Page 37 of Stalked

This was the first time since he arrived at the bar that I could see the humor drain from his face.

“Fight.”

“Fight?” I repeated. “Like you and I?”

“Oh, we did that too, but that’s not what I’m talking about. You were a warrior. You dedicated your life to saving others from darkness. Helping others who couldn’t save themselves. You did it all selflessly because you didn’t care about dying. You only cared about protecting others because you were utterly fearless.”

I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. The last three years had been a fucking nightmare because my mom destroyed everything I used to be. That tiny part of me was happy she was dead because I could finally consider myself free. But hearing Caleb talk about this other life where I was better than I am inthisbody, made the imposter syndrome choke me like a fucking rope.

“I have another question,” I said. “You mentioned that we dated but, like, how?”

He gave me a quizzical look. “How?”

For some reason, asking that question made a ball of anxiety lodge itself in my throat, but I swallowed it down. Maybe I didn’t really want to know.

“Well, you said we dated, right?” I said, raising a brow. “Did we …?” My voice trailed off as embarrassment colored my cheeks. I had to ask because of how he acted with me in the park, in my bedroom, and what he was trying to do under the bar. What memories had he held onto for the last three centuries?

My body lit up from just a simple touch, almost like a conditioned response, and I didn’t remember anything about him.

“Mercy,” Caleb said, pulling me out of those thoughts. “Are you asking if I saw you naked?”

I swallowed. My cheeks flushed.

Oh, God.

“You know what I’m fucking talking about,” I said.

He wanted me to say it.

A playful smile quirked his mouth. “We loved each other in ways no one understood. You and I were something more, yes. But it all changed before you died.”

The humor faded a second time, and his expression became unreadable.

“What changed?” I asked.

He pulled me closer and leaned his head back, hesitating for a moment, as if he were trying to connect the pieces of a puzzle; to recount a memory that had been lost.

“Our parents,” he began. “They knew us better than we knew ourselves. The two of us being intimate; it was careless. It was a distraction we couldn’t afford, so we had to put our focus on our mission. We didn’t have a choice, Mercy. Our parents forbade it. We had just turned twenty when they told us they would strip us of our powers if we didn’t stop seeing each other.”

“We broke up because our parents told us to? Because they threatened us?”

Caleb’s mouth gave a slight twist. “Yes. A year before you died. The memories of you and me together likethatnever left me, though. It was as if we were made for each other; body and soul.”

“Why did we listen?” I asked. I suddenly felt a little foolish for spending all this energy trying to figure out if we’d ever had sex, when really there was a much bigger story I couldn’t remember. “If I was anything back then like I am now, I don’t understand why I would have.”

He frowned. “As I said, we didn’t have a choice. The Chosen Ones were sent to Earth on a mission. We were created for a cosmic purpose, and falling in love with each other, wasn’t it.”

I tried to picture what my life might have looked like in the seventeenth century. It seemed so different, so unreachable, and I was baffled by the idea of parents dictating their children’s lives like that. But maybe that was the naïve part of my thinking. Plenty of kids in the world don’t have the option to disobey their families.

He placed his finger under my chin, lifting it up so I could meet his eyes while the rest of the room continued to dance around us. “There are a few things that haven’t changed about you, though.”

I raised a brow. “And what’s that?”

“Your inability to hide what you’re thinking.” He pulled me closer, pressing our chests together and giving me a gentle squeeze. It felt like an invitation to fall into the warm solid breadth of him, and I didn’t even want to resist anymore.

“You have no idea what’s going on inside my head,” I mumbled. The lump in my throat was back, and there was no real fire behind the words.

“We’re connected in more ways than you think, Mercy.”

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