There was a heavy sigh and then, “Because it’s the reason that I was born.”
Chapter 32
“What are you talking about?” the small woman that he’d never planned on seeing again asked as Nathan sat there, absently wrapping his finger around a strand of her long curly brown hair and let his finger slide free only to do it again.
When they were kids, he used to hold her like this, wrapping her hair around his finger while he tried to think of something, anything, to say to make things better for her. He loved his sister more than anything in this world and it killed him that she always had to struggle so damn hard for everything. She’d always been smaller than the other kids, shyer, quieter, and so damn sensitive.
She’d never complained, never let anyone know how hard it was for her, but late at night, when everything was quiet, she’d curl up onto her side and cry. Without a word, he’d crawl into her bed, put his arm around her, and gently twirl his finger around a strand of her hair as she let it all out. When she finally fell asleep in his arms, he continued to hold her, promising her that things would be better one day.
“I’m a Sentinel, Sammie,” Nathan said, absently twirling his fingers through her hair.
“You do realize that I have no idea what that means, right?” she said, making his lips twitch.
“Every ten years, ten Sentinels are born. Five mated pairs, who share a human soul and the soul of an angel. We’re born to humans along with a human twin who makes it possible for us to be born,” Nathan said, wishing that he didn’t have to have this conversation with her.
When he first found out what he was and what he was supposed to do, he’d wondered how he was going to tell her. The entire ride to Boston, he’d worried about how she would react when she found out that vampires existed. She would have probably been okay after a few minutes, but he knew that she would have lost it when she found out what that meant for him.
During the entire ride there, he’d worried about how she was going to handle the news only to decide that he was keeping her as far away from this world as he could when he’d reached the Boston compound and found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. As he’d waited for the minion that had snuck into the compound to pull the trigger, the only thing that he could think of was his sister and how fucking relieved he was that Eric had talked him out of bringing her with him.
“Sentinels live for two hundred years. We’re stronger and faster than humans. Our senses are also stronger than a human’s and we age differently. When we die, we wait with our mates to be born again and take our turn on earth,” he explained, staring at the wall as he waited for her to understand what he was telling her.
“What does that make me?”
“Lucky to be alive,” he said hollowly as he continued wrapping his finger around her hair.
“I don’t understand,” Samantha said as he allowed himself one last twirl of her hair before climbing off the bed, needing to put a little space between them before he told her the rest.
“Most human twins die at birth. It’s difficult for them to survive sharing a womb with us, but somehow you survived. Your scent is sweeter than it should be, but that’s it. You’re still human,” he said as he leaned back against the wall, watching as her eyebrows arched in confusion and-
“Wait. This doesn’t make any sense, Nathan. We’re twenty-nine years old, which means that you’ve stopped aging and in a few years it will be noticeable. When were you planning on telling me about all of this?” Samantha asked as she sat up and forced him to tell her the one thing that would make her hate him forever.
“I wasn’t.”
“You weren’t going to tell me?” she said, frowning in confusion only to swallow hard as she met his gaze as she finally understood what he’d been trying to tell her. “You were never going to tell me,” she repeated hollowly.
“No, I wasn’t, Sammie. Keeping you out of this was the only way to keep you safe. I didn’t want anything to-”
“When?” she asked, cutting him off and he didn’t pretend to misunderstand.
“Next week,” he said, watching as she sat there, absently nodding as she dropped her gaze to the floor.
“I was never going to see you again, was I?” she asked, staring down at the floor.
“No,” he said, moving to go to her so that he could explain that he’d been trying to protect her only to stop when she said, “Get out.”
“Sammie, I-”
“Just go, Nathan.”
*-*-*-*
“God, he’s a fucking idiot,” Kale said, shaking his head in disgust as Trace sat on the small cot that he used to share with his father, taking in the old cottage that looked exactly the way it had all those years ago except for the addition of a new table and a wood floor.
“He shouldn’t have lied to her,” Trace said absently as he sat there wondering just how differently his life would have turned out if he’d listened to his father.
“No, he shouldn’t have,” the shifter agreed as he leaned back against the wall.
“When’s the next full moon?” Trace asked, forcing his mind back on the only thing that should matter.