“No, I—”
“Yes.” Clara cut her off. “We all have moments of doubt. It’s the very human part of us. But I have no doubt in you. Even Tah counts on you. To me that says everything about your place within this pride.”
“I’m not sure I have what it takes to do this anymore,” Diane admitted again. “I can’t concentrate. My focus, something I’ve always prided myself on, is completely gone. I’ve never lost control the way I did up there.” She laughed, then groaned and buried her head once more in her hands. “I’m so mortified,” she murmured into her palms.
Clara laughed. “I think you made a very valid point. You certainly had everyone listening. The Professor chewed Tah’s ass when you left. According to the Professor, he’s been telling them you two need help down here for quite a while.”
“Trust him to use my meltdown to get what he wants,” Diane said with a snort.
“The Professor cares about you. I saw it on his face. And he’s worried. Whether he admits it or not, it’s there…in the way he looks at you.”
Diane started to deny it but had to admit Clara was right. In his own way, the Professor did care. He wasn’t sleeping much and rarely ate unless Diane or one of the others reminded him. He was always running tests, reading data and working on some new idea he had. It was all taking its toll on him and leaving him snapping at those around him, which was usually her.
“I think I might be able to help you,” Clara spoke into the silence, and Diane glanced up at her.
“You know about medicine? Surgery? Lab tests?” She waved her hands around the lab. “You should have said so when you first arrived.”
Clara gave a snort of laughter. “No, my Uncle Thomas could help with all this. Griffin, one of the shifters who worked with my uncle, could help with this. But not me. I might be able to help you with your concentration issues, though.”
“If you can’t help with this, then I highly doubt it.”
“I’m guessing you’ve been feeling restless lately. Not sleeping, not eating and not able to lose yourself in your work like you normally do.”
Diane gaped at her. “How could you possibly know that?”
Clara shrugged. “Just a guess, actually. I think we both know what’s causing the problem…or who.”
Diane shook her head in denial.
“Zane,” Clara said with a nod.
Diane stood up and turned her back toward Clara. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I believe you,” Clara said, surprising Diane into spinning back around. “At least that you don’t know. You’re unsure. I’m not, and I need you to listen to me before we run out of time.”
Diane felt a chill race up her spine as if in warning that her life was about to change.
Clara met her gaze. “You’re his mate.”
“I’m not. I can’t be.”
“You are.”
“I’ve seen how this bonding works. I saw the deep love between Tah and Abby when I first came here. He went nuts when she wasn’t with him. He still does. He has to know where she is every moment of every day. It’s the same for Reno and Amia. Reno would move Heaven and Earth for his mate. They can’t be in the same vicinity of one another without touching. And you and Logan. I see the same thing with you. The way your eyes soften now at just the mention of your mate. Zane and I don’t have that, nothing even remotely like it. We’ve been thrown together several times, and he’s never once crossed the distance between us as if he couldn’t stop himself.” Didn’t she just have this discussion with Orsai? How could Clara be so certain of something Diane was so uncertain of?
“He stood in front of you when Reno shifted down here,” Clara said. “Zane put himself in front of you to protect you.”
“He would have done that for anyone,” Diane argued, remembering what Orsai had said about Zane’s need to protect.
“Maybe,” Clara said with a shrug. “But there were others in the room. Tah went to Abby. I went to Logan. And Zane went to you.”
“I…” Diane felt her heartbeat quicken in her chest. There had been others, and Zane had headed straight to her.
“It means something,” Clara assured her. “Listen to me, Diane. Really listen to me because we are running out of time. Zane was born knowing who he is and what it means to be different, to be a shifter. But I don’t think you understand what it means, at least not to the same extent. I do because I’m just like Zane in this. I was born knowing who and what I am. We know the good and bad of what we are. We’ve witnessed the joy of mating and the devastation of those who lose a mate. We are hunted and killed simply because we exist. To knowingly bring another into this life… It’s not an easy choice for any of us to make, especially when that mate is human.”