Redefined by Jamie Magee Read Free Book Online

started to tremble. I didn’t know how to answer him. I wasn’t much for lying, and I didn’t care to explain the truth to anyone. I couldn’t speak about what I’d seen and gone through upstairs because that would make it real.
    “No, you’re not,” he said as he slowly moved toward me and sympathy filled his dark eyes. “Did someone hurt you?”
    The tears that were glassing over my eyes spilled down my cheeks.
    “My entire life is a fabrication - some kind of orchestrated play or something. I was led to believe one thing, only to find out at the worst possible moment that it was just that - all fake. And the people who could soothe me, explain why - my parents – are gone, and I doubt I’ll ever see them again.”
    He reached in his suit pocket and pulled loose a satin handkerchief, then wiped away my tears. Feeling like a fool, I took it from him and cleared away my face.
    “I’m not a crier,” I muttered.
    “Trust me, I am the last person that you have to justify yourself to.” Those dark eyes of his swept across my face in the tenderest way, leading me to find comfort with him. “Kinda know how you feel.”
    I smirked. “I knew I liked you.”
    “Did you?” he said, tilting his head and gazing down into my eyes.
    “Draven doesn’t trust a lot of people, let them get close to him. He has found trust with you, and the two of you have barely spoken a paragraph to each other. Why is that?”
    His eyes moved rapidly across my image. “Old souls, I suppose. I have to say I feel the same way. There is something very familiar about him.”
    “He’s been looking for a mentor, someone to help him with…with the cravings he has.”
    “Cravings?”
    “Energy. I want to help him, but he puts a wall up between us.”
    Drake seemed deeply perplexed as he glanced in the direction of the sound of guitars tuning up to play. “We are going to have to figure out how to get that wall down, then.”
    “Make him strong for me. What happened in The Realm would not have happened if that dark energy had not poured into him. Can you teach him how to block that?”
    His eyes looked deeply into mine. “Consider it done.”
    I let out a jagged breath.
    “You want to talk about what is going on with you now?” he asked quietly.
    I moved my head from side to side. “I’ll be all right.”
    “But you are not right now. You’re in shock.”
    “I just don’t get it. Why could my parents have not laid it out? I almost feel like they didn’t think I could handle it. I should be mad, furious about that, but I can’t find the energy to be that way.”
    He clenched his jaw before smiling slightly. “Sometimes, if you think back over what they said in ordinary moments, you will see that they were always pointing in the direction you needed to go, dropping clues here and there. No one knows where we are going to end up, but your parents had to have known what I sense right now.”
    “Dare I ask?”
    “Born royalty,” he said so quietly that I doubted I heard him correctly.
    I cleared my throat. “Listen, I don’t know if you want my advice or not - or if you even care - but here goes.” I glanced over him. “I’ve watched my best friend sketch your image a million times over. She’s stubborn, obsessive, and jealous by nature. She can see clearly, and right now she feels like a replacement. It’s not your fault - this is just the second time this has happened to her.”
    He raised his brow to question me.
    “Don’t ask. He doesn’t matter - or he won’t before it’s all over with. Just be honest with her. And if you dare to get to know her and she dares to let you in, don’t hurt her - or I’ll find a way to hurt you.”
    Those words made him smile slightly as he glanced away.
    “No disrespect, but you gotta give her a break. I mean, she looks just like Willow, and she can see everything you’ve said to Willow.”
    “They don’t look alike to me,” he said as his eyes met mine again.
    I tilted my