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“Because,” she whispered softly.
“Because why?” he persisted.
“Because Gunner is going to need it.”
Landon ran his hand down the scruff on his face—shocked, disturbed. Wary. He yanked the next canvas to the front. It was a painting of Lucas and Cadence talking in front of a trailer. Lucas seemed to be yelling. He looked at the date Lucia had signed on the bottom right corner of the canvas. It was a year ago, before Lucas had returned to Damon’s Mountains.
“Did this happen?” he asked.
Her non-answer was a yes.
“I was there at the fight barn when Lucas and Torren fought. Is that the other painting?”
She nodded. He checked the date on that one too, and she’d painted it a year ago, months before the silverback battle had happened at the fight barn.
He sifted to the next picture.
It was of Lucia hanging onto a wooden beam while a falcon flew above her. Beneath her, a saber-toothed tiger was sailing through the air, reaching his claws for her.
The next was a self-portrait of her sitting against a tree, done in dark, harsh strokes. Her grizzly was on the opposite side of the long canvas staring at her, and between them sat a tiny raven.
Heart pounding, he angled the picture toward her. “What does it mean?” he asked.
She wasn’t lifting her gaze from the floor anymore. “You know.”
“You were going to have a raven?” he murmured.
Her chin tucked to her chest, and she didn’t answer.
Fuck.
He swallowed hard.
Fuck.
He didn’t want to see any more. He couldn’t. Not now when he was overwhelmed with her talent, with her power.
He’d never known anyone who could do this—speak with the stroke of a paintbrush.
He watched a tear fall from her jawline and hit the drop cloth with a soft splat.
“Lucia,” he said softly as he forced his gaze to the painting on the easel. It was only partially finished, and half of the painting was still nothing more than sketch. “Why is your trailer park burning?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is this a vision?” he asked.
Another tear hit the drop cloth.
He rolled his eyes closed and absorbed the heaviness in the room. “Does anyone else know?”
She shook her head.
His attention drifted back to the painting of the tiny raven. He felt like he wanted to Change again, but he didn’t understand why. The bear couldn’t fix anything. All he could do was help Landon escape this room and the realization of Lucia’s terrifying power.
He could run, but he knew damn well that tomorrow he would be waking up and making a breakfast sandwich for himself, and one for her, and leaving it on her porch, because that’s what he did now.
Power or not, Lucia had bewitched him.
