Page 138 of Hospital for Immortal Creatures

To his surprise, Amelia didn’t pull back like he’d expected her to. She raised her chin so she could meet his gaze head-on. “It took me a while but I’m very much aware of where I am now. And if you’d given me the chance, I might have proven it to you.”

They were still talking about her desire to work in the OR, so why the past tense?

Mikhail let the spirit of the manticore surface, imbuing his eyes with shades of yellow. “I showed you real, and you got scared, little beast.”

Amelia held his gaze, unwavering. “That’s not what I got scared of.”

The beast in him was curious to push it further, but his rational side prevailed. “Doesn’t matter, Amelia.” He waved a hand in dismissal. “I can’t let you work as a surgeon, but the library is at your disposal. You can read it all—”

“The more real it got, the more I liked it,” she cut him off, her voice steady. “And…that’s what frightened me. Not the real part, but my own reaction to it.”

Mikhail let the revelation sink in. The animal growled in eagerness inside him. Oh, but he’d been there, too, and he remembered well her features when she’d looked at him. The expression of pleasure that had dissipated into fear. It had been too pronounced to be mistaken.

Amelia’s blue eyes met his. “And if we’re going all the way down to real, there are things I must tell you. It’s not the… you and me part that scared me. It was another thing.”

For some reason, her words made him bristle. “Another thing?”

Amelia sighed and glanced to the side, as if assessing what to say next. “I believe I could handle working in the Hospital, because… there’s a possibility I’m connected to this world. Your world. The vision about Dave is not the only one I’ve had. Well, to an extent, it was a vision in the true sense of the word. The rest of them were dreams. At least most of them… What I mean is, I’ve been having the strangest dreams since I came here.”

Mikhail had suspected as much ever since their conversation before Italy. Despite his aversion to secrets, he tried to keep his tone inviting. “What kind of dreams?”

“About you, mainly. At first, I thought they were just dreams. But then I realised they were memories.”

“Of me? I don’t understand.”

“Your scars.” She nodded towards his chest. “That time in the forest, when you turned, and then you had no clothes when you became humanlike again. That wasn’t the first time I’d seen them. I witnessed the exact moment that woman carved them into you.”

The mere mention of Valeria always stirred the anger boiling inside him, but he managed to suppress it this time.

“I’ve dreamt of the woman next to you, and I’ve seen everything that happened after she confessed her betrayal. You, healing in the old man’s house; his granddaughter taking care of you. Your visit to your parents’ house, when you discovered your dead brothers.”

Mikhail’s jaw clenched. “You saw all that?”

“All of it. The blood, the bullets, the pain. Everything you felt, I also felt.”

Mikhail’s eyes narrowed. Something inside him twitched. “This is what you’ve been hiding from me?” He had asked her straight about unusual experiences and she had denied ever having any with a stone face.

Mikhail nudged himself at the thought. It wasn’t with a stone face, though, was it? Hesitation was carved all over her. After all, that was how he had sensed she was lying. For once, he willed himself to listen to the rest.

In a measured tone, he said, “All right. I get it. You’ve been dreaming about events from my past. Why didn’t you say so sooner?”

She spoke more freely now, the tension leaving her with every word. “I didn’t understand what was going on. I still don’t, but I’ve started to accept it. Before, I didn’t trust you. I knew that if I told you about my dreams, you’d never let me go back to my old life because they proved that our encounter was no coincidence. And you said that if in two weeks we discover nothing, you’d let me leave…”

“And you tried to run.”

“I did that because I thought you were lying and would be even more unwilling to let me leave once you found out about my dreams. But then you showed me your work, and I learnt a lot about you! And I started to like you and genuinely want to help you. But I also felt like an intruder because of everything I was witnessing through these dreams – memories, whatever we want to call them. It felt intrusive, like I was digging into your life. I had no idea how you’d react when you found out, or if you’d even want me to know about these memories. And last night, when your eyes changed colour, I thought… there was no turning back.”

Because it had finally dawned on her that he was a beast beast and would dig up her secrets, one way or the other?

Stop it. This is not your ex-fiancée. Amelia had kept her secrets because she’d been scared, not because she was trying to manipulate him. There was no guile or ill intent in those eyes of hers. Moreover, she was also, in essence, admitting that she actually…liked him.

He had promised himself not to touch her again, but his hand moved of its own accord and he traced her jawline with his fingers. “I’ve been thinking for a while that you’re hiding something.”

“You were?” Her voice wavered slightly.

He allowed the corners of his mouth to tilt up in a faint smile. “Of course. But I’m not mad. You were scared and confused, which I can understand. However, I want you to promise me one thing. No more secrets from now on. You need to trust me completely so we can figure out – together – why the Oracle sent me to you and how these murders are linked to you.”

Her expression softened, and her shoulders sagged slightly as the tension drained away.

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