"I don't know what I'm supposed to think," she said, sounding vulnerable and lost.
His heart reached for hers instinctively. "No matter what your past was, MaryAnn, you are still you. Your parents loved you and raised you surrounded in that love. If they are not your birth parents, it does not in any way change that fact."
"You know there's more to it than that." She jerked her hand out of his and sat up, facing away from him, toward the treetops. She could see the highway in the canopy, the branches touching, serving as a long strip from tree to tree where even the larger animals could travel quickly.
She swallowed the lump in her throat threatening to choke her. "My whole life has been built on a lie, Manolito. I don't have the history my parents have given me. I don't have the stability of all the structure I thought I had. I don't know who I am. Or what I am. Growing up, I sometimes had flashes of memories, and each time, my parents explained it away as inconsequential, when really, it was very important."
"Maybe they had reasons, sivamet. Do not judge them harshly when you do not yet have all the facts."
"It isn't happening to you. Your entire life isn't being ripped apart." She flashed him one smoldering look over her shoulder and turned away again. "And then you come along and add to it all by claiming me, by binding us together in a ritual I don't have a choice in. And now I'm becoming something else. How do you think you would feel if it was happening to you?"
"I don't know, but is becoming a Carpathian so terrible?" He swept a hand through his hair, wishing he had his entire memory back. "You will be able to do so many things that you cannot do now. You will see, in time, that there is no reason to worry." Her life as his lifemate would be perfect. He would make it perfect. "It seems unreasonable to be upset over something you cannot change."
His voice was so calm it set her teeth on edge. He spoke as if they were having a philosophical discussion, not contemplating irreversible and dramatic changes to her life. Fury burned through her. "Reasonable? I shouldn't worry about being forced out of my own body? You're taking me over, telling me what I have to do, and I should just go along with it because you say so. How nice for you to live in your comfortable skin and know who and what you are. Claiming me doesn't change your life at all, does it?"
"It changes everything." His voice was gentle with emotion-emotion he could feel because she'd given him that gift.
He didn't understand the enormity of what he had done by binding them together. He didn't seem to even understand how her life would be affected. She would have to watch her family die. She would no longer be the person she'd always been. Even the chemistry of her body would be different. Everything about her would change, and she had no choice in the matter. Manolito would remain the man he'd always been, only he would have color and emotion restored to him. He might think it would all come right in time, but the change wasn't happening to him.
Adrenaline pumped through her body and with it-fury. How could someone else arbitrarily decide her life for her without her consent? Without asking her? Manolito. Her parents. Even her beloved grandparents. How could they just decide what was best for her and not only leave her out of the decisions, but even withhold knowledge?
She leapt up before Manolito had an inkling she was going to move. There was no slight movement of her body to indicate a shift. She simply moved all at once, leaping to her feet and over the railing before he knew what she intended. Heart in his throat, he leapt after her. They were one hundred and fifty feet in the air. The fall would kill her.
MaryAnn! He called her name even as he pursued, sending air to keep her floating as he streaked downward, but she was already on the ground, crouched low in a fighter's stance.
He slowed his descent to study her. Her hair was thick, long and wavy, gleaming a blue black as it cascaded down her shoulders and back. Her hands curled into claws, and the amazing bone structure in her face stood out beneath her taut skin. She backed away from him as he settled in front of her.
"I want to go home."
He knew she was in good hands-his hands-yet her voice trembled and she looked so frightened he felt terrible.
"I know you do, MaryAnn. I will get you back to your home as soon as I can." And he realized it was true. For the first time, he realized she might need Seattle. She might need that cold, rainy city just as much as he needed the rain forest. "I promise, csitri, when I can fully leave the land of shadows, I will escort you home."
MaryAnn drew a deep, shuddering breath. "You promise?"
"Absolutely. I give you my word, and I have never broken it in all my centuries of existence." He held out his hand to her. "I am sorry I cannot understand what you are going through." If she opened her mind to his, he could feel her emotions, not just visibly see them, but she held tight to her resistance.