I finally took a deep breath. I had closed my eyes when he started talking to me. Their shocked expressions had an unexpected affect on me, so when I opened my eyes, they were the almost amber that meant I was sad. Adrik felt the shift. They all saw the new color before he turned me around.
“Why are you sad, spider monkey?” Andrei asked as I hid my face in Adrik’s chest.
“So that color brown means she’s sad?” Stephen asked. “That’s different than her normal brown.”
Adrik nodded his head. “I’ve only ever seen that amber color once before. When she was thinking about Trino seeing his m om for the last time,” he said. He gently put his hand on the back of my neck, pulling me away from him so he could search my eyes. He cursed under his breath, pulling me back to him. “We love you no matter what, Sephie. That’s never going to change.”
I heard Andrei quietly explain to the others and I knew he had done his own searching. “She doesn’t want to scare us with everything that’s happened. She doesn’t want us to look at her differently, either. She’s sad at the thought of us feeling uncomfortable around her now.”
We heard the door to the penthouse open, signaling that Vitaliy and Aleksei were back. Adrik kept his arms around me, but walked us quickly back to the bedroom. Once we were alone, he stepped back from me, looking me in the eyes. “They were just shocked. The white eyes are scarier than the demon eyes the first time you see them. They still love you as much as they ever have, Sephie. Nothing is going to change that.”
I nodded my head, but didn’t say anything. I walked to the bathroom so I could put the contacts back in. He followed me, standing in his favorite spot behind me, his chin once again resting on my shoulder while he watched me put the contacts in. It had become one of my favorite things. It was such a simple thing, but I found myself loving the little moments we had together.
Adri
Sephie still felt slightly upset, but she was trying to smile through it. She turned toward me after putting her contacts back in, smiling sweetly up at me. She reached up and pressed her lips to mine. “I love you.” the said as the grabbed my hand to walk back to the kitchen.
The guys were still in the kitchen as Sephir lest me back out. They looked concerned, but I could tell that she smiled at them an i soften. Vitalis and Aleksei were standing with them. Sephie didn’t waste any time. “Vitaliy, what did you feel when you thook that woman’s hand all of their faces today”
He looked surprised, but there was also an air of amusement. “It’s good to see you he said, a shy smile across his face. ms question and I’ll lawn over you, but not before. I saw your react when you touched her,” she said, crossing her arms across her chest. The guys were struggling to not laugh Vitaliy chuckled, but answered her question. “She’s very evil. Battista ows of my ability. Occasionally, he brings people for my approval. She was one that he was seeking approval on,” he said. “Then why did he tell me that I did him a huge favor and he’s in my debt now before we left?” she asked
“Because you gave him a valid reason to get rid of her quickly. They’ve been working on a few small things together and it’s gone well, but he said he’s never felt completely comfortable with her. He just didn’t know why. That’s when he usually seeks out my services. She’s very influential with a few other business associates of Battista’s, so he can’t just cut ties with her without a valid reason. You’ve given him a valid reason. He may be a womanizer and he might openly flirt with women, but never in the disrespectful manner that she did today. He knows his boundaries. She clearly did not, but vou did an excellent job of reminding her, sladkaya,” he said, laughing. “What did you tell her when she got up**
“That if she ever tried to touch him again, she would no longer have functioning hands.” Sephir said, her arms still folded across her chest. She was clearly still irritated with her.
Vitaliy and Aleksei both looked surprised, but both laughed at Sephie’s words. She moved to lean against the counter, chewing on her bottom lip. *Vitaliy, ow does your ability work? Is it a black or wh ite situation? Or do you feel like levels of good and evil?” she asked.
“It’s more nuanced than black and wh ite. Like I said before, some people are ruled by good, some by evil. But there’s also what they’re doing about it. I can feel that too. Some people fight against the evil and ultimately end up being very good people. Some people are ruled by good, but still choose eval for whatever reason. It depends on the person. This woman today, though. There was no good in her,” he said.
Sephie looked at Ivan, silently asking if he was okay to tell Vitaliy what happened. He nodded once. “Ivan and I saw her demon. She’s completely consumed by it,” she said.
Italty raised his eyebrow. “How?”
Septur und, “we’re still not entirely sure. It’s happened to Ivan before today, but it was rare. It’s never happened to me before.” She suddenly looked at like she’d made a connection. “It might’ve happened with me because your hand was on me. Like I borrowed it fro (you same as I do Misha.”
Vitaliy looked at Ivan. “You can see the face of evil?”
Ivan shrugged his shoulders. “It hasn’t happened in so long that I’d invinced myself I was imagining it when it happened before. I wa happened before.” kid when it
“When you were at the facility?” he asked, Ivan looked surprised, then turned to look between me and Sephie. Vitaliy quickly added, “I figured it out. They told me nothing other than you were incapable of feeling pain and you had a hatred for doctors. I’d heard stones of the facility for years. Your inability to feel pain was highly sought after in Russia years ago You shut the program down the night you escaped, for the record. You scared them.”
Ivan looked stunned. Sephie went to him, sliding her arm around his waist. He put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her to him. He kissed the top of her head, saying, “thank you. I needed to know that.” He looked back to Vitaliy. “When I was at the facility. I never saw the doctor’s faces. It was always their demons. It’s why I’m so haunted by it, even still. It hasn’t happened since I got out, so I just convinced myself was a traumatized kid. But then as soon as that woman turned toward me today. I could clearly see it on her. Sephie saw it later.” He still had his arm around Sephie as he talked. She quietly stood next to him, happy to be his anchor.
Vitaliy thought for a few minutes, then looked at Andrei and Misha before looking at me. “Did you three get anything from her today?”
“I was nauseous every time I looked at her. That’s how I know something is going to go very badly,” Misha said.
“I didn’t get anything good from her. I didn’t like her, but she didn’t talk enough for me to be able to figure out why I didn’t like her,” Andrei said.
“She made me si ck when she tried to touch me,” I said.
Vitaliy looked at me, both eyebrows raised. “Does that happen often?”
I shook my head no. “Only twice that I can think of and only since I met Sephie. Both times were other women trying to touch me. There was one time a woman at a bar touched me and it was not as extreme of a reaction. I didn’t like it, but she didn’t make me si ck. The other two made me si ck. Almost to the point of anger both times.”
For once, Vitaliy smiled at someone other than Sephie. “That’s how it started for me. I was about your age when it started, too,” he said. “It started with women other than your mother. I couldn’t stand for them to touch me. It was very intermittent when it first started, but it started to get more prevalent. Then it started happening with everyone. The more I paid attention to it, the more precise it got. You, though. You’ve always felt different to me, I could always feel something from you, even before I could from other people. From the first time I held you as a newborn, I could feel you were special. I’d never found anyone else that felt like you until you brought Sephie to me.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.