Lover Dearest

Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Dallas dismissed everyone in the room except for me. As soon as everyone was gone, he pulled me into a chair and into his lap. A question I had just thought of caused all my thoughts to pause.

"Dallas, remember when you first told me about all of this?"

"Yeah. Why?" His voice was curious, and I could tell he wanted to talk about tonight but I quickly asked my question.

"Well, I remember you said you pretended you cheated with my friend to stop us dating because you couldn't keep me safe with your feelings in the way. So why are we...doing this now?" I motioned with my arms to myself sitting on his lap.

"We're at the Academy now. There's plenty of people around me now to help keep you safe."

He finished his sentence while placing a soft kiss on my temple. It sent beautiful shivers dancing down my spine.

"You know, for a place called the 'Brotherhood' there sure are a bunch of girls here."

This warranted a slow chuckle out of him that made my toes curl.

"I still haven't shown you the main Brotherhood headquarters. Most of the men are there. I figured I could have you train with some of the more main powers first here and then train at the Brotherhood main building with more of the...unique talents."

The way he said 'unique' got me a little excited.

"Unique how?" The anticipation was almost palpable in my veins.

"Well, there's healing, like my powers. Then there's electricity, telepathy, teleportation, transparency, cloaking, and levitation."

He said the powers as if they were just everyday things that everyone could do, not things that come from Stephen King novels. It fascinated me to no end, and I felt an insatiable need to know more. Or to just hear Dallas speak more. Which it was I had no clue, but at the moment I didn't care.

"Holy crap. Flying?! Teleporting! That's friggin awesome! I want to learn that now!"

Dallas chuckled again and I almost had to forcibly keep my mouth shut with my hand to keep myself from drooling. He was just...everything. The pain from the cheating was completely removed because it was all fake. It was all pretend. I knew he wasn't lying because it made complete sense. He hadn't lied to me about my powers, any of it. He had done nothing but protect me and I hadn't even known until recently.

"All in due time, Kristen. You need to learn the basics in order to learn more advanced skills. You don't give a beginner driver the keys to a BMW the second they get their license. Besides, these skills are the most important anyway."

I relented with a sigh, knowing he was right. I leaned back onto him and started playing with his hair. His hands moved to my belly and started ferociously tickling me. Tickling me!

"Dallas stop it!" I shrieked, bolting out of the chair and running around the table trying to dodge his tickle attacks.

He was extremely fast and caught me and picked me up in the air with me heaving out a fit of giggles.

Hailey took that moment to walk in with one of her famous glares and stopped our fun as quickly as it began.

"As much as I loathe watching this disgusting scene in front of me, Tyler needs Kristen for their first training session on the beach." Her voice was laced with malice and threaded with cold blooded hate. Her words made her seem exponentially older than she looked.

After she had left and Dallas walked me to the beach for my training I asked Dallas the question bouncing in my head.

"Dallas, can you choose the age that you want to stay until you die?"