The Powerful Pride of an Immortal (Immortal Supers Book 4), Kurtis Eckstein [books to read for self improvement .TXT] 📗

“Yeah, I can do tomorrow morning. But why then, exactly? Why the rush?”

“I don’t know,” Lexi admitted. “It’s ridiculous, but they aren’t sharing much with me since I know you on a more personal level.” She scoffed. “They’re treating me like I’m compromised or something. Like they’re concerned I’ll tell you stuff I’m not supposed to.”

“Well, just get me an address and let them know I’ll be there.”

“Oh, well it’ll just be at the office where I work, but I’ll actually be picking you up, if that’s alright. If you guys come to an agreement, then my boss wants me to show you around the place.”

“Oh sure, of course. Although, then does that mean you’re not coming over tonight?” It would be strange if she wasn’t, since she basically lived with us now.

She paused, only to sigh heavily. “Wow, I’m really out of it. Yeah, I guess ‘picking you up’ isn’t the right sentiment. Anyway though, I have to go. I’ll see you guys when I get off work.”

“Sure,” I agreed, kind of feeling bad that she seemed so stressed out. It made me wonder if it was because of this situation, or something else going on she truly wasn’t allowed to share.

Once I hung up, I leaned back in my seat, deciding to just leave it in autopilot.

In my second-sight, I could see Heidi watching me, her expression slightly concerned. After a moment, she spoke up. “So…Everything cool?”

“Yeah,” I sighed, not looking at her with my physical eyes. “Just have to go to work with her tomorrow so I can do some negotiating stuff.”

Heidi nodded slowly, lowering her voice. “Worried about Freya?” she asked quietly.

I took another deep breath, knowing why Heidi’s mind would have gone there first. She was well aware that what Freya went through was…horrible. And it only turned out like that because of both the blessing and curse associated with her superpower. Between her absurd strength, different overall body structure that allowed her to turn into a literal monster, and her resistance to most drugs, especially ones that would otherwise affect her consciousness, it had turned out to be a bad combination for giving birth.

Really, really bad combination.

Thinking back to the reason all this started – to almost having sex with Heidi, only for Freya to get suspicious when the younger woman started her period a couple of weeks later, prompting Freya to stop taking birth control too and us to subsequently have baby-making sex a week later – I ended up blurting out what was on my mind, just after a heavy sigh.

“I almost wish it’d been you,” I whispered.

“W-What?” Heidi exclaimed, sounding flustered.

I looked at her in alarm as it truly sunk in what I’d just said – as if I wanted her to be the sacrificial lamb instead of Freya. “Sorry. That didn’t come out right. I just meant you could have delivered Eden normally, without all these extra problems. Everything would have been fine if it was you. Your body would have handled it just as well, except without the extra complications.”

“N-No, I got that part,” Heidi replied, her face bright red now.

“Oh…” That’s when it really hit me what I’d just said. “Shit.” I smacked myself in the face, realizing I had to explain now, because otherwise it sounded like I’d been intentionally considering having a kid with her. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that, you know the time when you were putting your piercings in and we almost…” My voice trailed off.

Heidi gulped audibly.

I tried to continue. “Well, that was basically sort of like Eden trying to be born, and…” Shit, I wasn’t making this any better. However, upon trying to gauge her reaction with my second-sight, I realized she suddenly looked really depressed, her gaze downcast, as if I’d implied that it had only happened because of some other outside force, not because there was any chemistry between us.

As if I was implying that it only happened because of the special circumstances.

I tried to recover, again before I really thought about what I was saying, looking at her fully. “Not that I wouldn’t have, if…” My voice trailed off. “I mean, not that I didn’t want to, but…shit,” I hissed, slapping myself in the forehead again and leaning back in my seat.

There was no way to get around this without accidentally explaining the truth – that I thought she was hot and had screwed her in a premonition I’d experienced the previous night. Dammit, I was just going to tell her, as well as the ‘hard truth’ that I didn’t want to admit.

Probably a horrible decision, but I felt like this conversation needed to happen, especially since Heidi still seemed so dejected by my possible rejection.

“Look, I know Freya’s sort of told you a lot, including my true age. Did she ever mention that I can sometimes see the future?”

She finally looked up at me in surprise. “Seriously?” she said in disbelief.

“Sort of,” I admitted, glancing away for a moment. “I don’t know how to control it, and it seems to mostly only affect me when something really significant is about to happen.” I took a deep breath. “We were almost in a car accident a year ago, when we first met Rose, and the reason why we avoided it was because I was reacting to it before it happened – because I made the car pull over.”

“Damn,” she whispered simply.

I held her lavender gaze again. “And then, it happened a few other times as well, like when your sister and Lily got shot at the mall. I sort of ‘experienced’ Lily’s death, just before it happened.” Heidi grimaced, only to look more sympathetic as I continued. “It usually doesn’t warn me that far in advance,” I added. “Not enough to do anything about it.”

She nodded, her gaze dropping to her hands clasped tightly between her thighs now, almost as if she was trying to keep