The Essential Bride

The Essential Bride (13)

"It is up to you to believe me or to not," Leon said quietly, as if he didn't want to disturb my thoughts. Like he was trying to be polite to my grieving mind "but I promise you this was the best way. I tried being gentle, something that doesn't come naturally to my kind, mind you, I tried giving you time. I tried taking care of you, making the rest of your time with your friends and Mother easier financially, since you insist on worrying about that. Getting you to come around to the idea of leaving with me but nothing seemed to work, everything I did try only made you pull away from me further Demetria." I bit my lip, denying the way Leon saying my name like that made me feel. These feelings weren't real, Leon was messing with my head.

"Imagine what it's like to spend three hundred years searching this Earth for someone to complete you," Leon continued slowly, "to fill in a void that you aren't even really aware of, because you've never experienced what it's like to not have it, what it's like to feel whole, but knowing deep down something is missing, you aren't whole. You can walk this Earth every day, but knowing you're not experiencing it the way you would if you had that ...special something, special someone." He spoke slowly, and I was so interested in every word he was saying. "Then suddenly, you find her. One small, simple human walking out of a diner." Leon chuckled humorlessly and my eyebrows puckered in confusion.

I remember Leon from Lilly Marden's house party, the one where Stephanie dragged her out of her own bedroom with her bare hands, the only where Lilly called the cops on her own party. Diner?

"The diner I pretend to work at?" I whispered, wondering my thoughts out loud and I watched as Leon's mouth curled into a small, tight smile.

"Four months ago, I watched you get out of your friends car, walk into that old fashioned diner, wait for your friends car to drive away, then exit that diner moments after." I couldn't find my breath as Leon spoke. "For what reason would this lovely woman have getting dropped off somewhere just to leave it? I remember wondering that Demetria, and then to my horror you walked to that sleazy strip joint across the way." He sounded angry, and I fought the urge to to feel scared of him, I was too invested in his story. "I searched this world, for my mate to be a human who just happened to work as a drink girl in a strip club." Leon spat his words out, still smiling, laughing silently at himself but I could see the annoyance. "What are the odds of that." It wasn't a real question, I didn't answer him.

"I only met you a month ago." I pointed out, my voice sounding odd even to myself.

"It took me months to even find the courage to bump into you." Leon said, huffing through his nose, and I stared at the side of his head. I didn't want to admire Leon, he wasn't worth pleasant thoughts but I couldn't imagine this cocky, overly confident, sarcastic man to have to work up the courage to even bump into me. He was attractive, with those bright blue eyes and soft brown hair, his teeth were a perfect pearly white, and he was obviously loaded. Woman would have dropped everything for the opportunity to be with him.

"You're a human, you don't understand what it's like to be something like me. Most of my kind find their mates within the first two hundred years of the turn, naturally. They just casually bump into one another, and are whisked away to spend an eternity happy with one another, completely content. Most of my kind do not mate with humans." Leon explained and I was breathless. "It took me three hundred." He sounded bitter, and hurt. "Gatherings were unbearable, my kind only looked at me with pity and loathing. I can't be their leader without- that discussion needs to wait for a different time." He cut himself off, almost scolding himself for even bringing it up, and my interest peaked.

This was the most I had ever heard Leon talk, my head was spinning with a thousand questions, and I couldn't find myself to say anything.

"Imagine, after hundreds of years of searching, finally finding the epitome of perfect, the one you have waited for, ...then to be too terrified to even approach her. Mating with a human is a tricky thing, because as you immediately feel the connection, the pull, the undying need to be around them and touch them; they aren't even aware of you." Leon's words bit the hair, and hung heavily. "The world you've walked for so long alone, to never be the same all because of one fragile human who could spend her entire life without you without knowing." My mouth was dry at Leon's words, I didn't know what to say, tears were in my eyes for an entirely different reason. I didn't understand. "You're very important Demetria, to me and soon to a lot of people. You are something special and you don't know it yet but that isn't what I'm trying to get at."