Evie shook her head, completely thrown. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Was I in love with you?’
‘What?’ Evie spluttered.
‘Why else did I sacrifice myself,’ Cyrus asked, ‘unless I was in love with you?’
Evie laughed so loud it came out as a snort through her nose. When she’d recovered she straightened her face and tried to figure a way of putting it nicely. ‘The old Cyrus didn’t know what love was.’
He frowned at her. ‘Then why else did I do it?’
Why was he asking her? What did she know of Cyrus’s feelings? ‘Chivalry?’ she suggested, hoping he’d accept that and move on.
He shook his head though. ‘It sounds like I didn’t know what chivalry was either.’
She didn’t answer, just wrapped her arms tighter around herself.
He took a half-step towards her. ‘I feel something when I’m around you,’ he said.
Evie stood fixated for a second by the brown slash across his iris. ‘You feel that around all Hunters – it’s normal,’ she finally managed to say. ‘It’s confusing at first, until you get used to it.’
Cyrus shook his head defiantly. ‘Well, I don’t feel it around Ash. Or Vero. Or any of the others.’
And suddenly he was right there, pressing her against the wall and Evie could feel the pressure building, the need for air growing, but she couldn’t look away.
‘I know you’re still messed up,’ he said, almost whispering, their faces so close their lips were almost brushing, ‘and I’m not expecting you to give me anything. I’m just trying to understand what my feelings were.’
She drew in a breath, trying to force her heartbeat back under control. ‘Believe me, you weren’t in love with me. You wanted to sleep with me, yes, but you definitely weren’t in love with me.’
He fell back as if she’d pushed him, looking at her as if he didn’t fully believe her.
But seriously. Love? Cyrus? The two words were oxymoronic. She’d had to explain to him what love was. God, she’d practically needed flash cards, the concept was so impossible for him to get his head around.
‘Was that it?’ she asked. ‘Was that why you came all the way here? To ask me if you were in love with me?’
‘Um, yeah,’ he said, still frowning at the sidewalk.
‘But we cleared it up, right?’ she asked, edging around him and heading back to the door. Honestly, this was not a conversation she’d ever expected to have with Cyrus of all people.
‘Yeah, we cleared it up,’ he said, raising his head and looking at her. ‘No love. Got it.’
‘So, we’re, um, good then?’ she asked, yanking open the door and heading back inside.
‘Yeah, we’re good,’ he mumbled to her back.
Chapter 30
He might not have been in love with her then – he’d never know for certain – but he sure as hell was in love with her now. He just couldn’t get her out of his mind. Even being within an inch of her was driving him crazy. Not being able to touch her, to reach out, link his fingers through hers and pull her towards him. Not being able to kiss her. And it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t just the desperate, driving desire he had to … well, to do things to her he doubted any man, or Shadow Warrior, had ever done to her before.
He wasn’t sure whether what his mother had told him was fuelling this crazy surge of possession and obsession that he was feeling, or whether she had revealed it to him, like a piece of dirt washed under water that suddenly glinted and revealed itself to be gold. Maybe he’d always felt this way about Evie and had just never realised.
He focused. Evie was holding the door open for him, looking at him like she had done back when he’d escaped from the hospital and they’d found him wearing only those green pants and unable to recall who anyone was. She couldn’t wait to get inside and away from him.
He followed after her, watching her stride up the stairs, taking them two at a time, her dark hair whipping behind her, her arms still coated in goosebumps.
It was weird. Frankly, if you’d told him a day ago that he’d be having a baby with this girl at some point in the future – because there was a little way to go before she consented to anything resembling baby making – he’d have run screaming for the hills, goddamn the Originals