“Oh, thank God it’s not just me,” he said.
“What were they thinking?” Adrik asked.
“Lots of animosity toward you, some toward Sephie. One of them thinks Sephie is going to make Vitaliy weak,” Andrei said.
Adrik and I both stood silent for a few moments. 1 could feel his anger, feeding into mine. I knew he was more worried about them thinking anything negatively toward me, but I also knew he wouldn’t stand for them disrespecting his men either. It didn’t matter that they were his father’s men.
“Gazelle, have you mastered keeping your demon eyes back now? I can tell you’re angry right now, but your eyes are normal,” Misha asked, clearly curious.
Adrik looked down at me, a small smile on his face. “She’s wearing contacts,” he said.
“I knew it!” Andrei said.
Both Adrik and I laughed. “Her eyes have been doing more than just going dark, but I was struggling with feeling jealous after she was hurt for so long, so we kept it a secret. Ivan is the only one who knows, because he felt her panic and saw them before she could hide it. We knew it was only a matter of time before the rest of you figured it out.”
“What else are they doing?” Misha asked.
I looked to Adrik to explain, since he was the one that saw it happening. “Much like when her eyes go dark, the other colors of her eyes take over for different emotions. The only one that’s completely different is when she’s afraid. They go almost w hite when she’s scared. It’s scarier than her demon eyes and the reason we decided to get her contacts. She struggles with controlling her fear when it comes on. The other emotions she can control, much like her demon eyes,” he said.
“15 it the same color for the same emotion each time?” Andrei asked.
I nodded my head. “So far, green means sarcasm, blue means I’m thinking about how much I love him, light brown means I’m sad, wh ite means I’m scared, and black means run.” Adrik laughed as he kissed my temple.
“They also sometimes constantly change, like they can’t pick a color to stick to. That’s happened a few times recently,” he said.
“You had the contacts when we were in Panama, gazelle?” Misha asked.
“Yep. I got them the day before we left.”
Both Andrei and Misha exhaled loudly, looking at each other. “Good call. We’re glad you did that. I don’t think it would’ve gone well if they saw your eyes change,” Andrei said.
I couldn’t help but laugh. I looked at Adrik. “See, I told you they would scare everyone.”
“They don’t scare us, gazelle. But everyone else is clearly not as smart as we are,” Misha said, grinning at me.
“You make a strong argument, Misha,” I said, winking at him.
Sephle
Andrei looked at his watch, then looked at Adrik, then to me. “They’re still not due back for a while. Can we see?” he asked, tentatively.
Adrik looked to me, but I put it back on him. “It’s your call and only your call,” I said, still working on making enough food to feed a small army. Adrik looked at me for a few moments, then smiled. I could tell he was sad to no longer have the secret, but he also seemed happy to show them. Like he was proud of how weird I was becoming. He simply nodded his head.
I went to take the contacts out, thankful to have a few moments without them. When I came back to the kitchen, I was still rubbing my eyes intermittently.
“The contacts bother you, huh?” Andrei asked when he saw me rubbing my eyes.
“Yeah, I can handle them for short periods but they make my eyes itch when I wear them for longer periods,” I said. I walked to Adrik. It was easy to think about how much I loved him, which I knew would turn my eyes blue. The look in his eyes let me know it had worked. He wrapped one arm around me, but motioned for both Andrei and Misha to come to us.
He jerked his head slightly in my direction. “Blue means she’s thinking about how much she loves me,” he said, showing the Wonder Twins.
“That’s your normal blue. It just took over the other two colors,” Misha said. He was clearly fascinated by my new trick.
“I call them my mood ring eyes now, since they seem to change with my ever-changing moods,” I said, laughing. I watched as Andrei and Misha’s eyes got bigger, signaling that my eyes had switched to green.
“Green usually means sarcasm,” Adrik said.
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.