantasy of it.” He shook his head at the memory. “And I was too young, too dumb and desperate for that fantasy to realize that Raymond’s fondness for Lauren and his knowledge of my Breed status was a dangerous combination. They thought young lust and desperation was all it took to create a mating, and that a mating would heal her.” He laid his finger against her lips when she would have spoken. “I don’t hate her for it. I don’t even blame her for the attempt. I never have. But I couldn’t have mated her. It wasn’t possible.”
“Because you were recessed . . .” She nodded.
“That’s not why. Mating Heat will awaken Breed instincts and they can become active in a second,” he explained. “That wasn’t why.”
Confusion had her staring back at him helplessly.
“Then why? I know you loved her . . .”
“You’re not listening,” he reproved gently. “Lust and a need for roots cannot create a mating. Just because I wanted to believe I loved her at the time doesn’t count. Subconsciously, I knew better. And if I didn’t, then my Breed instincts sure as hell did.”
Chelsea licked her lips nervously, her heart suddenly racing, hope beginning to explode through her despite her best effort to contain it.
“There, you’re getting a clue now, aren’t you?” The soft approval in his voice had a tremor racing through her.
He couldn’t be telling her what she was so desperate to hear.
Could he?
“Chelsea, I love you,” he whispered, his voice deeper, rougher. “That’s why the Mating Heat flared when I knew you were leaving the Agency and me. That’s why, when Graeme told me of your attack, there was no way I couldn’t have come to you, and the Heat was stronger when I did. I was going crazy without your laughter, your smart-ass remarks and the warmth that’s so much a part of you. I love you. I even loved you when you were a bratty twelve-year-old who winked at me and decided I was crazy for turning down her father’s soup. Some part of my instincts demanded I give you a chance to mature, though, as you became older. To grow in who you were, not who I wanted you to be.”
Chelsea was shaking by time he finished, joy exploding inside her like fireworks as his eyes seemed to glow with a warmth she realized had always been there, just tamped back. Tamed.
And it was hers.
A laugh spilled from her and she threw her arms around his neck. Falling back to the cushions, he dragged her over him, the strength of his arms enfolding her.
He was hers.