Adam's Pulse

Part 31

Chapter 31

Adam knew what she was going to say before the words even left her mouth.  There was just one small problem; he wasn’t going to let her talk herself out of being here with him.  He could see it in her eyes, could tell by the way she held herself that she was going to tell him bad news, and at that moment, the only thing she could tell him that would be bad was that she wasn’t going to even try.  She wasn’t going to try to make things work between them; hell, she wasn’t going to even give them a chance to try.

With a nod, he walked towards the table where Isaac’s food was left forgotten.  Sitting in the chair the man had vacated only moments before, Adam nodded at Sloan.  She must have taken it as encouragement to keep going because her spine straightened slightly as her chin raised a notch.  He had to clench his teeth together to keep from smiling at the picture she made, because he knew that she wouldn’t take him laughing at her well, not when she was trying her best to be serious.

“I can’t do this,” she mumbled, and when he didn’t say a word, she motioned between the two of them.  “You know what I mean, right?  I can’t be a part of this world; I can’t be a part of your world.”

“Why?”

The simple word made her mouth snap shut.  She stared at him as if it was the last thing she had expected him to say.  “What do you mean why?”

He eased further back into his chair, feeling completely at ease and even slightly amused.  It wasn’t that he didn’t take her seriously, because he did.  He knew that she had thought this through, had decided that the best thing for all of them was for her to just leave, but he wasn’t letting her go without a fight.  If after he fought for her, she still wanted to leave, then he would let her go.  It would be one of the hardest things he had ever done, maybe even harder than losing the woman he had thought was his mate, but he would let her go.  Because he had learned long ago that you couldn’t force someone to love you; you couldn’t make them want to be with you.  They had to make up their own minds, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t fight for her, couldn’t fight for what he wanted.

“Why can’t you do this?” he asked, keeping his tone level as if they were having an everyday conversation.  “You don’t like me?”

“Of course I like you,” she snapped, crossing her arms across her chest.  “From the first time I met you, I knew you were different, and no matter how many times I told myself to stop thinking about you, I couldn’t.  Liking you isn’t the problem, hasn’t been the problem from the beginning.”  She paused for a moment, a frown marring her features.  “Or maybe that is exactly the problem.”

This time, the smile slipped onto his face before he could bite it back.  “Liking me is a problem?  I have to say that that’s the first time anyone has ever told me that.”

Her eyes narrowed on him, and Adam didn’t know if it was because of his words or the smile on his face.  Either way, he kept his mouth shut as she started speaking again.  “You know what I mean.  I’m a human, Adam.  I bleed red, and when I bleed, it doesn’t suddenly heal over like nothing happened.”

“Do you think you’re the first human ever to be with a shifter group?  That I don’t already know the ramifications that being a human causes?”

“Ramifications,” she repeated with disbelief in her voice.  “Me being human isn’t just a ramification!  Do you even know what a bond between the two of us would be like?  What if I’m faulty somehow; what if something goes wrong when we try to bind ourselves together?  What if one of us dies?”

The last question was whispered, and Adam knew he had finally gotten to the core of this conversation. She wasn’t afraid to be around the shifters, and she didn’t want to leave him.  She wanted to leave the pain behind before it even had a chance to manifest.  She wanted to run from what they could have.