Stolen Dream

Chapter Eight

"You're an empath?" she echoed dully with just a hint of asking for confirmation.

"Yes."

"What does that mean, exactly?"

"It means I feel what others feel."

"What about your own feelings?"

Keyvon's lips quirked in slight amusement. "I feel those too."

"But how do you know which are yours and which are coming from others?"

"Practice, mostly. I practice a lot of self-awareness and mastery, to be more specific, as well as putting up shields and analyzing what's going on around me."

"Why did I experience so many emotions just now?"

He shook his head. "I can make an educated guess at the cause, but I don't know for sure."

"Guess away," she suggested.

"I believe you and I are mates."

She swallowed hard, but had to nod. She suspected the same.

"It's possible that, because of that, you tapped into my 'gift' as it were and it amplified what you were feeling. You may also have been experiencing some of my emotions, but I can't be certain of that at the moment."

"What can you be certain of?"

His lips quirked again. "Not much, to be honest. You asked for my guess..." He shrugged. "That's it. This has been a rather emotionally charged day for both of us. Why don't we take some time apart to recharge?"

It sounded like a good idea... "But it's not dark yet. It's not safe out there and I only built one room for myself."

Her concern was touching. "I'll be alright," he promised.

She nodded and watched him disappear out the door. He was barely out of sight when she felt the emptiness and loneliness that often accompanied her day returning with a vengeance. She knew she couldn't live like this forever. Alone. With just Herbert for company. It wasn't the same as being with her own kind.

Herbert would move on eventually. What would she do then? Break the law for real? People couldn't be trusted. They couldn't even trust each other. Look what happened to Herbert and Fitz! It seemed her secret was too big for most humans to handle. It would drive them as crazy as she was going to get living in the quiet lake alone for the rest of her life.

The future stretched endlessly before her without goal, without hope, without all the dreams she'd had as a child to drive her will to live. She loved to play the harp for her friends and family. She didn't have any here. Nor did she have a harp to play. Her only fear was humans, so she didn't have to watch out for the predators of the deep. She didn't even have a Wahoo to agitate to keep her busy. She had nothing to do, nothing to be.

She had her God.

He'd made her with a purpose and she was alive to fulfill that purpose. Even if she didn't know what it was yet. She had to hold on to the knowledge that she was there for a reason. She'd find out what it was eventually. Her mission now was to endure. To wait until God's purpose for her became clear. Until then, she was to do her best with what she had.

Right now she had both Herbert and Keyvon to keep her company. It was a gift and she needed to appreciate it rather than obsess and fret over the future.

She needed to live in the now.

With that part sorted out, she turned her thoughts to what was scaring her the most. Keyvon, himself. He was her mate. That alone was a difficult pill to swallow. She couldn't keep him. Not when he had an entire ocean to rule. He couldn't do it from a lake.