“Thank you.” Luci nodded. “Then you can take me back down to Earth. Let’s go.”
Eighteen
Raze wished he could make Lucia understand what she was about to do—wished he could put it in terms she would believe.
A female agreeing to do a scent book in the Kindred world was the same as her agreeing to pose for sexually explicit pictures in the human world. Or perhaps becoming a…what did humans call it? A stapler? A strooper? Anyway, someone who removed their clothing and danced around a tall silver pole while others watched.
Raze was quite certain that Lucia—who was normally extremely modest and chaste—wouldn’t do either of these things. Yet she was prepared to make a scent book of her own personal and private scent—the scent that he loved so much and didn’t want any other male to smell—in order to get some money.
He wished he knew why she was suddenly so desperate for cash. But she wasn’t saying much on the way home. She simply stared straight ahead as he flew the shuttle car back to where she’d parked her own vehicle.
“Thank you for the ride,” she said stiffly, acting as though they were strangers, as she exited the shuttle.
“You’re welcome,” Raze said quietly. He wanted to say more—to say that he still loved her and wanted to be with her desperately. But what good would it do when he couldn’t act on those emotions?
Still, there was something he could do.
“Lucia,” he called, before she shut the shuttle door. “Wait—just a moment.”
“Yes?” She turned and was there something like hope in her big brown eyes? A wish that he might tell her they could be together after all?
How Raze wished he could tell her that! But he couldn’t. Instead, he reached into an inner compartment of the shuttle and pulled out a thin golden circlet.
“Here,” he said and handed it to Lucia.
“What’s this? You’re giving me a crown?” She looked at it in puzzlement.
“No—a way to contact me, in case of trouble. That’s a Think-me,” Raze told her. “You only have to put it on and concentrate on me and no matter where I am, I’ll come to help you. I swear it.”
For a moment, he thought she was going to give it back. But then she simply tucked the Think-me into her purse and nodded.
“Thank you, Raze,” she said quietly. “That’s very kind of you.”
“Please call me if you need me,” he told her. “I’m not sure why you need money so badly and I can tell you don’t want to tell me. But if there’s anything I can help with, let me know and I’ll come running. I promise you that, Lucia.”
She nodded again and he thought he saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes. But she turned away before he could be sure.
“Goodbye, Lucia,” he said quietly.
“Goodbye, Raze.” Her voice was muffled and she swiped at her cheeks before digging the keys to her vehicle out of her purse.
Raze felt his heart throb with longing. If only he could call her back and put his arms around her! If only he could bond her to him and make her his forever and adopt her little family as his own to love and protect!
But he couldn’t. For a hybrid like him, it was next to impossible.
So he watched her get into her own vehicle and drive away, his heart full of unspoken love he knew he could do nothing about.
Nineteen
Luci cried all the way home. Seeing the big Kindred again had been like opening a wound. On the way up to the Mother Ship, she had been hoping that she was at least partly over him. But when she looked into his mismatched eyes and heard him say he loved her but they couldn’t be together, it hurt all over again, almost as badly as it had the first time.
Why can’t I stop loving him? she asked herself desperately. How did I fall for him so quickly and why can’t I let him go?
There seemed to be no answers to those questions and she sobbed her heart out as she drove, feeling worse than she had before.
It was cathartic to get her grief out, but when she finally parked in the garage of her apartment building, Luci dried her eyes and made herself stop.
There’s nothing you can do about it, she told herself firmly. So just get over it. You have other things to think about now.
Taking a deep breath, she got out of the car, clutching her precious package from the Scent Shop to her chest. She might not have Raze, but she did have a way to save her family. And that was a lot better than nothing.
Still, she couldn’t bring herself to open the package that night. She felt too miserable and tired and emotionally wrung out to even think of doing what had to be done at the moment. She went right to bed and spent all the next day with her kids, making Play Dough creations and baking cookies—just trying to de-stress.