Andrew cleared his throat and painted a smile on his face once again. “Sorry about that, got a little carried away.” He opened the door and motioned for me to step in. “Here, my dear, is Kelly.”
Pity tugged at me as I gazed down at the young, beautiful woman who had given up her life for the Order’s cause. A cause that I really didn’t understand. She lay on her grand bed, her red hair fanning out around her pale face, machines whirring and pulsing as they pumped air into her lungs and monitored her heart. It sent an uncomfortable chill through my body. Sickness had always made me feel too vulnerable, too out of control, and all of Kelly’s machines made me remember the weeks I spent watching my mother die—an alcoholic whose organs had failed one by one. It was an agonizing death for her to go through, and for me to watch. And seeing as how I’d experienced the trauma alone, having never known my father, it wasn’t one that I liked to reflect on very often.
“Morgan, this is Kelly,” Andrew said, his cheery voice a stark contrast to the hospital-room atmosphere. This was nothing like any psychic’s tent I’d ever been in. This was reality in the worst possible way. Prophesy at the expense of a woman’s life.
“Can she hear us?” I shifted my gaze to Andrew. “Does she know we’re here?”
“Oh yes, and she’s thrilled. She’s already trying to communicate with me.” He closed his eyes then, and I waited, not really understanding what was going on. When he opened his eyes again moments later, he smiled. “Kelly has been having some trouble reading your future. Her images about you have been fuzzy. Just now she was telling me, other than how happy she is to meet you, that she still can’t get a strong read on you.” He frowned as he shifted his gaze back to her. “It’s really bothering her.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, not really sure what I was doing to cause so much trouble. The psychic had told me that I was marked for death. Maybe the reason Kelly couldn’t read me was because I didn’t have a future. I opened my mouth to tell Andrew about the psychic’s warning when he raised his hand to me and motioned for silence.
Moments later he smiled. “She says that I need to reassure you now…that as usual, I’ve blundered the intro. She says she’s really happy that you’ve agreed to come to visit. That her not being able to see your future is not your fault, and”—his smiled widened—“I’m sorry if I made you feel like it was.”
I shook my head and waved his apology away.
“She also wants me to tell you that she can sense your frustration and hesitation to commit to Cal. She wants you to know that she didn’t mess up that part of her prophesy. You and Cal are meant to be together. You are his Huntress. She knows that you can feel a connection to him and she wants you to try not to hold back. Live with your heart.”
My temper flared, my face flushed, but I tamped it back down. The last thing I needed was to freak out all over this helpless invalid. “But Cal won’t—”
“Cal doesn’t want to get hurt and he doesn’t want to hurt you. Kelly says that’s classic, isn’t it? Classic macho man stuff.” He shrugged as he looked back down at her. “She says that you could change that if you wanted.”
I scoffed. “Like convince him to love me?” I shook my head. “This is the craziest situation. I don’t even know you people. I hardly know Cal.” I laid my hand over my heart. “I feel something for him that I can’t explain, and I’m so angry that he doesn’t want to give it back to me. That he’s denying his feelings. It’s insulting, and whether or not he wants to hurt me, rejecting me, treating me like a whore does hurt.” I raised my hand to halt Andrew’s protest, then tapped my fingers over my heart again. “I can see, I can feel, that he’s denying his feelings and I know that he’s not totally lying to me. He really doesn’t want to hurt me. But he’s also holding something back. I don’t know what exactly, but I can feel it. He’s not being completely honest.” I ran my hand through my hair. “It’s all so bizarre. There’s no such thing as instant love or love at first sight, but sometimes I feel…oh, well, it’s just stupid, it doesn’t exist. It isn’t real.”
Andrew raised his gaze to meet mine. “Before yesterday, did you think there was such a thing as werewolves?”