House of Leights (Secret Keepers, #3)(27)

Chase straightened and held out a hand to me. I stared at it for a longer-than-comfortable amount of time, and eventually placed my palm against his. I was expecting the jolt, so it didn’t take me as much by surprise. But there was still no stopping the swirling and clashing of energy inside of me.

“I’ll show you,” he said, wrapping long masculine fingers around my hand. He might have said something more, but I was too focused on the sensation of his skin against mine. It wasn’t the first time I’d held hands with a guy. I’d had multiple boyfriends and had been almost all the way to a homerun. I’d done everything before sex – something always held me back from the final deed. Maybe it was that even the most erotic of acts was almost negligible when compared to the simple feeling of holding Chase’s hand. If I’d experienced even a small sliver of this with any of the guys I dated, I had no doubt there would have been no reticence on my part to give up my v-card.

“You feel it too, right?” The words were out before I could stop them. I’d cut him off before he could say it earlier, but I needed to know. Heat started to rise in my cheeks, but I stood my ground.

“I feel it,” he said. “I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do about it, especially right now, but from the first moment I heard your name, I knew you were going to be trouble.”

Now, normally that phrasing would annoy me. Boys used it back home all the time, in an overtly discriminatory way. Like women who were strong and sure and confident were automatically “trouble.” When, in reality, strong women were too much for those boys to handle.

But Chase didn’t say it like that. He said it in a way that made me think that he knew I was going to disrupt his life, his emotions, the calm aura he possessed. I was going to shake up his peaceful existence, and that wasn’t something he knew how to handle. But there was no indication that he wanted me to be anything less than what I was.

“Let’s just deal with it one day at a time,” I suggested. “We have some real life and death stuff going on. Not the best time to try and unravel whatever connection exists between the four secret keepers and the four overlords of the houses.”

He shot me a half smile. “They told you about that?”

I shook my head. “Not in so many words, but I could deduce it from Emma and Lexen, and Callie and Daniel. Kind of made sense, especially with the … pull … I feel whenever you’re around.”

“Both couples had an immediate bond,” Chase confirmed for me. “But when the others described it to me, I think it sounded less intense than ours. At least at the start. It grew stronger the longer they were together. Ours—”

“Is really hard to ignore,” I finished for him.

He nodded. “Right from the first moment.”

This. Was. Insane. But I needed to follow my advice – take it one day at a time.

At some point, Chase remembered the tree thing and started to walk again, only stopping long enough for me to pull my shoes on. He led me through a clearing and into a section of densely-packed trees. When we were surrounded by dark tree trunks, the cabin still visible in the distance, he stopped. “I’m going to need you to trust me,” he said, releasing my hand.

Forcing myself not to mourn the loss of contact, I folded my arms across my chest, tucking my hands in under my armpits. “Think it might be a little early to throw the t-word around, especially considering you’re not…”

I trailed off, wondering if I was about to make some sort of rude, derogatory statement.

“Human…” he said. “You’re right, I’m not human, but our species are fairly compatible.”

“I see that,” I murmured.

Secret keeper one and two were making that very obvious.

“Am I completely human?” It was insane that I felt comfortable enough to ask Chase that when I hadn’t been able to bring it up to my parents. “I mean, being born in your waters and on Overworld…”

Shadows washed over his face, only a few rays of light able to penetrate the canopy here. The trees were particularly dense in the part he’d taken me to.

“You’re mostly human,” he told me. “You have human DNA, but you’re right, being born in the legreto of House of Leights, you inherited some of the energy of my land. The energy of the Galinta.”

“What’s a Galinta?” I asked, not sure if I was ready for the answer.

It’s better to know. It had to be better to know.

“The Galinta are an ancient species of tree gods. They fill my house, making it very limited on any open land. They’re sentient, and if they want, mobile. It’s the power from them which allows me to merge into another form at times.”

Tree gods? Merging into another form? Was he serious? “So … Lexen is a weredragon, and you’re a weretree?”

I mean … why not, right?

Chase’s eyes were laughing at me, even though his lips didn’t smile. “I assume you’re speaking of your werewolf lore, and if that is the case, then you’re on the right track.”

This was too much. I waited for the freak-out to hit me again, the need to run, but … it never came. I remained there, in the dark, with Chase.

“So, if I carry some of this energy from the Galinta, does that mean I will change into a tree?”