My red eyes blink away the happenings of the day while my mind grasps the realization that Gaire had to gather my ashes and bring them below ground so I could regain my cloudy form before dark. I cannot roam in daylight without a human shroud. I’m a creature of the night. That thought makes me think of Jane. I miss her already, but I feel the spunk she’s left me and hold it close as Gaire goes on.
“I don’t care who that other doppelganger was, or what you two meant to each other. I love you,” Gaire says.
Shocked, Dick’s last words circle in my head, I’ll be back for you … but Gaire’s words whisk them away like an eraser on a blackboard.
“I was moved by you the moment I met you,” he says, “but, oh, what a surprise to find out you’re everything I cannot have with a human or any other of our kind.”
I start to object, but he raises a hand.
“I’m everyone’s nightmare but yours, sweetheart. My lust for blood destroyed any hope for a relationship, until I met you. Killing CeCe did not harm her. I am hoping that getting the other woman killed did not harm her, either.”
He raises a brow.
My forehead wrinkles. His lips tighten, but hopeful eyes hold mine.
I understand he’s waiting to see if I have accepted this, if I get it.
I get it, alright. I’m even weighing the opportunities. It’s not like I kill my hosts; I always double up, shed, and leave the original none the wiser. It’s not like he could hurt them, either. They’d never know.
And hell, chickie, you can’t even hurt yourselves, an echo of Jane’s voice circles in my head, and I wish she were still with me. She’s right. I can have what I’ve wished for. No! We could have what we’ve wished for.
All the possibilities flood me: someone to share my hopes and dreams with, to go body shopping with, to laugh with, cry with … and love. We could share humanity one human at a time. Roam the world as partners, share everything above ground and Down Under. The thought is overwhelming—a dream-come-true. But...
“I love you, not the clothes you wear,” he tells me again.
As my smoky body rolls and roils into shapeless silhouettes, I realize I’m shuddering. Not a human form I’m wearing, but me, doppelganger. Gaire has totally taken me off guard. As much as he’s shocked me, he’s given me hope, but not without fear.
I look into his loving eyes and I’m filled with excitement over the possibility of a long term, almost human relationship. But as I smile up at the beautiful man standing above me, waves of reality roll across my boneless spine. I can’t exactly take Gaire home to dinner. We can’t even go Down Under without him being recognized. And I do need to check in with my guardian … often. For a couple of years anyway … but...
“We can make this work,” Gaire says.
I ponder the thought, make mental notes, and generate countermeasures for all the simple issues.
Then Gaire opens his mouth, again. This time he pops the colorful bubble I’m trying to form around us.
“Do I have to be worried about the other doppelganger? And did you know the dragon-shifter was a paid assassin?”
Chapter 16
WHY ME
Gracie Jean
Moonlight silhouettes a row of cypress trees growing at the edge of Lake Eustis; Spanish moss sways from their branches in a soft breeze.
I left Gaire in a storm drain, not far from here, and told him to wait while I find another host. Being the doppelganger again is restricting. I can’t leave the sewer in daylight, like Gaire, and there is no safe place to hide below. We would have to keep moving, staying in the shadows. There are always places above ground, even if it is a bus station, an abandoned building, or a homeless shelter. Below ground we are accessible to all that is Down Under.
Like a cloud of smoke whipped by the wind, I circle a small group of humans sitting around a campfire a hundred yards from an old two-story. I listen, observe, and search for the perfect host.
“Give me a break, Jake!” a teenager with brunette hair and a heart-shaped ass snaps. She and another guy walk right through me, lugging a cooler closer to the fire. “You know you hate the whole Ivan thing.” She drops the cooler and pushes her hair over her shoulder, bossy and saucy like—too saucy.
I slither by, riding the shadows closer to the ground.
“Ah, but I don’t hate him,” a short haired, doughy guy wearing glasses shouts back from the other side of the campfire.
“You do, too!” a warm-skinned girl with hair so black it draws flames and frames her face in rich blue light. She stands up, dark eyes on Jake. “You said—” Her index finger point’s credibility into her words. “—and I quote, ’If he touches Hope, I’ll kick his ass’.”
She’s tall, aggressive, naturally tanned by her Indian heritage, reed-thin with a waist the size of a grown man’s upper arm, and her budding breasts peer over a low cut tee—too aggressive.
I don’t know what I’m doing here. What purpose do I have for donning a teenager to start a relationship with Gaire?
Eh, come on, you know why, Jane’s street mentality enters my thoughts and forces clarity.
I miss her. I think Gaire misses her, too. Too much. Maybe that’s it. It would be hard to make the beginning of our relationship all about sex wearing a fifteen year old.